Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Glastonbury and the monasteries? That was down to the highly episcopal and ritualistic Church of England and Henry VIII! Not the Puritans.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
While I have a tinge of sympathy with Foxy's positive view of Puritanism, on balance it's a pretty objectionable doctrine.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Glastonbury and the monasteries? That was down to the highly episcopal and ritualistic Church of England and Henry VIII! Not the Puritans.
I understand, but the Purtians were even more enthusiastic than the C of E when it came to iconoclasm, and indeed, banning anything that people might take pleasure in. Cromwell even disapproved of growing flowers.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Glastonbury and the monasteries? That was down to the highly episcopal and ritualistic Church of England and Henry VIII! Not the Puritans.
While not disagreeing with your factual comment re the DotM, something is either episcopal or it isn't. You can't have a church that's slightly bishop based.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
That wasn't the Puritans...
Might have been if Henry hadn't got there first ? It's the thought that counts.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
Or that it was bureaucratically easiest
For that reason! That the islands were part of the same entity as Mauritius.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
Really interesting insight into your mindset here. The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.
Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.
I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.
I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.
If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.
Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
You leave my worm farm out of this! So what if I talk to my annelids, it soothes them.
Have they got you taped?
You are erudite - obviously as the result of a round(ed) education.
You’re all heart. Knocks me flat.
Bugger. We're all now hooked on worm puns.
That’s a fluke. But put a pin in it or I’ll have beef with you. Because you are just being trichi-(g)nosis* isn’t always a good thing
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Russell Brand? It seems sufficiently vacuous.
Unfortunately not. You're going to have to think more highbrow.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Glastonbury and the monasteries? That was down to the highly episcopal and ritualistic Church of England and Henry VIII! Not the Puritans.
While not disagreeing with your factual comment re the DotM, something is either episcopal or it isn't. You can't have a church that's slightly bishop based.
Point taken re C of E. I stand corrected. But on the wider principle, I refer you to the C of S from 1605-ish onwards to the Bishops' War. The degree of bishop-basis depended on whom you asked, and on the situation in the individual presbytery/diocese.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
Wait til you find out how far Britain is from BIOT
The point is that Mauritius claiming it as a contingent and integral part of its national territory is a real stretch. The fact Britain administered it as one in the past doesn't change that.
I'd expect Mauritius to be just as exploitative of it, if not more so, and largely uninterested in the fate of the Chagos Islanders.
Put ownership of the islands into the hands of the Chagas Trust and rent it back to the UK.
It's really up the US what happens. There are 10x more US military personnel at NSF Diego Garcia than British. Plus a few thousand (American) civvie contractors.
In practice, yes. But I’m not sure why we would want to give up the strategic optionality by transferring the islands to the US.
Handing them over to an ally of China, like Mauritius, is stupidly that verges on the criminal.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
Really interesting insight into your mindset here. The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.
Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.
I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.
I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.
If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.
Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
You leave my worm farm out of this! So what if I talk to my annelids, it soothes them.
Hoi! Playing music to his worms was good enough for a Great Patriotic Briton such as Darwin C., vide the £10 banknote ( @Anabobazina TRIGGER WARNING), burial in Westminster Abbey, etc. So don't you accept such mulch and sharn from CR.
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
That could be anyone on the libertarian or Trump-supporting right wing in the States. I’ve heard many similar quotes.
As far as the header is concerned, no, the basic problem with Trump is not that he's too old - it's that he's a flaming narcissistic asshole with no regard for anything, other than himself.
All top politicians are narcissists to some extent, and most to a huge extent. Certainly Obama gives Trump a run for his money in that regard. The main problem with Trump is that he's a sociopath, not that his a narcissist.
While not disagreeing with that why pick out Obama as a narcissist? Just interested in what I am missing as nothing springs to mind.
He had the same job as Trump, he was Trump's immediate predecessor so most people will not need a long explanation on why he was a narcissist and was for my money probably the most obvious narcissist in the job recently besides Trump, but without having any of Trump's obvious sociopathy. Also he's as adored on the soft left as Trump is hated, despite not really having achieved anything much in eight years besides some healthcare reforms. But there's certainly stiff competition for the most narcissistic senior politician title.
I think you do need to explain why as it clearly isn't obvious. Not only did I ask why but also @Monksfield and Monksfield got 5 likes so that is 6 of us who haven't a clue what you are referring to. Examples, because I can't think of one and those of us who post here do follow this stuff.
So what did Obama do to make him the most narcissistic president excluding Trump?
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
The Puritans don't fit easily into left or right. They're more like the rulers of Iran.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
At least they tore them down properly rather than just letting them fall down while still insisting they were safe to use.
To be honest if your sense of patriotism revolves around political figures and causes, I'd suggest you need to get out more! What about Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton? Locke and Hume. The empirical scientific tradition. The beauty of the landscape. Even satire and comedy.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
Or that it was bureaucratically easiest
For that reason! That the islands were part of the same entity as Mauritius.
I’m drawing a distinction between “part of Mauritius” and “part of the same entity as Mauritius”
Just because some bloke in London decided to administer them as a single unit (presumably to save money due to austerity) doesn’t mean that decision should stand for all time
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Russell Brand? It seems sufficiently vacuous.
Unfortunately not. You're going to have to think more highbrow.
Yes, that looks good. There are a lot of things to dislike about Musk including his cosying up to Tucker Carlson and other right wing nuts. BUT he is doing the right thing in an incredibly important way with Tesla, without him the transition to electric cars would be far slower. Tesla's success is forcing other car makers to try to follow suit, the trouble is they mostly lose money on electric cars while making money on ICE cars. Tesla's margin on its cars is high and their cars efficiency is also high, add in the Supercharger network and you can see why others are having difficulty competing. https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-electric-shift-stalls-volkswagen.html
What most seem to miss, is that it is about *actually doing things*.
Tesla came out of the existence of custom conversions to electric if ICE, for the rich. That combined with mass production to bring prices down. The key insight was that you start at the high end and work down.
Nearly anyone in the automotive industry could have done this.
Similarly, once evidence accumulated that water cooling batteries meant they could easily deal with high charging rates, superchargers were inevitable. Tesla created a division to build them, that is its own profit centre - so now it’s into compound expansion, largely self funded.
The supercharging network in the IS has defeated the competing, official standard. Why? Because they built more chargers and the they work more often.
Yes, that's right. Musk can be annoying and makes stupid decisions (e.g. Twitter) but he's a good engineer. Look at the efficiency figures for Tesla cars compared to others, the production speed, the margins and, as you said the Supercharger reliability. Yes, the other car brands could have done the same, but they would be working against their existing ICE sales. I'm afraid that not all legacy carmakers will survive. So on balance is Musk a 'good' thing? Well, we have plenty of right wingers, one more with a megaphone may be regrettable but can be ignored (and he at least believes the science on climate change). We only have one game changing electric car maker and that is completely down to Musk.
Toyota could have built an electric Prius. And they would have owned the market.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
Really interesting insight into your mindset here. The use of "they" when referring to decision other people made is normal. We aren't obliged to use the "we" pronoun for actions taken by the British state. Indeed, if you want to seek to emphasise the fact that decisions are sometimes made despite the people not because of them, then the "they" pronoun is effective.
Also, I don't know how old OLB is, but 1968 is before I was born. Is there really a "we" to speak of here? If you want to emphasise that kind of implied participation by citizenship, then you are very much into the kind of territory favoured by those who would see "us" pay reparations for what "we" did as a country 300 years ago.
I didn't expect you Pronoun Patrol to claim you as one of its members, but just goes to show you can never be too sure.
Your mindset stinks on virtually everything under the sun, and you are also a treasonous little guttersnipe, so I will take pronouncements from you on this subject with a very large crate of salt, thanks.
I have better things to do with my time, so I will bid you good day.
Wow, that "we" dissolved pretty quickly.
If you're having a bad day we can hug it out. I'm here for you.
Er, no. I couldn't give a toss about you but do care about my family.
Maybe you have no-one who loves you but you can always talk to your fellow creatures in the muck.
You leave my worm farm out of this! So what if I talk to my annelids, it soothes them.
Hoi! Playing music to his worms was good enough for a Great Patriotic Briton such as Darwin C., vide the £10 banknote ( @Anabobazina TRIGGER WARNING), burial in Westminster Abbey, etc.
Clear proof if it was ever needed that you are an idiot. Darwin had a beard, ergo he was a Marxist, ergo he was a traitor. He sailed with FitzRoy, who was so woke he tried to protect the Maori from the British rapine. Traitors one and all.
You forgot the antislavery business, too. Also having a chum who told a Bishop he'd rather have an orang-utan than the said Bichop for his granddad.
PA Added a musical ps to previous post - too late!
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
That could be anyone on the libertarian or Trump-supporting right wing in the States. I’ve heard many similar quotes.
Dr Jordan Peterson?
Not someone so certain in his ways as Dr Peterson. Libertarian/Trump supporting is very cold. The comments were made around the time of the prorogation row in 2019.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
At least they tore them down properly rather than just letting them fall down while still insisting they were safe to use.
Not really - didn’t finish the job at Glastonbury or Fountains for example
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Russell Brand? It seems sufficiently vacuous.
Unfortunately not. You're going to have to think more highbrow.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
At least they tore them down properly rather than just letting them fall down while still insisting they were safe to use.
Not really - didn’t finish the job at Glastonbury or Fountains for example
I shall give that nitpicking the stony response it deserves.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
And I thought it was the left who were policing people's pronouns!
"Watch your mouth"? Bit early in the day for this kind of fighty talk, no?
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
And I thought it was the left who were policing people's pronouns!
"Watch your mouth"? Bit early in the day for this kind of fighty talk, no?
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Glastonbury and the monasteries? That was down to the highly episcopal and ritualistic Church of England and Henry VIII! Not the Puritans.
I understand, but the Purtians were even more enthusiastic than the C of E when it came to iconoclasm, and indeed, banning anything that people might take pleasure in. Cromwell even disapproved of growing flowers.
Puritans often finished off what the Reformation started.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
At least they tore them down properly rather than just letting them fall down while still insisting they were safe to use.
Not really - didn’t finish the job at Glastonbury or Fountains for example
I shall give that nitpicking the stony response it deserves.
TBF the odd abbey did get converted. Doesn't Abbey Dore count? THough it seems to be missing the bit that sticks out from the transept crossing to the west - I can never remember if it is the nave or chancel.
The SNP couldn't organise a pregnancy on a council estate.
Confusion over SNP independence strategy as Flynn pushes ‘majority’
Stephen Flynn says the SNP needs a majority of seats, but had already agreed with Humza Yousaf to target ‘the most seats’
Humza Yousaf’s independence strategy has suffered another blow after it was repeatedly contradicted by his party’s Westminster leader.
Stephen Flynn twice said during a television interview that the SNP would need to win “a majority” of constituencies in Scotland at the general election to secure a mandate for secession talks.
This goes against a motion jointly proposed by Yousaf, the first minister, and Flynn for next month’s SNP conference. The motion says that “if the SNP subsequently wins the most seats at the general election in Scotland, the Scottish government is empowered to begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country”.
“The most seats” does not mean a majority and there is confusion about what would be involved in negotiations. Yousaf has suggested that they could include talks to formalise independence, but close aides have briefed that it would more likely be to try to agree a second independence referendum.
Flynn leant into the latter camp during an interview on Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge on Sky News. He said that if the SNP won “a majority of seats, which I’m very confident that we will in the general election next year, then that’ll be a mandate for us to give democratic effect to independence”.
Angels on the head of a pin stuff as the Times dissects the meanings of "the most" versus "a majority".
I think it's an important difference. I wouldn't support a mandate that consisted of 40% of the seats, but I would support one that consisted of 60% of the seats.
Of course, better than that would be the mandate coming from Holyrood, but Westminster apparently doesn't believe in that kind of democracy any more.
First, you'd need to establish the terms necessarily had different meanings, which is the angels on the head of a pin bit.
Forgive me, but isn't the distinction quite clear and commonly used? "The most" meaning that you have more seats than any other single party, "majority" meaning that you have more seats than all other parties combined.
Not necessarily. Most people use majority to mean plurality, and most of the seats means more than half. In other words, there is enough wriggle-room in these political promises to make everyone happy.
Everyone who closely follows politics understands the difference between most and majority.
Or did you think Cameron and May won a majority of seats in 2010 and 2017 respectively?
Bring it up next time rcs offers to pay for a polling question. I reckon a sizeable part of the Great British Public does think Cameron won a majority and even more think May did.
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Russell Brand? It seems sufficiently vacuous.
Unfortunately not. You're going to have to think more highbrow.
John Humphries?
More highbrow.
Harry Enfield?
No and it's not loadsamoney or any other of his characters.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
At least they tore them down properly rather than just letting them fall down while still insisting they were safe to use.
Not really - didn’t finish the job at Glastonbury or Fountains for example
I shall give that nitpicking the stony response it deserves.
TBF the odd abbey did get converted. Doesn't Abbey Dore count? THough it seems to be missing the bit that sticks out from the transept crossing to the west - I can never remember if it is the nave or chancel.
Yes, if they were near large centres of population that also used them as parish churches (Tewkesbury, Shrewsbury, Coventry, Crowland). Or if Henry VIII needed them for new diocesan seats (Chester, Gloucester, Peterborough). Or if a rich landowner was willing to shell out for the building and he/his successors looked after it (Abbey Dore, Leonard Stanley).
Less so Cistercian monasteries in the middle of nowhere (Fountains, Strata Florida, Croxden).
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
That could be anyone on the libertarian or Trump-supporting right wing in the States. I’ve heard many similar quotes.
Dr Jordan Peterson?
Not someone so certain in his ways as Dr Peterson. Libertarian/Trump supporting is very cold. The comments were made around the time of the prorogation row in 2019.
Bozza?
(Highlights the issue with the Liberal Elite narrative, even if it wasn't BoJo who said it. The liberal and authoritarian wannabe elites have much more in common with each other than either does with the general public. And while the mood music changes, the on the ground reality doesn't change much. See immigration into the UK over the last decade.)
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
That could be anyone on the libertarian or Trump-supporting right wing in the States. I’ve heard many similar quotes.
Dr Jordan Peterson?
Not someone so certain in his ways as Dr Peterson. Libertarian/Trump supporting is very cold. The comments were made around the time of the prorogation row in 2019.
Bozza?
(Highlights the issue with the Liberal Elite narrative, even if it wasn't BoJo who said it. The liberal and authoritarian wannabe elites have much more in common with each other than either does with the general public. And while the mood music changes, the on the ground reality doesn't change much. See immigration into the UK over the last decade.)
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
At least they tore them down properly rather than just letting them fall down while still insisting they were safe to use.
Not really - didn’t finish the job at Glastonbury or Fountains for example
I shall give that nitpicking the stony response it deserves.
TBF the odd abbey did get converted. Doesn't Abbey Dore count? THough it seems to be missing the bit that sticks out from the transept crossing to the west - I can never remember if it is the nave or chancel.
Our local abbey ended up as a farmhouse. Quite a lot of traces of the monks here, and we're not far from Cressing Temple, where the Templars held sway.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
And I thought it was the left who were policing people's pronouns!
"Watch your mouth"? Bit early in the day for this kind of fighty talk, no?
No patriot refers to their country in the third party as if it has nothing to do with them.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
It's interesting that you see a Tory Prime Minister as rather left wing.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
I love this quote though I'm not enough of an insider to know whether it is really true. Wonder if anyone can guess the speaker?
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
Russell Brand? It seems sufficiently vacuous.
Unfortunately not. You're going to have to think more highbrow.
How dare you categorise Brandy Wandy as insufficiently highbrow, typical liberal elititism.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
"Watch your mouth." I'm not sure if this is one of you're piss taking days or if you're having one of your insane days. Either way, it seems you're up for a bit of a rumble. Do I need popcorn, or will it be a short lived eruption?
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
And I thought it was the left who were policing people's pronouns!
"Watch your mouth"? Bit early in the day for this kind of fighty talk, no?
No patriot refers to their country in the third party as if it has nothing to do with them.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
"Watch your mouth." I'm not sure if this is one of your piss taking days or if you're having one of your insane days. Either way, it seems your up for a bit of a rumble. Do I need popcorn, or will it be a short lived eruption?
Let’s draw up a shortlist of pub car parks just in case.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
It's interesting that you see a Tory Prime Minister as rather left wing.
TBF to CR Macmillan was rather left wing. He seems to have drifted into the Tories out of expediency rather than conviction.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
Or that it was bureaucratically easiest
For that reason! That the islands were part of the same entity as Mauritius.
I’m drawing a distinction between “part of Mauritius” and “part of the same entity as Mauritius”
Just because some bloke in London decided to administer them as a single unit (presumably to save money due to austerity) doesn’t mean that decision should stand for all time
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
Or that it was bureaucratically easiest
For that reason! That the islands were part of the same entity as Mauritius.
I’m drawing a distinction between “part of Mauritius” and “part of the same entity as Mauritius”
Just because some bloke in London decided to administer them as a single unit (presumably to save money due to austerity) doesn’t mean that decision should stand for all time
just like part of UK and part of Scotland , must have been the same arsehole
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Also influenced by his experience fighting, and being wounded on the Western Front. He was undeniably upper class, but had a sense of social solidarity and fellow feeling that we don't see much of in the modern Conservative Party.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
He wasn't leftwing, just a patrician Tory who also built lots of new homes and grew the economy.
It was Attlee who nationalised much of industry, created the NHS and expanded the welfare state and gave India and Pakistan independence and began the end of Empire. Macmillan just didn't reverse the process
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Plebs should be housed and fed but should know their place, so Macmillan ensured Lord Home was his successor rather than Rab Butler who'd not even got into Eton.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Also influenced by his experience fighting, and being wounded on the Western Front. He was undeniably upper class, but had a sense of social solidarity and fellow feeling that we don't see much of in the modern Conservative Party.
Agree; wonder what he would have made of Lee Anderson or, come to that, Stella Bravermann!
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Plebs should be housed and fed but should know their place, so Macmillan ensured Lord Home was his successor rather than Rab Butler who'd not even got into Eton.
Butler went to Marlborough and Cambridge and was hardly a pleb.
Macmillan did have the working class background Heath as his chief whip however and he succeeded Butler as party leader
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Plebs should be housed and fed but should know their place, so Macmillan ensured Lord Home was his successor rather than Rab Butler who'd not even got into Eton.
Butler went to Marlborough and Cambridge and was hardly a pleb.
Macmillan did have the working class background Heath as his chief whip however and he succeeded Butler as party leader
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Also influenced by his experience fighting, and being wounded on the Western Front. He was undeniably upper class, but had a sense of social solidarity and fellow feeling that we don't see much of in the modern Conservative Party.
Disobliging knobs have entirely supplanted noblesse oblige..
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Though given what we know about abuse within the various Churches now - what must it have been like when they had legal immunity?
A big part of the Reformation was ending the parallel legal system, where the Church tried its own.
I’ve long thought that the aggression of some of the reformers reminded of the behaviour of some victims…
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
It's interesting that you see a Tory Prime Minister as rather left wing.
TBF to CR Macmillan was rather left wing. He seems to have drifted into the Tories out of expediency rather than conviction.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Also influenced by his experience fighting, and being wounded on the Western Front. He was undeniably upper class, but had a sense of social solidarity and fellow feeling that we don't see much of in the modern Conservative Party.
Agree; wonder what he would have made of Lee Anderson or, come to that, Stella Bravermann!
He was somewhat surprised when he heard Tebbit speaking on a cockney accent on the radio was one of Thatcher's Cabinet Ministers.
He also said Thatcher's privatisations were a bit like selling off the family silver
Yes, that looks good. There are a lot of things to dislike about Musk including his cosying up to Tucker Carlson and other right wing nuts. BUT he is doing the right thing in an incredibly important way with Tesla, without him the transition to electric cars would be far slower. Tesla's success is forcing other car makers to try to follow suit, the trouble is they mostly lose money on electric cars while making money on ICE cars. Tesla's margin on its cars is high and their cars efficiency is also high, add in the Supercharger network and you can see why others are having difficulty competing. https://techxplore.com/news/2023-09-electric-shift-stalls-volkswagen.html
What most seem to miss, is that it is about *actually doing things*.
Tesla came out of the existence of custom conversions to electric if ICE, for the rich. That combined with mass production to bring prices down. The key insight was that you start at the high end and work down.
Nearly anyone in the automotive industry could have done this.
Similarly, once evidence accumulated that water cooling batteries meant they could easily deal with high charging rates, superchargers were inevitable. Tesla created a division to build them, that is its own profit centre - so now it’s into compound expansion, largely self funded.
The supercharging network in the IS has defeated the competing, official standard. Why? Because they built more chargers and the they work more often.
Yes, that's right. Musk can be annoying and makes stupid decisions (e.g. Twitter) but he's a good engineer. Look at the efficiency figures for Tesla cars compared to others, the production speed, the margins and, as you said the Supercharger reliability. Yes, the other car brands could have done the same, but they would be working against their existing ICE sales. I'm afraid that not all legacy carmakers will survive. So on balance is Musk a 'good' thing? Well, we have plenty of right wingers, one more with a megaphone may be regrettable but can be ignored (and he at least believes the science on climate change). We only have one game changing electric car maker and that is completely down to Musk.
Is that completely down to Musk? Or is it down to the people who actually founded Tesla before Musk was involved and the many engineers who work at Tesla?
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
He wasn't leftwing, just a patrician Tory who also built lots of new homes and grew the economy.
It was Attlee who nationalised much of industry, created the NHS and expanded the welfare state and gave India and Pakistan independence and began the end of Empire. Macmillan just didn't reverse the process
No, credit where it is due. After the Suez fiasco, Macmillan saw that things had changed and Empire no longer tenable. In the late 1940s and up to Suez we were actively trying to keep the Empire and involved in multiple small wars to keep it.
By the end of his premiership nearly all were on the road to independence, or had achieved it.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Also influenced by his experience fighting, and being wounded on the Western Front. He was undeniably upper class, but had a sense of social solidarity and fellow feeling that we don't see much of in the modern Conservative Party.
Agree; wonder what he would have made of Lee Anderson or, come to that, Stella Bravermann!
He was somewhat surprised when he heard Tebbit speaking on a cockney accent on the radio was one of Thatcher's Cabinet Ministers.
He also said Thatcher's privatisations were a bit like selling off the family silver
Which, to one of his background, was virtually a hanging offence. Marry off a daughter to someone wealthy first.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Also influenced by his experience fighting, and being wounded on the Western Front. He was undeniably upper class, but had a sense of social solidarity and fellow feeling that we don't see much of in the modern Conservative Party.
Agree; wonder what he would have made of Lee Anderson or, come to that, Stella Bravermann!
He was somewhat surprised when he heard Tebbit speaking on a cockney accent on the radio was one of Thatcher's Cabinet Ministers.
He also said Thatcher's privatisations were a bit like selling off the family silver
Although there was some context to that remark that always gets missed off. It was actually a very sensible observation taken in the round.
Here's the full panorama. Normally on a September Saturday this place would be heaving with German hikers, but with yesterday's torrential rain and the thunderstorm warning still in force, only idiots like me are up here today; hence the front row seat.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
Macmillan was driven by the conditions he'd seen in Stockton in the thirties. As I understood it he felt that it was the duty of the patrician to ensure that the plebs were properly housed and fed.
Also influenced by his experience fighting, and being wounded on the Western Front. He was undeniably upper class, but had a sense of social solidarity and fellow feeling that we don't see much of in the modern Conservative Party.
Agree; wonder what he would have made of Lee Anderson or, come to that, Stella Bravermann!
He was somewhat surprised when he heard Tebbit speaking on a cockney accent on the radio was one of Thatcher's Cabinet Ministers.
He also said Thatcher's privatisations were a bit like selling off the family silver
With former council houses now mainly owned by BTL landlords, our utilities mostly foreign owned, our steel industry Indian and our car industry Indian and German his remarks on selling the family silver seem very prescient.
Not all armed police, btw, before you grab your sawn-off Purdey and rush round to NatWest.
Doesn't a murder charge require pre-meditation? As opposed to manslaughter?
Indeed. That it is a murder rather than manslaughter charge is quite a tell. We will need to see what the evidence is at the trial.
It depends what you mean by premeditation. You can't murder by accident, it requires a killing with either intent to kill or intent to cause GBH, AND an absence of a defence such as reasonable belief that it is done in self defence, defence of another etc.
It does not require a prior plan or intent. The intent at the time is enough.
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
The Puritans were miserable buggers.
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
Any one worried about government corruption and asset stripping just needs to compare to the Dissolution.
Little Jack Horner Sat on the corner Eating his Christmas pie He stuck in his thumb And pulled out a plum And said “what a good boy am I”
At least they tore them down properly rather than just letting them fall down while still insisting they were safe to use.
Not really - didn’t finish the job at Glastonbury or Fountains for example
I shall give that nitpicking the stony response it deserves.
TBF the odd abbey did get converted. Doesn't Abbey Dore count? THough it seems to be missing the bit that sticks out from the transept crossing to the west - I can never remember if it is the nave or chancel.
Our local abbey ended up as a farmhouse. Quite a lot of traces of the monks here, and we're not far from Cressing Temple, where the Templars held sway.
There is a Temple not too far from Edinburgh, where guess who held sway! But not sure if the present parish kirk stems from that era. I must go and look.
Think I submitted this a couple of days ago: The omens for the Democrats are good.
"Democrats Continue Special Election Streak In Pennsylvania, New … Web2 days ago · Democratic candidates easily won special state legislative elections in both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire on Tuesday night, continuing the party’s streak of "
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
For way less than the cost of the Falklands War we could have bought all the islanders farms in the highlands of Wales and Scotland and given them each a load of sheep and they could have continued their lifestyle with better weather if fewer penguins. But, of course, despite what we were told it was never about the people living on the islands, but about the likelihood of oil beneath the seas all around.
No, it's about them allowing to live on the only islands they've ever called home and choose their own way of life.
So, quite a lot like the Chagos then?
I've never said the Chagos weren't badly treated. Nor that they shouldn't return.
It's the naïve self-flaggelating Britain haters (like you) who I'm calling out.
It seems to me it is the right who hate Britain, its peoples and institutions.
Being a patriot doesn't stop me being critical of the crimes of empire. This one within my lifetime.
The fact that the Chagossians were deported to Mauritius says to me that we understood the islands to be part of Mauritius.
I've never heard you saying a patriotic thing in your life.
I'm all ears.
You have clearly not been paying attention!
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
"A different sort of patriotism" - in other words, celebrating all the Lefties in history. And only them.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
It's interesting that you see the Puritans, the Abolitionists, the factory reformers and civic fathers (I had in mind Joe Chamberlain and the like) as left wingers.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
So, you like Harold Macmillan because he was actually rather left-wing?
Got it!
He wasn't leftwing, just a patrician Tory who also built lots of new homes and grew the economy.
It was Attlee who nationalised much of industry, created the NHS and expanded the welfare state and gave India and Pakistan independence and began the end of Empire. Macmillan just didn't reverse the process
No, credit where it is due. After the Suez fiasco, Macmillan saw that things had changed and Empire no longer tenable. In the late 1940s and up to Suez we were actively trying to keep the Empire and involved in multiple small wars to keep it.
By the end of his premiership nearly all were on the road to independence, or had achieved it.
The Empire ended effectively when Attlee gave independence to India, the jewel in the crown and more populous and more important economically than all our African colonies combined.
Macmillan just didn't stop the by then inevitable African independence movements
Mauritius is crying crocodile tears over BIOT. Boris is right: look at a map. They are over 1,200 miles away. The Maldives or Seychelles would have a better claim, and that wouldn't be a good one either.
They want the fishing grounds and hate the MPA around it, which the Royal Navy occasionally police. So if the UK have decided to dance on leaseback then I suspect this is actually about alliance building in the Indian Ocean area. The UN vote is meaningless - people forget the sort of states actually in the UN and how they are bought and corralled by China. Fascinating that it was the African Union that initiated it.
The base is a strategic one and absolutely needed given China's ambitions to colonise every reef and atoll in the area.
So it will be kept come what may.
The Chagos Islands were part of the Crown Colony of Mauritius - so regardless of their distance from anywhere the British themselves considered the territories to be linked until they were forced to give up their control of Mauritius in 1968. At that time the British clung onto the Seychelles and the Chagos Islands. The Seychelles were later granted independence and the Chagossians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a Stalin-style forced population transfer so we could suck up to the Americans, the new big boys in the neighbourhood. Most of the exiled Chagossians have ended up in either Mauritius of the Seychelles - so again you can see why Mauritius might consider it their business. An utterly shameful affair. Very hard to imagine the white Falkland Islanders ever getting the same kind of treatment.
"They" - you are British.
Watch your mouth.
And I thought it was the left who were policing people's pronouns!
"Watch your mouth"? Bit early in the day for this kind of fighty talk, no?
No patriot refers to their country in the third party as if it has nothing to do with them.
I have just discovered you can't easily get wasabi almonds back in the UK.
A great Korean snack food.
There is a significant Korean community in Kingston upon Thames. I got one of our Korean doctors to get me some quality kimchi from a deli there as I wanted to try some authentic stuff.
Not all armed police, btw, before you grab your sawn-off Purdey and rush round to NatWest.
Doesn't a murder charge require pre-meditation? As opposed to manslaughter?
Indeed. That it is a murder rather than manslaughter charge is quite a tell. We will need to see what the evidence is at the trial.
It depends what you mean by premeditation. You can't murder by accident, it requires a killing with either intent to kill or intent to cause GBH, AND an absence of a defence such as reasonable belief that it is done in self defence, defence of another etc.
It does not require a prior plan or intent. The intent at the time is enough.
IIRC, the jury in a murder trial has the option to retun a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, if directed by the judge.
Presumably this particular case is pretty bad, and there’s video evidence of it.
Comments
I have often extolled a different sort of patriotism to yours, the English radical tradition that goes back to Pelagius, continues through the Lollards, the folk tales of Robin Hood, the Puritan reformers of the 16th and 17th Centuries, the Levellers, the Diggers, the abolitionists, Peterloo, the Chartists, Corbett, Captain Swing, the Trade Unions, the factory reformers, the city leaders that built the civic institutions of our industrial cities, the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, etc etc.
'I think the problem we face is slightly different and I'm afraid it's this. That liberal elitists and I suppose I'm a member of the liberal elite myself..... are not used to losing and they're very bad losers and I suspect the public sense that and it gives rise to populism. I think that's the key social problem we face. The liberal elite are used to winning the debate. This time they're losing the debate and they don't like it.'
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/padcev-enfortumab-vedotin-ejfv-and-keytruda-pembrolizumab-significantly-improve-overall-survival-and-progression-free-survival-in-patients-with-previously-untreated-advanced-bladder-cancer-in-pivotal-phase-3-ev-302-trial-301935662.html
I had a friend die of it a few years back.
Patriotism isn't partisan, like you seem to think it is; it's agnostic and about backing your country and people.
That's why I'd back Atlee in a corner as well as Churchill.
https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/michel+tina+gassier+rouge+cote+du+rhone+france/2019/uk
Going round Glastonbury Abbey recently made he sadly realise just how much was lost, when the monasteries were dissolved.
This article is, while containing an element of the self serving, is more accurate.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/22/rupert-murdoch-legacy-power-blame-elite-fox-donald-trump-russell-brand
It's the thought that counts.
* sorry 😳
Handing them over to an ally of China, like Mauritius, is stupidly that verges on the criminal.
If you want a more recent example of a right wing Prime Minister that I am proud of, I would cite Harold MacMillain, who saw the winds of change and liberated the Empire, while consolidating the welfare state, and building more council houses per year than any other postwar PM.
PS: to the following tune, presumably
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfbW0BmPVUo
Dr Jordan Peterson?
So what did Obama do to make him the most narcissistic president excluding Trump?
Little Jack Horner
Sat on the corner
Eating his Christmas pie
He stuck in his thumb
And pulled out a plum
And said “what a good boy am I”
Just because some bloke in London decided to administer them as a single unit (presumably to save money due to austerity) doesn’t mean that decision should stand for all time
PA Added a musical ps to previous post - too late!
"Watch your mouth"? Bit early in the day for this kind of fighty talk, no?
He'll be demanding to see your passport next.
Does anyone know if the government (NHS? PHE? ONS?) calculates the aggregate amount of nicotine consumed (by any means) in Britain every year?
Policy success should surely be measured by that number going down?
A great Korean snack food.
Less so Cistercian monasteries in the middle of nowhere (Fountains, Strata Florida, Croxden).
A pallid substitute.
(Highlights the issue with the Liberal Elite narrative, even if it wasn't BoJo who said it. The liberal and authoritarian wannabe elites have much more in common with each other than either does with the general public. And while the mood music changes, the on the ground reality doesn't change much. See immigration into the UK over the last decade.)
Officers ‘have had enough and say it’s not worth it any more’ to run the risk of facing charges, source says
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/22/chris-kaba-murder-met-police-officers-give-back-guns/ (£££)
Not all armed police, btw, before you grab your sawn-off Purdey and rush round to NatWest.
Got it!
It's a subtle tell. You should use "we".
I'm not sure if this is one of you're piss taking days or if you're having one of your insane days. Either way, it seems you're up for a bit of a rumble. Do I need popcorn, or will it be a short lived eruption?
PS. I just want to see the dog.
.
It was Attlee who nationalised much of industry, created the NHS and expanded the welfare state and gave India and Pakistan independence and began the end of Empire. Macmillan just didn't reverse the process
https://uk.iherb.com/pr/blue-diamond-almonds-bold-wasabi-soy-sauce-16-oz-454-g/
Macmillan did have the working class background Heath as his chief whip however and he succeeded Butler as party leader
A big part of the Reformation was ending the parallel legal system, where the Church tried its own.
I’ve long thought that the aggression of some of the reformers reminded of the behaviour of some victims…
He also said Thatcher's privatisations were a bit like selling off the family silver
By the end of his premiership nearly all were on the road to independence, or had achieved it.
It does not require a prior plan or intent. The intent at the time is enough.
The omens for the Democrats are good.
"Democrats Continue Special Election Streak In Pennsylvania, New …
Web2 days ago · Democratic candidates easily won special state legislative elections in both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire on Tuesday night, continuing the party’s streak of "
They are winning where it matters.
Macmillan just didn't stop the by then inevitable African independence movements
The ONS Annual Population Survey tracks the number of smokers, number of those who have quit, number of those who intend to quit, and time to first cigarette of the day: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2022
NHS Digital have stats on consumption, but only for people aged 11-15: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/smoking-drinking-and-drug-use-among-young-people-in-england/2021/part-1-smoking-prevalence-and-consumption
I guess the easiest way of tracking aggregate consumption might be to look at HMRC's figures for tobacco duty (though you would have to assume that the proportion of taxed sales vs black market remains constant): https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tobacco-bulletin/tobacco-statistics-commentary-april-2023--2
The quality of the evidence can be variable, of course. See the Royal Mail - where the evidence was supposed to rock solid.
Presumably this particular case is pretty bad, and there’s video evidence of it.