As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
President Monroe is on the phone. Wants to chat about his doctrine.
"Hi, we have some American missiles we are repatriating to the Americas. Comes free with a genuine British nuclear warhead. Should be with you in 30 mins. No, we don't leave packages under the doormat or with a neighbour."
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
Superb. I especially like the penultimate verse.
The last line of the song gets me every time. It is so beautifully opaque but also somehow freighted with meaning. It's probably my favourite line in any pop song.
Talking of fabulous lyrics Roger Waters "Hanging on in Quiet desperation is the English way" is just magnificent.
Dark Side of the Moon is often superb, lyrically - which is quite odd as Pink Floyd generally didn’t write superb lyrics. Frequently nice or decent but never outstanding
That whole album is touched with an inexplicable, alchemical and cruelly fleeting genius. But at least we got that album
I find a lot of Waters lyrics from 73-84, Dark Side to the Final Cut, to be really moving and thought provoking
Interesting debate to be had about something I found out the other day; the lady who ‘sang’ The Great Gig in the Sky was awarded a songwriting credit for it thirty years after its release. She was told by the band to listen to the song, go into the studio and let herself go with whatever feelings it evoked. The results were legendary, but did she ‘write the song’? Apparently so. Maybe she did
She absolutely wrote half the song and deserves half the money
Rick Wright’s tune is simple and lovely but it’s her extemporised vocals which make it a masterpiece. I hope she got a million. The Floyd can certainly afford it
“ In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with keyboardist Richard Wright. In 1973, as a session singer, she was paid only the standard flat fee of £30 for Sunday studio work (the equivalent of £400 in 2022).[9] She said in 1998, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing."[3] In 2005, an out-of-court settlement was reached in Torry's favour, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.[14] All releases after 2005 carry an additional credit for "Vocal composition by Clare Torry"[15] in the "Great Gig in the Sky" segment of the booklet or liner notes.”
I wonder how much she got. Funny that no one ever thought to offer her a credit at the time, although I can see why it’s a grey area. Apparently when she’d finished singing she thought she’d made a fool of herself and was embarrassed to see the band
The sax player in Gerry Raffertey's Baker Street was just paid a flat fee for the session too afaicr.
Didn’t he then sue, successfully - ditto the keyboardist on Whiter Shade of Pale?
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
McGowan was a proper musical genius. But lyrically that’s not quite Cole Porter
“Fairytale” is much cleverer - probably the best Pogues song, lyrically
Fairytale of New York may be cleverer with the duet structure etc but there's something buried in Rainy Night in Soho that gets me every time I listen to it. The lyrics have that kind of unknowable quality that I think is the mark of real poetry.
“You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot Happy Christmas your arse I pray god it’s our last”
Is one of the greatest couplets in the history of pop music. It expresses true love and deep sentiment - as drunk loving ruined people really speak, with a clever rhyme scheme
I believe it has now been cancelled by the Woke
I have spent years thinking it was "Happy Christmas you arse-wipe, thank god it’s our last"
For around 30 years I believed, and was bemused, that in Quicksand Bowie sang "Knowledge comes from tax relief".
Eventually I googled it, and realised it was "death's release", which made more sense.
Ah, misheard lyrics- one of the many minor joys the internet has stolen from us.
Actually the problem still exists, a lot of the lyrics on the internet, particularly on Spotify, are wrong
I was going to link to ‘when the tigers broke free’ by Pink Floyd, but the lyrics are wrong almost everywhere; ‘Z’ instead of ‘C’ being the red flag.
There is a good misheard lyric on Spotify for Arctic Monkeys ‘No1 Party Anthem’
“Collar popped like antenna” is “like Cantona” and it fits so well with the rest of the song that a lot of people refuse to believe it is not about the footballer
I was saddened when I learnt that the lyric 'Get a house in Devon / Drink cider from eleven' from Feeder's 'Buck Rogers' was in fact 'Get a house in Devon / Drink cider from a lemon'. My mishearing rhymes better and conveys nicely, I think, the sense of the lazy rural drinking session. The actual lyric - with its smutty yet obscure gynaecological allusion - is just a bit shit.
When I listen to the repetitions of "Drink cider from a lemon" it seems to morph into "Drink cider from a melon". I keep thinking this even though I know it doesn't. I don't know what that says about me.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
I'm not arguing for what Dalrymple may or may not be arguing for.
From reading the article, he is saying that, unless *something* is done, the swing to more extreme views will continue.
EDIT: 3) isn't so great when it will come to the actual solutions. "But a road through there will ruin my favourite little woodland". Answer - "For societies sake, we are gong to have to fuck up your woodland. Man up and fuck off."
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
Superb. I especially like the penultimate verse.
The last line of the song gets me every time. It is so beautifully opaque but also somehow freighted with meaning. It's probably my favourite line in any pop song.
Talking of fabulous lyrics Roger Waters "Hanging on in Quiet desperation is the English way" is just magnificent.
Dark Side of the Moon is often superb, lyrically - which is quite odd as Pink Floyd generally didn’t write superb lyrics. Frequently nice or decent but never outstanding
That whole album is touched with an inexplicable, alchemical and cruelly fleeting genius. But at least we got that album
I find a lot of Waters lyrics from 73-84, Dark Side to the Final Cut, to be really moving and thought provoking
Interesting debate to be had about something I found out the other day; the lady who ‘sang’ The Great Gig in the Sky was awarded a songwriting credit for it thirty years after its release. She was told by the band to listen to the song, go into the studio and let herself go with whatever feelings it evoked. The results were legendary, but did she ‘write the song’? Apparently so. Maybe she did
She absolutely wrote half the song and deserves half the money
Rick Wright’s tune is simple and lovely but it’s her extemporised vocals which make it a masterpiece. I hope she got a million. The Floyd can certainly afford it
“ In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with keyboardist Richard Wright. In 1973, as a session singer, she was paid only the standard flat fee of £30 for Sunday studio work (the equivalent of £400 in 2022).[9] She said in 1998, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing."[3] In 2005, an out-of-court settlement was reached in Torry's favour, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.[14] All releases after 2005 carry an additional credit for "Vocal composition by Clare Torry"[15] in the "Great Gig in the Sky" segment of the booklet or liner notes.”
I wonder how much she got. Funny that no one ever thought to offer her a credit at the time, although I can see why it’s a grey area. Apparently when she’d finished singing she thought she’d made a fool of herself and was embarrassed to see the band
The sax player in Gerry Raffertey's Baker Street was just paid a flat fee for the session too afaicr.
Didn’t he then sue, successfully - ditto the keyboardist on Whiter Shade of Pale?
No 1 at Christmas when you were 10 sang by the last artist you listened to in your phone
Do They Know it’s Christmas by The Smiths was mine
DAY TRIPPER/WE CAN WORK IT OUT by Luciano pavarotti for me
apart from the fact this quiz reveals how old everyone is (not important but a lot of quizzes are designed to trick you into revealing details of yourself. I half suspect mine actually exists
DON'T YOU WANT ME - by the Sundays..
Haha, mine would be Bohemian Rhapsody performed by The Pogues.
Do They Know its Christmas performed by Chris Cornell
Why are so many people going 'private' on their profile? I'm not keen. It means you can't access their back catalogue or audit them in any way. That's the practical objection. And there's the principle of it. We're slipping into a two tier community, the average joes like me, still just about the majority, and these other posters who are kind of VIPs, behind the ropes, who you get glimpses of but can't really mix with.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
Superb. I especially like the penultimate verse.
The last line of the song gets me every time. It is so beautifully opaque but also somehow freighted with meaning. It's probably my favourite line in any pop song.
Talking of fabulous lyrics Roger Waters "Hanging on in Quiet desperation is the English way" is just magnificent.
Dark Side of the Moon is often superb, lyrically - which is quite odd as Pink Floyd generally didn’t write superb lyrics. Frequently nice or decent but never outstanding
That whole album is touched with an inexplicable, alchemical and cruelly fleeting genius. But at least we got that album
I find a lot of Waters lyrics from 73-84, Dark Side to the Final Cut, to be really moving and thought provoking
Interesting debate to be had about something I found out the other day; the lady who ‘sang’ The Great Gig in the Sky was awarded a songwriting credit for it thirty years after its release. She was told by the band to listen to the song, go into the studio and let herself go with whatever feelings it evoked. The results were legendary, but did she ‘write the song’? Apparently so. Maybe she did
She absolutely wrote half the song and deserves half the money
Rick Wright’s tune is simple and lovely but it’s her extemporised vocals which make it a masterpiece. I hope she got a million. The Floyd can certainly afford it
“ In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with keyboardist Richard Wright. In 1973, as a session singer, she was paid only the standard flat fee of £30 for Sunday studio work (the equivalent of £400 in 2022).[9] She said in 1998, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing."[3] In 2005, an out-of-court settlement was reached in Torry's favour, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.[14] All releases after 2005 carry an additional credit for "Vocal composition by Clare Torry"[15] in the "Great Gig in the Sky" segment of the booklet or liner notes.”
I wonder how much she got. Funny that no one ever thought to offer her a credit at the time, although I can see why it’s a grey area. Apparently when she’d finished singing she thought she’d made a fool of herself and was embarrassed to see the band
The sax player in Gerry Raffertey's Baker Street was just paid a flat fee for the session too afaicr.
Didn’t he then sue, successfully - ditto the keyboardist on Whiter Shade of Pale?
Though Alvin [Stardust] could clearly sing, as his great live performances proved, it was Peter’s voice on that first record–fairly standard industry practice at the time. We cut the record late in 1973, just weeks after having set up the company. Lord Levy. A Question of Honour .
Another example from that time would be the Rubettes, who were a bunch of session musicians hired to demo a song for Showaddywaddy, who turned it down, so the session musicians formed into the Rubettes but with a different singer from the one on the demo which was released as the single. Unusually, the new singer re-recorded the vocal for Top of the Pops.
Guy kneeling: Ok, listen up students. This is a very rare specimen, probably the last example we'll ever see - at least in our lifetimes - of the Conservative PM. See how it tries to bluster sincerity by reaching for where it hopes we'll believe a heart might be? Get a quick sketch of the main features before it's too late.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government the swingback to the Conservative Opposition would be swift
I'm naturally assuming that our lifetimes will be short due to one or more of:
The horrors of a Labour government
AI-apocalypse
Nuclear winter
The commonplace pneumonia doing the rounds in China and now DENMARK
Remember in the May 2010 general election Brown Labour got just 29% of the vote, not much different to where the Sunak Tories are polling now. 2010 was also 13 years into a Labour government as we are now 13 years into a Tory government.
However within a year, by May 2011 Ed Miliband's Labour was on 41% with Yougov and 38% with Opinium.
If voters don't feel a new government is doing much for them and the economy isn't great they can swiftly turn against it
Voters can indeed swiftly turn against a new government. However, your example of how Labour recovered quickly under Miliband isn't a particularly convincing one, because a lot of it came from Lib Dems who didn't like Clegg jumping into bed with the Tories, and in any case the recovery had petered out by 2015.
On the last three occasions when there was a change from a party which had secured a long string of general of Government following a long series of general election victories, in each case the incoming party won a second term (1964, 1997, 2010). Although admittedly none of those governments were left to deal with anything approaching the utter meltdown that Sunak will bequeath.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
Well thanks to a bunch of important people having their meeting about the environment, some of us have been stuck in traffic for half the day! Finally beer o’clock though, so cheers! 🍻
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Gymnastics gets round this problem by changing what it calls the "code of points" which defines how many points (down to a tenth) each move is worth. The same code of points is also used to ban moves that are thought dangerous, like the dismount that paralysed Elena Mukhina, and the Korbut flip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZYPcdj_wn4
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
Guy kneeling: Ok, listen up students. This is a very rare specimen, probably the last example we'll ever see - at least in our lifetimes - of the Conservative PM. See how it tries to bluster sincerity by reaching for where it hopes we'll believe a heart might be? Get a quick sketch of the main features before it's too late.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government the swingback to the Conservative Opposition would be swift
I'm naturally assuming that our lifetimes will be short due to one or more of:
The horrors of a Labour government
AI-apocalypse
Nuclear winter
The commonplace pneumonia doing the rounds in China and now DENMARK
Remember in the May 2010 general election Brown Labour got just 29% of the vote, not much different to where the Sunak Tories are polling now. 2010 was also 13 years into a Labour government as we are now 13 years into a Tory government.
However within a year, by May 2011 Ed Miliband's Labour was on 41% with Yougov and 38% with Opinium.
If voters don't feel a new government is doing much for them and the economy isn't great they can swiftly turn against it
Voters can indeed swiftly turn against a new government. However, your example of how Labour recovered quickly under Miliband isn't a particularly convincing one, because a lot of it came from Lib Dems who didn't like Clegg jumping into bed with the Tories, and in any case the recovery had petered out by 2015.
On the last three occasions when there was a change from a party which had secured a long string of general of Government following a long series of general election victories, in each case the incoming party won a second term (1964, 1997, 2010). Although admittedly none of those governments were left to deal with anything approaching the utter meltdown that Sunak will bequeath.
ReformUK is on 10% with Yougov today. So if they got that high a voteshare in the next election plenty of their votes for a new more rightwing Opposition Tory leader to squeeze too.
It should also be pointed out that post 1997 was a rarity in the government generally being ahead in polls still for a sustained period, Starmer is no Blair and the economy is not as good as it was then either
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
Superb. I especially like the penultimate verse.
The last line of the song gets me every time. It is so beautifully opaque but also somehow freighted with meaning. It's probably my favourite line in any pop song.
Talking of fabulous lyrics Roger Waters "Hanging on in Quiet desperation is the English way" is just magnificent.
Dark Side of the Moon is often superb, lyrically - which is quite odd as Pink Floyd generally didn’t write superb lyrics. Frequently nice or decent but never outstanding
That whole album is touched with an inexplicable, alchemical and cruelly fleeting genius. But at least we got that album
I find a lot of Waters lyrics from 73-84, Dark Side to the Final Cut, to be really moving and thought provoking
Interesting debate to be had about something I found out the other day; the lady who ‘sang’ The Great Gig in the Sky was awarded a songwriting credit for it thirty years after its release. She was told by the band to listen to the song, go into the studio and let herself go with whatever feelings it evoked. The results were legendary, but did she ‘write the song’? Apparently so. Maybe she did
She absolutely wrote half the song and deserves half the money
Rick Wright’s tune is simple and lovely but it’s her extemporised vocals which make it a masterpiece. I hope she got a million. The Floyd can certainly afford it
“ In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with keyboardist Richard Wright. In 1973, as a session singer, she was paid only the standard flat fee of £30 for Sunday studio work (the equivalent of £400 in 2022).[9] She said in 1998, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing."[3] In 2005, an out-of-court settlement was reached in Torry's favour, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.[14] All releases after 2005 carry an additional credit for "Vocal composition by Clare Torry"[15] in the "Great Gig in the Sky" segment of the booklet or liner notes.”
I wonder how much she got. Funny that no one ever thought to offer her a credit at the time, although I can see why it’s a grey area. Apparently when she’d finished singing she thought she’d made a fool of herself and was embarrassed to see the band
The sax player in Gerry Raffertey's Baker Street was just paid a flat fee for the session too afaicr.
Didn’t he then sue, successfully - ditto the keyboardist on Whiter Shade of Pale?
Though Alvin [Stardust] could clearly sing, as his great live performances proved, it was Peter’s voice on that first record–fairly standard industry practice at the time. We cut the record late in 1973, just weeks after having set up the company. Lord Levy. A Question of Honour .
Another example from that time would be the Rubettes, who were a bunch of session musicians hired to demo a song for Showaddywaddy, who turned it down, so the session musicians formed into the Rubettes but with a different singer from the one on the demo which was released as the single. Unusually, the new singer re-recorded the vocal for Top of the Pops.
The singer was the Rubettes USP though. Few could sing as high as he could and still hold the tune.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The poison pill approach, which I wonder might've worked in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
Guy kneeling: Ok, listen up students. This is a very rare specimen, probably the last example we'll ever see - at least in our lifetimes - of the Conservative PM. See how it tries to bluster sincerity by reaching for where it hopes we'll believe a heart might be? Get a quick sketch of the main features before it's too late.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government the swingback to the Conservative Opposition would be swift
I'm naturally assuming that our lifetimes will be short due to one or more of:
The horrors of a Labour government
AI-apocalypse
Nuclear winter
The commonplace pneumonia doing the rounds in China and now DENMARK
Remember in the May 2010 general election Brown Labour got just 29% of the vote, not much different to where the Sunak Tories are polling now. 2010 was also 13 years into a Labour government as we are now 13 years into a Tory government.
However within a year, by May 2011 Ed Miliband's Labour was on 41% with Yougov and 38% with Opinium.
If voters don't feel a new government is doing much for them and the economy isn't great they can swiftly turn against it
Relax. I'm not (and was never) seriously suggesting that Sunak will be the last Conservative PM of our lifetimes.
Afterall, there's a non-zero* chance of another Conservative PM within the next year or so
(And yes, electoral cycles etc - unless the Cons go full tonto and either split or the LDs find a great leader/new party is set up and actually works this time,** the Cons will be back in power well within a timescale that I very much hope will be within my lifetime. The only way it might not happen would be under PR where the inevitable splits of parties would produce a new leading centre-right party that was not the Conservative Party.
*although very small, I think **these are even more vanishingly small, particularly the last
Another possibility is that even under FPTP (but even more so, PR), the Tories take such a beating at the polls that Reform out-competes them and replaces them on the right.
That's also unlikely. The Tories have very considerable institutional strength in voter perceptions as the leading right-of-centre party, with elected officials all over then place, well beyond Westminster, while Reform have just about none. A reverse takeover is much more likely than an outright replacement. Even so, it's not impossible and has happened elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The UK needs to shake off this national neurosis about doing things with the USA.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The UK needs to shake off this national neurosis about doing things with the USA.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
Actually, on Le TwiX Russia is claiming some significant offensive gains all of a sudden, even as Zelenskyy talks about a new period of the war requiring fortification….
Could be nothing. Probably is nothing. Don’t get overexcited. Just sayin
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The UK needs to shake off this national neurosis about doing things with the USA.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
What the US does matters because the US is taken more seriously because it has more power. And generally, doing things in consultation with and the support of allies is a good thing and helps to reinforce mutual interests.
I completely agree that the UK shouldn't get dragged into America's adventures merely because the US has decided on something - but that's quite different from genuine joint action.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
Fair enough, there are probably some exceptions. But for the vast majority, they are obsolete – they are literally pointless clutter, like cash, and landline phones.
On the COVID-19 Inquiry, there is a schedule of hearings that goes through 2024/5 and, possibly, into 2026. If anyone feels there's a topic that hasn't been covered, there's a helluva lot more to come.
We're still on module 2. 6 modules have been announced and there may be more.
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
McGowan was a proper musical genius. But lyrically that’s not quite Cole Porter
“Fairytale” is much cleverer - probably the best Pogues song, lyrically
Fairytale of New York may be cleverer with the duet structure etc but there's something buried in Rainy Night in Soho that gets me every time I listen to it. The lyrics have that kind of unknowable quality that I think is the mark of real poetry.
“You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot Happy Christmas your arse I pray god it’s our last”
Is one of the greatest couplets in the history of pop music. It expresses true love and deep sentiment - as drunk loving ruined people really speak, with a clever rhyme scheme
I believe it has now been cancelled by the Woke
I have spent years thinking it was "Happy Christmas you arse-wipe, thank god it’s our last"
For around 30 years I believed, and was bemused, that in Quicksand Bowie sang "Knowledge comes from tax relief".
Eventually I googled it, and realised it was "death's release", which made more sense.
Ah, misheard lyrics- one of the many minor joys the internet has stolen from us.
Actually the problem still exists, a lot of the lyrics on the internet, particularly on Spotify, are wrong
I was going to link to ‘when the tigers broke free’ by Pink Floyd, but the lyrics are wrong almost everywhere; ‘Z’ instead of ‘C’ being the red flag.
There is a good misheard lyric on Spotify for Arctic Monkeys ‘No1 Party Anthem’
“Collar popped like antenna” is “like Cantona” and it fits so well with the rest of the song that a lot of people refuse to believe it is not about the footballer
I was saddened when I learnt that the lyric 'Get a house in Devon / Drink cider from eleven' from Feeder's 'Buck Rogers' was in fact 'Get a house in Devon / Drink cider from a lemon'. My mishearing rhymes better and conveys nicely, I think, the sense of the lazy rural drinking session. The actual lyric - with its smutty yet obscure gynaecological allusion - is just a bit shit.
When I listen to the repetitions of "Drink cider from a lemon" it seems to morph into "Drink cider from a melon". I keep thinking this even though I know it doesn't. I don't know what that says about me.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
If we had an actual fascist government, what The Guardian would do is close down.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
There's certainly a case for that.. Although as I said upthread I really appreciate it.
It was originally a dispute with Britain over the border with British Guiana.
Sunak could send a taskforce and get his Falklands moment.
Why? Guyana is now an independent state not a British overseas territory
Depends on whether Guyana requests assistance. Preventing another war breaking out might be a good thing. Perhaps the US could be persuaded to chip in a few troops and deter any Venzuealan nonsense. Proactive deployment would have a helpful deterrence effect.
It’s been a while since the US had a good jungle-based war to get its teeth into. The heartrending war movies have rather dried up.
“Guyana. You don’t understand man. You weren’t there”.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
If we had an actual fascist government, what The Guardian would do is close down.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Why is it always fascism?
As an aside, I used to have friends with a coprophilic dog. You knew what it wanted and it knew you knew as it edged itself before walkies.
Guy kneeling: Ok, listen up students. This is a very rare specimen, probably the last example we'll ever see - at least in our lifetimes - of the Conservative PM. See how it tries to bluster sincerity by reaching for where it hopes we'll believe a heart might be? Get a quick sketch of the main features before it's too late.
If the economy is poor under a Labour government the swingback to the Conservative Opposition would be swift
I'm naturally assuming that our lifetimes will be short due to one or more of:
The horrors of a Labour government
AI-apocalypse
Nuclear winter
The commonplace pneumonia doing the rounds in China and now DENMARK
Remember in the May 2010 general election Brown Labour got just 29% of the vote, not much different to where the Sunak Tories are polling now. 2010 was also 13 years into a Labour government as we are now 13 years into a Tory government.
However within a year, by May 2011 Ed Miliband's Labour was on 41% with Yougov and 38% with Opinium.
If voters don't feel a new government is doing much for them and the economy isn't great they can swiftly turn against it
Relax. I'm not (and was never) seriously suggesting that Sunak will be the last Conservative PM of our lifetimes.
Afterall, there's a non-zero* chance of another Conservative PM within the next year or so
(And yes, electoral cycles etc - unless the Cons go full tonto and either split or the LDs find a great leader/new party is set up and actually works this time,** the Cons will be back in power well within a timescale that I very much hope will be within my lifetime. The only way it might not happen would be under PR where the inevitable splits of parties would produce a new leading centre-right party that was not the Conservative Party.
*although very small, I think **these are even more vanishingly small, particularly the last
Another possibility is that even under FPTP (but even more so, PR), the Tories take such a beating at the polls that Reform out-competes them and replaces them on the right.
That's also unlikely. The Tories have very considerable institutional strength in voter perceptions as the leading right-of-centre party, with elected officials all over then place, well beyond Westminster, while Reform have just about none. A reverse takeover is much more likely than an outright replacement. Even so, it's not impossible and has happened elsewhere.
It happened in Canada (with today's Canadian Conservatives effectively a takeover by the Canadian Reform Party of the Canadian Tories). However it came about only after Reform beat the Canadian Tories in 1993 on both votes and seats and no evidence yet Reform is overtaking the Sunak Tories (though Farage's party might have beaten May's Tories had Boris not taken over and it still not delivered Brexit in 2019).
If we had PR of course Reform and the Tories could win seats and be in coalition as populist right and centre right parties are in Italy or New Zealand or Sweden and Spain with PR
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The UK needs to shake off this national neurosis about doing things with the USA.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
Actually, on Le TwiX Russia is claiming some significant offensive gains all of a sudden, even as Zelenskyy talks about a new period of the war requiring fortification….
Could be nothing. Probably is nothing. Don’t get overexcited. Just sayin
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The UK needs to shake off this national neurosis about doing things with the USA.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
The UK won't do anything militarily without UN approval or certainly without being under US leadership outside of British overseas territories now and that has been the case since Suez.
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
Superb. I especially like the penultimate verse.
The last line of the song gets me every time. It is so beautifully opaque but also somehow freighted with meaning. It's probably my favourite line in any pop song.
Talking of fabulous lyrics Roger Waters "Hanging on in Quiet desperation is the English way" is just magnificent.
Dark Side of the Moon is often superb, lyrically - which is quite odd as Pink Floyd generally didn’t write superb lyrics. Frequently nice or decent but never outstanding
That whole album is touched with an inexplicable, alchemical and cruelly fleeting genius. But at least we got that album
I find a lot of Waters lyrics from 73-84, Dark Side to the Final Cut, to be really moving and thought provoking
Interesting debate to be had about something I found out the other day; the lady who ‘sang’ The Great Gig in the Sky was awarded a songwriting credit for it thirty years after its release. She was told by the band to listen to the song, go into the studio and let herself go with whatever feelings it evoked. The results were legendary, but did she ‘write the song’? Apparently so. Maybe she did
She absolutely wrote half the song and deserves half the money
Rick Wright’s tune is simple and lovely but it’s her extemporised vocals which make it a masterpiece. I hope she got a million. The Floyd can certainly afford it
“ In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with keyboardist Richard Wright. In 1973, as a session singer, she was paid only the standard flat fee of £30 for Sunday studio work (the equivalent of £400 in 2022).[9] She said in 1998, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing."[3] In 2005, an out-of-court settlement was reached in Torry's favour, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.[14] All releases after 2005 carry an additional credit for "Vocal composition by Clare Torry"[15] in the "Great Gig in the Sky" segment of the booklet or liner notes.”
I wonder how much she got. Funny that no one ever thought to offer her a credit at the time, although I can see why it’s a grey area. Apparently when she’d finished singing she thought she’d made a fool of herself and was embarrassed to see the band
The sax player in Gerry Raffertey's Baker Street was just paid a flat fee for the session too afaicr.
Didn’t he then sue, successfully - ditto the keyboardist on Whiter Shade of Pale?
Though Alvin [Stardust] could clearly sing, as his great live performances proved, it was Peter’s voice on that first record–fairly standard industry practice at the time. We cut the record late in 1973, just weeks after having set up the company. Lord Levy. A Question of Honour .
Another example from that time would be the Rubettes, who were a bunch of session musicians hired to demo a song for Showaddywaddy, who turned it down, so the session musicians formed into the Rubettes but with a different singer from the one on the demo which was released as the single. Unusually, the new singer re-recorded the vocal for Top of the Pops.
The singer was the Rubettes USP though. Few could sing as high as he could and still hold the tune.
My mates Dad was in The Rubettes, and now his son, my mate, is a world famous DJ
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The UK needs to shake off this national neurosis about doing things with the USA.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
Actually, on Le TwiX Russia is claiming some significant offensive gains all of a sudden, even as Zelenskyy talks about a new period of the war requiring fortification….
Could be nothing. Probably is nothing. Don’t get overexcited. Just sayin
We have election in Moscow next week.
The president said any loss of life is unacceptable.
As a former British colony does this one require a detachment of HM armed forces to fly over and do a few exercises?
Rishi would love a nice South American military adventure to turn the polls.
No, if countries decided to be independent nations and no longer under the British Crown they can defend themselves.
British taxpayers don't need to do it!
It would be a betrayal of the late Queen's legacy not to intervene. Are you a traditional Conservative or not?
🎵Rule Britannia🎵
Guyana rejected the late Queen when they became a Republic in 1970.
So tough, they are on their own unless the UN intervene
You'd send a tank division to Glasgow - why not spare a frigate for Guyana?
What on earth do the Venezuelans have on you?!
Guyana is not part of the UK, unlike Scotland nor is the King its head of state, unlike Scotland.
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
Referring things to the UN is the international equivalent of setting up an interdepartmental committee. I expect there's a Yes (Prime) Minister quote along those lines.
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
The UK needs to shake off this national neurosis about doing things with the USA.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
Actually, on Le TwiX Russia is claiming some significant offensive gains all of a sudden, even as Zelenskyy talks about a new period of the war requiring fortification….
Could be nothing. Probably is nothing. Don’t get overexcited. Just sayin
Given Putin's original aim was to capture Kyiv and remove Zelensky he is still way short of that
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
There's certainly a case for that.. Although as I said upthread I really appreciate it.
But why you rather than a mum in her 30s renting an overcrowded flat with a commute?
Of course everyone appreciates a bit of free cash, but society should have good reasons when it re-allocates cash. In the words of the left this is regressive not progressive.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
I think 60+ is just London, isn't it? Elsewhere, you get a free bus pass (not free travel) at state pension age - 66 in my case.
Once was due to the resignation of Sian Berry, former leader of the party and twice mayoral candidate, to become parliamentary candidate for Brighton. If you can't win the seat of your former leader and arguably most prominent politician in London, where can you win? She's not even going to win in Brighton anyway.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Indeed Leon. I actually agree with you here. That's the big danger with constant '4th gear in the car park' hyperbolising. Eg it's how I feel about 95% of "freedom of speech!" chuntering. Come the day (god forbid) that free speech in the UK is really under serious threat we'll be hampered in fighting it because people have already gone and shot their bolt.
Totals of council seats changing hands in principal authority council by-elections since May: Con -17 Lab 0 LD +16 Gr +4 SNP -4 Ind +1
Though a lot of voters who will vote LD or Green locally will vote Labour nationally under FPTP where they are the main alternative to the Tories in their parliamentary constituency
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
There's certainly a case for that.. Although as I said upthread I really appreciate it.
But why you rather than a mum in her 30s renting an overcrowded flat with a commute?
Of course everyone appreciates a bit of free cash, but society should have good reasons when it re-allocates cash. In the words of the left this is regressive not progressive.
Ok yes. But I get a buzz out of my 60+ oyster that I wouldn't get from (say) the government gifting me the equivalent value in cash. So say the benefit to me is £1000 per annum, based on how much I use it, I'd actually rather pay double that in extra tax and keep my perk rather than lose it. Therefore it's an efficient benefit (assuming others feel as I do).
That's my ward! We are in SKS's constituency, although we're moving to a different constituency at the next general. It's a Green hold, but I was surprised at the scale of the Green victory. We're a 3-member ward, which has returned 1 Green and 2 Labour at the last four all-up local elections. Siân Berry (Green) topped the vote in 2022 and 2018, but it seemed telling that she had no coattails and couldn't get a second/third Green councillor elected.
In 2022, the second best performing Green in the ward was Lorna Russell (coming fifth overall), who had originally been elected in 2018 for Labour (in a different ward). I think the Greens had been very hopeful she would be elected, given her high profile, but it was not to be.
Earlier this year, Berry was selected as the Parliamentary candidate for Brighton, to replace the Green's only MP, Caroline Lucas. Berry has thus been spending all her time in Brighton, not London. After some months of criticism, she decided to relinquish her Council seat (although she's retained her London Assembly seat, but of course that pays well). Russell stood again and there was extensive campaigning by both Labour and Greens, although I got leaflets from the Conservatives and LibDems too. The Greens seemed most active to me, including some classic dodgy leaflets (the one that looks like an official election announcement from the Council but isn't, and the one with a dodgy poll).
In the end, Russell stormed home, getting nearly double the Labour vote. So, why was that? More campaigning? Greens doing better on the much lower by-election turnout? One message the Greens ran on is that control of the Council wasn't in play and isn't it good to have one Green on the Council. It does seem like the ward likes having a Green councillor, even if they're not bothered about having more than one. (They managed 2 out of 3 in 2006, that was their high-water mark.)
Of course, to get a vote in the Council chamber, you need a proposer and a seconder, so there's a limit to what a sole councillor can do. The Council remains 46 Labour to 5 Liberal Democrats, 3 Conservative and 1 Green.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
If we had an actual fascist government, what The Guardian would do is close down.
At least I wouldn't keep being told "you have only one of your 30 free Guardian articles left until 15th December".
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
There's certainly a case for that.. Although as I said upthread I really appreciate it.
But why you rather than a mum in her 30s renting an overcrowded flat with a commute?
Of course everyone appreciates a bit of free cash, but society should have good reasons when it re-allocates cash. In the words of the left this is regressive not progressive.
Ok yes. But I get a buzz out of my 60+ oyster that I wouldn't get from (say) the government gifting me the equivalent value in cash. So say the benefit to me is £1000 per annum, based on how much I use it, I'd actually rather pay double that in extra tax and keep my perk rather than lose it. Therefore it's an efficient benefit (assuming others feel as I do).
Only if we charged over 60s extra tax to double that value, which we don't. Whereas sixties is also the decade we stop charging them NI.....so errr, no.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
Ok, but we'd best leave it there since I sense the 'build lots of houses' exchange coming, and that's one we've had so often that it kind of 'exists' in its own right.
I’m in a Bangkok gogo bar doing intersectional reseatch for a university and it’s full of couples watching the topless (and sometims naked) girls gyrate in the swimming pool bit and it’s full of COUPLES
Not just couples. Indian couples. Rich Indians. Weird
It was originally a dispute with Britain over the border with British Guiana.
Sunak could send a taskforce and get his Falklands moment.
Why? Guyana is now an independent state not a British overseas territory
Depends on whether Guyana requests assistance. Preventing another war breaking out might be a good thing. Perhaps the US could be persuaded to chip in a few troops and deter any Venzuealan nonsense. Proactive deployment would have a helpful deterrence effect.
It’s been a while since the US had a good jungle-based war to get its teeth into. The heartrending war movies have rather dried up.
“Guyana. You don’t understand man. You weren’t there”.
- "Hey Telford! What was *your* chicken-shit outfit doing while we were taking Grenada?" - "Grenada. Five minutes of firefights, five weeks of surfing!"
I go out each Christmas with some friends for a Christmas meal. This year, we're going to a vegetarian restaurant. It's supposed to be nice. But everything on the menu sounds like a side order. Vegetables aren't a meal, they're things you have with a meal.
Had a very nice mushroom pie with chips in my local last night.
We have vegan friends staying this weekend and we are cooking them a mushroom and butternut squash risotto. I love meat but am happy to eat vegetarian and vegan if it is well cooked.
Butternut squash - hmm, not my favourite!
True story, when I worked at the MRC Labs at Mill Hill (London) about 15 years back, the staff canteen, for a time, had veggie options that always contained butternut squash: butternut squash curry, butternut squash pasta, butternut squash quiche... you get the picture!
Actually, I'll partially take back what I said - I do actively like roast butternut squash.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
There's certainly a case for that.. Although as I said upthread I really appreciate it.
But why you rather than a mum in her 30s renting an overcrowded flat with a commute?
Of course everyone appreciates a bit of free cash, but society should have good reasons when it re-allocates cash. In the words of the left this is regressive not progressive.
Ok yes. But I get a buzz out of my 60+ oyster that I wouldn't get from (say) the government gifting me the equivalent value in cash. So say the benefit to me is £1000 per annum, based on how much I use it, I'd actually rather pay double that in extra tax and keep my perk rather than lose it. Therefore it's an efficient benefit (assuming others feel as I do).
Only if we charged over 60s extra tax to double that value, which we don't. Whereas sixties is also the decade we stop charging them NI.....so errr, no.
What I mean is I'm getting something that costs £1000 which I value at far more than that. It's efficient in that sense.
Once was due to the resignation of Sian Berry, former leader of the party and twice mayoral candidate, to become parliamentary candidate for Brighton. If you can't win the seat of your former leader and arguably most prominent politician in London, where can you win? She's not even going to win in Brighton anyway.
She won with a 2% margin yesterdays election was won by a 30% lead on a 14% swing Lab to Green
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
Ok, but we'd best leave it there since I sense the 'build lots of houses' exchange coming, and that's one we've had so often that it kind of 'exists' in its own right.
We could have fun with schools, instead.
Riddle me this, Batman - why is it that constructing a new school costs more per sqm than building luxury basements under large houses in the fashionable bits of Chelsea?
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Indeed Leon. I actually agree with you here. That's the big danger with constant '4th gear in the car park' hyperbolising. Eg it's how I feel about 95% of "freedom of speech!" chuntering. Come the day (god forbid) that free speech in the UK is really under serious threat we'll be hampered in fighting it because people have already gone and shot their bolt.
Free speech in the UK is not just under threat, it's dead, at least in the old sense. David Starkey lost his jobs because he said racist things, Steve Bell lost his job because of an antisemitic cartoon. One woman this week got a documentary cancelled because she sucked a Nazi lollipop (that's not an euphemism). It happens so often I put down the #PBfreespeech hashtag to try to keep track. The only time anybody complains about free speech is if somebody says something anti-trans and people on Twitter says bad things. Other than that it's cancel, cancel, cancel all the way.
Somebody said satire died when Kissinger got the Peace Prize. UK free speech died when somebody was punished for saying something mean about the dead Captain Tom, and nobody (except one guy in the Spectator - Stephen Daisley?) kicked off. We are not the country we pretend to be.
Once was due to the resignation of Sian Berry, former leader of the party and twice mayoral candidate, to become parliamentary candidate for Brighton. If you can't win the seat of your former leader and arguably most prominent politician in London, where can you win? She's not even going to win in Brighton anyway.
She won with a 2% margin yesterdays election was won by a 30% lead on a 14% swing Lab to Green
"Green candidate retains Green seat shocka". Still, if it furthers your fantasy of getting the Tories back in just so you can say "SKS Fans Please Explain", then good on you. Political purity is more important than f**king the country after all.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
There's certainly a case for that.. Although as I said upthread I really appreciate it.
But why you rather than a mum in her 30s renting an overcrowded flat with a commute?
Of course everyone appreciates a bit of free cash, but society should have good reasons when it re-allocates cash. In the words of the left this is regressive not progressive.
Ok yes. But I get a buzz out of my 60+ oyster that I wouldn't get from (say) the government gifting me the equivalent value in cash. So say the benefit to me is £1000 per annum, based on how much I use it, I'd actually rather pay double that in extra tax and keep my perk rather than lose it. Therefore it's an efficient benefit (assuming others feel as I do).
Only if we charged over 60s extra tax to double that value, which we don't. Whereas sixties is also the decade we stop charging them NI.....so errr, no.
What I mean is I'm getting something that costs £1000 which I value at far more than that. It's efficient in that sense.
The 30 something renting working Mum is giving you cash you don't need which she does. Glad you value it, but its still bonkers that society has set it up this way.
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
Superb. I especially like the penultimate verse.
The last line of the song gets me every time. It is so beautifully opaque but also somehow freighted with meaning. It's probably my favourite line in any pop song.
Talking of fabulous lyrics Roger Waters "Hanging on in Quiet desperation is the English way" is just magnificent.
Dark Side of the Moon is often superb, lyrically - which is quite odd as Pink Floyd generally didn’t write superb lyrics. Frequently nice or decent but never outstanding
That whole album is touched with an inexplicable, alchemical and cruelly fleeting genius. But at least we got that album
I find a lot of Waters lyrics from 73-84, Dark Side to the Final Cut, to be really moving and thought provoking
Interesting debate to be had about something I found out the other day; the lady who ‘sang’ The Great Gig in the Sky was awarded a songwriting credit for it thirty years after its release. She was told by the band to listen to the song, go into the studio and let herself go with whatever feelings it evoked. The results were legendary, but did she ‘write the song’? Apparently so. Maybe she did
She absolutely wrote half the song and deserves half the money
Rick Wright’s tune is simple and lovely but it’s her extemporised vocals which make it a masterpiece. I hope she got a million. The Floyd can certainly afford it
“ In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with keyboardist Richard Wright. In 1973, as a session singer, she was paid only the standard flat fee of £30 for Sunday studio work (the equivalent of £400 in 2022).[9] She said in 1998, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing."[3] In 2005, an out-of-court settlement was reached in Torry's favour, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.[14] All releases after 2005 carry an additional credit for "Vocal composition by Clare Torry"[15] in the "Great Gig in the Sky" segment of the booklet or liner notes.”
I wonder how much she got. Funny that no one ever thought to offer her a credit at the time, although I can see why it’s a grey area. Apparently when she’d finished singing she thought she’d made a fool of herself and was embarrassed to see the band
The sax player in Gerry Raffertey's Baker Street was just paid a flat fee for the session too afaicr.
Didn’t he then sue, successfully - ditto the keyboardist on Whiter Shade of Pale?
Though Alvin [Stardust] could clearly sing, as his great live performances proved, it was Peter’s voice on that first record–fairly standard industry practice at the time. We cut the record late in 1973, just weeks after having set up the company. Lord Levy. A Question of Honour .
Another example from that time would be the Rubettes, who were a bunch of session musicians hired to demo a song for Showaddywaddy, who turned it down, so the session musicians formed into the Rubettes but with a different singer from the one on the demo which was released as the single. Unusually, the new singer re-recorded the vocal for Top of the Pops.
The singer was the Rubettes USP though. Few could sing as high as he could and still hold the tune.
My mates Dad was in The Rubettes, and now his son, my mate, is a world famous DJ
Really? That's genuinely something. I used to know the drummer in T'Pau but you can't really dine out on that. Nor could he, in fact. He was always moaning about the money, saying "it was all about Carol".
I’m in a Bangkok gogo bar doing intersectional reseatch for a university and it’s full of couples watching the topless (and sometims naked) girls gyrate in the swimming pool bit and it’s full of COUPLES
Not just couples. Indian couples. Rich Indians. Weird
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
"Something must be done" is not a policy. As is the custom of the Dalrymple tendency no fresh clue whatever is given about what a civilised society might do about the fact that uncivilised, criminal and wicked behaviour happens. He indirectly salivates a bit about the fascist tendency, without endorsing it, and leaves it there.
His approach is in fact, mutatis mutandis, much closer to the general editorial face of the Guardian than he realises. That is: the world is full of really bad stuff, it certainly isn't my fault so it must be someone else's, let's spread some blame around. Take your pick. Why O Why.....
BTW we have a supposedly ultra right government in Italy. They are finding governing reality slightly tougher than opposition rhetoric.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
We should just go full on Fash for the ROFLCOPTER bantz
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Indeed Leon. I actually agree with you here. That's the big danger with constant '4th gear in the car park' hyperbolising. Eg it's how I feel about 95% of "freedom of speech!" chuntering. Come the day (god forbid) that free speech in the UK is really under serious threat we'll be hampered in fighting it because people have already gone and shot their bolt.
Free speech in the UK is not just under threat, it's dead, at least in the old sense. David Starkey lost his jobs because he said racist things, Steve Bell lost his job because of an antisemitic cartoon. One woman this week got a documentary cancelled because she sucked a Nazi lollipop (that's not an euphemism). It happens so often I put down the #PBfreespeech hashtag to try to keep track. The only time anybody complains about free speech is if somebody says something anti-trans and people on Twitter says bad things. Other than that it's cancel, cancel, cancel all the way.
Somebody said satire died when Kissinger got the Peace Prize. UK free speech died when somebody was punished for saying something mean about the dead Captain Tom, and nobody (except one guy in the Spectator - Stephen Daisley?) kicked off. We are not the country we pretend to be.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
"Something must be done" is not a policy. As is the custom of the Dalrymple tendency no fresh clue whatever is given about what a civilised society might do about the fact that uncivilised, criminal and wicked behaviour happens. He indirectly salivates a bit about the fascist tendency, without endorsing it, and leaves it there.
His approach is in fact, mutatis mutandis, much closer to the general editorial face of the Guardian than he realises. That is: the world is full of really bad stuff, it certainly isn't my fault so it must be someone else's, let's spread some blame around. Take your pick. Why O Why.....
BTW we have a supposedly ultra right government in Italy. They are finding governing reality slightly tougher than opposition rhetoric.
Very often, the people who identify problems are different from the people who come up with good solutions.
That seems overly pessimistic to me on several fronts (no pun intended). What is clear is that it is Russia that is back on the offensive everywhere except the Dnipro river crossing and even there there seems to be a counterattack. The confident assertions that Russia was going to run out of men, shells, artillery and missiles have all proved to be false.
The American style war focusing on the opponents logistics has also failed to blunt the attacks. Instead Ukraine seem to be switching to hitting more targets within Russia itself, trying to bring home to Russians the price of war. This does seem to have had an effect on the polling but they are not fighting a democracy or anything like one.
I am not sure how long it can go on like this. Sooner rather than later one or perhaps both sides will simply be exhausted. It is by no means a given that Ukraine will be first to reach that point but it may well be possible.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
"Something must be done" is not a policy. As is the custom of the Dalrymple tendency no fresh clue whatever is given about what a civilised society might do about the fact that uncivilised, criminal and wicked behaviour happens. He indirectly salivates a bit about the fascist tendency, without endorsing it, and leaves it there.
His approach is in fact, mutatis mutandis, much closer to the general editorial face of the Guardian than he realises. That is: the world is full of really bad stuff, it certainly isn't my fault so it must be someone else's, let's spread some blame around. Take your pick. Why O Why.....
BTW we have a supposedly ultra right government in Italy. They are finding governing reality slightly tougher than opposition rhetoric.
Dalrymple's point is that the government in Italy will not change much. But the voters wanted change. So....
The point of representative democratic politics is to come up with policies that satisfy the people while not breaking other things.
The question I'm not seeing being asked (other than obliquely) is cui bono? Whose interests is it in to slag off the king and Kate? I don't think you need to be Poirot to work that one out, even if you didn't know the friendships of the author.
Similarly, you have to ask 'is it credible?'. Well, anyone can say something stupid or offensive, whatever else they've done (or not done), especially in private, possibly as a joke. Even so, Charles chose to involve himself deeply in the work of the Princes Trust, to gain understandings of non-Christian religions and in plenty else which takes him to ethnic minorities. He's also - AFAIK - never been revealed to have made any comment about Harry's distinctively ginger colouring, which makes the likelihood of him making disparaging comments about Harry's own child all the less.
Anyway, Harry and Meghan can only carry on trading on an increasingly distant and brief past for so long. Give it 10 years and the Wales's children will be becoming adults and William may be king.
New article by one of the best commentators out there imo. (He's British but this is an American magazine hence the spelling).
"Theodore Dalrymple A Specter Haunting Europe The political class’s impotence in the face of so much public anxiety makes fertile soil for extremism.
A specter is haunting Europe, and it is fascism. I don’t mean by this the insulting term that radical students have long hurled at anyone who disagreed with them in the slightest. I mean a brutal, violent mass movement that will not hesitate to intimidate, oppress, and kill in the name of a nation.
Geert Wilders is not a fascist, but if his electoral triumph in the Netherlands (relative, not absolute) does not result in genuinely assuaging the discontents of which his triumph is a symptom, it is not unlikely that at least some of his voters will become so disillusioned with, and frustrated by, normal politics that they will look elsewhere for a solution."
The article appears to be arguing that we have to be a bit fascist to stop more fascist fascists coming along. I am not persuaded.
Alternatively,
2) Stick our fingers in our ears and scream LA-LA-LA 3) Try some rational policies to alleviate actual problems. Like stop denying that a population growing at x% a decade needs x% growth in housing and other facilities. And actually fucking build them.
(3) sounds great. (3) is not what Dalrymple is arguing for.
Dalrymple is an old hand at discerning why the world as we know it is coming to an end. Treat same as Zero Hedge. He needs to spend more time with people who are buying socks for their family members for Christmas, and stop disliking the human race so much.
That's my main problem with these 'new reactionary right' pundits. So many of them seem to be consumed by a meanness of spirit. Even if they write well and their stuff now and again has an interesting take, you never feel better for having read it.
In this case, he is right that either something is done, or the more people will move to er.. non traditional politics.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
"Something must be done" is not a policy. As is the custom of the Dalrymple tendency no fresh clue whatever is given about what a civilised society might do about the fact that uncivilised, criminal and wicked behaviour happens. He indirectly salivates a bit about the fascist tendency, without endorsing it, and leaves it there.
His approach is in fact, mutatis mutandis, much closer to the general editorial face of the Guardian than he realises. That is: the world is full of really bad stuff, it certainly isn't my fault so it must be someone else's, let's spread some blame around. Take your pick. Why O Why.....
BTW we have a supposedly ultra right government in Italy. They are finding governing reality slightly tougher than opposition rhetoric.
Very often, the people who identify problems are different from the people who come up with good solutions.
It's not like he's done something amazingly clever in identifying the problem. Wilders' win was headline news around the world.
Meanwhile, in "Conservatives Losing" news, the latest dispatch from London;
The “Good Samaritan” who returned a lost Oyster card to Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has told how delighted she was to be reunited with her free travel pass...
Shortly after the incident, on Monday afternoon, Ms Hall’s spokesman said she believed she had been pickpocketed on the Tube as she travelled home from Westminster to Pinner, first on the Jubilee line and then the Metropolitan line, which she switched on to at Finchley Road.
But there's the 60+ oyster like what I have. The FP is different, I think?
It really is ridiculous. The way the modern economy and society is set up 60s are probably the decade with the most disposable cash. Why are we giving them free travel? Move it up to 75+.
There's certainly a case for that.. Although as I said upthread I really appreciate it.
But why you rather than a mum in her 30s renting an overcrowded flat with a commute?
Of course everyone appreciates a bit of free cash, but society should have good reasons when it re-allocates cash. In the words of the left this is regressive not progressive.
Ok yes. But I get a buzz out of my 60+ oyster that I wouldn't get from (say) the government gifting me the equivalent value in cash. So say the benefit to me is £1000 per annum, based on how much I use it, I'd actually rather pay double that in extra tax and keep my perk rather than lose it. Therefore it's an efficient benefit (assuming others feel as I do).
Only if we charged over 60s extra tax to double that value, which we don't. Whereas sixties is also the decade we stop charging them NI.....so errr, no.
What I mean is I'm getting something that costs £1000 which I value at far more than that. It's efficient in that sense.
The 30 something renting working Mum is giving you cash you don't need which she does. Glad you value it, but its still bonkers that society has set it up this way.
I'm not really disagreeing with you, I'm making a slightly different point. Eg yes I'd vote to stop the benefit, I'd have to if it was a straight reductive choice, keep or scrap, but I'd rather pay extra tax to the value of more than the benefit and keep it. It's a benefit that has more value to me than it costs to provide. That's a 'good' benefit. There aren't many like that, so it'd be a shame to lose it. Better to change the tax regime, get more in from folk like me, and let me keep my lovely 60+ oyster.
Can I just thank whoever it was that linked to the Pogues "And the band played waltzing Matilda" on the previous thread. A brilliant and deeply moving rendition.
McGowan was the real deal, not least a fantastic lyricist. Look at the lyrics to A Rainy Night in Soho, below - just beautiful poetry.
I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways
We watched our friends grow up together And we saw them as they fell Some of them fell into Heaven Some of them fell into Hell
I took shelter from a shower And I stepped into your arms On a rainy night in Soho The wind was whistling all its charms
I sang you all my sorrows You told me all your joys Whatever happened to that old song? To all those little girls and boys
Sometimes I'd wake up in the morning The ginger lady by my bed Covered in a cloak of silence I'd hear you talking in my head
I'm not singing for the future I'm not dreaming of the past I'm not talking of the first times I never think about the last
Now the song is nearly over We may never find out what it means Still there's a light I hold before me You're the measure of my dreams The measure of my dreams
Superb. I especially like the penultimate verse.
The last line of the song gets me every time. It is so beautifully opaque but also somehow freighted with meaning. It's probably my favourite line in any pop song.
Talking of fabulous lyrics Roger Waters "Hanging on in Quiet desperation is the English way" is just magnificent.
Dark Side of the Moon is often superb, lyrically - which is quite odd as Pink Floyd generally didn’t write superb lyrics. Frequently nice or decent but never outstanding
That whole album is touched with an inexplicable, alchemical and cruelly fleeting genius. But at least we got that album
I find a lot of Waters lyrics from 73-84, Dark Side to the Final Cut, to be really moving and thought provoking
Interesting debate to be had about something I found out the other day; the lady who ‘sang’ The Great Gig in the Sky was awarded a songwriting credit for it thirty years after its release. She was told by the band to listen to the song, go into the studio and let herself go with whatever feelings it evoked. The results were legendary, but did she ‘write the song’? Apparently so. Maybe she did
She absolutely wrote half the song and deserves half the money
Rick Wright’s tune is simple and lovely but it’s her extemporised vocals which make it a masterpiece. I hope she got a million. The Floyd can certainly afford it
“ In 2004, Torry sued Pink Floyd and EMI for songwriting royalties on the basis that her contribution to "The Great Gig in the Sky" constituted co-authorship with keyboardist Richard Wright. In 1973, as a session singer, she was paid only the standard flat fee of £30 for Sunday studio work (the equivalent of £400 in 2022).[9] She said in 1998, "If I'd known then what I know now, I would have done something about organising copyright or publishing."[3] In 2005, an out-of-court settlement was reached in Torry's favour, although the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.[14] All releases after 2005 carry an additional credit for "Vocal composition by Clare Torry"[15] in the "Great Gig in the Sky" segment of the booklet or liner notes.”
I wonder how much she got. Funny that no one ever thought to offer her a credit at the time, although I can see why it’s a grey area. Apparently when she’d finished singing she thought she’d made a fool of herself and was embarrassed to see the band
The sax player in Gerry Raffertey's Baker Street was just paid a flat fee for the session too afaicr.
Didn’t he then sue, successfully - ditto the keyboardist on Whiter Shade of Pale?
I heard a story that they were in Decca studios or wherever and this woman was just passing or had just recorded something and was minding her own business and they nabbed her and said can you please do this.
And I think I heard that on the Danny Baker show must be decades ago now where they interviewed her although my memory is a bit fuzzy.
Comments
Of course the article is not necessarily aligned with the headline but still.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/cop-uk-to-pay-compensation-to-poorer-countries-affected-by-climate-change/ar-AA1kO8L2?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=641d8f41213940baa0701e7aebac4f31&ei=9
Its security is not our problem now, it is for the UN to sort out and our only role in relation to it would be through the UN
From reading the article, he is saying that, unless *something* is done, the swing to more extreme views will continue.
EDIT: 3) isn't so great when it will come to the actual solutions. "But a road through there will ruin my favourite little woodland". Answer - "For societies sake, we are gong to have to fuck up your woodland. Man up and fuck off."
I do wonder what the Guardian would do if we had an ACTUAL Fascist government in power, rather than this milksop bunch of posho social democrats - presiding over maximum immigration, high tax, high spend, Woke education, etc
Because they have already exhausted their lexicon of Fash-hatred labeling anything the government does, like maybe try and deport one single immigrant, as basically Nazi, what would they say if the government literally deported two million?
This time they’re Nazi, and we mean it!
It’s like when gymnastics judges at the Olympics started awarding perfect tens, there was nowhere further to go, even when a superior performer came along
Lord Levy. A Question of Honour .
Another example from that time would be the Rubettes, who were a bunch of session musicians hired to demo a song for Showaddywaddy, who turned it down, so the session musicians formed into the Rubettes but with a different singer from the one on the demo which was released as the single. Unusually, the new singer re-recorded the vocal for Top of the Pops.
On the last three occasions when there was a change from a party which had secured a long string of general of Government following a long series of general election victories, in each case the incoming party won a second term (1964, 1997, 2010). Although admittedly none of those governments were left to deal with anything approaching the utter meltdown that Sunak will bequeath.
Nobody uses Oyster anymore – what is the point of it? It's like cash, credit 'cards' and landline phones – obsolete.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZYPcdj_wn4
Maintaining energy supplies, and providing allies and friends around the world both have value.
A frigate, by the way, would be of only marginal use and would be seen - rightly - by Venezuela as merely a token gesture of support which could easily be ignored. 400 troops on the ground providing 'training' would be a different matter - particularly if augmented with Americans. It's not about the difference those troops could make; it's about what might come afterwards.
It should also be pointed out that post 1997 was a rarity in the government generally being ahead in polls still for a sustained period, Starmer is no Blair and the economy is not as good as it was then either
*shudder*
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares/free-and-discounted-travel/freedom-pass#on-this-page-1
That's also unlikely. The Tories have very considerable institutional strength in voter perceptions as the leading right-of-centre party, with elected officials all over then place, well beyond Westminster, while Reform have just about none. A reverse takeover is much more likely than an outright replacement. Even so, it's not impossible and has happened elsewhere.
If getting militarily involved in a South American border dispute is a worthy idea (it's not) then it shouldn't matter what the US does.
Still, Ukraine has fizzled out to a boring and narrow territorial gain for Russia but maybe the Operación Militar Especial will work out brilliantly.
Could be nothing. Probably is nothing. Don’t get overexcited. Just sayin
I completely agree that the UK shouldn't get dragged into America's adventures merely because the US has decided on something - but that's quite different from genuine joint action.
We're still on module 2. 6 modules have been announced and there may be more.
“Guyana. You don’t understand man. You weren’t there”.
As an aside, I used to have friends with a coprophilic dog. You knew what it wanted and it knew you knew as it edged itself before walkies.
If we had PR of course Reform and the Tories could win seats and be in coalition as populist right and centre right parties are in Italy or New Zealand or Sweden and Spain with PR
https://econ.trib.al/oxHsXPm
All in SKS Back Yard
https://news.camden.gov.uk/highgate-by-election-result/
We have election in Moscow next week.
The president said any loss of life is unacceptable.
I always thought Wayne was saying “High coup” here… didn’t make sense but I let it go. The only time I’d heard of a Haiku was on here
https://youtu.be/MNcSKUQPjTg?si=c1bkVHEV6M0XRqdf
Of course everyone appreciates a bit of free cash, but society should have good reasons when it re-allocates cash. In the words of the left this is regressive not progressive.
We are looking at a serious possibility of a Le Pen presidency. And the AfD winning significant political power in the near future…
The problem is that doing something of the rational sort means violently upsetting a whole swathe of people who are dedicated to the process of not doing much while spending the earth.
Con -17
Lab 0
LD +16
Gr +4
SNP -4
Ind +1
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12813625/trevor-phillips-omid-scobie-racist-royals-allegation-nonsense-race-row-dutch-endgame.html
In 2022, the second best performing Green in the ward was Lorna Russell (coming fifth overall), who had originally been elected in 2018 for Labour (in a different ward). I think the Greens had been very hopeful she would be elected, given her high profile, but it was not to be.
Earlier this year, Berry was selected as the Parliamentary candidate for Brighton, to replace the Green's only MP, Caroline Lucas. Berry has thus been spending all her time in Brighton, not London. After some months of criticism, she decided to relinquish her Council seat (although she's retained her London Assembly seat, but of course that pays well). Russell stood again and there was extensive campaigning by both Labour and Greens, although I got leaflets from the Conservatives and LibDems too. The Greens seemed most active to me, including some classic dodgy leaflets (the one that looks like an official election announcement from the Council but isn't, and the one with a dodgy poll).
In the end, Russell stormed home, getting nearly double the Labour vote. So, why was that? More campaigning? Greens doing better on the much lower by-election turnout? One message the Greens ran on is that control of the Council wasn't in play and isn't it good to have one Green on the Council. It does seem like the ward likes having a Green councillor, even if they're not bothered about having more than one. (They managed 2 out of 3 in 2006, that was their high-water mark.)
Of course, to get a vote in the Council chamber, you need a proposer and a seconder, so there's a limit to what a sole councillor can do. The Council remains 46 Labour to 5 Liberal Democrats, 3 Conservative and 1 Green.
Find yourself a friendly haiku
Go to sleep for ten or fifteen years
Not just couples. Indian couples. Rich Indians. Weird
- "Grenada. Five minutes of firefights, five weeks of surfing!"
Riddle me this, Batman - why is it that constructing a new school costs more per sqm than building luxury basements under large houses in the fashionable bits of Chelsea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4cCorGR8hU
I have switched from Red Democratic Socialist to Green Democratic Socialist and SKS Party has switched from Lab to Red Tory
Somebody said satire died when Kissinger got the Peace Prize. UK free speech died when somebody was punished for saying something mean about the dead Captain Tom, and nobody (except one guy in the Spectator - Stephen Daisley?) kicked off. We are not the country we pretend to be.
Your point is what?
His approach is in fact, mutatis mutandis, much closer to the general editorial face of the Guardian than he realises. That is: the world is full of really bad stuff, it certainly isn't my fault so it must be someone else's, let's spread some blame around. Take your pick. Why O Why.....
BTW we have a supposedly ultra right government in Italy. They are finding governing reality slightly tougher than opposition rhetoric.
The American style war focusing on the opponents logistics has also failed to blunt the attacks. Instead Ukraine seem to be switching to hitting more targets within Russia itself, trying to bring home to Russians the price of war. This does seem to have had an effect on the polling but they are not fighting a democracy or anything like one.
I am not sure how long it can go on like this. Sooner rather than later one or perhaps both sides will simply be exhausted. It is by no means a given that Ukraine will be first to reach that point but it may well be possible.
The point of representative democratic politics is to come up with policies that satisfy the people while not breaking other things.
Similarly, you have to ask 'is it credible?'. Well, anyone can say something stupid or offensive, whatever else they've done (or not done), especially in private, possibly as a joke. Even so, Charles chose to involve himself deeply in the work of the Princes Trust, to gain understandings of non-Christian religions and in plenty else which takes him to ethnic minorities. He's also - AFAIK - never been revealed to have made any comment about Harry's distinctively ginger colouring, which makes the likelihood of him making disparaging comments about Harry's own child all the less.
Anyway, Harry and Meghan can only carry on trading on an increasingly distant and brief past for so long. Give it 10 years and the Wales's children will be becoming adults and William may be king.
And I think I heard that on the Danny Baker show must be decades ago now where they interviewed her although my memory is a bit fuzzy.