It’s interesting, though unsurprising, that most of the Tory press has swung behind Johnson. Only the very pro-Sunak Times has bucked the trend. What this means, of course, is that the story will run and run. And if Johnson does start writing for the Mail, it’s going to get very difficult indeed for Sunak, the man who very publicly backed him as the Tories’ saviour just four years ago.
When Bozo was elected I remember posting on here that eventually that decision would destroy the Tory party.
Nothing that has happened since has changed that opinion.
I had the same instinct. It was a Faustian pact, where the Devil would exact his payment in the end. The right wing of the Tory Party, with help from the more gullible and stupid members thought that the short term advantage of the electoral appeal of a celebrity was worth the risk of putting someone in power who should not be in charge of a school sweet shop.
Will it "destroy" the Tory Party? That might be wishful thinking by some. Even Corbyn did not destroy Labour, but there is no doubt that the Conservative Party selling its erstwhile sensible soul to a load of populist egotists has done massive damage in the short and possibly medium term.
One can hope, but I'm not so sanguine about the future on the right.
Corbyn did terrible things to the Labour party and to the country, sure. But the remarkable thing is how quickly the Corbynites have been put back in their box. His era literally was a flesh wound; a superficial scrape that looked hideous for a while, but actually healed pretty rapidly. Are there any Corbynite believers even in the same building as the levers of Labour power any more?
The Johnson fever has infected the Conservative party much further in and more thoroughly. Sunak and Johnson may hate each other now, but Sunak was brought in to be Boris's man, in a way that Starmer was never Corbyn's man. And the Conservative Press are still up for Boris.
It took about twenty years and her vanishing from public life for the Conservatives to get over Thatcher- and both Trussonomics and Brexit were partially cargo cult attempts to revive the Iron Lady. It could take about as long for the Conservatives to recover from Johnson. They've made an appointment to go to Johnsonholics Anonymous, but that's only the first step.
It’s interesting, though unsurprising, that most of the Tory press has swung behind Johnson. Only the very pro-Sunak Times has bucked the trend. What this means, of course, is that the story will run and run. And if Johnson does start writing for the Mail, it’s going to get very difficult indeed for Sunak, the man who very publicly backed him as the Tories’ saviour just four years ago.
When Bozo was elected I remember posting on here that eventually that decision would destroy the Tory party.
Nothing that has happened since has changed that opinion.
I had the same instinct. It was a Faustian pact, where the Devil would exact his payment in the end. The right wing of the Tory Party, with help from the more gullible and stupid members thought that the short term advantage of the electoral appeal of a celebrity was worth the risk of putting someone in power who should not be in charge of a school sweet shop.
Will it "destroy" the Tory Party? That might be wishful thinking by some. Even Corbyn did not destroy Labour, but there is no doubt that the Conservative Party selling its erstwhile sensible soul to a load of populist egotists has done massive damage in the short and possibly medium term.
The advantages of not having Corbyn in No. 10 were worth it even if the Tories are never in power again.
I think any of the Conservative leadership contenders could have beaten Corbyn. The electorate were collectively terrified by him at that point in the electoral cycle. The only reason why he came close in the previous election was because many people who voted for him thought he didn't have a chance.
That might be an oversimplified way of looking at the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn. In 2017 there was genuine enthusiasm for the experienced street campaigner, and the terrorist outrages during the election put the tin lid on Conservatives' claims about law and order. By 2019, Boris and CCHQ had pinched all the good bits of Labour's platform, whereas Labour had unaccountably gone back to 2015, and Jeremy Corbyn himself had become old and grumpy, and his new glasses prevented eye contact with viewers. I'd not be surprised if there was some illness we'd not been told about.
As mentioned, the Mail can move things. They were substantially responsible for Humpty Dumpty's pratfalls on the wall under the previous editor, and can now try their best to rebuild him under the new one.
Their only problem, with this, is that there's quite a large group of voters who won't forget the anger and hurt for them of the partygate allegations, and his hypocrisy, and another group for whom in general the impression he made during this of a liar will have stuck. The result, if the Tory press try and persist with this quixotic revivalist scheme, fearing a move back to centrism and the current discrediting of the hard Brexit they supported, if they don't, could just be to crater and divide the Tory vote, possibly for a long time.
Johnson, the Mail and the ‘revolting’ door, as one tweeter put it. Next week, the Mail reveals their exciting new showbiz columnist with the initials G.G.
Many thanks for everyones’ kind words yesterday. To anyone who has the time, I’d recommend doing a research higher degree. It wasn’t just interesting in itself, it really helped clarify for me how to construct a lengthy argument. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. You can’t bullshit, you can’t wing it, and every assertion you make that is not common knowledge has to be supported with a reference.
Missed that yesterday - congratulations! What did you do?
Thanks, an MA in military history.
I enjoyed my MA in Film History - 10,000 words on a comparison of two films about the Titanic and how both said more about 1952 and 1997 than 1912.
@Sean_F 's success is shaming me into doing some work on my own MA dissertation in Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck. "Memory Restored: The Lives of the Saints in Reformation and Renaissance England". If anyone knows anything about changing English perceptions of St George, St Dunstan and St Thomas of Canterbury in the period c.1500-c.1650 drop me a line. I'm going to need all the help I can get...
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
It’s interesting, though unsurprising, that most of the Tory press has swung behind Johnson. Only the very pro-Sunak Times has bucked the trend. What this means, of course, is that the story will run and run. And if Johnson does start writing for the Mail, it’s going to get very difficult indeed for Sunak, the man who very publicly backed him as the Tories’ saviour just four years ago.
When Bozo was elected I remember posting on here that eventually that decision would destroy the Tory party.
Nothing that has happened since has changed that opinion.
I had the same instinct. It was a Faustian pact, where the Devil would exact his payment in the end. The right wing of the Tory Party, with help from the more gullible and stupid members thought that the short term advantage of the electoral appeal of a celebrity was worth the risk of putting someone in power who should not be in charge of a school sweet shop.
Will it "destroy" the Tory Party? That might be wishful thinking by some. Even Corbyn did not destroy Labour, but there is no doubt that the Conservative Party selling its erstwhile sensible soul to a load of populist egotists has done massive damage in the short and possibly medium term.
The advantages of not having Corbyn in No. 10 were worth it even if the Tories are never in power again.
I think any of the Conservative leadership contenders could have beaten Corbyn. The electorate were collectively terrified by him at that point in the electoral cycle. The only reason why he came close in the previous election was because many people who voted for him thought he didn't have a chance.
Well I don't. I think the best that Hunt would have done is to replicate the 2017 result. But we'll never know.
Yes, the redwall would have stayed Labour with Hunt Tory PM and the Brexit Party stood in more marginals held by the Tories
I have come to the conclusion that the reason why I don't take your posts very seriously is not just because you are a cheerleading apologist for the worst and most morally stained PM of all time, but it is the way you state things with such certainty. Basically, neither you nor me have access to a parallel universe to know whether your statement of certainty is anything more than a load of bollox.
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
Just want to hear HYUFD's fresh and original take.
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
The summer I did my GCSEs.
Alan Wells getting a golden duck on test debut was amusing.
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
It’s interesting, though unsurprising, that most of the Tory press has swung behind Johnson. Only the very pro-Sunak Times has bucked the trend. What this means, of course, is that the story will run and run. And if Johnson does start writing for the Mail, it’s going to get very difficult indeed for Sunak, the man who very publicly backed him as the Tories’ saviour just four years ago.
When Bozo was elected I remember posting on here that eventually that decision would destroy the Tory party.
Nothing that has happened since has changed that opinion.
I had the same instinct. It was a Faustian pact, where the Devil would exact his payment in the end. The right wing of the Tory Party, with help from the more gullible and stupid members thought that the short term advantage of the electoral appeal of a celebrity was worth the risk of putting someone in power who should not be in charge of a school sweet shop.
Will it "destroy" the Tory Party? That might be wishful thinking by some. Even Corbyn did not destroy Labour, but there is no doubt that the Conservative Party selling its erstwhile sensible soul to a load of populist egotists has done massive damage in the short and possibly medium term.
The advantages of not having Corbyn in No. 10 were worth it even if the Tories are never in power again.
I think any of the Conservative leadership contenders could have beaten Corbyn. The electorate were collectively terrified by him at that point in the electoral cycle. The only reason why he came close in the previous election was because many people who voted for him thought he didn't have a chance.
That might be an oversimplified way of looking at the rise and fall of Jeremy Corbyn. In 2017 there was genuine enthusiasm for the experienced street campaigner, and the terrorist outrages during the election put the tin lid on Conservatives' claims about law and order. By 2019, Boris and CCHQ had pinched all the good bits of Labour's platform, whereas Labour had unaccountably gone back to 2015, and Jeremy Corbyn himself had become old and grumpy, and his new glasses prevented eye contact with viewers. I'd not be surprised if there was some illness we'd not been told about.
I am not sure it is oversimplified except in my telling of it. My view was that pretty much everyone believed that a Tory landslide was nailed on. There are many people (myself included) who thought this not to be a very good thing. I didn't vote for Corbyn, but I voted LD for the first time in a GE in many many years, thinking the risk of a Corbyn government was next to impossible. It was that dynamic that possibly meant he was perceived as much more popular at that time than he was. The electorate, if one can imagine it as a collective intelligence decided not to take the same risk the next time, and hey presto we ended up with dumb rather than dumber as our PM.
Mm, "erudite" new DM columnist. I wonder who that might be?
I suspect the word they are looking for is "verbose"
Oh, just sprinkle a few classical idioms and allusions to such things as Romans vs Volsci, dimly remembered from Latin O-Level, and the job will be done.
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
It's aan excellent point, though, because the Tory Party has basically sacrificed its children, and far worse still ours, on the altar of advisory referendum = absolutely to be followed. And because it strikes at the heart of whether the Conservative Party is a democratic one in a meaningful way.
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
Just want to hear HYUFD's fresh and original take.
All referendums are advisory, even the 2016 EU referendum Leave vote was completely irrelevant until Parliament decided to vote for it.
Hence MPs voted down the Withdrawal Agreement until Boris won his majority in Dec 2019.
Personally I would never have another referendum on any topic ever again in the UK, we are a representative democracy where Crown in Parliament is sovereign, not a direct democracy. Referendums are divisive, costly and distract from other issues and unless the result is a landslide never settle the issue anyway with the losers demanding a revote from the next day!
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
Great story.
I’m still not sure that anything will ever beat the 2005 Ashes in my mind. The last time it was on proper TV, and the whole country stopped to watch it towards the end, in a way that only usually happens for the football World Cup.
The former head of the police watchdog has been charged with raping a girl under 16 and indecent assault.
Michael Lockwood, the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, faces six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against the girl, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Rosemary Ainslie, head of the Special Crime Division at the CPS, said: "After carefully considering all of the evidence provided to us by Humberside Police, we have authorised charges against Michael Lockwood, 64, for nine offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956.
"Mr Lockwood has been charged with six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against a girl under the age of 16, alleged to have been committed during the 1980s.
No but you can't blame the police themselves, he was a civil servant essentially
What's 'blame' got to do with it ?
This is about public confidence in policing. If their regulator is as riddled with rot as the police themselves, there can be no such confidence.
We are assured that things are changing, but so far there's previous little evidence of that.
Even "essentially" civil servants are appointed. I see HYUFD is not discussing which political party was in power when the HO appointed the chap to be polis overseer. Can't think why. The Tories are normally very keen to complain about such things, vide J. Saville and the then DPP.
Edit: and as Tubbs says, innocent till proven guilty, if he is. But simply claiming he was a civil servant won't cut it.
The former head of the police watchdog has been charged with raping a girl under 16 and indecent assault.
Michael Lockwood, the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, faces six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against the girl, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Rosemary Ainslie, head of the Special Crime Division at the CPS, said: "After carefully considering all of the evidence provided to us by Humberside Police, we have authorised charges against Michael Lockwood, 64, for nine offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956.
"Mr Lockwood has been charged with six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against a girl under the age of 16, alleged to have been committed during the 1980s.
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
The summer I did my GCSEs.
Alan Wells getting a golden duck on test debut was amusing.
Ah... Dominic Cork's hat-trick. I must have worn the VHS tape out re-watching it...
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
Just want to hear HYUFD's fresh and original take.
All referendums are advisory, even the 2016 EU referendum Leave vote was completely irrelevant until Parliament decided to vote for it.
Hence MPs voted down the Withdrawal Agreement until Boris won his majority in Dec 2019.
Personally I would never have another referendum on any topic ever again in the UK, we are a representative democracy where Crown in Parliament is sovereign, not a direct democracy. Referendums are divisive, costly and distract from other issues and unless the result is a landslide never settle the issue anyway with the losers demanding a revote from the next day!
You'd better sack all the other Conservatives in the Party then. Or found your own party. Those chaps with that funny name nicknamed after Irish thieves, now - you know the ones who slavishly defend the Stuarts and their Divine Right - that might suit you ...
As mentioned, the Mail can move things. They were substantially responsible for Humpty Dumpty's pratfalls on the wall under the previous editor, and can now try their best to rebuild him under the new one.
Their only problem, with this, is that there's quite a large group of voters who won't forget the anger and hurt for them of the partygate allegations, and his hypocrisy, and another group for whom in general the impression he made during this of a liar will have stuck. The result, if the Tory press try and persist with this quixotic revivalist scheme, fearing a move back to centrism and the current discrediting of the hard Brexit they supported, if they don't, could just be to crater and divide the Tory vote, possibly for a long time.
Why can't ex-politicians and PMs just...go away? They used to.
Reasonable article on the media nervousness on covering the new and more extraordinary UFO allegations here, and why they haven't appeared in major outlets. It notably draws attention to the fact that the current story was originally written by the same NYT journalists who originated the credible 2017 stories, but omits to mention that Grusch, contrary to being a lone nutter, is already in the middle of a long bureaucratic process with the U.S. inspectorate of intelligence and Congress, something which, rather notably, hasn't been denied.
The former head of the police watchdog has been charged with raping a girl under 16 and indecent assault.
Michael Lockwood, the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, faces six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against the girl, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Rosemary Ainslie, head of the Special Crime Division at the CPS, said: "After carefully considering all of the evidence provided to us by Humberside Police, we have authorised charges against Michael Lockwood, 64, for nine offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956.
"Mr Lockwood has been charged with six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against a girl under the age of 16, alleged to have been committed during the 1980s.
No but you can't blame the police themselves, he was a civil servant essentially
What's 'blame' got to do with it ?
This is about public confidence in policing. If their regulator is as riddled with rot as the police themselves, there can be no such confidence.
We are assured that things are changing, but so far there's previous little evidence of that.
Even "essentially" civil servants are appointed. I see HYUFD is not discussing which political party was in power when the HO appointed the chap to be polis overseer. Can't think why. The Tories are normally very keen to complain about such things, vide J. Saville and the then DPP.
In Lockwood's last 3 years as chief executive of Harrow council it was under Labour control yet to be fair to them Lockwood had no criminal convictions at the time and may still not been convicted at the end of this case
The former head of the police watchdog has been charged with raping a girl under 16 and indecent assault.
Michael Lockwood, the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, faces six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against the girl, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Rosemary Ainslie, head of the Special Crime Division at the CPS, said: "After carefully considering all of the evidence provided to us by Humberside Police, we have authorised charges against Michael Lockwood, 64, for nine offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956.
"Mr Lockwood has been charged with six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against a girl under the age of 16, alleged to have been committed during the 1980s.
The former head of the police watchdog has been charged with raping a girl under 16 and indecent assault.
Michael Lockwood, the former director general of the Independent Office for Police Conduct, faces six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against the girl, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Rosemary Ainslie, head of the Special Crime Division at the CPS, said: "After carefully considering all of the evidence provided to us by Humberside Police, we have authorised charges against Michael Lockwood, 64, for nine offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956.
"Mr Lockwood has been charged with six counts of indecent assault and three offences of rape against a girl under the age of 16, alleged to have been committed during the 1980s.
No but you can't blame the police themselves, he was a civil servant essentially
What's 'blame' got to do with it ?
This is about public confidence in policing. If their regulator is as riddled with rot as the police themselves, there can be no such confidence.
We are assured that things are changing, but so far there's previous little evidence of that.
Even "essentially" civil servants are appointed. I see HYUFD is not discussing which political party was in power when the HO appointed the chap to be polis overseer. Can't think why. The Tories are normally very keen to complain about such things, vide J. Saville and the then DPP.
In Lockwood's last 3 years as chief executive of Harrow council it was under Labour control
Carefully (1) irrelevant and (2) omitting who was in charge in the previous three years.
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
The summer I did my GCSEs.
Alan Wells getting a golden duck on test debut was amusing.
Ah... Dominic Cork's hat-trick. I must have worn the VHS tape out re-watching it...
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
The summer I did my GCSEs.
Alan Wells getting a golden duck on test debut was amusing.
Ah... Dominic Cork's hat-trick. I must have worn the VHS tape out re-watching it...
Cork also treading on his stumps then carrying on batting as if nothing happened. Eat your heart out Stuart Broad.
I expect there will be some spectrum disposal and guarantees for MVNOs.
IDS is trying to stop the merger.
EE should be banned from buying any more, VMO2 should be able to have the remainder.
As far as I understand it Cornerstone will continue with the intention of VMO2's potential mast footprint essentially growing for free. MBNL will likely be terminated however.
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
Great story.
I’m still not sure that anything will ever beat the 2005 Ashes in my mind. The last time it was on proper TV, and the whole country stopped to watch it towards the end, in a way that only usually happens for the football World Cup.
It was a wonderful summer. The working day basically lasted from about 8 until 11, after which time productivity gave way to following the score and constant email exchanges. A quick pop home at 12 for lunch to see the period up until lunch - then back to work for another quick 20 minutes' of work before the afternoon session started. Another final flurry of work happened during the tea break, then home for the final session. Everyone was interested, everyone was following it. Cities were showing coverage of it on big screens in city centres and parks. Do you remember those wonderful Channel 4 trailers with a young Greg Davies playing the part of WG Grace?
So. I'll ask this question now rather than four tests in: is there any free, or failing that cheap, way of seeing the Ashes on telly or online?
DNS/VPN fuckery then stream Channel 9 from Australia. I don't give a fuck about cricket but that's how I watched the Bathurst 6 Hour.
Wasn't the Ashes but the best summer I ever spent was in an apartment in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine during the summer of 1995. Recovering from a messy breakup I went to visit a friend in Paris who put me in touch with an academic who was teaching in the States for the Summer. The people who were supposed to have sublet his place had left without warning and I was allowed to live there in exchange for watering the plants and feeding the cat. The cat and the plants survived and I spent several weeks, by day, sitting on a balcony overlooking the City of Lights with several bottles of wine listening to Ray Illingworth's first series in charge against the West Indies on R4 Long Wave and by night...can barely recall. I thought we'd got thumped by the W Indies but a quick Google says it was 2-2. Either way the best summer of my life.
Far be it from me to play the Pangloss, but best summer of your life so far surely?
As mentioned, the Mail can move things. They were substantially responsible for Humpty Dumpty's pratfalls on the wall under the previous editor, and can now try their best to rebuild him under the new one.
Their only problem, with this, is that there's quite a large group of voters who won't forget the anger and hurt for them of the partygate allegations, and his hypocrisy, and another group for whom in general the impression he made during this of a liar will have stuck. The result, if the Tory press try and persist with this quixotic revivalist scheme, fearing a move back to centrism and the current discrediting of the hard Brexit they supported, if they don't, could just be to crater and divide the Tory vote, possibly for a long time.
Why can't ex-politicians and PMs just...go away? They used to.
Always recall Heath coming into the pub I used to work in with his minders/police protection. Rather a sad sight - an old man being driven round and drinking effectively alone.
Johnson, the Mail and the ‘revolting’ door, as one tweeter put it. Next week, the Mail reveals their exciting new showbiz columnist with the initials G.G.
Graeme Garden?
I wouldn't have thought that the Mail was his kind of paper at all.
Besides, we need him to do as many episodes of Clue as he can.
As mentioned, the Mail can move things. They were substantially responsible for Humpty Dumpty's pratfalls on the wall under the previous editor, and can now try their best to rebuild him under the new one.
Their only problem, with this, is that there's quite a large group of voters who won't forget the anger and hurt for them of the partygate allegations, and his hypocrisy, and another group for whom in general the impression he made during this of a liar will have stuck. The result, if the Tory press try and persist with this quixotic revivalist scheme, fearing a move back to centrism and the current discrediting of the hard Brexit they supported, if they don't, could just be to crater and divide the Tory vote, possibly for a long time.
Why can't ex-politicians and PMs just...go away? They used to.
It is a good question. There are still plenty of politicians with dignity both here and in the US, but it does seem to be a diminishing trait amongst those who gain the attention of the wider public.
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
Just want to hear HYUFD's fresh and original take.
All referendums are advisory, even the 2016 EU referendum Leave vote was completely irrelevant until Parliament decided to vote for it.
Hence MPs voted down the Withdrawal Agreement until Boris won his majority in Dec 2019.
Personally I would never have another referendum on any topic ever again in the UK, we are a representative democracy where Crown in Parliament is sovereign, not a direct democracy. Referendums are divisive, costly and distract from other issues and unless the result is a landslide never settle the issue anyway with the losers demanding a revote from the next day!
You'd better sack all the other Conservatives in the Party then. Or found your own party. Those chaps with that funny name nicknamed after Irish thieves, now - you know the ones who slavishly defend the Stuarts and their Divine Right - that might suit you ...
Why so snitty? Those were good points your man made about referendums and he said "Personally I would never have another referendum..." a sentiment we could just about all just about agree with after the past few years.
As for "you'd better found your own party" - as we know politics is about finding the party that you agree with most on, not a one-for-one likeness of your own political views.
I was thinking about how mad the right wing has become. Imagine if Corbyn had got in somehow in 2019, locked down under Covid, his number ten had not followed the rules, and he lied about it. The Daily Mail would have eviscerated him.
Johnson, the Mail and the ‘revolting’ door, as one tweeter put it. Next week, the Mail reveals their exciting new showbiz columnist with the initials G.G.
Graeme Garden?
I wouldn't have thought that the Mail was his kind of paper at all.
Besides, we need him to do as many episodes of Clue as he can.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
And nationalisation of course has a great record of putting things right lol. Why do Labour supporters believe that The Man in Whitehall always knows best even though the evidence is nearly always to the contrary. I was alive in 1976. All the water companies were nationalised back then bar a couple. Might be worth you looking up what happened.
Johnson, the Mail and the ‘revolting’ door, as one tweeter put it. Next week, the Mail reveals their exciting new showbiz columnist with the initials G.G.
Graeme Garden?
I wouldn't have thought that the Mail was his kind of paper at all.
Besides, we need him to do as many episodes of Clue as he can.
Yep, a much under appreciated national treasure is that GG, I’ll miss his duets with Barry Cryer.
I was thinking about how mad the right wing has become. Imagine if Corbyn had got in somehow in 2019, locked down under Covid, his number ten had not followed the rules, and he lied about it. The Daily Mail would have eviscerated him.
But the Mirror and Guardian would have defended him perhaps?
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
I recall hosepipe bans being quite common before privatisation too. It's certainly not obvious to me that the state would be any more efficient in managing water supply.
As mentioned, the Mail can move things. They were substantially responsible for Humpty Dumpty's pratfalls on the wall under the previous editor, and can now try their best to rebuild him under the new one.
Their only problem, with this, is that there's quite a large group of voters who won't forget the anger and hurt for them of the partygate allegations, and his hypocrisy, and another group for whom in general the impression he made during this of a liar will have stuck. The result, if the Tory press try and persist with this quixotic revivalist scheme, fearing a move back to centrism and the current discrediting of the hard Brexit they supported, if they don't, could just be to crater and divide the Tory vote, possibly for a long time.
Why can't ex-politicians and PMs just...go away? They used to.
It is a good question. There are still plenty of politicians with dignity both here and in the US, but it does seem to be a diminishing trait amongst those who gain the attention of the wider public.
Bush II improved considerably from his reputation in office, in retirement. Starting with the handover to Obama.
Labour would win 22 seats on the new boundaries according to Electoral Calculus.
Still, Indy going quite nicely. Yes seems to be the settled will of around half of Scots voters.
And No is therefore the settled wlll of over half of Scottish voters, excluding don't knows.
SNP voteshare now down 7% from 2019 and a huge 11.5% swing from SNP to Scottish Labour since the last UK general election in Scotland
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence support continues, you will no longer be able to use one as a proxy for the other.
If the increasing disassociation between SNP support and independence continues, there will be a Unionist majority at Holyrood in 2026 which will vote down any indyref2. So all independence polls would be irrelevant anyway
You can instigate Indyref2 by a majority vote at Holyrood? Who knew?!!
No, you can refuse it at Westminster forever.
Just a Labour UK government would be more likely to consider a majority Holyrood vote for an indyref2 than a Tory UK government which would continue to refuse indyref2 indefinitely indyref2 majority at Holyrood or not
What's your view on the constitutional status of a Holyrood organised IndyRef, HYUFD? I'm curious.
No different then Brexit because surely it's only advisory????
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
Just want to hear HYUFD's fresh and original take.
All referendums are advisory, even the 2016 EU referendum Leave vote was completely irrelevant until Parliament decided to vote for it.
Hence MPs voted down the Withdrawal Agreement until Boris won his majority in Dec 2019.
Personally I would never have another referendum on any topic ever again in the UK, we are a representative democracy where Crown in Parliament is sovereign, not a direct democracy. Referendums are divisive, costly and distract from other issues and unless the result is a landslide never settle the issue anyway with the losers demanding a revote from the next day!
You'd better sack all the other Conservatives in the Party then. Or found your own party. Those chaps with that funny name nicknamed after Irish thieves, now - you know the ones who slavishly defend the Stuarts and their Divine Right - that might suit you ...
Why so snitty? Those were good points your man made about referendums and he said "Personally I would never have another referendum..." a sentiment we could just about all just about agree with after the past few years.
As for "you'd better found your own party" - as we know politics is about finding the party that you agree with most on, not a one-for-one likeness of your own political views.
Why so snitty? Even the relatively sane nationalists like @Carnyx are still feeling a bit techy about the SNP implosion.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
It comes down to investing in infrastructure. Which everyone is in favour of, providing
1) Nothing gets built 2) It doesn't increase bills 3) It involves absolutely no change in personal behaviour
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Many thanks for everyones’ kind words yesterday. To anyone who has the time, I’d recommend doing a research higher degree. It wasn’t just interesting in itself, it really helped clarify for me how to construct a lengthy argument. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. You can’t bullshit, you can’t wing it, and every assertion you make that is not common knowledge has to be supported with a reference.
Missed that yesterday - congratulations! What did you do?
Thanks, an MA in military history.
I enjoyed my MA in Film History - 10,000 words on a comparison of two films about the Titanic and how both said more about 1952 and 1997 than 1912.
@Sean_F 's success is shaming me into doing some work on my own MA dissertation in Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck. "Memory Restored: The Lives of the Saints in Reformation and Renaissance England". If anyone knows anything about changing English perceptions of St George, St Dunstan and St Thomas of Canterbury in the period c.1500-c.1650 drop me a line. I'm going to need all the help I can get...
That's a difficult one.
The first question is, what's the gap in the existing historiography that you are seeking to fill?
As mentioned, the Mail can move things. They were substantially responsible for Humpty Dumpty's pratfalls on the wall under the previous editor, and can now try their best to rebuild him under the new one.
Their only problem, with this, is that there's quite a large group of voters who won't forget the anger and hurt for them of the partygate allegations, and his hypocrisy, and another group for whom in general the impression he made during this of a liar will have stuck. The result, if the Tory press try and persist with this quixotic revivalist scheme, fearing a move back to centrism and the current discrediting of the hard Brexit they supported, if they don't, could just be to crater and divide the Tory vote, possibly for a long time.
Why can't ex-politicians and PMs just...go away? They used to.
It is a good question. There are still plenty of politicians with dignity both here and in the US, but it does seem to be a diminishing trait amongst those who gain the attention of the wider public.
Bush II improved considerably from his reputation in office, in retirement. Starting with the handover to Obama.
Surely there should be some kind of law that prevents Johnson from wanking into the Mail every day
If that is happening Royal Mail really ought to put a stop to it. Besides being unpleasant if you receive one of the soiled letters it cannot really be very healthy for the posties.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
How anyone can conclude privatisation has produced good outcomes clearly doesn't actually use any of the services.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also, it's just as much about policy (EU policy, though apparently that's still got to be slavishly adhered to) as profiteering. New 'water infrastructure' such as new reservoirs (which would supply said hoses in a hot summer) was effectively banned by the Water Framework Directive, and water saving (such as hosepipe bans) was assigned as the preferred approach.
Can we expect Correct Horse to be demanding that we exercise our Brexit freedoms and put a new policy in place? That would be nice.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
It comes down to investing in infrastructure. Which everyone is in favour of, providing
1) Nothing gets built 2) It doesn't increase bills 3) It involves absolutely no change in personal behaviour
Government, whatever Rishi or Tony or Dave is saying to the masses pretty much always welcomes immigration. The extra people create an additional marginal need for sewerage, water, GPs, roads (Housing is a bit different) but the tax revenue just goes to keeping the existing show on the road without the additional infrastructure being there and the increased marginal capacity is always an afterthought.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
How anyone can conclude privatisation has produced good outcomes clearly doesn't actually use any of the services.
I do. And I also remember what they were like before privatisation. I guess you do not.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
How anyone can conclude privatisation has produced good outcomes clearly doesn't actually use any of the services.
I do. And I also remember what they were like before privatisation. I guess you do not.
I see you're accusing CHB being guilty of the greatest of crimes - being under 40.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
How anyone can conclude privatisation has produced good outcomes clearly doesn't actually use any of the services.
I do. And I also remember what they were like before privatisation. I guess you do not.
Anyone who thinks nationalisation is the answer clearly doesn't use state schools or the NHS.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
Privatised organisations are designed to deliver better returns for their shareholders and bigger bonuses for their board members, customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why Tories like them so much.
Many thanks for everyones’ kind words yesterday. To anyone who has the time, I’d recommend doing a research higher degree. It wasn’t just interesting in itself, it really helped clarify for me how to construct a lengthy argument. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. You can’t bullshit, you can’t wing it, and every assertion you make that is not common knowledge has to be supported with a reference.
Missed that yesterday - congratulations! What did you do?
Thanks, an MA in military history.
I enjoyed my MA in Film History - 10,000 words on a comparison of two films about the Titanic and how both said more about 1952 and 1997 than 1912.
@Sean_F 's success is shaming me into doing some work on my own MA dissertation in Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck. "Memory Restored: The Lives of the Saints in Reformation and Renaissance England". If anyone knows anything about changing English perceptions of St George, St Dunstan and St Thomas of Canterbury in the period c.1500-c.1650 drop me a line. I'm going to need all the help I can get...
That's a difficult one.
The first question is, what's the gap in the existing historiography that you are seeking to fill?
My thesis statement is that there was a shift in material, performative and visual representations of the saints to a memorial based on manuscript and printed culture. So you, for example, get a decline of St George's Day celebrations as a result of the Reformation then The Faerie Queene is published in 1596.
Interesting point I picked up yesterday is that one part of the popularity of St George as an "English" saint prior to the Reformation is that, not being English, his veneration was not localised. While St Cuthbert was popular in the North, and St Thomas a Becket in the South, based on the location of their relics, St George was had a more universal popularity throughout England as no English locale could "claim" him.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
How anyone can conclude privatisation has produced good outcomes clearly doesn't actually use any of the services.
I do. And I also remember what they were like before privatisation. I guess you do not.
I see you're accusing CHB being guilty of the greatest of crimes - being under 40.
it is definitely not a crime to be unaware of things that you cannot have experienced. It is one of the few sinful pleasures of late middle age to be able to correct someone on the basis of experience and wisdom though.
Anyone who has not experienced nationalised industries in this country pontificating on their benefits is the possible equivalent of a boomer decrying the pernicious effects of online shopping or gaming.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
Privatised organisations are designed to deliver better returns for their shareholders and bigger bonuses for their board members, customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why Tories like them so much.
Whilst the SNP is designed to deliver larger perks and even mobile homes for its MSPs. This is why SNP MSPs like the SNP so much.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
The average person in the UK uses about 50 tons of water a year. Imagine a cube 3.68 meters on a side.
Many thanks for everyones’ kind words yesterday. To anyone who has the time, I’d recommend doing a research higher degree. It wasn’t just interesting in itself, it really helped clarify for me how to construct a lengthy argument. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. You can’t bullshit, you can’t wing it, and every assertion you make that is not common knowledge has to be supported with a reference.
Missed that yesterday - congratulations! What did you do?
Thanks, an MA in military history.
I enjoyed my MA in Film History - 10,000 words on a comparison of two films about the Titanic and how both said more about 1952 and 1997 than 1912.
@Sean_F 's success is shaming me into doing some work on my own MA dissertation in Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck. "Memory Restored: The Lives of the Saints in Reformation and Renaissance England". If anyone knows anything about changing English perceptions of St George, St Dunstan and St Thomas of Canterbury in the period c.1500-c.1650 drop me a line. I'm going to need all the help I can get...
That's a difficult one.
The first question is, what's the gap in the existing historiography that you are seeking to fill?
My thesis statement is that there was a shift in material, performative and visual representations of the saints to a memorial based on manuscript and printed culture. So you, for example, get a decline of St George's Day celebrations as a result of the Reformation then The Faerie Queene is published in 1596.
Interesting point I picked up yesterday is that one part of the popularity of St George as an "English" saint prior to the Reformation is that, not being English, his veneration was not localised. While St Cuthbert was popular in the North, and St Thomas a Becket in the South, based on the location of their relics, St George was had a more universal popularity throughout England as no English locale could "claim" him.
What of St Edmund? The legends seem to persisted. In East Anglia at least.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
The average person in the UK uses about 50 tons of water a year. Imagine a cube 3.68 meters on a side.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
The average person in the UK uses about 50 tons of water a year. Imagine a cube 3.68 meters on a side.
Many thanks for everyones’ kind words yesterday. To anyone who has the time, I’d recommend doing a research higher degree. It wasn’t just interesting in itself, it really helped clarify for me how to construct a lengthy argument. You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. You can’t bullshit, you can’t wing it, and every assertion you make that is not common knowledge has to be supported with a reference.
Missed that yesterday - congratulations! What did you do?
Thanks, an MA in military history.
I enjoyed my MA in Film History - 10,000 words on a comparison of two films about the Titanic and how both said more about 1952 and 1997 than 1912.
@Sean_F 's success is shaming me into doing some work on my own MA dissertation in Renaissance Studies at Birkbeck. "Memory Restored: The Lives of the Saints in Reformation and Renaissance England". If anyone knows anything about changing English perceptions of St George, St Dunstan and St Thomas of Canterbury in the period c.1500-c.1650 drop me a line. I'm going to need all the help I can get...
That's a difficult one.
The first question is, what's the gap in the existing historiography that you are seeking to fill?
My thesis statement is that there was a shift in material, performative and visual representations of the saints to a memorial based on manuscript and printed culture. So you, for example, get a decline of St George's Day celebrations as a result of the Reformation then The Faerie Queene is published in 1596.
Interesting point I picked up yesterday is that one part of the popularity of St George as an "English" saint prior to the Reformation is that, not being English, his veneration was not localised. While St Cuthbert was popular in the North, and St Thomas a Becket in the South, based on the location of their relics, St George was had a more universal popularity throughout England as no English locale could "claim" him.
What of St Edmund? The legends seem to persisted. In East Anglia at least.
Same or similar. His veneration was based on his shrine at St Edmundsbury that was destroyed in 1539. An active veneration became a vague legend passed down either in print or by word of mouth. And if you weren't that interesting on London not much was written about you in terms of the former.
A hose pipe ban. We are an island surrounded by water.
Nationalise these scum agents
Is there any problem facing the nation that you don't think nationalise is the answer?
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
Also worth noting that nationalised companies will find it politically even more difficult to address the #1 issue leading to hosepipe bans, which is the need for more reservoirs.
Nationalised organisations are designed to deliver better conditions for their employees and customers can go and stuff themselves. This is why unions like them so much.
How anyone can conclude privatisation has produced good outcomes clearly doesn't actually use any of the services.
I do. And I also remember what they were like before privatisation. I guess you do not.
I see you're accusing CHB being guilty of the greatest of crimes - being under 40.
it is definitely not a crime to be unaware of things that you cannot have experienced. It is one of the few sinful pleasures of late middle age to be able to correct someone on the basis of experience and wisdom though.
Anyone who has not experienced nationalised industries in this country pontificating on their benefits is the possible equivalent of a boomer decrying the pernicious effects of online shopping or gaming.
One of the difficulties in comparing ‘then’ and ‘now’ is that denationalisation was about the same time as technological improvements.
Comments
He might pile up the votes in his home state, but to most of the rest of the country he’s the symbol of its failure.
https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1669609669042601986?s=20
Corbyn did terrible things to the Labour party and to the country, sure. But the remarkable thing is how quickly the Corbynites have been put back in their box. His era literally was a flesh wound; a superficial scrape that looked hideous for a while, but actually healed pretty rapidly. Are there any Corbynite believers even in the same building as the levers of Labour power any more?
The Johnson fever has infected the Conservative party much further in and more thoroughly. Sunak and Johnson may hate each other now, but Sunak was brought in to be Boris's man, in a way that Starmer was never Corbyn's man. And the Conservative Press are still up for Boris.
It took about twenty years and her vanishing from public life for the Conservatives to get over Thatcher- and both Trussonomics and Brexit were partially cargo cult attempts to revive the Iron Lady. It could take about as long for the Conservatives to recover from Johnson. They've made an appointment to go to Johnsonholics Anonymous, but that's only the first step.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jun/16/isle-of-wight-fossilised-remains-identified-as-new-dinosaur-species
Their only problem, with this, is that there's quite a large group of voters who won't forget the anger and hurt for them of the partygate allegations, and his hypocrisy, and another group for whom in general the impression he made during this of a liar will have stuck. The result, if the Tory press try and persist with this quixotic revivalist scheme, fearing a move back to centrism and the current discrediting of the hard Brexit they supported, if they don't, could just be to crater and divide the Tory vote, possibly for a long time.
Next week, the Mail reveals their exciting new showbiz columnist with the initials G.G.
Or 65 all out.
Leaves the room having thrown a live grenade into it...
Alan Wells getting a golden duck on test debut was amusing.
Or are the regulators going to nix it ?
Hence MPs voted down the Withdrawal Agreement until Boris won his majority in Dec 2019.
Personally I would never have another referendum on any topic ever again in the UK, we are a representative democracy where Crown in Parliament is sovereign, not a direct democracy. Referendums are divisive, costly and distract from other issues and unless the result is a landslide never settle the issue anyway with the losers demanding a revote from the next day!
I’m still not sure that anything will ever beat the 2005 Ashes in my mind. The last time it was on proper TV, and the whole country stopped to watch it towards the end, in a way that only usually happens for the football World Cup.
Edit: and as Tubbs says, innocent till proven guilty, if he is. But simply claiming he was a civil servant won't cut it.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/06/ufo-report-media
IDS is trying to stop the merger.
Nationalise these scum agents
As far as I understand it Cornerstone will continue with the intention of VMO2's potential mast footprint essentially growing for free. MBNL will likely be terminated however.
The working day basically lasted from about 8 until 11, after which time productivity gave way to following the score and constant email exchanges. A quick pop home at 12 for lunch to see the period up until lunch - then back to work for another quick 20 minutes' of work before the afternoon session started. Another final flurry of work happened during the tea break, then home for the final session.
Everyone was interested, everyone was following it. Cities were showing coverage of it on big screens in city centres and parks.
Do you remember those wonderful Channel 4 trailers with a young Greg Davies playing the part of WG Grace?
I wouldn't have thought that the Mail was his kind of paper at all.
Besides, we need him to do as many episodes of Clue as he can.
As for "you'd better found your own party" - as we know politics is about finding the party that you agree with most on, not a one-for-one likeness of your own political views.
We've always had hosepipe bans. Its a feature of inconsistent rainfall AND a failure to have enough capacity for the increased demand. There is no doubt that more investment is needed into the water and sewerage system. How that is paid for is up for debate. If you have private pension you may well be benefitting from the privatised water companies.
@Steven_Swinford
Boris Johnson is telling supporters not to oppose Privileges Committee report in Commons next week
He says he ‘wants to move on’ and that he doesn’t see it as having any practical effects
1) Nothing gets built
2) It doesn't increase bills
3) It involves absolutely no change in personal behaviour
The first question is, what's the gap in the existing historiography that you are seeking to fill?
Can we expect Correct Horse to be demanding that we exercise our Brexit freedoms and put a new policy in place? That would be nice.
"First like England"
Sorry....
Interesting point I picked up yesterday is that one part of the popularity of St George as an "English" saint prior to the Reformation is that, not being English, his veneration was not localised. While St Cuthbert was popular in the North, and St Thomas a Becket in the South, based on the location of their relics, St George was had a more universal popularity throughout England as no English locale could "claim" him.
Anyone who has not experienced nationalised industries in this country pontificating on their benefits is the possible equivalent of a boomer decrying the pernicious effects of online shopping or gaming.
According to https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/f5a7d56c-cea0-4f00-b159-c3788a3b2b38
we have 5,602,088 Megaliters of large reservoirs.
1 megaliter is 982 tons....
There is also industrial use of water to consider. And location.
I would suspect that most of the issue is that you have the reservoirs for hydroelectric schemes in the "wrong" place.