The end-of-Smart-Motorways thing is interesting. What next? The future is not in widening motorways. I might suggest narrowing lanes and reducing speed limits in such sections to 50mph - for everyone except Andy Burnham, who will be driving along at 70 with his head in the clouds.
The one thing I'll guarantee is that this Government won't do any more than kick it down the road, and won't take responsibility for implementing a long-term solution, any more than they are willing to take responsibility for addressing anything else to do with road safety.
The last serious "Smart Motorway" death-collision I have seen here was where a broken down van was out of the running lane having been pulled up on the left, and a pensioner driving the LH white line rather than the centre of the lane, who admitted she did not see it, hit it and killed her own husband, and somebody else's husband. Here's the piccie:
We were never keen on Smart Motorways. A Motorway needs a hard shoulder for emergency services to use when getting to incidents, and it gives the public a little bit of safety if they have to stop.
Here's a further pic of the van that the Ford Ka hit. I'm not really sure that it would be much safer on a hard shoulder.
An interesting story for those of us who are interested in the proliferation of regulation on housing. Housing for asylum seekers is to be exempt from HMO standards and licensing. I suppose it creates a lot of opportunities for low end slumlords?
I'd say it will be corporates, and those converting office buildings under Permitted Development - especially the latter.
The PRS has been shrunk under the Osborne cosh, and especially in Scotland, and there is little or no need for ordinary LLs to take on the increased risks.
I think the permitted development game is probably becoming of less interest for new development, now that the space standards and natural light etc tests have been added. I suspect that some of the buildings that have been converted under PD over the past decade are at risk of another grenfell like scandal,the conditions are truly appauling...
The end-of-Smart-Motorways thing is interesting. What next? The future is not in widening motorways. I think there is space for a hard shoulder by narrowing lanes and reducing speed limits in such sections to 50mph - for everyone except Andy Burnham, who will be driving along at 70 with his head in the clouds.
...
HS2 opens and the extra capacity results in less freight and cars on the crowded motorway network, making the case for extending HS2 north and east?
I will believe that when I see it frankly only 4.8% of freight is currently moved by rail and I don't see it changing. Bulk freight like coal made sense to move by rail but we don't do that much of that type of freight anymore. I also don't see many moving from car to rail due to it because frankly going by car is mostly cheaper and more convenient for most.
I'd certainly agree it would be one to make happen, rather than inevitably to develop under prevailing conditions - as for the changes to active travel we are seeing in some places.
We have seen passenger rail journeys more than double since privatisation, which is a huge increase for rail but relatively small overall, so these changes can happen. I'd be inclined to aim for a similar increase in freight, and policies to support it.
I have a couple of other bees in my bonnet - one is metropolitan area networks which have been a success where built, and another is the exclusion of huge chunks of our community from almost all public footpaths which is a scandal, but perhaps it's one to develop in a header !
The problem with moving fright by rail is that most modern freight capacity required is more specific - not 10,000 tons of coal every x days to power station y from port/mine z.
On Smart Motorways, they actually do work. A marked hard shoulder, regular overhead signs and cameras, and regular refuges. Staff in the control centre switch traffic in and out of the hard shoulder as traffic builds, and can close it if there is a stranded vehicle. Closed to traffic the hard shoulder remains a hard shoulder.
The problem is that thanks to austerity, we have built a lot of dumb motorways. West Yorkshire as an example of both. The M62 near the M1 was made smart. Switchable hard shoulder. The M1 was made dumb - hard shoulder becomes a normal lane. Minimal camera coverage, minimal signage.
If the Tories hadn't scrimped on the budget, we wouldn't have had these deaths. Even now the concept can be saved. Install a load of cameras and signs. Paint the hard shoulder back in. Have it so that we can drive in it when its busy, and can't when someone has broken down.
Also worth noting the various motorway roads which have been marked up as A-roads. Same legal status as a motorway, same restrictions. But no hard shoulder. Sections of the A90 and the A14 built in the last 5 years as recent examples.
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
If it moves us a little closer to a US style system it's plainly a very Bad thing.
On Smart Motorways, they actually do work. A marked hard shoulder, regular overhead signs and cameras, and regular refuges. Staff in the control centre switch traffic in and out of the hard shoulder as traffic builds, and can close it if there is a stranded vehicle. Closed to traffic the hard shoulder remains a hard shoulder.
They could, but at least round here, they don’t. They just open and shut them randomly and assign arbitrary speed limits while flashing up ‘report of obstruction’ based on fat finger selection on IPhone Maps.
The people running smart motorways in the West Midlands make Spielman look competent.
I do think that the £1m of short money is being somewhat overstated. My expectation at the worst it would be paused until the audit was complete and then very probably backdated providing the audit is satisfactory.
What is bizarre about the SNP finances is that they were being spent so recklessly. Why buy a £110k motorhome/battlebus when you can lease it? Given it cost nearly half the cash they had available it is pretty inexplicable unless there were other motives and, indeed, other funds.
Yes, it seems a poor investment even if it was used. Since it wasn't and wasn't going to be, why wasn't it gotten rid of?
At best Murrell seems to have been incompetent with the party's finances, and resistant to providing details to the elected representatives of the party, aided by Sturgeon who I note in the clip talks about the strong finances in the context of their membership - I wonder if she and he knew of the membership details at that time,and if the numbers were indeed still where they were claiming at that point.
I do also love the bit in the video which is essentially saying if people leak then it prevents free and open discussion of ideas, in a clip whose intent seems to be to tell them to stop discussing certain matters at all.
I think one of the important lessons to draw from the SNP's experience is that the reason for having openness, and procedures, and auditors, etc, is that they work, while putting your trust solely in individuals does not.
I've had the need for an audit trail drilled into me - have it in writing so that if the shit hits the fan you are covered.
A client I did some work for had a major criminal issue with one of their team elsewhere, and suddenly they wanted copies of *everything*.
I was able to email them the links to the directory on the shared drive where I already had uploaded copies of every agreement and contract, plus the email authorisations from the client where necessary. Nothing to hide, everything on show.
Of course you can only do that if there is nothing to hide.
A relative who runs a building business had the Revenue demand *all* the paperwork.
He sent them links (as you did) to a digitised archive of everything down to individual receipts for a packet of screws, for the last decade. All organised and connected to the accounts, tax etc. The very model of transparency and organisation.
A week later he got a reply - claiming they needed to see paper copies. He replied where the paper copies were located, and asked when they would be round to pick them up. He never received any further communication.
He eventually managed to get a reply that the matter was closed…
Poll reveals Sunak attack ad damaged Labour’s image among voters https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/16/labour-rishi-sunak-attack-ad Labour’s controversial “attack ad” accusing Rishi Sunak of failing to put paedophiles in prison has caused more voters to think negatively of Keir Starmer’s party than a Conservative poster that accused the Labour leader of being soft on crime, according to an Opinium poll for the Observer...
I'm not against attack ads per se, but they need to capture an essential truth (or something recognised as such), rather than just smear.
Moral of the story: never attack an opponent on their attitude to paedophiles. Simple rule. Starmer should have someone to tell him, "No" for this kind of thing.
While I agree with you and didn't like the attack ad on Sunak, a friend gave a different view. He'd been out canvassing for Labour on a local council estate, and reported that the ad had gone down really well. I wonder if the middle-class sensibilities that most posters on here have about what is 'bad taste' are not necessarily shared across the social spectrum.
I think Starmer attacking the Conservatives on crime in general is fair game. They are doing the same to him, without a lot of success so far. There are two questions here: do the attacks hit home, and what do they say about you? On that poster, Starmer is providing material for his opposition on the second point.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
The end-of-Smart-Motorways thing is interesting. What next? The future is not in widening motorways. I might suggest narrowing lanes and reducing speed limits in such sections to 50mph - for everyone except Andy Burnham, who will be driving along at 70 with his head in the clouds.
The one thing I'll guarantee is that this Government won't do any more than kick it down the road, and won't take responsibility for implementing a long-term solution, any more than they are willing to take responsibility for addressing anything else to do with road safety.
The last serious "Smart Motorway" death-collision I have seen here was where a broken down van was out of the running lane having been pulled up on the left, and a pensioner driving the LH white line rather than the centre of the lane, who admitted she did not see it, hit it and killed her own husband, and somebody else's husband. Here's the piccie:
We were never keen on Smart Motorways. A Motorway needs a hard shoulder for emergency services to use when getting to incidents, and it gives the public a little bit of safety if they have to stop.
Here's a further pic of the van that the Ford Ka hit. I'm not really sure that it would be much safer on a hard shoulder.
I wonder how much the U-turn is motivated by saving money in the short term ? After all they are still going ahead with introducing it for the latest bits to have been constructed; they’re just halting new construction.
On Smart Motorways, they actually do work. A marked hard shoulder, regular overhead signs and cameras, and regular refuges. Staff in the control centre switch traffic in and out of the hard shoulder as traffic builds, and can close it if there is a stranded vehicle. Closed to traffic the hard shoulder remains a hard shoulder.
The problem is that thanks to austerity, we have built a lot of dumb motorways. West Yorkshire as an example of both. The M62 near the M1 was made smart. Switchable hard shoulder. The M1 was made dumb - hard shoulder becomes a normal lane. Minimal camera coverage, minimal signage.
If the Tories hadn't scrimped on the budget, we wouldn't have had these deaths. Even now the concept can be saved. Install a load of cameras and signs. Paint the hard shoulder back in. Have it so that we can drive in it when its busy, and can't when someone has broken down.
Also worth noting the various motorway roads which have been marked up as A-roads. Same legal status as a motorway, same restrictions. But no hard shoulder. Sections of the A90 and the A14 built in the last 5 years as recent examples.
As just noted, it’s largely about the money. (Which, to be fair, has to enter into any calculation of policy benefits.)
"unexpected legal costs"* - you really didn't need a crystal ball to make provision for these, when your own oversight committee resigned because they weren't allowed to see the books.
Two years ago.
Or your auditors resigned and weren't replaced for six months, leaving you in deep shit with the Electoral Commission.
The SNP were never straight with the voters of Scotland about the risks associated with independence. Why should we be surprised if they are institutionally corrupt? Questions weren't answered. They were drowned out with vituperation. This was standard operating procedure from both the party itself and its Freedom warriors.
If it is the end of the SNP as a political force, they will no doubt reform under some rock somewhere - but hopefully spending most of their timed locked in frenzied recriminations about who killed independence for decades. (Spoiler, guys: it wasn't MI5's camper van...)
Scotland undoubtedly dodged a bullet in 2014. Imagine the grift if the SNP had the full national budget to treat as its own plaything...
(*Question though: Is the SNP meeting Murrell's legal costs? If so - why?)
The Herald reports the party are not meeting his legal costs.
Which makes sense - Even though the party has not always been truthful (as shown by his resignation for approving lies for a start) it can probably be accepted as true given he had to loan the party 100k from his own pocket. He's obviously in a better financial state than the party.
Which in itself leads to a number of questions....
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
On Smart Motorways, they actually do work. A marked hard shoulder, regular overhead signs and cameras, and regular refuges. Staff in the control centre switch traffic in and out of the hard shoulder as traffic builds, and can close it if there is a stranded vehicle. Closed to traffic the hard shoulder remains a hard shoulder.
The problem is that thanks to austerity, we have built a lot of dumb motorways. West Yorkshire as an example of both. The M62 near the M1 was made smart. Switchable hard shoulder. The M1 was made dumb - hard shoulder becomes a normal lane. Minimal camera coverage, minimal signage.
If the Tories hadn't scrimped on the budget, we wouldn't have had these deaths. Even now the concept can be saved. Install a load of cameras and signs. Paint the hard shoulder back in. Have it so that we can drive in it when its busy, and can't when someone has broken down.
Also worth noting the various motorway roads which have been marked up as A-roads. Same legal status as a motorway, same restrictions. But no hard shoulder. Sections of the A90 and the A14 built in the last 5 years as recent examples.
As just noted, it’s largely about the money. (Which, to be fair, has to enter into any calculation of policy benefits.)
RP would rather fund this motorway boondoggle than fund the NHS, that's fine but he's not in tune with voters. He may be a Lib Dem these days but ultimately he's still Labour at heart, there's nothing in the country that a few extra billion in borrowing or tax rises can't solve. That we probably shouldn't be doing these things in the first place doesn't even enter his brain.
The end-of-Smart-Motorways thing is interesting. What next? The future is not in widening motorways. I might suggest narrowing lanes and reducing speed limits in such sections to 50mph - for everyone except Andy Burnham, who will be driving along at 70 with his head in the clouds.
The one thing I'll guarantee is that this Government won't do any more than kick it down the road, and won't take responsibility for implementing a long-term solution, any more than they are willing to take responsibility for addressing anything else to do with road safety.
The last serious "Smart Motorway" death-collision I have seen here was where a broken down van was out of the running lane having been pulled up on the left, and a pensioner driving the LH white line rather than the centre of the lane, who admitted she did not see it, hit it and killed her own husband, and somebody else's husband. Here's the piccie:
We were never keen on Smart Motorways. A Motorway needs a hard shoulder for emergency services to use when getting to incidents, and it gives the public a little bit of safety if they have to stop.
Here's a further pic of the van that the Ford Ka hit. I'm not really sure that it would be much safer on a hard shoulder.
I wonder how much the U-turn is motivated by saving money in the short term ? After all they are still going ahead with introducing it for the latest bits to have been constructed; they’re just halting new construction.
I don't know.
I have reached the bottom of the well of cynicism with the current Govt.
I'm highly amused by how much "infrastructure" ie separate hard shoulder rather than say improved quality of driving is the immediate answer here, yet as soon as it is suggested as something for people on foot or on cycles the thicker end of the motor vehicle lobby crawls out from under its stone and demands that the solution is people walking and cycling to protect themselves, and wearing hi-viz vests.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies. Edit. Was dropped from their packaging as late as 2001.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
Didn't Noddy in Toytown on ITV have a golliwog character?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
The end-of-Smart-Motorways thing is interesting. What next? The future is not in widening motorways. I might suggest narrowing lanes and reducing speed limits in such sections to 50mph - for everyone except Andy Burnham, who will be driving along at 70 with his head in the clouds.
The one thing I'll guarantee is that this Government won't do any more than kick it down the road, and won't take responsibility for implementing a long-term solution, any more than they are willing to take responsibility for addressing anything else to do with road safety.
The last serious "Smart Motorway" death-collision I have seen here was where a broken down van was out of the running lane having been pulled up on the left, and a pensioner driving the LH white line rather than the centre of the lane, who admitted she did not see it, hit it and killed her own husband, and somebody else's husband. Here's the piccie:
We were never keen on Smart Motorways. A Motorway needs a hard shoulder for emergency services to use when getting to incidents, and it gives the public a little bit of safety if they have to stop.
Here's a further pic of the van that the Ford Ka hit. I'm not really sure that it would be much safer on a hard shoulder.
I wonder how much the U-turn is motivated by saving money in the short term ? After all they are still going ahead with introducing it for the latest bits to have been constructed; they’re just halting new construction.
I don't know.
I have reached the bottom of the well of cynicism with the current Govt.
I'm highly amused by how much "infrastructure" ie separate hard shoulder rather than say improved quality of driving is the immediate answer here, yet as soon as it is suggested as something for people on foot or on cycles the thicker end of the motor vehicle lobby crawls out from under its stone and demands that the solution is people walking and cycling to protect themselves, and wearing hi-viz vests.
Part of the problem is that Roads Are Evul has become baked into the discourse. The increasing population and economic activity means that the existing roads get ever more loaded.
So, to a certain kind of fool, turning the hard shoulder into a running lane becomes a way round the issue.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
As a child in the sixties you collected tokens from Robertson's Jam to mail off for a golliwog pin - there was absolutely no connection in my mind with it representing black people.
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
Didn't Noddy in Toytown on ITV have a golliwog character?
Dunno. But, (at the risk of sounding like Peter Kay). Who remembers blackjacks? The sweet had one on the wrapper till the eighties. So. Much, much more recent than fifties and sixties.
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
They were really just annoyed that’ll an Israeli woman (Gal Gadot) was cast in the role
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
If it moves us a little closer to a US style system it's plainly a very Bad thing.
How about moving us a little closer to European or Australian or South Korean style systems ?
There are other alternatives than the 'envy of the world' and the USA.
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
They were really just annoyed that’ll an Israeli woman (Gal Gadot) was cast in the role
Sadly plausible, given the wafer thing justification even on the 'accuracy' merits.
Poll reveals Sunak attack ad damaged Labour’s image among voters https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/16/labour-rishi-sunak-attack-ad Labour’s controversial “attack ad” accusing Rishi Sunak of failing to put paedophiles in prison has caused more voters to think negatively of Keir Starmer’s party than a Conservative poster that accused the Labour leader of being soft on crime, according to an Opinium poll for the Observer...
I'm not against attack ads per se, but they need to capture an essential truth (or something recognised as such), rather than just smear.
If it gets people thinking about the essential truth of Tory record on crime then that particular ad might have made people think more negatively of Keir whilst still helping Labour's chances later.
That's not really how ads work, though. The emotional tends to trump the rational both in politics and advertising.
The idea of an attack campaign was probably sound. Its execution was botched.
I think the Observer is being a bit disingenuous on the polling on the paedo ads; I would imagine this is a prompted response. I suspect actual recall of the ads is probably tiny, which is borne by the lack of shift in voting intention.
Fortunately the virus does not (yet) appear to be particularly infectious.
Equatorial Guinea: The case count is up to 38 confirmed & probable #Marburg cases; at least 89% are dead. Authorities don't know the identify/whereabouts/disease outcome of 1 case. (shudder) The most recent case tested positive on April 7. Not yet clear how s/he got infected... https://mobile.twitter.com/HelenBranswell/status/1647319552575848448
Marburg has always been a nasty little sod. No need for bolding to scare people!
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
They were really just annoyed that’ll an Israeli woman (Gal Gadot) was cast in the role
True.
But a mystery is why anyone would want to claim the utterly useless Cleopatra.
Who's great 'achievement' was in destroying Egypt's independence.
On Smart Motorways, they actually do work. A marked hard shoulder, regular overhead signs and cameras, and regular refuges. Staff in the control centre switch traffic in and out of the hard shoulder as traffic builds, and can close it if there is a stranded vehicle. Closed to traffic the hard shoulder remains a hard shoulder.
The problem is that thanks to austerity, we have built a lot of dumb motorways. West Yorkshire as an example of both. The M62 near the M1 was made smart. Switchable hard shoulder. The M1 was made dumb - hard shoulder becomes a normal lane. Minimal camera coverage, minimal signage.
If the Tories hadn't scrimped on the budget, we wouldn't have had these deaths. Even now the concept can be saved. Install a load of cameras and signs. Paint the hard shoulder back in. Have it so that we can drive in it when its busy, and can't when someone has broken down.
Also worth noting the various motorway roads which have been marked up as A-roads. Same legal status as a motorway, same restrictions. But no hard shoulder. Sections of the A90 and the A14 built in the last 5 years as recent examples.
As just noted, it’s largely about the money. (Which, to be fair, has to enter into any calculation of policy benefits.)
RP would rather fund this motorway boondoggle than fund the NHS, that's fine but he's not in tune with voters. He may be a Lib Dem these days but ultimately he's still Labour at heart, there's nothing in the country that a few extra billion in borrowing or tax rises can't solve. That we probably shouldn't be doing these things in the first place doesn't even enter his brain.
Don't think that argument works, Max.
As I understand it, the point of the Smart Motorways was to increase motorway capacity more cheaply than actually widening the motorways.
So is the government going to widen roads properly (cost ££££) or just leave the problem of congestion for some other poor bugger to solve in the future?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
As a child in the sixties you collected tokens from Robertson's Jam to mail off for a golliwog pin - there was absolutely no connection in my mind with it representing black people.
Really? I understood the shortened form "Wog" as a common racial slur in my childhood, and it was widely used in the Twentieth century as such.
On Smart Motorways, they actually do work. A marked hard shoulder, regular overhead signs and cameras, and regular refuges. Staff in the control centre switch traffic in and out of the hard shoulder as traffic builds, and can close it if there is a stranded vehicle. Closed to traffic the hard shoulder remains a hard shoulder.
The problem is that thanks to austerity, we have built a lot of dumb motorways. West Yorkshire as an example of both. The M62 near the M1 was made smart. Switchable hard shoulder. The M1 was made dumb - hard shoulder becomes a normal lane. Minimal camera coverage, minimal signage.
If the Tories hadn't scrimped on the budget, we wouldn't have had these deaths. Even now the concept can be saved. Install a load of cameras and signs. Paint the hard shoulder back in. Have it so that we can drive in it when its busy, and can't when someone has broken down.
Also worth noting the various motorway roads which have been marked up as A-roads. Same legal status as a motorway, same restrictions. But no hard shoulder. Sections of the A90 and the A14 built in the last 5 years as recent examples.
As just noted, it’s largely about the money. (Which, to be fair, has to enter into any calculation of policy benefits.)
RP would rather fund this motorway boondoggle than fund the NHS, that's fine but he's not in tune with voters. He may be a Lib Dem these days but ultimately he's still Labour at heart, there's nothing in the country that a few extra billion in borrowing or tax rises can't solve. That we probably shouldn't be doing these things in the first place doesn't even enter his brain.
Don't think that argument works, Max.
As I understand it, the point of the Smart Motorways was to increase motorway capacity more cheaply than actually widening the motorways.
So is the government going to widen roads properly (cost ££££) or just leave the problem of congestion for some other poor bugger to solve in the future?
Pound to a penny says it'll be the second.
The key is to do neither and allow private companies to build toll roads to supplement the existing motorway network. It's time for the government to begin stepping back from some areas to concentrate on doing fewer things better than attempting to do everything and doing it badly as it currently does.
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
Because the people doing the complaining just want something to complain about (and, having found discrimination in some places, begin to see it everywhere.)
Besides, if they were really that bothered about diversity rather than offence taking, why wouldn't they try to popularise other historical figures who have fascinating stories, and where we can be pretty confident that they were actually black - like the Nubian pharoahs of Egypt, or Queen Candace?
It would be great to have a drama series about Akhenaton. Or from the other end of Africa, Cetshwayo.
Or historic Mali, Dahomey or Benin.
You mean like the rather poor (and historically stretched) film that is out at the moment?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
Because the people doing the complaining just want something to complain about (and, having found discrimination in some places, begin to see it everywhere.)
Besides, if they were really that bothered about diversity rather than offence taking, why wouldn't they try to popularise other historical figures who have fascinating stories, and where we can be pretty confident that they were actually black - like the Nubian pharoahs of Egypt, or Queen Candace?
It would be great to have a drama series about Akhenaton. Or from the other end of Africa, Cetshwayo.
Or historic Mali, Dahomey or Benin.
You mean like the rather poor (and historically stretched) film that is out at the moment?
The Kingdom of Dahomey that got rich by selling slaves from other countries to stave traders from the west? That Dahomey. You'd never realise it from the movie. 🤔
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
Because the people doing the complaining just want something to complain about (and, having found discrimination in some places, begin to see it everywhere.)
Besides, if they were really that bothered about diversity rather than offence taking, why wouldn't they try to popularise other historical figures who have fascinating stories, and where we can be pretty confident that they were actually black - like the Nubian pharoahs of Egypt, or Queen Candace?
It would be great to have a drama series about Akhenaton. Or from the other end of Africa, Cetshwayo.
Or historic Mali, Dahomey or Benin.
You mean like the rather poor (and historically stretched) film that is out at the moment?
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
They practised incest in order to show to their Egyptian subjects that they were divine, as did previous dynasties.
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
First investors marriage was one of Ptolemy’s grand children IIRC
I’m sure the very racist attitudes of the Greeks towards οι βάρβαροι helped in going that way.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
Didn't Noddy in Toytown on ITV have a golliwog character?
Mr. Golly was the unsavoury owner of a petrol station.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies. Edit. Was dropped from their packaging as late as 2001.
I used to work for Robertson's in the mid-1990's and we had a separate Golly fulfillment department that employed 3 staff. They were still very popular.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
As a child in the sixties you collected tokens from Robertson's Jam to mail off for a golliwog pin - there was absolutely no connection in my mind with it representing black people.
Really? I understood the shortened form "Wog" as a common racial slur in my childhood, and it was widely used in the Twentieth century as such.
I had a black dinner lady at school who often wore a golliwog apron and never connected it with racism.
The fact is we are now absurdly over-sensitive to trivialities because somebody kicks up a storm on Twitter, while real problems, like illiteracy, poor health care, high crime rates or excessive taxation go unaddressed.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
Didn't Noddy in Toytown on ITV have a golliwog character?
I can recall a Robertson's Minstrel Band. 1970s I think, and I may still have the models somewhere. Here's a pic and an article on the history.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
As a child in the sixties you collected tokens from Robertson's Jam to mail off for a golliwog pin - there was absolutely no connection in my mind with it representing black people.
Really? I understood the shortened form "Wog" as a common racial slur in my childhood, and it was widely used in the Twentieth century as such.
I had a black dinner lady at school who often wore a golliwog apron and never connected it with racism.
The fact is we are now absurdly over-sensitive to trivialities because somebody kicks up a storm on Twitter, while real problems, like illiteracy, poor health care, high crime rates or excessive taxation go unaddressed.
I am pretty sure that as a young child I had a golliwog, possibly inherited from a parent. It never occurred to me at the time that it represented a black person. It seems obvious now but as a child you can take a lot at face value.
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
Which Tory smears? I don’t recall seeing any discussed on here.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
As a child in the sixties you collected tokens from Robertson's Jam to mail off for a golliwog pin - there was absolutely no connection in my mind with it representing black people.
Really? I understood the shortened form "Wog" as a common racial slur in my childhood, and it was widely used in the Twentieth century as such.
I had a black dinner lady at school who often wore a golliwog apron and never connected it with racism.
The fact is we are now absurdly over-sensitive to trivialities because somebody kicks up a storm on Twitter, while real problems, like illiteracy, poor health care, high crime rates or excessive taxation go unaddressed.
I think that is true about over senstitivity to trivialities, you see lots of cases where a bare handful of people (or one noisy person) is offended or upset by something, or preemptively it is decided someone might be offended or upset by something even if no one has raised it yet, so it must be changed or removed. Even if someone would be you really have to decide whether it is reasonable for them to be so offended, and even if the answer is yes, is it reasonable to accomodate them - if I get really upset over something I see on the internet that is legal, then its probably my own problem, not a societal problem that must be addressed, even if that problem is not my upset, but how anxious that upset makes me.
That said, my personal view is that golliwogs are racist. My mum had one, and I think like many people she would not have used the slur w*g, but did not think that directly affected owning, from her childhood, a golliwog.
Judging by YouGov, most people have no issue with golliwogs. You’d probably get more people complaining about foxhunting scenes in pubs.
Maybe, but if YouGov did the same survey exclusively with black respondents I suspect the result would be very different, and most would find golliwogs offensive. But I guess that would be pandering to a minority?
They’re a gnat’s gonad away from ‘These people have an inside toilet!’ headlines. Still, job done.
It's a bit like when someone is quoted as having a millionaire pound house, like that is still a sign of being in the top 1%, when it turns out they own some crappy 2 bed semi in central London or something.
'Enjoys sunshine' is included in such a way it sounds like that itself is considered a luxury. I know Scotland is often overcast, but I assume its sunny sometimes.
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
Home Counties Lib Dem’s have yet to get the message.
One of those classic national/local disconnects. No one is against housing completely, nossir (ok, probably the Greens), they just wanting housing in the right place. It's just plain bad luck that 95% of the time anywhere proposed is the wrong place.
This would be the same Liberal Democrats who have opposed every single Local Plan and new housing development proposed by Tory councils in the Home counties and as Chesham and Amersham showed are quite willing to out Nimby the Nimbys when required?
They’re a gnat’s gonad away from ‘These people have an inside toilet!’ headlines. Still, job done.
It probably has one of those new-fangled 'flat screen televisions' too.
I did pass a B&B sign the other day proudly advertising it had a 'colour TV'. Either they are going for a quaint experience or they have not updated their sign in a long time.
Judging by YouGov, most people have no issue with golliwogs. You’d probably get more people complaining about foxhunting scenes in pubs.
Maybe, but if YouGov did the same survey exclusively with black respondents I suspect the result would be very different, and most would find golliwogs offensive. But I guess that would be pandering to a minority?
Don't even need to consider ethnicity. Just look at age or education and you will get polar divides.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
As a child in the sixties you collected tokens from Robertson's Jam to mail off for a golliwog pin - there was absolutely no connection in my mind with it representing black people.
Really? I understood the shortened form "Wog" as a common racial slur in my childhood, and it was widely used in the Twentieth century as such.
I had a black dinner lady at school who often wore a golliwog apron and never connected it with racism.
The fact is we are now absurdly over-sensitive to trivialities because somebody kicks up a storm on Twitter, while real problems, like illiteracy, poor health care, high crime rates or excessive taxation go unaddressed.
I wonder what attracted that Britain First supporting Essex pub landlord to his 'golly' collection then?
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
Because the people doing the complaining just want something to complain about (and, having found discrimination in some places, begin to see it everywhere.)
Besides, if they were really that bothered about diversity rather than offence taking, why wouldn't they try to popularise other historical figures who have fascinating stories, and where we can be pretty confident that they were actually black - like the Nubian pharoahs of Egypt, or Queen Candace?
It would be great to have a drama series about Akhenaton. Or from the other end of Africa, Cetshwayo.
Or historic Mali, Dahomey or Benin.
You mean like the rather poor (and historically stretched) film that is out at the moment?
The Kingdom of Dahomey that got rich by selling slaves from other countries to stave traders from the west? That Dahomey. You'd never realise it from the movie. 🤔
Though Dahomey in its current form as the Republic of Benin has at least officially apologised for its role in the slave trade:
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
As a child in the sixties you collected tokens from Robertson's Jam to mail off for a golliwog pin - there was absolutely no connection in my mind with it representing black people.
Really? I understood the shortened form "Wog" as a common racial slur in my childhood, and it was widely used in the Twentieth century as such.
I had a black dinner lady at school who often wore a golliwog apron and never connected it with racism.
The fact is we are now absurdly over-sensitive to trivialities because somebody kicks up a storm on Twitter, while real problems, like illiteracy, poor health care, high crime rates or excessive taxation go unaddressed.
I think that is true about over senstitivity to trivialities, you see lots of cases where a bare handful of people (or one noisy person) is offended or upset by something, or preemptively it is decided someone might be offended or upset by something even if no one has raised it yet, so it must be changed or removed. Even if someone would be you really have to decide whether it is reasonable for them to be so offended, and even if the answer is yes, is it reasonable to accomodate them - if I get really upset over something I see on the internet that is legal, then its probably my own problem, not a societal problem that must be addressed, even if that problem is not my upset, but how anxious that upset makes me.
That said, my personal view is that golliwogs are racist. My mum had one, and I think like many people she would not have used the slur w*g, but did not think that directly affected owning, from her childhood, a golliwog.
It's the context and the difference in the time we live/lived in. As we discussed when talking about jokes it pretty easy to tell whether someone is being racist or homophobic, etc without banning the use of stereotypes for fun. As I mentioned before you can tell an Irish joke without anyone thinking that you think the Irish are stupid.
I certainly collected Robinson golliwog labels as a child to exchange for gifts and it never crossed my mind then that it was racist or even had anything to do with black people and even today I would have given the benefit of the doubt to that pub if we hadn't subsequently learnt that he wore a Britain First T shirt and posted 'That is what they do to them in Mississippi'. Any benefit of the doubt was then lost, big time. I think it was reasonable to then assume they were raving racist.
The end-of-Smart-Motorways thing is interesting. What next? The future is not in widening motorways. I might suggest narrowing lanes and reducing speed limits in such sections to 50mph - for everyone except Andy Burnham, who will be driving along at 70 with his head in the clouds.
The one thing I'll guarantee is that this Government won't do any more than kick it down the road, and won't take responsibility for implementing a long-term solution, any more than they are willing to take responsibility for addressing anything else to do with road safety.
The last serious "Smart Motorway" death-collision I have seen here was where a broken down van was out of the running lane having been pulled up on the left, and a pensioner driving the LH white line rather than the centre of the lane, who admitted she did not see it, hit it and killed her own husband, and somebody else's husband. Here's the piccie:
We were never keen on Smart Motorways. A Motorway needs a hard shoulder for emergency services to use when getting to incidents, and it gives the public a little bit of safety if they have to stop.
Here's a further pic of the van that the Ford Ka hit. I'm not really sure that it would be much safer on a hard shoulder.
I wonder how much the U-turn is motivated by saving money in the short term ? After all they are still going ahead with introducing it for the latest bits to have been constructed; they’re just halting new construction.
I don't know.
I have reached the bottom of the well of cynicism with the current Govt.
I'm highly amused by how much "infrastructure" ie separate hard shoulder rather than say improved quality of driving is the immediate answer here, yet as soon as it is suggested as something for people on foot or on cycles the thicker end of the motor vehicle lobby crawls out from under its stone and demands that the solution is people walking and cycling to protect themselves, and wearing hi-viz vests.
Part of the problem is that Roads Are Evul has become baked into the discourse. The increasing population and economic activity means that the existing roads get ever more loaded.
So, to a certain kind of fool, turning the hard shoulder into a running lane becomes a way round the issue.
I don't go with "Roads are Evil"; I go with "Roads belong to all of us, some of them are streets, and a considerable rebalancing of priorities is required, including unwinding half a century of minimal investment in other priorities and the culture that has developed."
I'm quite surprised to find myself aligned with Greens on local transport questions, as I think of them as a big government control-freak party. Equally I'm fairly confident that - whatever the current govt do or do not do whilst trying to save their political backside - the direction of travel has shifted, and there's no going back.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
That's right - the "it seemed fine N years ago" defence is fine if we're talking about people N years ago, but it's not relevant to people doing it now.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
Didn't Noddy in Toytown on ITV have a golliwog character?
Mr. Golly was the unsavoury owner of a petrol station.
I have a suspicion that he was involved in stealing cars and that Noddy and Big Ears became friends when the latter helped him get his car back.
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
I think if you collected all 3 (Golliwogs and Nazi memorabilia and Victorian pornography) I might think you a bit weird though. I might go as far to say probably pretty dodgy.
The people attacking those Labour ads consistently refuse to accept that this was their retaliation against the Tories own smears - which obviously were starting to work.
"Eugh that Labour ad is racist" makes it sound like the Tories haven't already weaponised racism and are using it as a lodestone to attract the dumbest voters.
I don't like the Labour ads. But to suggest they have lowered the bar is to ignore that the Tories buried the bar under the gutter already. Its going to be a horrible election campaign, pandering to the very stupidest voters.
"The Tories are racist" trope just makes the person saying it look 20 years out of date. Because, clearly, unless you are a white member of the Church of England, you stand no chance of advancement in the Conservative Party.
Grow up.
The Braverman "Pakistani men are paedo" attack is explicitly racist. At least that's what senior Tories are telling the newspapers.
Grow up? Is it adult to sweep explicit racism under the carpet? Braverman briefed the press that she had reprimanded Essicksinnit police for the Grays Golliwog raid. The Home Office apologise to the police, who say no such thing happened.
So Braverman the racist put out an untrue story. Why? To pander to more racists who don't think there is anything wrong with a pub where the landlord posts racist stuff on Facebook and has a bar full of Golliwogs.
Not all Tories are racist. Most aren't. But a few are - and some of their voters are. Demonstrably so. Calling it out is not childish.
Actually now with the Tories led by Rishi the most racist voters are either voting RefUK or not voting at all
Hence the desperate gaslighting by the racist security risk Home Secretary to try and win them back.
Golliwogs. Your party is desperate to win votes of people who like Golliwogs.
Possibly more accurately, people who pretend to like golliwogs so they can signal their racism while pretending to be the ones persecuted..
It's a really bizarre one to choose. Golliwogs are racist, just as cartoons of Jewish people with thick lips and long noses are anti-Semitic.
If course they are - but there was a time (late fifties/early sixties) when they genuinely weren’t generally perceived as such. Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
I'm sure there was a Robertson's jam Golliwog footballers collection in the mid-seventies.
Didn't Noddy in Toytown on ITV have a golliwog character?
Mr. Golly was the unsavoury owner of a petrol station.
I have a suspicion that he was involved in stealing cars and that Noddy and Big Ears became friends when the latter helped him get his car back.
Whenever I hear of Noddy, Big Ears, and gollies, I think of Ian Dury.
Home Counties Lib Dem’s have yet to get the message.
One of those classic national/local disconnects. No one is against housing completely, nossir (ok, probably the Greens), they just wanting housing in the right place. It's just plain bad luck that 95% of the time anywhere proposed is the wrong place.
It might be interesting to know what proportion of proposed new developments receive objections per district.
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
I think if you collected all 3 (Golliwogs and Nazi memorabilia and Victorian pornography) I might think you a bit weird though. I might go as far to say probably pretty dodgy.
I think that having a pub displaying Gollies, Victorian pornography and Nazi memorabilia would be an unusual marketing strategy.
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though. Cheap at the price.
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
Ah well if you get it through work, of course you say 'thanks' and use it to the max.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
Agree with nearly all of that, but am unsure on the display in a public facing business. If it wasn't a licensed premises I would think leave them to it. As its licensed I certainly wouldn't object if the local licensing department told them to take them down, but probably wouldn't be too concerned if they allowed it either.
If someone with scale like Wetherspoons or Tesco wanted to do similar I would support a consumer boycott but thats not necessary for one local racist pub.
It is not just the police getting involved that makes it a story, but that they needed six police officers for the visit, and it will also have taken several hours if not more of senior officer time to manage the politics and press. Completely disproportionate.
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
Because the people doing the complaining just want something to complain about (and, having found discrimination in some places, begin to see it everywhere.)
Besides, if they were really that bothered about diversity rather than offence taking, why wouldn't they try to popularise other historical figures who have fascinating stories, and where we can be pretty confident that they were actually black - like the Nubian pharoahs of Egypt, or Queen Candace?
It would be great to have a drama series about Akhenaton. Or from the other end of Africa, Cetshwayo.
Or historic Mali, Dahomey or Benin.
You mean like the rather poor (and historically stretched) film that is out at the moment?
The Kingdom of Dahomey that got rich by selling slaves from other countries to stave traders from the west? That Dahomey. You'd never realise it from the movie. 🤔
Though Dahomey in its current form as the Republic of Benin has at least officially apologised for its role in the slave trade:
Which is fine for them but people watching the movie would have had no idea that Dahomey ever engaged in slave trading, completely white washed the actual history of the nation and the reason for their aggressive territorial expansion.
Football: Napoli only drew at home versus Verona. Would've got nice odds on that but the idea of backing it was never something I considered.
Netflix: I see they've decided to create a documentary about Cleopatra. And think that she was black.
Right... I mean, she was Macedonian (ultra-Macedonian thanks to the Ptolemy love of incest). But there we are.
Edited extra bit: the kicker is that even if she were Egyptian ethnically, that still isn't being black.
It's a strange one, as its one of those situations where a previous attempted fuss over alleged whitewashing in films seemed to peter out when people moaned about Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra.
www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-55409187.amp
It was just a weird pick to get worked up about accurate representation when even in the piece itself the best the moaners could do was "we dont know who her mum was so she might have been mixed race" and "reconstructions based on artefacts" might make her look mixed race.
The complaint was even more stupid as not only was it a moan that she 'might' not have been white, rather than that she definitely was not, but it said critics said an Arab or African should be cast. (I assume they meant arab or black, otherwise why specify the latter when there are arab Africans). How could they be mad about inaccurate representation when they couldn't state which would be accurate in the first place?
Because the people doing the complaining just want something to complain about (and, having found discrimination in some places, begin to see it everywhere.)
Besides, if they were really that bothered about diversity rather than offence taking, why wouldn't they try to popularise other historical figures who have fascinating stories, and where we can be pretty confident that they were actually black - like the Nubian pharoahs of Egypt, or Queen Candace?
It would be great to have a drama series about Akhenaton. Or from the other end of Africa, Cetshwayo.
Or historic Mali, Dahomey or Benin.
You mean like the rather poor (and historically stretched) film that is out at the moment?
The Kingdom of Dahomey that got rich by selling slaves from other countries to stave traders from the west? That Dahomey. You'd never realise it from the movie. 🤔
Though Dahomey in its current form as the Republic of Benin has at least officially apologised for its role in the slave trade:
Which is fine for them but people watching the movie would have had no idea that Dahomey ever engaged in slave trading, completely white washed the actual history of the nation and the reason for their aggressive territorial expansion.
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
They practised incest in order to show to their Egyptian subjects that they were divine, as did previous dynasties.
It was also a deliberate strategy to maintain Hellenic culture as a case apart from their subjects. Portraying Cleopatra as black African is rather insulting to Greek heritage to be honest.
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
Agree with nearly all of that, but am unsure on the display in a public facing business. If it wasn't a licensed premises I would think leave them to it. As its licensed I certainly wouldn't object if the local licensing department told them to take them down, but probably wouldn't be too concerned if they allowed it either.
If someone with scale like Wetherspoons or Tesco wanted to do similar I would support a consumer boycott but thats not necessary for one local racist pub.
It is not just the police getting involved that makes it a story, but that they needed six police officers for the visit, and it will also have taken several hours if not more of senior officer time to manage the politics and press. Completely disproportionate.
I guess we don't know the context. My original thought was that it was a massive over reaction, but it could be that now we actually know they are clearly racists and seem proud to be, there may be more to this and the police thought it both necessary and needed to go in mob handed in case it kicked off. I mean it is not unreasonable to assume their clientele might also be sympathetic to extreme right wing views.
I hope at least one of the coppers was black, just to really wind them up.
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
Agree with nearly all of that, but am unsure on the display in a public facing business. If it wasn't a licensed premises I would think leave them to it. As its licensed I certainly wouldn't object if the local licensing department told them to take them down, but probably wouldn't be too concerned if they allowed it either.
If someone with scale like Wetherspoons or Tesco wanted to do similar I would support a consumer boycott but thats not necessary for one local racist pub.
It is not just the police getting involved that makes it a story, but that they needed six police officers for the visit, and it will also have taken several hours if not more of senior officer time to manage the politics and press. Completely disproportionate.
I guess we don't know the context. My original thought was that it was a massive over reaction, but it could be that now we actually know they are clearly racists and seem proud to be, there may be more to this and the police thought it both necessary and needed to go in mob handed in case it kicked off. I mean it is not unreasonable to assume their clientele might also be sympathetic to extreme right wing views.
I hope at least one of the coppers was black, just to really wind them up.
Well then just pop in at 11 in the morning when it is quiet and no-one likely to be booze fuelled? Also as much as I dislike racism, not all racists are violent, most aren't!
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
I think if you collected all 3 (Golliwogs and Nazi memorabilia and Victorian pornography) I might think you a bit weird though. I might go as far to say probably pretty dodgy.
I think that having a pub displaying Gollies, Victorian pornography and Nazi memorabilia would be an unusual marketing strategy.
I sense a tremor of excitement at the thought though..
Mr. kle4, the fun thing about the Ptolemies was that their twin passions were murder and incest. The latter makes it especially unlikely Cleopatra was anything but Greek (possibly with some ancestry from Iran due to an alliance in the more distant past, but Iranians are also famous for not being black Africans).
I thought incest was a later pursuit? I mean they didn’t jump from being a Macedonian general to an incestuous degenerate family day 1 did they?
Interesting a representative of comparethemarket has just said between 90,000 and 100,000 new applications a month are being received by for health insurance
Which should be regarded as a good thing by all those who want more spending on health services.
Until they try to claim, as there is a whole industry of profit to be had in refusing cover. See Dr Glaukomfleken:
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
That's right. In fact insurance generally is a bad trade for the customer - since by definition the premiums must exceed the payouts.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
In a number of years of using UK medical insurance, not had a claim even questioned once.
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
Yes, you can do that. The challenge then is to not end up going to consultants when you don't really need to so as to "get your money's worth".
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
Like most, I am getting it as a benefit via work. Usually extend it to the family, though.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
Agree with nearly all of that, but am unsure on the display in a public facing business. If it wasn't a licensed premises I would think leave them to it. As its licensed I certainly wouldn't object if the local licensing department told them to take them down, but probably wouldn't be too concerned if they allowed it either.
If someone with scale like Wetherspoons or Tesco wanted to do similar I would support a consumer boycott but thats not necessary for one local racist pub.
It is not just the police getting involved that makes it a story, but that they needed six police officers for the visit, and it will also have taken several hours if not more of senior officer time to manage the politics and press. Completely disproportionate.
I guess we don't know the context. My original thought was that it was a massive over reaction, but it could be that now we actually know they are clearly racists and seem proud to be, there may be more to this and the police thought it both necessary and needed to go in mob handed in case it kicked off. I mean it is not unreasonable to assume their clientele might also be sympathetic to extreme right wing views.
I hope at least one of the coppers was black, just to really wind them up.
The thing that struck me was the cops not knowing *when* to raid a licensed premises.
Just before opening on a weekday. No customers, no drunks. The cleaners will have been in, so no broken glass to cause accidents.
The staff/landlord will be tired from the previous night and bombing up on coffee to get moving.
So no angry drunks and no energy for a confrontation.
This was how they did it in Oxford when I was young. A pub I drank in had a fair number of “friendly visits” from the law…
DeSantis is a sick man that doesn't care if innocent people get executed as long as he gets the GOP nomination. Just like he doesn't care if children get vaccinated or rape victims have to birth their rape babies. The guy is a sociopath.
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
I think if you collected all 3 (Golliwogs and Nazi memorabilia and Victorian pornography) I might think you a bit weird though. I might go as far to say probably pretty dodgy.
I think that having a pub displaying Gollies, Victorian pornography and Nazi memorabilia would be an unusual marketing strategy.
I sense a tremor of excitement at the thought though..
I think you're messing up the blockquotes by trying to reply to multiple posts in one go. I have replied thus:
Ok but you're extrapolating personal experience to the general. To reciprocate in that vein, based on my direct experience, I assess the NHS to be fast, accurate, professional and humane. Nigh on perfect really.
That said, I'm not an 'Envy of the World' person. Neither would I have Healthcare as a top public spending priority.
On the Gollywog thing the problem is that people lack nuance. Here is my take for what it’s worth.
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
I think if you collected all 3 (Golliwogs and Nazi memorabilia and Victorian pornography) I might think you a bit weird though. I might go as far to say probably pretty dodgy.
I think that having a pub displaying Gollies, Victorian pornography and Nazi memorabilia would be an unusual marketing strategy.
I sense a tremor of excitement at the thought though..
Really? I am surprised.
I think someone is angling for an invite for the opening night….
Comments
I suspect that some of the buildings that have been converted under PD over the past decade are at risk of another grenfell like scandal,the conditions are truly appauling...
https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10159232/1/healthy homes TCP article.pdf
The problem is that thanks to austerity, we have built a lot of dumb motorways. West Yorkshire as an example of both. The M62 near the M1 was made smart. Switchable hard shoulder. The M1 was made dumb - hard shoulder becomes a normal lane. Minimal camera coverage, minimal signage.
If the Tories hadn't scrimped on the budget, we wouldn't have had these deaths. Even now the concept can be saved. Install a load of cameras and signs. Paint the hard shoulder back in. Have it so that we can drive in it when its busy, and can't when someone has broken down.
Also worth noting the various motorway roads which have been marked up as A-roads. Same legal status as a motorway, same restrictions. But no hard shoulder. Sections of the A90 and the A14 built in the last 5 years as recent examples.
The people running smart motorways in the West Midlands make Spielman look competent.
He sent them links (as you did) to a digitised archive of everything down to individual receipts for a packet of screws, for the last decade. All organised and connected to the accounts, tax etc. The very model of transparency and organisation.
A week later he got a reply - claiming they needed to see paper copies. He replied where the paper copies were located, and asked when they would be round to pick them up. He never received any further communication.
He eventually managed to get a reply that the matter was closed…
Displaying them know is a way of saying you think all this stuff about racism is just ridiculous political correctness. Of wokeness, as is now popular.
It’s a faint echo of those in the US who insist the Civil War was entirely over states’ rights.
After all they are still going ahead with introducing it for the latest bits to have been constructed; they’re just halting new construction.
(Which, to be fair, has to enter into any calculation of policy benefits.)
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMYnwTpkP/
Probably most people would be better off saving the premium into an ISA and using that to self fund on an as needed basis.
I have reached the bottom of the well of cynicism with the current Govt.
I'm highly amused by how much "infrastructure" ie separate hard shoulder rather than say improved quality of driving is the immediate answer here, yet as soon as it is suggested as something for people on foot or on cycles the thicker end of the motor vehicle lobby crawls out from under its stone and demands that the solution is people walking and cycling to protect themselves, and wearing hi-viz vests.
Edit.
Was dropped from their packaging as late as 2001.
Unless it's truly compulsory you should only do it in 2 situations: Where the risk if it crystallizes would break you financially. Where your own assessment of the risk crystallizing is higher than that of the insurance company.
Much of it is sold on spurious 'peace of mind' or 'being sensible' grounds or by making out it's compulsory when it isn't.
I follow my own advice on this. I have 3rd party motor, buildings, and that's it.
So, to a certain kind of fool, turning the hard shoulder into a running lane becomes a way round the issue.
But ultimately the health insurers have to pay out enough times to keep public confidence and ensure the money coming in year after year.
SNP ditch investigation into notorious sex pest as he’s now quit the party
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/snp-ditch-investigation-notorious-sex-29719375?int_source=nba
The US situation doesn't apply here. Thankfully.
The vast majority are using it for non-gatekeeped access to consultants, as I am.
But, (at the risk of sounding like Peter Kay).
Who remembers blackjacks? The sweet had one on the wrapper till the eighties.
So. Much, much more recent than fifties and sixties.
There are other alternatives than the 'envy of the world' and the USA.
"SNP says finances are balanced after crisis reports"
But a mystery is why anyone would want to claim the utterly useless Cleopatra.
Who's great 'achievement' was in destroying Egypt's independence.
As I understand it, the point of the Smart Motorways was to increase motorway capacity more cheaply than actually widening the motorways.
So is the government going to widen roads properly (cost ££££) or just leave the problem of congestion for some other poor bugger to solve in the future?
Pound to a penny says it'll be the second.
Why don't you just pay-as-you-go though? Do you get more in medical services consumed than the premiums paid? Or does the cover come through your job as a benefit?
Although my comment to Foxy wasn't specifically about claims being turned down or about medical insurance in particular. More about the overall cost benefit test (for the customer) for insurance in general. It usually fails it.
I’m sure the very racist attitudes of the Greeks towards οι βάρβαροι helped in going that way.
The fact is we are now absurdly over-sensitive to trivialities because somebody kicks up a storm on Twitter, while real problems, like illiteracy, poor health care, high crime rates or excessive taxation go unaddressed.
http://revealinghistories.org.uk/legacies-stereotypes-racism-and-the-civil-rights-movement/objects/robertson-s-golliwogs.html
https://twitter.com/LibHousing/status/1646774050209820673
As with most insurance, it is about the percentage who actually claim vs the cost for those who do need it.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting.
Take one issue. I had a shoulder problem. The GP mumbled a bit and offered some worryingly strong pain killers. This went on for months.
I went to a private consultant. MRI, X-ray, nerve conduction tests, blood tests etc before I went into see him. Ruled out all the nasty issues, diagnosed the actual issue and suggested a course of action that fixed the problem. About 5 working days from first call to an actual hard diagnosis based on facts.
The NHS seems to regard testing as something that should be rationed. So my doctor sat there guessing.
That said, my personal view is that golliwogs are racist. My mum had one, and I think like many people she would not have used the slur w*g, but did not think that directly affected owning, from her childhood, a golliwog.
'Enjoys sunshine' is included in such a way it sounds like that itself is considered a luxury. I know Scotland is often overcast, but I assume its sunny sometimes.
Re the NHS, my experience is good. I've never had a problem getting the GP to refer me for tests and specialist follow-ups etc.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/an-african-country-reckons-with-its-history-of-selling-slaves/2018/01/29/5234f5aa-ff9a-11e7-86b9-8908743c79dd_story.html
I certainly collected Robinson golliwog labels as a child to exchange for gifts and it never crossed my mind then that it was racist or even had anything to do with black people and even today I would have given the benefit of the doubt to that pub if we hadn't subsequently learnt that he wore a Britain First T shirt and posted 'That is what they do to them in Mississippi'. Any benefit of the doubt was then lost, big time. I think it was reasonable to then assume they were raving racist.
I'm quite surprised to find myself aligned with Greens on local transport questions, as I think of them as a big government control-freak party. Equally I'm fairly confident that - whatever the current govt do or do not do whilst trying to save their political backside - the direction of travel has shifted, and there's no going back.
UJ-Uke flags badge - check
Crib notes scribbled on sweaty palms - check
Are Gollywogs racist? Yes
Is it a problem for people to own them? No in the same way it’s fine to collect Nazi memorabilia or Victorian pornography. Each to their own
Is it ok to display them publicly? In a museum yes. By a clearly racist couple running a public facing business? No
Is it disproportionate for the police to intervene? 90% of what the police do has no positive impact so why worry about this.
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on The problem tends to be speed and a linear attitude to testing.
As in you see a doctor, he orders a test, sometime later you get tested, then you make an appointment to see the doctor, who suggests another test….
One time, when my daughter was in hospital, I was so bored waiting for the results of test round x that I read up and diagnosed the issue. To be fair, it was a 1% presentation of a fairly common issue. But the symptoms matched exactly…. Of course they ignored my suggestion. Two weeks later… yup. If they had simply done all the tests when she entered hospital, I wouldn’t have been doing amateur Doctor House.
If someone with scale like Wetherspoons or Tesco wanted to do similar I would support a consumer boycott but thats not necessary for one local racist pub.
It is not just the police getting involved that makes it a story, but that they needed six police officers for the visit, and it will also have taken several hours if not more of senior officer time to manage the politics and press. Completely disproportionate.
I hope at least one of the coppers was black, just to really wind them up.
https://twitter.com/BrianSpanner1/status/1647575062726209536?s=20
The bit about “going to consultants when you don't really need to” is interesting. Take on The thing that struck me was the cops not knowing *when* to raid a licensed premises.
Just before opening on a weekday. No customers, no drunks. The cleaners will have been in, so no broken glass to cause accidents.
The staff/landlord will be tired from the previous night and bombing up on coffee to get moving.
So no angry drunks and no energy for a confrontation.
This was how they did it in Oxford when I was young. A pub I drank in had a fair number of “friendly visits” from the law…
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/florida-allow-death-penalty-with-8-4-jury-vote-instead-unanimously-2023-04-14/
DeSantis is a sick man that doesn't care if innocent people get executed as long as he gets the GOP nomination. Just like he doesn't care if children get vaccinated or rape victims have to birth their rape babies. The guy is a sociopath.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/16/keir-starmer-polls-tightening-labour-tories
I think you're messing up the blockquotes by trying to reply to multiple posts in one go. I have replied thus:
Ok but you're extrapolating personal experience to the general. To reciprocate in that vein, based on my direct experience, I assess the NHS to be fast, accurate, professional and humane. Nigh on perfect really.
That said, I'm not an 'Envy of the World' person. Neither would I have Healthcare as a top public spending priority.