Video of a guardsman after fainting. The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help. This country is fucking weird sick.
I think that would happen in any self-respecting military in the world. Military personnel can’t just stop what they’re doing (having been specifically ordered to do it) whatever the circumstances
Not when you're doing something of vital importance, maybe.
But they're playing trombones.
That’s not the way it works. Soldiers can’t judge for yourself themselves if a lawful order is of vital importance and prioritise accordingly. That’s what military discipline is all about. That’s true in all armies, at least the ones that function properly, not just the British one. I’m no soldier but being on parade, which is what they were doing, I understand has a role in promoting that discipline so military types may say it is of vital importance. Saying they’re not helping just because they’re from this specific country is plain wrong.
Most countries don't put people out in the hot sunshine wearing enormous fur hats though!
I find it hard to believe many countries do not have soldiers in inappropriate gear in hot weather.
That's not to say it may not be a problem, but it seems a poor case to do a 'woe is the UK' about.
Which ones? I remember seen Greek ones but that were furry bobbles on the toes... funny but not mad. I've tried googling a few other countries and I don't see much in the way of giant furry hats. It's insane. It's literally mad. We are a mad country.
You are an arse or the worst order.
A list of the other countries that use bearskin caps, including Canada, Sweden, Sri Lanka (notably chilly there) and Belgium, is at the below link -
You are the reason why the left in the U.K. gets nowhere. You think that insulting the country is the best way of winning votes.
I resent that.
Not the "arse" thing, that's fair game. No, it's the accusation that criticising this country is the province of the left. I'm a dyed in the bearskin wool liberal. Not left or right, centre. Centre liberal. With a penchant for needling at British shibboleths. If you want to use me as evidence that you shouldn't vote for left-wing parties good. I don't want you to vote for leftist parties.
And Doug. Mate. Cheer up. It's a lovely warm evening. Have a bear beer. But don't get dehydrated, eh lad?
You are about as centrist as Corbyn
That might be true it might not, but it is still true that the right criticise the country as well. Rees-Mogg is a complete radicalist rather than a traditionalist for example, who wants to adopt an explicitly presidential PM system. Just one of many examples.
The ever moaning leftist strand of this sort of thing is true and annoying, but they are not alone.
Well it comes down to needing to define what you mean again. Blood semantics.
To state my position, I'm - economically centrist (private business, capitalism, social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality, reward innovation and risk taking), - socially extremely liberal (let people do what the fuck they like as long as they aren't hurting anyone, actively punish discrimination that constrains opportunities or controls people, do not offer state incentives or disincentives for people to live in particular ways) - constitutionally radical (abolish the monarchy, bring in PR, throw the Lords out onto the kerb, devolve and pool powers away from Westminster to regions/nations/EU, open to Scottish independence) - dispositionally anti-authoritarian (dislike of surveillance, defending the right to protest and strike, suspicious of coercive power structures like political parties, faiths, political trade unions, wealthy political donors, enforced patriotism)
I get called a lefty I think because of that constitutional radicalism, and to be fair there are elements in there that fit comfortably with the left. But that's only because elements of the left fit well with the abolition of meaningless hierarchies. And the sense that some fucking idiot like Jacob Rees Mogg can be considered "better" than anyone on here is numbingly offensive. It makes me sick to see people tug their forelock when confronted with a plummy voice and a well-cut suit.
But this same trait fits pretty badly with leftism as well. I don't want stuff nationalised just for the sake of it because government is worse than the market for getting people what they want. In all cases where a market can operate freely, which is almost all economic life, give people the space to operate freely. Yes, state power sits atop all that because that's the pathway to check overweaning power of very big businesses and cartels, but as long as businesses aren't taking the piss, leave them alone.
Ultimately politics is about what government should do and government should be about maximising freedom with a special focus on keeping the weak and voiceless free.
I honestly can't think of a better way to describe all the above other than liberalism. Yes, not all liberals will agree with my constitutional radicalism but it's all with a means to an end, to free up unnecessary restrictions on who can become what. There's always been a tension between my constitutional radicalism and conservatism for its own sake. But there's always been a tension between leftism and my belief in economic freedom. So I'm not a conservative, and I'm not a leftist.
And I'm so sorry for typing so much about me me me but I get frustrated when I see people not understanding a thing when it seems so clear to me. The world isn't just divided into left or conservative and the lack of ability of some people to see in anything other than red v blue.. it blisters me.
Most of what you support from your list above Corbyn would also have happily supported, so my point stands
Yes, that well known defender of free-market capitalism Jeremy Corbyn
And I'm sorry to have to make this explicit, but yes, I do agree with some things Corbyn said. Doesn't mean I'd ever want to vote for the odious little twerp, but if you can't find something to pick out of almost every political tradition that you're completely lost from the real world.
'social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality,' is hardly pure free market capitalism now is it!
See, the problem there is the word "pure". Purity is the most dangerous political idea, and it's always the one you're obsessed with. I'm not just comfortable with, but actively proud of my political impurity.
Additional: this really gets to the heart of the matter. The reason why central planning doesn't work is because economies are too complex for one person, or even one parliament, to plan. You need millions of minds working in concert and in competition to build a working, effective, modern economy and keep it ticking over.
The same is true of grand political theories. You can't do it. Nobody can hold a theory of politics in their head that is anywhere near adequate. So you need broad principles, you need an evidence-based approach, you need the space to debate and change direction, you need to be able to get rid of people who do not contribute well to the running of a system.
I think that HYUFD fancies himself to have a good working model of the world in his head and is intolerant of others' deviations from that. And you've got a good dovecote of labels to put people in that helps you dismiss their challenges. You can categorise their impurity like some Victorian scientist labels pickled specimens. But you can't really shut out the crackling quantum world that keeps tunnelling its way into your glassware. You can't push the planets back to where you Copernican models say they should be. It's all a bit off, because you're living a Steampunk politics and you keep bumping up against Heisenbergs and Einsteins who know that your timing is off but can't explain it to you because you just can't seem to listen. The static of the big bang is hissing in your vacuum tubes but you're deaf.
When did you last vote Conservative? If you were really a centrist in UK terms you might have voted for Blair and now might vote for Starmer but you would also have voted for Cameron, May and Boris in 2019 and voted Leave in 2016
My dad's gone. Faded out with mum and my brother and me there with him telling stories of his part glories. He fought a good battle these last few weeks, and you can't ask for any more than that.
Sympathies. Happened to me recently. It’s never what you expect: for me it was much less painful than I anticipated. For others it is much worse. Good luck
Me too.
There something about a son losing his father. Also, a daughter losing her mother.
It changes the son. And the daughter.
Forgive my cod psychology.
But it is, imo, an important event for every man and woman. To an extent, it’s an event that defines us.
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Sorry but I think this is a step way too far.
I am delighted to see the back of Johnson but a direct attack on free speech like this (if the reports are true) is absolutely unacceptable. The Johnson supporters may be stupid and wrong but they are alowed to be and we absolutely should not be starting down the road of sanctioning people for what they say in this way.
There is a potential here for the committee to lose a lot of the good will and support it has attracted if it pursues such a partisan agenda.
I was watching the first episode of Yes Minister earlier, actually one of the episodes I remember less well than others.
Notable to me that Hacker is said to have increased his majority, yet also only had a majority of a few thousand, so no wonder he was always so nervous. He apparently ran the leadership campaign against the incoming PM, so was uncertain what post he might get - so him then getting the top job just a few years later was quite the coup. And a journalist comment says he's a bit on the young side for a Cabinet post (he had been shadow minister for agriculture), whilst also saying he is in his late 40s. Different times I guess.
Yes Minister is basically a documentary about the civil service of the 50-70's. It never really caught up with the 80's on.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
I think Boris's paradox was having worked for two decades to reach the top of the Conservative Party, become Prime Minister and get his own substantial mandate, it all turned to dust in his hands.
MacMillan might have been brought down by two tarts, Johnson was felled by a microscopic virus.
Yes, his support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine in the first days after the Russian invasion was vital and he deserves credit for that and thanks to his 2019 election victory, he cut the Gordian Knot of Brexit but in the end those who enthused for him ended up turning on him.
I welcome your new objectivity - I look forward to some positive comments on Labour and Liberal Democrat policy and a kind word or two for Starmer and Davey.
Macmillan wasn't brought down by "two tarts" as you crudely put it. He was brought down by men he appointed to the most senior and sensitive roles, who couldn't think except with their genitals.
He was brought down in part because they lived in a different time where what people did with their genitals mattered.
Thank goodness we've moved on from that nowadays and people are free to be who they are, and with who they want to, rather than that being news or something we judge people for.
Oh. In general I agree. But there were huge security implications at the height of the Cold War about where genitals were being mutually deployed. Which I don't think would be different nowadays. None of which was any responsibility of the young females involved.
Rumours of a major Ukrainian breakout. Just hope they are true.
Hey @Cicero I've a few relatives going to Tallinn early August do you know of any places they really should go?
How long are they around for?
I think about 4 days and then to a cabin in the woods.
Tallinn only or Tartu , Pärnu or Saaremaa as well?
Ooh I'd have to ask to be sure from my poor memory* they are in Estonia about 8 days. Fly to the capital and pick up a car. Flat in the city for 4 days and then some place in the woods for about as long.
*I do think they were visiting an island near Tallinn for a day too.
Probably either Aegna or Naisaar. Tell them to bring jungle strength anti bug spray- Aegna in particular has both mosquitos and nasty Horse flies. Also make sure their anti tick jabs are up to date, Lots to do in Tallinn, but depends which direction and how far the cabin is as to where else they explore. I can certainly recommend the Korvemaa nature preserve, especially the lakes and the great marsh which is eerie and beautiful and only about 35 mins from Tallinn. Otherwise the Lahemaa National park, about an hour east of Tallinn has interesting manor houses and museums. Headed West, Haapsalu is a pretty little coastal town with spas and swimming and a Kursaal. The University city of Tartu is worth a look too, and the Alatskivi Castle on the Peipsi lake, a replica Balmoral which is close to a string of Old Believer Fishing villages. As for Tallinn itself, the Old Town, Kadriorg Castle, walking along the caost to Pirita and the old Abbey, stopping at the memorial to the dead of Communism and the Museum of Estonian History. In the evening Tellsikivi is the happening area.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
I think Boris's paradox was having worked for two decades to reach the top of the Conservative Party, become Prime Minister and get his own substantial mandate, it all turned to dust in his hands.
MacMillan might have been brought down by two tarts, Johnson was felled by a microscopic virus.
Yes, his support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine in the first days after the Russian invasion was vital and he deserves credit for that and thanks to his 2019 election victory, he cut the Gordian Knot of Brexit but in the end those who enthused for him ended up turning on him.
I welcome your new objectivity - I look forward to some positive comments on Labour and Liberal Democrat policy and a kind word or two for Starmer and Davey.
Macmillan wasn't brought down by "two tarts" as you crudely put it. He was brought down by men he appointed to the most senior and sensitive roles, who couldn't think except with their genitals.
He was brought down in part because they lived in a different time where what people did with their genitals mattered.
Thank goodness we've moved on from that nowadays and people are free to be who they are, and with who they want to, rather than that being news or something we judge people for.
I'm no expert, but it was more than just over-enthusiastic use of genitalia wasn't it? Weren't there also Russian spies involved?
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
No he wasn't. You're letting your subjective dislike of him run away with you. He certainly wasn't appalling on every measure. No one is.
No, I've nailed it with complete 100% objective accuracy. There are plenty of Tory politicians I either rate or like or both. But not this one. He trashed the place and for nothing but kicks.
Video of a guardsman after fainting. The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help. This country is fucking weird sick.
I think that would happen in any self-respecting military in the world. Military personnel can’t just stop what they’re doing (having been specifically ordered to do it) whatever the circumstances
Isn't it a military concept to not leave your own people behind?
Military personnel I would hope would if they thought one of their colleagues was hurt go to support them and help them.
I think the reality is in these circumstances they continued precisely because they did not think their colleague was hurt, even if he'd fainted, and that help would come from elsewhere so they didn't need to help. If it was a more serious incident, I don't think they'd leave someone to die without offering support.
My dad's gone. Faded out with mum and my brother and me there with him telling stories of his part glories. He fought a good battle these last few weeks, and you can't ask for any more than that.
Just seen this RP. Really sorry sir. I lost my old man 11 years ago next week. I won't tell you the pain ever really goes away but time does ease it somewhat. I am glad that, from what you say, he had a good parting.
As a Pratchett fan I will send a GNU for him tonight. If you don't know what that means rest assured it is the greatest compliment.
I was watching the first episode of Yes Minister earlier, actually one of the episodes I remember less well than others.
Notable to me that Hacker is said to have increased his majority, yet also only had a majority of a few thousand, so no wonder he was always so nervous. He apparently ran the leadership campaign against the incoming PM, so was uncertain what post he might get - so him then getting the top job just a few years later was quite the coup. And a journalist comment says he's a bit on the young side for a Cabinet post (he had been shadow minister for agriculture), whilst also saying he is in his late 40s. Different times I guess.
Yes Minister is basically a documentary about the civil service of the 50-70's. It never really caught up with the 80's on.
Trouble is both Labour and Conservative politicians growing up in the 1980s convinced themselves Yes, Minister is a documentary, which is why on reaching office they flooded the place with SpAds to control the hostile and obstructive Civil Service, and became dependent on management consultants for policy advice and on outsourcers for implementation.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
The Privileges Committee are clearly incensed by Johnson’s tirade and his cult trashing them . I don’t think they’ll go much further though than just a slap on the wrist for the Bozo arse lickers .
Video of a guardsman after fainting. The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help. This country is fucking weird sick.
I think that would happen in any self-respecting military in the world. Military personnel can’t just stop what they’re doing (having been specifically ordered to do it) whatever the circumstances
Not when you're doing something of vital importance, maybe.
But they're playing trombones.
That’s not the way it works. Soldiers can’t judge for yourself themselves if a lawful order is of vital importance and prioritise accordingly. That’s what military discipline is all about. That’s true in all armies, at least the ones that function properly, not just the British one. I’m no soldier but being on parade, which is what they were doing, I understand has a role in promoting that discipline so military types may say it is of vital importance. Saying they’re not helping just because they’re from this specific country is plain wrong.
Most countries don't put people out in the hot sunshine wearing enormous fur hats though!
I find it hard to believe many countries do not have soldiers in inappropriate gear in hot weather.
That's not to say it may not be a problem, but it seems a poor case to do a 'woe is the UK' about.
Which ones? I remember seen Greek ones but that were furry bobbles on the toes... funny but not mad. I've tried googling a few other countries and I don't see much in the way of giant furry hats. It's insane. It's literally mad. We are a mad country.
You are an arse or the worst order.
A list of the other countries that use bearskin caps, including Canada, Sweden, Sri Lanka (notably chilly there) and Belgium, is at the below link -
You are the reason why the left in the U.K. gets nowhere. You think that insulting the country is the best way of winning votes.
I resent that.
Not the "arse" thing, that's fair game. No, it's the accusation that criticising this country is the province of the left. I'm a dyed in the bearskin wool liberal. Not left or right, centre. Centre liberal. With a penchant for needling at British shibboleths. If you want to use me as evidence that you shouldn't vote for left-wing parties good. I don't want you to vote for leftist parties.
And Doug. Mate. Cheer up. It's a lovely warm evening. Have a bear beer. But don't get dehydrated, eh lad?
You are about as centrist as Corbyn
That might be true it might not, but it is still true that the right criticise the country as well. Rees-Mogg is a complete radicalist rather than a traditionalist for example, who wants to adopt an explicitly presidential PM system. Just one of many examples.
The ever moaning leftist strand of this sort of thing is true and annoying, but they are not alone.
Well it comes down to needing to define what you mean again. Blood semantics.
To state my position, I'm - economically centrist (private business, capitalism, social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality, reward innovation and risk taking), - socially extremely liberal (let people do what the fuck they like as long as they aren't hurting anyone, actively punish discrimination that constrains opportunities or controls people, do not offer state incentives or disincentives for people to live in particular ways) - constitutionally radical (abolish the monarchy, bring in PR, throw the Lords out onto the kerb, devolve and pool powers away from Westminster to regions/nations/EU, open to Scottish independence) - dispositionally anti-authoritarian (dislike of surveillance, defending the right to protest and strike, suspicious of coercive power structures like political parties, faiths, political trade unions, wealthy political donors, enforced patriotism)
I get called a lefty I think because of that constitutional radicalism, and to be fair there are elements in there that fit comfortably with the left. But that's only because elements of the left fit well with the abolition of meaningless hierarchies. And the sense that some fucking idiot like Jacob Rees Mogg can be considered "better" than anyone on here is numbingly offensive. It makes me sick to see people tug their forelock when confronted with a plummy voice and a well-cut suit.
But this same trait fits pretty badly with leftism as well. I don't want stuff nationalised just for the sake of it because government is worse than the market for getting people what they want. In all cases where a market can operate freely, which is almost all economic life, give people the space to operate freely. Yes, state power sits atop all that because that's the pathway to check overweaning power of very big businesses and cartels, but as long as businesses aren't taking the piss, leave them alone.
Ultimately politics is about what government should do and government should be about maximising freedom with a special focus on keeping the weak and voiceless free.
I honestly can't think of a better way to describe all the above other than liberalism. Yes, not all liberals will agree with my constitutional radicalism but it's all with a means to an end, to free up unnecessary restrictions on who can become what. There's always been a tension between my constitutional radicalism and conservatism for its own sake. But there's always been a tension between leftism and my belief in economic freedom. So I'm not a conservative, and I'm not a leftist.
And I'm so sorry for typing so much about me me me but I get frustrated when I see people not understanding a thing when it seems so clear to me. The world isn't just divided into left or conservative and the lack of ability of some people to see in anything other than red v blue.. it blisters me.
Most of what you support from your list above Corbyn would also have happily supported, so my point stands
Yes, that well known defender of free-market capitalism Jeremy Corbyn
And I'm sorry to have to make this explicit, but yes, I do agree with some things Corbyn said. Doesn't mean I'd ever want to vote for the odious little twerp, but if you can't find something to pick out of almost every political tradition that you're completely lost from the real world.
'social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality,' is hardly pure free market capitalism now is it!
See, the problem there is the word "pure". Purity is the most dangerous political idea, and it's always the one you're obsessed with. I'm not just comfortable with, but actively proud of my political impurity.
Additional: this really gets to the heart of the matter. The reason why central planning doesn't work is because economies are too complex for one person, or even one parliament, to plan. You need millions of minds working in concert and in competition to build a working, effective, modern economy and keep it ticking over.
The same is true of grand political theories. You can't do it. Nobody can hold a theory of politics in their head that is anywhere near adequate. So you need broad principles, you need an evidence-based approach, you need the space to debate and change direction, you need to be able to get rid of people who do not contribute well to the running of a system.
I think that HYUFD fancies himself to have a good working model of the world in his head and is intolerant of others' deviations from that. And you've got a good dovecote of labels to put people in that helps you dismiss their challenges. You can categorise their impurity like some Victorian scientist labels pickled specimens. But you can't really shut out the crackling quantum world that keeps tunnelling its way into your glassware. You can't push the planets back to where you Copernican models say they should be. It's all a bit off, because you're living a Steampunk politics and you keep bumping up against Heisenbergs and Einsteins who know that your timing is off but can't explain it to you because you just can't seem to listen. The static of the big bang is hissing in your vacuum tubes but you're deaf.
When did you last vote Conservative? If you were really a centrist in UK terms you might have voted for Blair and now might vote for Starmer but you would also have voted for Cameron, May and Boris in 2019 and voted Leave in 2016
Yes I voted for Cameron. No I didn't vote for Blair or for Labour under any leader. I certainly didn't vote Leave and I haven't been able to stomach the Conservatives since that referendum and they have a long, long way to come back because they have become really quite illiberal. Still, there are some decent people still left in the Conservative Party. Not you, though.
Selby I think could be a Conservative hold, bigger Labour vote in 2019 than so Shropshire North and Mid Bedfordshire and smaller LD vote there so local Labour Party will likely fight it in a proper contest and not hand it to the LDs. Thus splitting the anti Conservative vote
I can’t see the LibDems making an effort in Selby and Ainsty. It’s not their demographic at all - Selby is quite working class and surprisingly run down for a market town with an abbey. I agree it’ll probably be a Conservative hold, but Labour have an outside chance.
Incidentally here’s the origin of the “Ainsty” bit:
And. Importantly. A totally different demographic in the non-Selby bits. Southern part of York including University then. Prosperous commuter villages around Harrogate now.
Are you sure about this? Selby's quite a long way from Harrogate.
Antietam is quiet and sombre and haunting. Not like other battlefields. More like a bad World War 1 battlefield. I guess they were similar
Indeed all the hallmarks of WW1 battles were present in the US civil war, machine guns, artilliary, trenches, the lot.
It’s a weird one, it was a foretaste of mechanical war between relatively equal powers that foreshadowed WW1 and mixed old warfare with industrial warfare but it’s often written up with huge casualties that don’t actually come close proportionally to earlier or later wars.
For example Gettysburg deaths were around 7000 out of a population of approx 31m (Antietam just under 4,000) Compared to Towton with low estimates of 20,000 dead from a population of approx 2m, >19,000 on the first day of the Somme out of a UK pop of approx 40m the US Civil war was actually relatively low on the carnage front.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
My dad's gone. Faded out with mum and my brother and me there with him telling stories of his part glories. He fought a good battle these last few weeks, and you can't ask for any more than that.
My sympathies. That sounds very familiar from my own Dad's passing a couple of years ago, it's the nub of what surrounded by close family means - a bit of reminiscing, perhaps a bit of sibling teasing, a few in jokes. A proper family get together with added meaning and, between the obvious discomforts and any moments of participation the old boy manages, something as important by way of send off as the more formal rituals that follow later. Not every family or departing person gets to do that.
Video of a guardsman after fainting. The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help. This country is fucking weird sick.
I think that would happen in any self-respecting military in the world. Military personnel can’t just stop what they’re doing (having been specifically ordered to do it) whatever the circumstances
Isn't it a military concept to not leave your own people behind?
Military personnel I would hope would if they thought one of their colleagues was hurt go to support them and help them.
I think the reality is in these circumstances they continued precisely because they did not think their colleague was hurt, even if he'd fainted, and that help would come from elsewhere so they didn't need to help. If it was a more serious incident, I don't think they'd leave someone to die without offering support.
We had a very similar comment a couple of weeks ago when a newspaper columnist complained that he fainted at a London J ground ticket barrier and no one did anything (bar, probably making sure qualified London transport staff with a first aid kit and working telephone access to call 999 were told).
It’s not a war zone it’s a a public display with first aid people on site so step round, keep going and let experts deal with the problem.
Video of a guardsman after fainting. The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help. This country is fucking weird sick.
I think that would happen in any self-respecting military in the world. Military personnel can’t just stop what they’re doing (having been specifically ordered to do it) whatever the circumstances
Not when you're doing something of vital importance, maybe.
But they're playing trombones.
That’s not the way it works. Soldiers can’t judge for yourself themselves if a lawful order is of vital importance and prioritise accordingly. That’s what military discipline is all about. That’s true in all armies, at least the ones that function properly, not just the British one. I’m no soldier but being on parade, which is what they were doing, I understand has a role in promoting that discipline so military types may say it is of vital importance. Saying they’re not helping just because they’re from this specific country is plain wrong.
Most countries don't put people out in the hot sunshine wearing enormous fur hats though!
I find it hard to believe many countries do not have soldiers in inappropriate gear in hot weather.
That's not to say it may not be a problem, but it seems a poor case to do a 'woe is the UK' about.
Which ones? I remember seen Greek ones but that were furry bobbles on the toes... funny but not mad. I've tried googling a few other countries and I don't see much in the way of giant furry hats. It's insane. It's literally mad. We are a mad country.
You are an arse or the worst order.
A list of the other countries that use bearskin caps, including Canada, Sweden, Sri Lanka (notably chilly there) and Belgium, is at the below link -
You are the reason why the left in the U.K. gets nowhere. You think that insulting the country is the best way of winning votes.
I resent that.
Not the "arse" thing, that's fair game. No, it's the accusation that criticising this country is the province of the left. I'm a dyed in the bearskin wool liberal. Not left or right, centre. Centre liberal. With a penchant for needling at British shibboleths. If you want to use me as evidence that you shouldn't vote for left-wing parties good. I don't want you to vote for leftist parties.
And Doug. Mate. Cheer up. It's a lovely warm evening. Have a bear beer. But don't get dehydrated, eh lad?
You are about as centrist as Corbyn
That might be true it might not, but it is still true that the right criticise the country as well. Rees-Mogg is a complete radicalist rather than a traditionalist for example, who wants to adopt an explicitly presidential PM system. Just one of many examples.
The ever moaning leftist strand of this sort of thing is true and annoying, but they are not alone.
Well it comes down to needing to define what you mean again. Blood semantics.
To state my position, I'm - economically centrist (private business, capitalism, social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality, reward innovation and risk taking), - socially extremely liberal (let people do what the fuck they like as long as they aren't hurting anyone, actively punish discrimination that constrains opportunities or controls people, do not offer state incentives or disincentives for people to live in particular ways) - constitutionally radical (abolish the monarchy, bring in PR, throw the Lords out onto the kerb, devolve and pool powers away from Westminster to regions/nations/EU, open to Scottish independence) - dispositionally anti-authoritarian (dislike of surveillance, defending the right to protest and strike, suspicious of coercive power structures like political parties, faiths, political trade unions, wealthy political donors, enforced patriotism)
I get called a lefty I think because of that constitutional radicalism, and to be fair there are elements in there that fit comfortably with the left. But that's only because elements of the left fit well with the abolition of meaningless hierarchies. And the sense that some fucking idiot like Jacob Rees Mogg can be considered "better" than anyone on here is numbingly offensive. It makes me sick to see people tug their forelock when confronted with a plummy voice and a well-cut suit.
But this same trait fits pretty badly with leftism as well. I don't want stuff nationalised just for the sake of it because government is worse than the market for getting people what they want. In all cases where a market can operate freely, which is almost all economic life, give people the space to operate freely. Yes, state power sits atop all that because that's the pathway to check overweaning power of very big businesses and cartels, but as long as businesses aren't taking the piss, leave them alone.
Ultimately politics is about what government should do and government should be about maximising freedom with a special focus on keeping the weak and voiceless free.
I honestly can't think of a better way to describe all the above other than liberalism. Yes, not all liberals will agree with my constitutional radicalism but it's all with a means to an end, to free up unnecessary restrictions on who can become what. There's always been a tension between my constitutional radicalism and conservatism for its own sake. But there's always been a tension between leftism and my belief in economic freedom. So I'm not a conservative, and I'm not a leftist.
And I'm so sorry for typing so much about me me me but I get frustrated when I see people not understanding a thing when it seems so clear to me. The world isn't just divided into left or conservative and the lack of ability of some people to see in anything other than red v blue.. it blisters me.
Most of what you support from your list above Corbyn would also have happily supported, so my point stands
Yes, that well known defender of free-market capitalism Jeremy Corbyn
And I'm sorry to have to make this explicit, but yes, I do agree with some things Corbyn said. Doesn't mean I'd ever want to vote for the odious little twerp, but if you can't find something to pick out of almost every political tradition that you're completely lost from the real world.
'social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality,' is hardly pure free market capitalism now is it!
See, the problem there is the word "pure". Purity is the most dangerous political idea, and it's always the one you're obsessed with. I'm not just comfortable with, but actively proud of my political impurity.
100% agreed with you. Could not agree with you more.
It is imperfections and impurities that help us evolve and progress. If you're completely pure on everything, then you're an incredibly boring and unthinking individual.
I like to think I can achieve being incredibly boring without resorting to purity.
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Johnson knows all about purging people from the party.
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Johnson knows all about purging people from the party.
I find the principle of purging elected individuals from Parliament concerning.
If someone's done genuine wrong, then fair enough, but for saying something you disagree with? Something they genuinely believe and you find offensive? That should be protected by Parliamentary Privilege - or at least something akin to it.
Politicians should not be able to purge their critics from Parliament, simply for criticising them. Remove the whip if they're not following party policy is one thing, purging from Parliament is another.
Rumours of a major Ukrainian breakout. Just hope they are true.
Hey @Cicero I've a few relatives going to Tallinn early August do you know of any places they really should go?
How long are they around for?
I think about 4 days and then to a cabin in the woods.
Tallinn only or Tartu , Pärnu or Saaremaa as well?
Ooh I'd have to ask to be sure from my poor memory* they are in Estonia about 8 days. Fly to the capital and pick up a car. Flat in the city for 4 days and then some place in the woods for about as long.
*I do think they were visiting an island near Tallinn for a day too.
Probably either Aegna or Naisaar. Tell them to bring jungle strength anti bug spray- Aegna in particular has both mosquitos and nasty Horse flies. Also make sure their anti tick jabs are up to date, Lots to do in Tallinn, but depends which direction and how far the cabin is as to where else they explore. I can certainly recommend the Korvemaa nature preserve, especially the lakes and the great marsh which is eerie and beautiful and only about 35 mins from Tallinn. Otherwise the Lahemaa National park, about an hour east of Tallinn has interesting manor houses and museums. Headed West, Haapsalu is a pretty little coastal town with spas and swimming and a Kursaal. The University city of Tartu is worth a look too, and the Alatskivi Castle on the Peipsi lake, a replica Balmoral which is close to a string of Old Believer Fishing villages. As for Tallinn itself, the Old Town, Kadriorg Castle, walking along the caost to Pirita and the old Abbey, stopping at the memorial to the dead of Communism and the Museum of Estonian History. In the evening Tellsikivi is the happening area.
Thank you, I'll pass it all on. I think Estonia will be the making of them.
Selby I think could be a Conservative hold, bigger Labour vote in 2019 than so Shropshire North and Mid Bedfordshire and smaller LD vote there so local Labour Party will likely fight it in a proper contest and not hand it to the LDs. Thus splitting the anti Conservative vote
I can’t see the LibDems making an effort in Selby and Ainsty. It’s not their demographic at all - Selby is quite working class and surprisingly run down for a market town with an abbey. I agree it’ll probably be a Conservative hold, but Labour have an outside chance.
Incidentally here’s the origin of the “Ainsty” bit:
And. Importantly. A totally different demographic in the non-Selby bits. Southern part of York including University then. Prosperous commuter villages around Harrogate now.
Are you sure about this? Selby's quite a long way from Harrogate.
Antietam is quiet and sombre and haunting. Not like other battlefields. More like a bad World War 1 battlefield. I guess they were similar
Indeed all the hallmarks of WW1 battles were present in the US civil war, machine guns, artilliary, trenches, the lot.
It’s a weird one, it was a foretaste of mechanical war between relatively equal powers that foreshadowed WW1 and mixed old warfare with industrial warfare but it’s often written up with huge casualties that don’t actually come close proportionally to earlier or later wars.
For example Gettysburg deaths were around 7000 out of a population of approx 31m (Antietam just under 4,000) Compared to Towton with low estimates of 20,000 dead from a population of approx 2m, >19,000 on the first day of the Somme out of a UK pop of approx 40m the US Civil war was actually relatively low on the carnage front.
WW1 was pretty much unique for battlefield carnage (but WW2 vastly worse for civilians and the like)
But the US civil war looms large for a good reason, here in America:
“The number of soldiers who died between 1861 and 1865, generally estimated at 620,000, is approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.”
Selby I think could be a Conservative hold, bigger Labour vote in 2019 than so Shropshire North and Mid Bedfordshire and smaller LD vote there so local Labour Party will likely fight it in a proper contest and not hand it to the LDs. Thus splitting the anti Conservative vote
I can’t see the LibDems making an effort in Selby and Ainsty. It’s not their demographic at all - Selby is quite working class and surprisingly run down for a market town with an abbey. I agree it’ll probably be a Conservative hold, but Labour have an outside chance.
Incidentally here’s the origin of the “Ainsty” bit:
And. Importantly. A totally different demographic in the non-Selby bits. Southern part of York including University then. Prosperous commuter villages around Harrogate now.
Are you sure about this? Selby's quite a long way from Harrogate.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Yep whenever he'd misplayed some scheme you could be sure Johnson would be in Kiev the next day.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
The tacky milking of it, not the support itself. I support the support. Think we just about all do.
Surprised too as TNT isn't that big of a brand in the UK.
The thing I always associate TNT with is that when I was a kid it was originally sharing a channel on Sky with Cartoon Network. I recall when the switchover happened around bedtime they used to have a graphic of Bugs Bunny [or similar] planting explosives and blowing up the Cartoon Network logo which then became the TNT logo.
Great for City and for Pep. Deserved it. But I reckon with that financial backing Allardyce would have delivered a bit quicker.
Apparently this is being celebrated by tye DJ with proper Greater Manchester miserablism. "This is how it feels" by the Inspiral Carpets, and Joy Division. Feels like the point slightly being missed. The titles sound very celebratory, but the songs really aren't.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
Surprised too as TNT isn't that big of a brand in the UK.
The thing I always associate TNT with is that when I was a kid it was originally sharing a channel on Sky with Cartoon Network. I recall when the switchover happened around bedtime they used to have a graphic of Bugs Bunny [or similar] planting explosives and blowing up the Cartoon Network logo which then became the TNT logo.
Yes it is, as part of the deal to be integrated into Discovery's EuroSport catalogue
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
The tacky milking of it, not the support itself. I support the support. Think we just about all do.
You support the support. Boris was very pro-support. Jeremy Corbyn, for example, wasn't. So he wasn't appalling on every measure. Indeed, I would say on every single measure he was better than Corbyn would have been - or - God forbid - a Corbyn/Sturgeon double act.
Surprised too as TNT isn't that big of a brand in the UK.
The thing I always associate TNT with is that when I was a kid it was originally sharing a channel on Sky with Cartoon Network. I recall when the switchover happened around bedtime they used to have a graphic of Bugs Bunny [or similar] planting explosives and blowing up the Cartoon Network logo which then became the TNT logo.
Yes it is, as part of the deal to be integrated into Discovery's EuroSport catalogue
Discovery and EuroSport seem to me to be much bigger brandnames than TNT.
Selby I think could be a Conservative hold, bigger Labour vote in 2019 than so Shropshire North and Mid Bedfordshire and smaller LD vote there so local Labour Party will likely fight it in a proper contest and not hand it to the LDs. Thus splitting the anti Conservative vote
I can’t see the LibDems making an effort in Selby and Ainsty. It’s not their demographic at all - Selby is quite working class and surprisingly run down for a market town with an abbey. I agree it’ll probably be a Conservative hold, but Labour have an outside chance.
Incidentally here’s the origin of the “Ainsty” bit:
And. Importantly. A totally different demographic in the non-Selby bits. Southern part of York including University then. Prosperous commuter villages around Harrogate now.
Are you sure about this? Selby's quite a long way from Harrogate.
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Johnson knows all about purging people from the party.
It seems the committee are angry at Johnson due to the manner and words he used on his resignation, and are considering further action against him
He has brought all this on himself and he deserves all he gets
The Privileges Committee are clearly incensed by Johnson’s tirade and his cult trashing them . I don’t think they’ll go much further though than just a slap on the wrist for the Bozo arse lickers .
Unless they've gone proper Jan 6th on it all, that'd probably be for the best.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
Antietam is quiet and sombre and haunting. Not like other battlefields. More like a bad World War 1 battlefield. I guess they were similar
Indeed all the hallmarks of WW1 battles were present in the US civil war, machine guns, artilliary, trenches, the lot.
It’s a weird one, it was a foretaste of mechanical war between relatively equal powers that foreshadowed WW1 and mixed old warfare with industrial warfare but it’s often written up with huge casualties that don’t actually come close proportionally to earlier or later wars.
For example Gettysburg deaths were around 7000 out of a population of approx 31m (Antietam just under 4,000) Compared to Towton with low estimates of 20,000 dead from a population of approx 2m, >19,000 on the first day of the Somme out of a UK pop of approx 40m the US Civil war was actually relatively low on the carnage front.
WW1 was pretty much unique for battlefield carnage (but WW2 vastly worse for civilians and the like)
But the US civil war looms large for a good reason, here in America:
“The number of soldiers who died between 1861 and 1865, generally estimated at 620,000, is approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.”
I think British figures for WW1 similarly dwarf other wars, hence the ACW dwarfs other wars in memory too.
The US national monuments and parks are the best bit of the country, consistently very well kept and curated.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
If you know that relevant First Aid support is both available and present, then a 'show must go on' attitude is neither inhumane nor shocking.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
My dad's gone. Faded out with mum and my brother and me there with him telling stories of his part glories. He fought a good battle these last few weeks, and you can't ask for any more than that.
No - that's the way to go. Many sympathies - it's never easy.
Video of a guardsman after fainting. The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help. This country is fucking weird sick.
I think that would happen in any self-respecting military in the world. Military personnel can’t just stop what they’re doing (having been specifically ordered to do it) whatever the circumstances
Not when you're doing something of vital importance, maybe.
But they're playing trombones.
That’s not the way it works. Soldiers can’t judge for yourself themselves if a lawful order is of vital importance and prioritise accordingly. That’s what military discipline is all about. That’s true in all armies, at least the ones that function properly, not just the British one. I’m no soldier but being on parade, which is what they were doing, I understand has a role in promoting that discipline so military types may say it is of vital importance. Saying they’re not helping just because they’re from this specific country is plain wrong.
Most countries don't put people out in the hot sunshine wearing enormous fur hats though!
I find it hard to believe many countries do not have soldiers in inappropriate gear in hot weather.
That's not to say it may not be a problem, but it seems a poor case to do a 'woe is the UK' about.
Which ones? I remember seen Greek ones but that were furry bobbles on the toes... funny but not mad. I've tried googling a few other countries and I don't see much in the way of giant furry hats. It's insane. It's literally mad. We are a mad country.
You are an arse or the worst order.
A list of the other countries that use bearskin caps, including Canada, Sweden, Sri Lanka (notably chilly there) and Belgium, is at the below link -
You are the reason why the left in the U.K. gets nowhere. You think that insulting the country is the best way of winning votes.
I resent that.
Not the "arse" thing, that's fair game. No, it's the accusation that criticising this country is the province of the left. I'm a dyed in the bearskin wool liberal. Not left or right, centre. Centre liberal. With a penchant for needling at British shibboleths. If you want to use me as evidence that you shouldn't vote for left-wing parties good. I don't want you to vote for leftist parties.
And Doug. Mate. Cheer up. It's a lovely warm evening. Have a bear beer. But don't get dehydrated, eh lad?
You are about as centrist as Corbyn
That might be true it might not, but it is still true that the right criticise the country as well. Rees-Mogg is a complete radicalist rather than a traditionalist for example, who wants to adopt an explicitly presidential PM system. Just one of many examples.
The ever moaning leftist strand of this sort of thing is true and annoying, but they are not alone.
Well it comes down to needing to define what you mean again. Blood semantics.
To state my position, I'm - economically centrist (private business, capitalism, social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality, reward innovation and risk taking), - socially extremely liberal (let people do what the fuck they like as long as they aren't hurting anyone, actively punish discrimination that constrains opportunities or controls people, do not offer state incentives or disincentives for people to live in particular ways) - constitutionally radical (abolish the monarchy, bring in PR, throw the Lords out onto the kerb, devolve and pool powers away from Westminster to regions/nations/EU, open to Scottish independence) - dispositionally anti-authoritarian (dislike of surveillance, defending the right to protest and strike, suspicious of coercive power structures like political parties, faiths, political trade unions, wealthy political donors, enforced patriotism)
I get called a lefty I think because of that constitutional radicalism, and to be fair there are elements in there that fit comfortably with the left. But that's only because elements of the left fit well with the abolition of meaningless hierarchies. And the sense that some fucking idiot like Jacob Rees Mogg can be considered "better" than anyone on here is numbingly offensive. It makes me sick to see people tug their forelock when confronted with a plummy voice and a well-cut suit.
But this same trait fits pretty badly with leftism as well. I don't want stuff nationalised just for the sake of it because government is worse than the market for getting people what they want. In all cases where a market can operate freely, which is almost all economic life, give people the space to operate freely. Yes, state power sits atop all that because that's the pathway to check overweaning power of very big businesses and cartels, but as long as businesses aren't taking the piss, leave them alone.
Ultimately politics is about what government should do and government should be about maximising freedom with a special focus on keeping the weak and voiceless free.
I honestly can't think of a better way to describe all the above other than liberalism. Yes, not all liberals will agree with my constitutional radicalism but it's all with a means to an end, to free up unnecessary restrictions on who can become what. There's always been a tension between my constitutional radicalism and conservatism for its own sake. But there's always been a tension between leftism and my belief in economic freedom. So I'm not a conservative, and I'm not a leftist.
And I'm so sorry for typing so much about me me me but I get frustrated when I see people not understanding a thing when it seems so clear to me. The world isn't just divided into left or conservative and the lack of ability of some people to see in anything other than red v blue.. it blisters me.
Most of what you support from your list above Corbyn would also have happily supported, so my point stands
Yes, that well known defender of free-market capitalism Jeremy Corbyn
And I'm sorry to have to make this explicit, but yes, I do agree with some things Corbyn said. Doesn't mean I'd ever want to vote for the odious little twerp, but if you can't find something to pick out of almost every political tradition that you're completely lost from the real world.
'social safety net, keep a lid on generational inequality,' is hardly pure free market capitalism now is it!
See, the problem there is the word "pure". Purity is the most dangerous political idea, and it's always the one you're obsessed with. I'm not just comfortable with, but actively proud of my political impurity.
Additional: this really gets to the heart of the matter. The reason why central planning doesn't work is because economies are too complex for one person, or even one parliament, to plan. You need millions of minds working in concert and in competition to build a working, effective, modern economy and keep it ticking over.
The same is true of grand political theories. You can't do it. Nobody can hold a theory of politics in their head that is anywhere near adequate. So you need broad principles, you need an evidence-based approach, you need the space to debate and change direction, you need to be able to get rid of people who do not contribute well to the running of a system.
I think that HYUFD fancies himself to have a good working model of the world in his head and is intolerant of others' deviations from that. And you've got a good dovecote of labels to put people in that helps you dismiss their challenges. You can categorise their impurity like some Victorian scientist labels pickled specimens. But you can't really shut out the crackling quantum world that keeps tunnelling its way into your glassware. You can't push the planets back to where you Copernican models say they should be. It's all a bit off, because you're living a Steampunk politics and you keep bumping up against Heisenbergs and Einsteins who know that your timing is off but can't explain it to you because you just can't seem to listen. The static of the big bang is hissing in your vacuum tubes but you're deaf.
When did you last vote Conservative? If you were really a centrist in UK terms you might have voted for Blair and now might vote for Starmer but you would also have voted for Cameron, May and Boris in 2019 and voted Leave in 2016
That's a rather restrictive definition of a centrist, who I speak from experience are a bit woolier than that.
Selby I think could be a Conservative hold, bigger Labour vote in 2019 than so Shropshire North and Mid Bedfordshire and smaller LD vote there so local Labour Party will likely fight it in a proper contest and not hand it to the LDs. Thus splitting the anti Conservative vote
I can’t see the LibDems making an effort in Selby and Ainsty. It’s not their demographic at all - Selby is quite working class and surprisingly run down for a market town with an abbey. I agree it’ll probably be a Conservative hold, but Labour have an outside chance.
Incidentally here’s the origin of the “Ainsty” bit:
And. Importantly. A totally different demographic in the non-Selby bits. Southern part of York including University then. Prosperous commuter villages around Harrogate now.
Are you sure about this? Selby's quite a long way from Harrogate.
Keir Starmer can also be credited for re-establishing Labour as being good on foreign policy.
It's a policy area which won't win you elections, but it can contribute to you losing one (Corbyn definitely got away with it the first time though). Keir has removed it as a vulnerability entirely.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
If you know that relevant First Aid support is both available and present, then a 'show must go on' attitude is neither inhumane nor shocking.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
I just couldn't imagine a colleague falling over and me just standing there over him still playing a trombone. It's quite bizarre. It's necessary that military training drills into behaviours that are quite artificial. I get all that. But you can know something on one level and still find it shocking to see.
I don't think I'd be able to do it, to be like that. You can call that a stronger sense of humanity or dismiss it as me being weak, either way around comes to the same answer: I wouldn't have parped my trombone after he went down.
Antietam is quiet and sombre and haunting. Not like other battlefields. More like a bad World War 1 battlefield. I guess they were similar
Indeed all the hallmarks of WW1 battles were present in the US civil war, machine guns, artilliary, trenches, the lot.
It’s a weird one, it was a foretaste of mechanical war between relatively equal powers that foreshadowed WW1 and mixed old warfare with industrial warfare but it’s often written up with huge casualties that don’t actually come close proportionally to earlier or later wars.
For example Gettysburg deaths were around 7000 out of a population of approx 31m (Antietam just under 4,000) Compared to Towton with low estimates of 20,000 dead from a population of approx 2m, >19,000 on the first day of the Somme out of a UK pop of approx 40m the US Civil war was actually relatively low on the carnage front.
WW1 was pretty much unique for battlefield carnage (but WW2 vastly worse for civilians and the like)
But the US civil war looms large for a good reason, here in America:
“The number of soldiers who died between 1861 and 1865, generally estimated at 620,000, is approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.”
I think British figures for WW1 similarly dwarf other wars, hence the ACW dwarfs other wars in memory too.
The US national monuments and parks are the best bit of the country, consistently very well kept and curated.
The building of a powerful national identity in such a vast and diverse nation, despite the ructions of slavery and civil war, and without simply ignoring past inputs into it (americans seem very in touch with their ancestral heritages), is a remarkable achievement.
It's a crying shame their politics has become so divisive they can barely seem to tolerate their opponents.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
Great for City and for Pep. Deserved it. But I reckon with that financial backing Allardyce would have delivered a bit quicker.
Apparently this is being celebrated by tye DJ with proper Greater Manchester miserablism. "This is how it feels" by the Inspiral Carpets, and Joy Division. Feels like the point slightly being missed. The titles sound very celebratory, but the songs really aren't.
Ah yes you're there of course. Well City are meant to be the gritty 'real' mancs team. Doesn't totally fit with the big money dynasty aspect but I don't suppose the fans are too bothered about that.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
If you know that relevant First Aid support is both available and present, then a 'show must go on' attitude is neither inhumane nor shocking.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
I just couldn't imagine a colleague falling over and me just standing there over him still playing a trombone. It's quite bizarre. It's necessary that military training drills into behaviours that are quite artificial. I get all that. But you can know something on one level and still find it shocking to see.
I don't think I'd be able to do it, to be like that. You can call that a stronger sense of humanity or dismiss it as me being weak, either way around comes to the same answer: I wouldn't have parped my trombone after he went down.
It depends what your job is surely? Seems like you're being dismissive because you don't respect the trombone rather than the fact they carried on in their job.
If someone collapsed in the cockpit on a plane would you find it inhumane if the pilot continues flying the plane and leaves checking to see if the person who fell over is OK to someone else?
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Johnson knows all about purging people from the party.
It seems the committee are angry at Johnson due to the manner and words he used on his resignation, and are considering further action against him
He has brought all this on himself and he deserves all he gets
I don't know if it is a particularly modern trend, but claiming victimhood seems to be very important now. Borisian types always put things in the most hysterical fashion possible.
The stuff said about the committee from his outriders essentially makes the whole idea of a standards process pointless, since if you've ever said anything about anyone you are told you cannot objectively judge anything, which will be everyone in politics. You may as well not bother to have any standards criteria at all.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
If you know that relevant First Aid support is both available and present, then a 'show must go on' attitude is neither inhumane nor shocking.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
I just couldn't imagine a colleague falling over and me just standing there over him still playing a trombone. It's quite bizarre. It's necessary that military training drills into behaviours that are quite artificial. I get all that. But you can know something on one level and still find it shocking to see.
I don't think I'd be able to do it, to be like that. You can call that a stronger sense of humanity or dismiss it as me being weak, either way around comes to the same answer: I wouldn't have parped my trombone after he went down.
It depends what your job is surely? Seems like you're being dismissive because you don't respect the trombone rather than the fact they carried on in their job.
If someone collapsed in the cockpit on a plane would you find it inhumane if the pilot continues flying the plane and leaves checking to see if the person who fell over is OK to someone else?
I would if the co-pilot was playing a trombone at the same time.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
If you know that relevant First Aid support is both available and present, then a 'show must go on' attitude is neither inhumane nor shocking.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
I just couldn't imagine a colleague falling over and me just standing there over him still playing a trombone. It's quite bizarre. It's necessary that military training drills into behaviours that are quite artificial. I get all that. But you can know something on one level and still find it shocking to see.
I don't think I'd be able to do it, to be like that. You can call that a stronger sense of humanity or dismiss it as me being weak, either way around comes to the same answer: I wouldn't have parped my trombone after he went down.
It depends what your job is surely? Seems like you're being dismissive because you don't respect the trombone rather than the fact they carried on in their job.
If someone collapsed in the cockpit on a plane would you find it inhumane if the pilot continues flying the plane and leaves checking to see if the person who fell over is OK to someone else?
No, I'd want the pilot to carry on because the consequences of doing the wrong thing when coming in to land at Aberdeen might be tragic*. But if a trombonist stops mid melody, it's not fiery doom for anyone. Context is key here. And the jaunty marching song made it all the weirder. Volume up for that video. I got Monty Python feels from it.
*the proper manoeuvre is to pull out of the descent and go somewhere better
Tory party now gripped by disease that has periodically gripped Labour — more interested in taking lumps out of each other than the “enemy”. Will only encourage growing view among sensible plain folk that Tories no longer a serious party, that they’ve lost the plot, they no longer speak for anybody because they’re obsessed with their own tribal differences and that, for good or ill, they should make way for Labour.
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Sorry but I think this is a step way too far.
I am delighted to see the back of Johnson but a direct attack on free speech like this (if the reports are true) is absolutely unacceptable. The Johnson supporters may be stupid and wrong but they are alowed to be and we absolutely should not be starting down the road of sanctioning people for what they say in this way.
There is a potential here for the committee to lose a lot of the good will and support it has attracted if it pursues such a partisan agenda.
I think I agree that it would play into the hands of Johnson and his supporters for the committee to go down that route, but someone has to do something, because the accusations from Johnson and his supporters that the process is a kangaroo court are extremely dangerous and damaging to Britain's democratic culture.
I'm not sure how you best counter that, but if someone doesn't find a good counter, then the prospects for British democracy are bleak. It's a frontal attack by Johnson and his supporters on any sense of there being a shared set of standards in politics that transcends partisan lines, on any sense of a shared political culture. The idea needs to be challenged and defeated before it can make progress.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
The tacky milking of it, not the support itself. I support the support. Think we just about all do.
You support the support. Boris was very pro-support. Jeremy Corbyn, for example, wasn't. So he wasn't appalling on every measure. Indeed, I would say on every single measure he was better than Corbyn would have been - or - God forbid - a Corbyn/Sturgeon double act.
I was assessing the man and his impact on our country, politics and public life. Of course I don't mean that every single thing the Johnson government did was appalling. The fish did indeed rot from the top but parts of it remained edible nevertheless.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
So Johnson thought Sunak should have come out with a show of support for him ahead of the report of the Privileges Committee!
Laughable why on earth would Sunak do such a ridiculous thing . The front pages of the right wing press seem detached from reality .
As for some big civil war in the Tories , is this the same big rebellion that allegedly was supposed to materialize at the Windsor Framework vote ?
How did that go !
I have no time for Sunak but if he really did dupe the fat lying oaf then good for him . Anything that helps flush Johnson , the toxic turd away to political obscurity is a good day for the country .
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
Where he got things right it's a good thing to mention it, not because it means going out to bat for him, but if anything it makes him getting so much else wrong and behaving so poorly on matters of personal conduct and standards even worse, because it demonstrates the reams of bad stuff was not inevitable for him, it was recklessness or choice.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
Great for City and for Pep. Deserved it. But I reckon with that financial backing Allardyce would have delivered a bit quicker.
Apparently this is being celebrated by tye DJ with proper Greater Manchester miserablism. "This is how it feels" by the Inspiral Carpets, and Joy Division. Feels like the point slightly being missed. The titles sound very celebratory, but the songs really aren't.
Ah yes you're there of course. Well City are meant to be the gritty 'real' mancs team. Doesn't totally fit with the big money dynasty aspect but I don't suppose the fans are too bothered about that.
Ooh, no, I'm not in Istanbul. I half-watched the match with more-interested wife and daughter and am being updated with relevant issues like what the DJ is doing by my largely City-supporting school friends' Whatsapp group. But my team is Stockport, for all the good it does them, which is none at all since I last went in about 1998. I do have one friend who is actually there, but he is a Cambridge United fan - there on the grounds that he is rich as Croesus and can afford such things.
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
If you know that relevant First Aid support is both available and present, then a 'show must go on' attitude is neither inhumane nor shocking.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
I just couldn't imagine a colleague falling over and me just standing there over him still playing a trombone. It's quite bizarre. It's necessary that military training drills into behaviours that are quite artificial. I get all that. But you can know something on one level and still find it shocking to see.
I don't think I'd be able to do it, to be like that. You can call that a stronger sense of humanity or dismiss it as me being weak, either way around comes to the same answer: I wouldn't have parped my trombone after he went down.
It depends what your job is surely? Seems like you're being dismissive because you don't respect the trombone rather than the fact they carried on in their job.
If someone collapsed in the cockpit on a plane would you find it inhumane if the pilot continues flying the plane and leaves checking to see if the person who fell over is OK to someone else?
Surely the more relevant issue this discussion has highlighted is that there is someone on this board who doesn't respect the trombone?
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
Constant brittle boasting "I led the global response to Ukraine" yada yada. No he isn't Trump but there sure are parallels. I just find him incredibly tacky as much as anything.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
Constant brittle boasting "I led the global response to Ukraine" yada yada. No he isn't Trump but there sure are parallels. I just find him incredibly tacky as much as anything.
Can you find a quote of his that can be paraphrased as claiming to have led the world?
I don't know what that nonsense was earlier about nobody rushing over to help that soldier who fainted. It's quite clear that's exactly what did happen here.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
It's not quite what I said. I pointed to the fact that the colleagues nearest just carried on playing, and said something provocative about this country being sick. I literally posted a link to the same video on a different site so I wasn't pretending that nobody came over to check (eventually!).
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
If you know that relevant First Aid support is both available and present, then a 'show must go on' attitude is neither inhumane nor shocking.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
I just couldn't imagine a colleague falling over and me just standing there over him still playing a trombone. It's quite bizarre. It's necessary that military training drills into behaviours that are quite artificial. I get all that. But you can know something on one level and still find it shocking to see.
I don't think I'd be able to do it, to be like that. You can call that a stronger sense of humanity or dismiss it as me being weak, either way around comes to the same answer: I wouldn't have parped my trombone after he went down.
It depends what your job is surely? Seems like you're being dismissive because you don't respect the trombone rather than the fact they carried on in their job.
If someone collapsed in the cockpit on a plane would you find it inhumane if the pilot continues flying the plane and leaves checking to see if the person who fell over is OK to someone else?
Surely the more relevant issue this discussion has highlighted is that there is someone on this board who doesn't respect the trombone?
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
Great for City and for Pep. Deserved it. But I reckon with that financial backing Allardyce would have delivered a bit quicker.
Apparently this is being celebrated by tye DJ with proper Greater Manchester miserablism. "This is how it feels" by the Inspiral Carpets, and Joy Division. Feels like the point slightly being missed. The titles sound very celebratory, but the songs really aren't.
Ah yes you're there of course. Well City are meant to be the gritty 'real' mancs team. Doesn't totally fit with the big money dynasty aspect but I don't suppose the fans are too bothered about that.
Ooh, no, I'm not in Istanbul. I half-watched the match with more-interested wife and daughter and am being updated with relevant issues like what the DJ is doing by my largely City-supporting school friends' Whatsapp group. But my team is Stockport, for all the good it does them, which is none at all since I last went in about 1998. I do have one friend who is actually there, but he is a Cambridge United fan - there on the grounds that he is rich as Croesus and can afford such things.
No, you're in Madchester, I meant! Ok yes, Stockport County. Now that is a gritty team full of integrity and grass roots rather than oil billions. Perhaps they'll win something one day.
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Sorry but I think this is a step way too far.
I am delighted to see the back of Johnson but a direct attack on free speech like this (if the reports are true) is absolutely unacceptable. The Johnson supporters may be stupid and wrong but they are alowed to be and we absolutely should not be starting down the road of sanctioning people for what they say in this way.
There is a potential here for the committee to lose a lot of the good will and support it has attracted if it pursues such a partisan agenda.
I think I agree that it would play into the hands of Johnson and his supporters for the committee to go down that route, but someone has to do something, because the accusations from Johnson and his supporters that the process is a kangaroo court are extremely dangerous and damaging to Britain's democratic culture.
I'm not sure how you best counter that, but if someone doesn't find a good counter, then the prospects for British democracy are bleak. It's a frontal attack by Johnson and his supporters on any sense of there being a shared set of standards in politics that transcends partisan lines, on any sense of a shared political culture. The idea needs to be challenged and defeated before it can make progress.
Speech is free and protected.
If politicians oust politicians from Parliament they disagree with, for saying something they disagree with, then at that point it is a kangaroo court - and an antidemocratic one at that.
If you want to challenge the suggestion you're a kangaroo court then the solution is to show you're not, show your reasoning for your actions and bring the evidence into view. The solution is not to launch a vendetta against everyone who disagrees with you - that's what tyrants do.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
Constant brittle boasting "I led the global response to Ukraine" yada yada. No he isn't Trump but there sure are parallels. I just find him incredibly tacky as much as anything.
Can you find a quote of his that can be paraphrased as claiming to have led the world?
I'm struggling to find one that doesn't make some grand nonsensical claim. But leave it with me please. Will revert.
I completely despise Marjorie Taylor Greene and the rest of the Trumpian apologists in the US Congress but I'd never for one second think she should be ousted from Congress by anyone other than the electorate. No matter how badly she mouths off, that's democracy.
I can disagree with what you have to say, but if you've not broken any laws then you have the right to say it freely.
Any suggestion a politician should be ousted from Parliament not for what they've done, but because they've uttered a view you dislike, is completely unacceptable. Corbyn has done many things I despise, but he's duly elected and I need to respect that unless or until his voters stop electing him - that's democracy.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
Constant brittle boasting "I led the global response to Ukraine" yada yada. No he isn't Trump but there sure are parallels. I just find him incredibly tacky as much as anything.
Can you find a quote of his that can be paraphrased as claiming to have led the world?
Isn't truth an absolute defence anyway?
The UK has helped lead the global response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, along with America and other allies. And been more consistent for years in supporting Ukraine than any other major nation, including America who unfortunately had Trump withholding support at one point.
I think Zelenskyy is probably more likely to have said it than Johnson. As much as that insults kinabalu's sensibilities.
My dad's gone. Faded out with mum and my brother and me there with him telling stories of his part glories. He fought a good battle these last few weeks, and you can't ask for any more than that.
No - that's the way to go. Many sympathies - it's never easy.
@christopherhope 8s EXCLUSIVE in the Sunday Telegraph MPs on Commons privileges committee consider sanctions against Boris Johnson's supporters behind 'kangaroo court' attacks on 'partygate' inquiry. Johnson allies say it is a 'McCarthyite purge'.
@christopherhope 7s Members of the committee believe the remarks of some critical MPs amount to contempt of Parliament and want action. Possible sanctions range from an addendum to its partygate report criticising the MPs to a censure motion and divisive vote in the Commons. 2/3
@christopherhope 38s The move would risk more Tory MP resignations, with supporters of Mr Johnson pledging an all-out revolt if Conservative whips fail to block such a scheme. One Government source said: “This is an attempt to purge Johnson supporters from the party. It is McCarthyism.” 3/3
BRING IT ON !!!
We don't often agree but Johnson and his sycophants need marginalising
Sorry but I think this is a step way too far.
I am delighted to see the back of Johnson but a direct attack on free speech like this (if the reports are true) is absolutely unacceptable. The Johnson supporters may be stupid and wrong but they are alowed to be and we absolutely should not be starting down the road of sanctioning people for what they say in this way.
There is a potential here for the committee to lose a lot of the good will and support it has attracted if it pursues such a partisan agenda.
I think I agree that it would play into the hands of Johnson and his supporters for the committee to go down that route, but someone has to do something, because the accusations from Johnson and his supporters that the process is a kangaroo court are extremely dangerous and damaging to Britain's democratic culture.
I'm not sure how you best counter that, but if someone doesn't find a good counter, then the prospects for British democracy are bleak. It's a frontal attack by Johnson and his supporters on any sense of there being a shared set of standards in politics that transcends partisan lines, on any sense of a shared political culture. The idea needs to be challenged and defeated before it can make progress.
Speech is free and protected.
If politicians oust politicians from Parliament they disagree with, for saying something they disagree with, then at that point it is a kangaroo court - and an antidemocratic one at that.
If you want to challenge the suggestion you're a kangaroo court then the solution is to show you're not, show your reasoning for your actions and bring the evidence into view. The solution is not to launch a vendetta against everyone who disagrees with you - that's what tyrants do.
You have missed the point of my post entirely.
The problem is that the last two decades has seen the political culture severely degraded in the US and Britain (I don't know enough to judge about other places). And this has been because of a concerted assault on previous democratic norms.
Whatever people have tried to do to defend those norms has failed, and is failing. Let me reiterate - I don't think that the proposed action by the committee will necessarily help - but a new strategy is required because the current strategy isn't working.
If you have any ideas about that then I'd love to hear them. Platitudes aren't enough.
I have placed political bets before the narrative settles and odds tighten. Uxbridge is a near certain win for Sunak in my opinion, because of the number of people of Indian heritage who can vote in Uxbridge.
Mid staffs I see as toss up, but I have placed the bet on Lib Dem’s, because their by election machine not let me down in the past, and Boris Tories actually want to give Rishi a bloody nose.
One hundred times:
Mid BEDS
🤦♀️ I can’t understand why I keep getting this wrong, I love beds, some of the most enjoyable times of my life have actually occurred on them.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
Constant brittle boasting "I led the global response to Ukraine" yada yada. No he isn't Trump but there sure are parallels. I just find him incredibly tacky as much as anything.
Can you find a quote of his that can be paraphrased as claiming to have led the world?
Isn't truth an absolute defence anyway?
The UK has helped lead the global response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, along with America and other allies. And been more consistent for years in supporting Ukraine than any other major nation, including America who unfortunately had Trump withholding support at one point.
I think Zelenskyy is probably more likely to have said it than Johnson. As much as that insults kinabalu's sensibilities.
That’s why Johnson should have stayed and put his case to the voters. Instead he ran away like the coward he is.
I have placed political bets before the narrative settles and odds tighten. Uxbridge is a near certain win for Sunak in my opinion, because of the number of people of Indian heritage who can vote in Uxbridge.
Mid staffs I see as toss up, but I have placed the bet on Lib Dem’s, because their by election machine not let me down in the past, and Boris Tories actually want to give Rishi a bloody nose.
How many people of Indian heritage can vote in Uxbridge?
Based on all the vox popping on TV news it’s like down town Delhi!
If you disagree with me and feel Labour have a chance of beating the Sunak fan club in Uxbridge, by all means place your own bet.
I actually don't know. London is a long way away and a bit alien from my village in Aberdeenshire.
The reason I come in with targeted questions when you and HYUFD speak up about this sort of thing is because I'm reasonably suspicious of the ethnicity-as-driver narrative and I want to make sure that people aren't seeing effects that aren't there, or exaggerating them if they are there. The absolute bare minimum is that we establish what the baseline population looks like before we can get into the weeks of analysing it. Then we need a coherent narrative to test, then we need to test it.
In the little bit of superficial digging I did earlier, I found the example of Watford which seemed to me a similar (ethnic) profile and showed an as-expected diminution of the Tory vote (11 percent down). It didn't lead me to believe that Uxbridge would buck the national trend on the basis of Hindu voters.
Now this evening you're on a similar thread, albeit Indian heritage voters. I'm not firmly saying you're wrong, but what little I know makes me doubt your idea.
The funny thing is, when I asked these questions earlier, Casino came steaming in and made an absolute tit of himself thinking that it was me pushing the ethnicity-as-driver argument when I was gently trying to undermine it.
This is a very thoughtful and well reasoned reply, and very worthy piece of psephological patience you are flagging up to us Farooq - stripping away lazy assumptions I, and others may well be be making, to ascertain the truth behind such lazy tropes based on nothing but cursory glance at TV vox pop, not the true statistical analysis. I’m very impressed.
You are completely wrong though. Of course Sunak is going to mop up British Indians, this was a given before he was even PM, there’s enough in the locals to price in it’s going on. It’s the Nick Palmer post, they will break 6/3 so not quite enough to prevent Labour win. How does Nick know it’s a 6/3 break, not 8/1, where’s his justification?
Johnson is similar to Trump in that he’s happy to trash political institutions, erode democracy and make the public even more cynical about politicians than they already are .
As long as they remain in power they care not for the damage they have caused .
They’re happy to see the bar set miserably low in the eyes of the public with “ they’re all the same “.
I tend to think most UK politicians enter politics for the right reasons .
The truth still matters , facts still matter . Finally Johnson will be held to account for his lying .
This week's Opinium poll for @ObserverUK . Labour lead takes a stumble to 12 points. Con: 29% (+1) Lab: 41% (-2) Lib Dem: 11% (+1) SNP: 3% (n/c) Plaid Cymru: 1% (n/c) Green: 7% (n/c) Reform UK: 6% (n/c) Other: 2% (-1)
Soon be both main parties in the 30's....
Wrecked that I am after a long day in the sun drinking cocktails, I need to keep my eyes open long enough to give PB one of my psephological updates on this Opinium.
I am not blaming TSE or HorseBat or any of you, but I think the company have screwed up the reporting of their own poll. Because of Tory’s mixed polling record in lead up to this Opinium sample being taken, I posted Tory’s would only get one back of the two lost last time and gap narrowing to 13. I underestimated the Dutch Salute. Lib Dem’s were 9 in the last Opinium, they went up 2 here not the +1 being posted.
Meanwhile. You have been completely sucked in and blown by Dutch Salute Theory Mark! LLG is 59 here despite unsampled swingback to Tory’s, and the lead narrowing is down to the Dutch Salute. Don’t say you didn’t see it coming after all my “explaining”.
FYI - about halfway between Antietam Battlefield and Gettysburg is Blue Ridge Summit, perched on said mountain crest smack on the Maryland-Pennsylvania line - birthplace of the future Duchess of Windsor.
She was born there, because it was a favorite summer-time resort and retreat from the heat, for the old-school landed/mercantile gentry-folk of Baltimore.
My dad's gone. Faded out with mum and my brother and me there with him telling stories of his part glories. He fought a good battle these last few weeks, and you can't ask for any more than that.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
Any action of BJ’s that had virtue attached to it cost him nothing, neither literally nor in terms of credibility or political capital. That those cost free actions still have simps going out to bat for him doesn’t change his corrupt, self serving nature a bit.
Constant brittle boasting "I led the global response to Ukraine" yada yada. No he isn't Trump but there sure are parallels. I just find him incredibly tacky as much as anything.
Can you find a quote of his that can be paraphrased as claiming to have led the world?
Isn't truth an absolute defence anyway?
The UK has helped lead the global response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, along with America and other allies. And been more consistent for years in supporting Ukraine than any other major nation, including America who unfortunately had Trump withholding support at one point.
I think Zelenskyy is probably more likely to have said it than Johnson. As much as that insults kinabalu's sensibilities.
That’s why Johnson should have stayed and put his case to the voters. Instead he ran away like the coward he is.
IF a coward can't just cut and run, who can?
As a grifter's gotta grift, so a bounder's gonna bound.
In the strange case of Boris Johnson, he's both and SO much more . . . or rather less.
This week's Opinium poll for @ObserverUK . Labour lead takes a stumble to 12 points. Con: 29% (+1) Lab: 41% (-2) Lib Dem: 11% (+1) SNP: 3% (n/c) Plaid Cymru: 1% (n/c) Green: 7% (n/c) Reform UK: 6% (n/c) Other: 2% (-1)
Soon be both main parties in the 30's....
Wrecked that I am after a long day in the sun drinking cocktails, I need to keep my eyes open long enough to give PB one of my psephological updates on this Opinium.
I am not blaming TSE or HorseBat or any of you, but I think the company have screwed up the reporting of their own poll. Because of Tory’s mixed polling record in lead up to this Opinium sample being taken, I posted Tory’s would only get one back of the two lost last time and gap narrowing to 13. I underestimated the Dutch Salute. Lib Dem’s were 9 in the last Opinium, they went up 2 here not the +1 being posted.
Meanwhile. You have been completely sucked in and blown by Dutch Salute Theory Mark! LLG is 59 here despite unsampled swingback to Tory’s, and the lead narrowing is down to the Dutch Salute. Don’t say you didn’t see it coming after all my “explaining”.
Not saying I'm understanding all of your psephology here.
However, how would you reckon events of last 24 hours will affect the Great British Public's public opinion?
RP, so sorry to hear your sad news, although it does sound as though your dad left this world surrounded by the people that he loved. Ultimately, love is all we have and all that matters. Sending you love and sympathy.
I think qualifying PB contributors should be tagged with “I supported Boris”.
Only BartyBobbins is open about it, so far as I can tell.
Oh I’m very happy to tell you I was then, and remain now, incredibly grateful for him forcing Brexit through. I take the long view on anything else he did or didn’t do, as anything can be tweaked by future Governments now. I also think he was useful when Ukraine happened in stopping us hesitating.
Precisely.
The worst thing about politics is how too many people take a "my side right or wrong" attitude and then act like their side is perfect and flawless, and the other side is wretched and has no merit.
No leader is perfect. No leader as Blair claimed to be is "whiter than white". All leaders have a mixed legacy in the end.
That applies to Boris as much if not more than most. He's done some very, very good things to which I'm grateful he was PM for - including resolving the Brexit dilemma that May was stuck on, and I don't think Hunt could have handled, getting Covid vaccines organised ahead of the curve, and perhaps most importantly the full-throated support for Ukraine.
And he's done some very, very bad things to which its right he's gone for. I'm sure every reader can think of something.
A mix of black and white, shades of grey, if you're still allowed to use those colour analogies and its not politically incorrect. Not totally bad, not totally good. Like all PMs in the end.
And considering the alternative was Jeremy Corbyn - I'll never regret having voted for him.
Utter drivel. He was appalling on every measure. Pure poison.
So his support for Ukraine was appalling?
Or are you perhaps exaggerating and doing exactly what I just said.
Milked it for his own glorification. Vomit inducing.
And here you are genuinely unhinged. No wonder you voted for Corbyn.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
Great for City and for Pep. Deserved it. But I reckon with that financial backing Allardyce would have delivered a bit quicker.
Apparently this is being celebrated by tye DJ with proper Greater Manchester miserablism. "This is how it feels" by the Inspiral Carpets, and Joy Division. Feels like the point slightly being missed. The titles sound very celebratory, but the songs really aren't.
Ah yes you're there of course. Well City are meant to be the gritty 'real' mancs team. Doesn't totally fit with the big money dynasty aspect but I don't suppose the fans are too bothered about that.
Ooh, no, I'm not in Istanbul. I half-watched the match with more-interested wife and daughter and am being updated with relevant issues like what the DJ is doing by my largely City-supporting school friends' Whatsapp group. But my team is Stockport, for all the good it does them, which is none at all since I last went in about 1998. I do have one friend who is actually there, but he is a Cambridge United fan - there on the grounds that he is rich as Croesus and can afford such things.
No, you're in Madchester, I meant! Ok yes, Stockport County. Now that is a gritty team full of integrity and grass roots rather than oil billions. Perhaps they'll win something one day.
Yes, though we have authentic fans of authentic Stockport on this board - I'm afraid these days I'm a largely inauthentic fan of an authentic team. But yes, I am in suburban Manchester. Hard to draw too many conclusions, but I'd say there was more excitement that I've seen, and that my Whatsapp groups have demonstrated, about winning the league and the FA Cup. I haven't seen any fireworks tonight. Which is exactly as it should be - I'm with Brian Clough on this; Europe is the icing on the cake, but the cake itself is the more satisfying and bigger challenge.
I have placed political bets before the narrative settles and odds tighten. Uxbridge is a near certain win for Sunak in my opinion, because of the number of people of Indian heritage who can vote in Uxbridge.
Mid staffs I see as toss up, but I have placed the bet on Lib Dem’s, because their by election machine not let me down in the past, and Boris Tories actually want to give Rishi a bloody nose.
How many people of Indian heritage can vote in Uxbridge?
Based on all the vox popping on TV news it’s like down town Delhi!
If you disagree with me and feel Labour have a chance of beating the Sunak fan club in Uxbridge, by all means place your own bet.
I actually don't know. London is a long way away and a bit alien from my village in Aberdeenshire.
The reason I come in with targeted questions when you and HYUFD speak up about this sort of thing is because I'm reasonably suspicious of the ethnicity-as-driver narrative and I want to make sure that people aren't seeing effects that aren't there, or exaggerating them if they are there. The absolute bare minimum is that we establish what the baseline population looks like before we can get into the weeks of analysing it. Then we need a coherent narrative to test, then we need to test it.
In the little bit of superficial digging I did earlier, I found the example of Watford which seemed to me a similar (ethnic) profile and showed an as-expected diminution of the Tory vote (11 percent down). It didn't lead me to believe that Uxbridge would buck the national trend on the basis of Hindu voters.
Now this evening you're on a similar thread, albeit Indian heritage voters. I'm not firmly saying you're wrong, but what little I know makes me doubt your idea.
The funny thing is, when I asked these questions earlier, Casino came steaming in and made an absolute tit of himself thinking that it was me pushing the ethnicity-as-driver argument when I was gently trying to undermine it.
This is a very thoughtful and well reasoned reply, and very worthy piece of psephological patience you are flagging up to us Farooq - stripping away lazy assumptions I, and others may well be be making, to ascertain the truth behind such lazy tropes based on nothing but cursory glance at TV vox pop, not the true statistical analysis. I’m very impressed.
You are completely wrong though. Of course Sunak is going to mop up British Indians, this was a given before he was even PM, there’s enough in the locals to price in it’s going on. It’s the Nick Palmer post, they will break 6/3 so not quite enough to prevent Labour win. How does Nick know it’s a 6/3 break, not 8/1, where’s his justification?
Worth noting that British Indians have been on average shifting towards the Conservatives for, I think, a couple of decades now (relative to the population as a whole)? So Conservatives doing well amongst British Indiands not solely downto having a British Indian leader.
This week's Opinium poll for @ObserverUK . Labour lead takes a stumble to 12 points. Con: 29% (+1) Lab: 41% (-2) Lib Dem: 11% (+1) SNP: 3% (n/c) Plaid Cymru: 1% (n/c) Green: 7% (n/c) Reform UK: 6% (n/c) Other: 2% (-1)
Soon be both main parties in the 30's....
Wrecked that I am after a long day in the sun drinking cocktails, I need to keep my eyes open long enough to give PB one of my psephological updates on this Opinium.
I am not blaming TSE or HorseBat or any of you, but I think the company have screwed up the reporting of their own poll. Because of Tory’s mixed polling record in lead up to this Opinium sample being taken, I posted Tory’s would only get one back of the two lost last time and gap narrowing to 13. I underestimated the Dutch Salute. Lib Dem’s were 9 in the last Opinium, they went up 2 here not the +1 being posted.
Meanwhile. You have been completely sucked in and blown by Dutch Salute Theory Mark! LLG is 59 here despite unsampled swingback to Tory’s, and the lead narrowing is down to the Dutch Salute. Don’t say you didn’t see it coming after all my “explaining”.
Not saying I'm understanding all of your psephology here.
However, how would you reckon events of last 24 hours will affect the Great British Public's public opinion?
Firstly, with ref to what I think is the Andrew Neil tweet, if you are all over the news as a divided party, voters will be put off voting for you, which historical evidence says is true. A lot of Tory spinners on here know this, so we get a lot of “no factional war” “Boris is gone for good” “That’s all settled, struggle with Boris won by Sunak, great news for Sunak.” It’s all bullshit, of course Boris isn’t gone - if he fought second phase Tory election with Sunak this week it would be far from a slam dunk for Rishi, Boris has huge support among members still, and this will only grow with the washing of his reputation the longer he is the King over the Water.
Secondly, when Tories only recover +1 but Lib Dem’s up +2 at expense of Labour and the Tory-Lab gap narrows, and this excites Tories, that is Dutch Salute right there. LLG slipping to Lib Dem’s where they need it, which the UK polls have not been showing enough of actually is my theory, increases chances of a bloodbath.
I have placed political bets before the narrative settles and odds tighten. Uxbridge is a near certain win for Sunak in my opinion, because of the number of people of Indian heritage who can vote in Uxbridge.
Mid staffs I see as toss up, but I have placed the bet on Lib Dem’s, because their by election machine not let me down in the past, and Boris Tories actually want to give Rishi a bloody nose.
How many people of Indian heritage can vote in Uxbridge?
Based on all the vox popping on TV news it’s like down town Delhi!
If you disagree with me and feel Labour have a chance of beating the Sunak fan club in Uxbridge, by all means place your own bet.
I actually don't know. London is a long way away and a bit alien from my village in Aberdeenshire.
The reason I come in with targeted questions when you and HYUFD speak up about this sort of thing is because I'm reasonably suspicious of the ethnicity-as-driver narrative and I want to make sure that people aren't seeing effects that aren't there, or exaggerating them if they are there. The absolute bare minimum is that we establish what the baseline population looks like before we can get into the weeks of analysing it. Then we need a coherent narrative to test, then we need to test it.
In the little bit of superficial digging I did earlier, I found the example of Watford which seemed to me a similar (ethnic) profile and showed an as-expected diminution of the Tory vote (11 percent down). It didn't lead me to believe that Uxbridge would buck the national trend on the basis of Hindu voters.
Now this evening you're on a similar thread, albeit Indian heritage voters. I'm not firmly saying you're wrong, but what little I know makes me doubt your idea.
The funny thing is, when I asked these questions earlier, Casino came steaming in and made an absolute tit of himself thinking that it was me pushing the ethnicity-as-driver argument when I was gently trying to undermine it.
This is a very thoughtful and well reasoned reply, and very worthy piece of psephological patience you are flagging up to us Farooq - stripping away lazy assumptions I, and others may well be be making, to ascertain the truth behind such lazy tropes based on nothing but cursory glance at TV vox pop, not the true statistical analysis. I’m very impressed.
You are completely wrong though. Of course Sunak is going to mop up British Indians, this was a given before he was even PM, there’s enough in the locals to price in it’s going on. It’s the Nick Palmer post, they will break 6/3 so not quite enough to prevent Labour win. How does Nick know it’s a 6/3 break, not 8/1, where’s his justification?
Worth noting that British Indians have been on average shifting towards the Conservatives for, I think, a couple of decades now (relative to the population as a whole)? So Conservatives doing well amongst British Indiands not solely downto having a British Indian leader.
It gives it a bit of boosterism though you agree, or are you with Farooq that there’s no surge at all?
To avoid giving the Mail clicks here is their image directly.
In summary, it seems like if the public are of the view Labour cannot be any worse, then this seems like end days for the Tories.
I think these political word clouds are a load of rubbish. Die hard lefties will contribute things like Blue Starmer what a phoney, Tories will contribute rubbish, untrustworthy, remainer scum. The only use I can see for word clouds is lay them in chronological order and look for trends and direction of travel.
The overall piece you have pasted points to change of government, best PM, ahead on economy, etc. which would be historical swing considering Labour have just over 200 seats and Tories won 80 seat majority.
The one right at bottom in middle made me laugh. If you wanted to write a churlish right up, you’re rubbish and hated only winning by default, there’s your evidence.
The one that really interest me is the 35 31 15 12. 27% of 2019 Tories want change of government. 12% have been put off voting Tory for life? That has to be the most ugly, scary voter retention statistics yet for the Tories. Even if HY added 35 and 31 together and spun still have up to 66%, it’s hideous.
To avoid giving the Mail clicks here is their image directly.
In summary, it seems like if the public are of the view Labour cannot be any worse, then this seems like end days for the Tories.
I think these political word clouds are a load of rubbish. Die hard lefties will contribute things like Blue Starmer what a phoney, Tories will contribute rubbish, untrustworthy, remainer scum. The only use I can see for word clouds is lay them in chronological order and look for trends and direction of travel.
The overall piece you have pasted points to change of government, best PM, ahead on economy, etc. which would be historical swing considering Labour have just over 200 seats and Tories won 80 seat majority.
The one right at bottom in middle made me laugh. If you wanted to write a churlish right up, you’re rubbish and hated only winning by default, there’s your evidence.
The one that really interest me is the 35 31 15 12. 27% of 2019 Tories want change of government. 12% have been put off voting Tory for life? That has to be the most ugly, scary voter retention statistics yet for the Tories. Even if HY added 35 and 31 together and spun still have up to 66%, it’s hideous.
To avoid giving the Mail clicks here is their image directly.
In summary, it seems like if the public are of the view Labour cannot be any worse, then this seems like end days for the Tories.
I think these political word clouds are a load of rubbish. Die hard lefties will contribute things like Blue Starmer what a phoney, Tories will contribute rubbish, untrustworthy, remainer scum. The only use I can see for word clouds is lay them in chronological order and look for trends and direction of travel.
The overall piece you have pasted points to change of government, best PM, ahead on economy, etc. which would be historical swing considering Labour have just over 200 seats and Tories won 80 seat majority.
The one right at bottom in middle made me laugh. If you wanted to write a churlish right up, you’re rubbish and hated only winning by default, there’s your evidence.
The one that really interest me is the 35 31 15 12. 27% of 2019 Tories want change of government. 12% have been put off voting Tory for life? That has to be the most ugly, scary voter retention statistics yet for the Tories. Even if HY added 35 and 31 together and spun still have up to 66%, it’s hideous.
You may not be as smashed as you think you are.
I assure you I am. And I have a busy day tomorrow haven’t finished my Sunday School lesson yet! I’m doing lesson learned from Matthew 20 workers in vineyard - God saves by grace, not by our worthiness. That applies to all of us.
Just glancing at it, some of that stuff about "leftists" doesn't half remind me of the way a couple of people on here talk. If HYUFD is a large language model, he for sure was trained in part on this.
Talking of manifesto’s, if you are in Scotland, why are you using a Forest Green Rovers avatar - they are the just stop oil hooligans over in West Country somewhere, who are underwriting Labours next general election and writing the Labour manifesto!
I have this as my avatar because months and months ago I saw someone bitterly and angrily denouncing them for reasons I couldn't begin to comprehend. It was quite funny and so I changed my avatar.
Oddly, I don't remember them mentioning anything about JSO. They seemed to be angry about vegetarianism. I can't resist that kind of bait so it was my gentle fuck you to all that nonsense.
I'm very pleased to note that there are even more reasons it might annoy. It should not be taken as endorsement of the Labour Party, though, but I don't think anybody normal would leap to that conclusion.
That was probably me banging on about vegetarianism, because vegetarianism is completely stupid.
Is a football club both brainwashing vegetarian is good as well as just stop oil?
Something is very wrong here! If we tolerate Forest Green Rovers our own children could be next. 😠
Well, I'm more tolerant of veggies than you, but I do eat meat. Nothing quite like rabbit stew.
My dad's gone. Faded out with mum and my brother and me there with him telling stories of his part glories. He fought a good battle these last few weeks, and you can't ask for any more than that.
Sorry to hear that @RochdalePioneers . Not a good thing. Best wishes to you and your family.
Comments
There something about a son losing his father. Also, a daughter losing her mother.
It changes the son. And the daughter.
Forgive my cod psychology.
But it is, imo, an important event for every man and woman. To an extent, it’s an event that defines us.
Sympathies, @RochdalePioneers
I am delighted to see the back of Johnson but a direct attack on free speech like this (if the reports are true) is absolutely unacceptable. The Johnson supporters may be stupid and wrong but they are alowed to be and we absolutely should not be starting down the road of sanctioning people for what they say in this way.
There is a potential here for the committee to lose a lot of the good will and support it has attracted if it pursues such a partisan agenda.
But there were huge security implications at the height of the Cold War about where genitals were being mutually deployed.
Which I don't think would be different nowadays.
None of which was any responsibility of the young females involved.
Military personnel I would hope would if they thought one of their colleagues was hurt go to support them and help them.
I think the reality is in these circumstances they continued precisely because they did not think their colleague was hurt, even if he'd fainted, and that help would come from elsewhere so they didn't need to help. If it was a more serious incident, I don't think they'd leave someone to die without offering support.
As a Pratchett fan I will send a GNU for him tonight. If you don't know what that means rest assured it is the greatest compliment.
For example Gettysburg deaths were around 7000 out of a population of approx 31m (Antietam just under 4,000) Compared to Towton with low estimates of 20,000 dead from a population of approx 2m, >19,000 on the first day of the Somme out of a UK pop of approx 40m the US Civil war was actually relatively low on the carnage front.
Supporting Ukraine was not vomit inducing, and was done consistently by not just Boris but Theresa May and David Cameron too long before it was popular - and while both Germany and America were flaking out under their leaders [ie Trump for America, Obama and Biden were both on same page as us]
You are not being rational at all. Everyone has a mixed legacy, nobody who has ever been PM has ever been purely awful.
Johnson, Biden, May, Obama and Cameron all deserve huge praise for how they supported Ukraine. Every single one of them. And it wasn't for glorification or vomit inducing, it was because it was the right thing to do.
It’s not a war zone it’s a a public display with first aid people on site so step round, keep going and let experts deal with the problem.
If someone's done genuine wrong, then fair enough, but for saying something you disagree with? Something they genuinely believe and you find offensive? That should be protected by Parliamentary Privilege - or at least something akin to it.
Politicians should not be able to purge their critics from Parliament, simply for criticising them. Remove the whip if they're not following party policy is one thing, purging from Parliament is another.
But the US civil war looms large for a good reason, here in America:
“The number of soldiers who died between 1861 and 1865, generally estimated at 620,000, is approximately equal to the total of American fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War, combined.”
Constituency can virtually see the '30' signs of both Harrogate and Knaresborough.
Surprised too as TNT isn't that big of a brand in the UK.
The thing I always associate TNT with is that when I was a kid it was originally sharing a channel on Sky with Cartoon Network. I recall when the switchover happened around bedtime they used to have a graphic of Bugs Bunny [or similar] planting explosives and blowing up the Cartoon Network logo which then became the TNT logo.
His stoicism as he tries to brush it off and carry on playing afterwards regardless is also moving:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-65865904
Indeed, I would say on every single measure he was better than Corbyn would have been - or - God forbid - a Corbyn/Sturgeon double act.
Surprised they're not calling it one of those.
He has brought all this on himself and he deserves all he gets
The band keeps playing and none of the people near him help.
A lot of people kindly explained that soldiers are trained to react (or not) so. Which I already knew, of course we all do. But the mild inhumanity of the situation moved me. I wanted to express that emotion, not to ask why how why.
The US national monuments and parks are the best bit of the country, consistently very well kept and curated.
Leaving support to the right people can be more sensible and more humane than maudlin displays every time something happens or getting in the way of the right people offering the right support.
I meet a majority of those criteria in any case.
I don't think I'd be able to do it, to be like that. You can call that a stronger sense of humanity or dismiss it as me being weak, either way around comes to the same answer: I wouldn't have parped my trombone after he went down.
It's a crying shame their politics has become so divisive they can barely seem to tolerate their opponents.
If someone collapsed in the cockpit on a plane would you find it inhumane if the pilot continues flying the plane and leaves checking to see if the person who fell over is OK to someone else?
The stuff said about the committee from his outriders essentially makes the whole idea of a standards process pointless, since if you've ever said anything about anyone you are told you cannot objectively judge anything, which will be everyone in politics. You may as well not bother to have any standards criteria at all.
I doubt that is unintended.
*the proper manoeuvre is to pull out of the descent and go somewhere better
It’s very good in terms of mapping the terrain of current and likely policy commitments.
The latest, which I have not yet listened to, is on Housing.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1667653857361395716?s=20
I'm not sure how you best counter that, but if someone doesn't find a good counter, then the prospects for British democracy are bleak. It's a frontal attack by Johnson and his supporters on any sense of there being a shared set of standards in politics that transcends partisan lines, on any sense of a shared political culture. The idea needs to be challenged and defeated before it can make progress.
Laughable why on earth would Sunak do such a ridiculous thing . The front pages of the right wing press seem detached from reality .
As for some big civil war in the Tories , is this the same big rebellion that allegedly was supposed to materialize at the Windsor Framework vote ?
How did that go !
I have no time for Sunak but if he really did dupe the fat lying oaf then good for him . Anything that helps flush Johnson , the toxic turd away to political obscurity is a good day for the country .
But my team is Stockport, for all the good it does them, which is none at all since I last went in about 1998.
I do have one friend who is actually there, but he is a Cambridge United fan - there on the grounds that he is rich as Croesus and can afford such things.
Metaphorically at least.
If politicians oust politicians from Parliament they disagree with, for saying something they disagree with, then at that point it is a kangaroo court - and an antidemocratic one at that.
If you want to challenge the suggestion you're a kangaroo court then the solution is to show you're not, show your reasoning for your actions and bring the evidence into view. The solution is not to launch a vendetta against everyone who disagrees with you - that's what tyrants do.
I can disagree with what you have to say, but if you've not broken any laws then you have the right to say it freely.
Any suggestion a politician should be ousted from Parliament not for what they've done, but because they've uttered a view you dislike, is completely unacceptable. Corbyn has done many things I despise, but he's duly elected and I need to respect that unless or until his voters stop electing him - that's democracy.
The UK has helped lead the global response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, along with America and other allies. And been more consistent for years in supporting Ukraine than any other major nation, including America who unfortunately had Trump withholding support at one point.
I think Zelenskyy is probably more likely to have said it than Johnson. As much as that insults kinabalu's sensibilities.
The problem is that the last two decades has seen the political culture severely degraded in the US and Britain (I don't know enough to judge about other places). And this has been because of a concerted assault on previous democratic norms.
Whatever people have tried to do to defend those norms has failed, and is failing. Let me reiterate - I don't think that the proposed action by the committee will necessarily help - but a new strategy is required because the current strategy isn't working.
If you have any ideas about that then I'd love to hear them. Platitudes aren't enough.
You are completely wrong though. Of course Sunak is going to mop up British Indians, this was a given before he was even PM, there’s enough in the locals to price in it’s going on. It’s the Nick Palmer post, they will break 6/3 so not quite enough to prevent Labour win. How does Nick know it’s a 6/3 break, not 8/1, where’s his justification?
As long as they remain in power they care not for the damage they have caused .
They’re happy to see the bar set miserably low in the eyes of the public with “ they’re all the same “.
I tend to think most UK politicians enter politics for the right reasons .
The truth still matters , facts still matter . Finally Johnson will be held to account for his lying .
A reason to celebrate !
I am not blaming TSE or HorseBat or any of you, but I think the company have screwed up the reporting of their own poll. Because of Tory’s mixed polling record in lead up to this Opinium sample being taken, I posted Tory’s would only get one back of the two lost last time and gap narrowing to 13. I underestimated the Dutch Salute. Lib Dem’s were 9 in the last Opinium, they went up 2 here not the +1 being posted.
Meanwhile. You have been completely sucked in and blown by Dutch Salute Theory Mark! LLG is 59 here despite unsampled swingback to Tory’s, and the lead narrowing is down to the Dutch Salute. Don’t say you didn’t see it coming after all my “explaining”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ridge_Summit,_Pennsylvania
She was born there, because it was a favorite summer-time resort and retreat from the heat, for the old-school landed/mercantile gentry-folk of Baltimore.
. .
As a grifter's gotta grift, so a bounder's gonna bound.
In the strange case of Boris Johnson, he's both and SO much more . . . or rather less.
To avoid giving the Mail clicks here is their image directly.
In summary, it seems like if the public are of the view Labour cannot be any worse, then this seems like end days for the Tories.
However, how would you reckon events of last 24 hours will affect the Great British Public's public opinion?
But yes, I am in suburban Manchester. Hard to draw too many conclusions, but I'd say there was more excitement that I've seen, and that my Whatsapp groups have demonstrated, about winning the league and the FA Cup. I haven't seen any fireworks tonight. Which is exactly as it should be - I'm with Brian Clough on this; Europe is the icing on the cake, but the cake itself is the more satisfying and bigger challenge.
Secondly, when Tories only recover +1 but Lib Dem’s up +2 at expense of Labour and the Tory-Lab gap narrows, and this excites Tories, that is Dutch Salute right there. LLG slipping to Lib Dem’s where they need it, which the UK polls have not been showing enough of actually is my theory, increases chances of a bloodbath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven_Rock_Mountain_Complex
Aka "underground Pentagon"; allegedly Dick Cheney's "undisclosed location" for much of the Cheney-Bush administration.
The overall piece you have pasted points to change of government, best PM, ahead on economy, etc. which would be historical swing considering Labour have just over 200 seats and Tories won 80 seat majority.
The one right at bottom in middle made me laugh. If you wanted to write a churlish right up, you’re rubbish and hated only winning by default, there’s your evidence.
The one that really interest me is the 35 31 15 12. 27% of 2019 Tories want change of government. 12% have been put off voting Tory for life? That has to be the most ugly, scary voter retention statistics yet for the Tories. Even if HY added 35 and 31 together and spun still have up to 66%, it’s hideous.
Paloma Faith will be avenged! 😠