This is the first explanation of the Rayner controversy I have heard by Kate McCann and apparently Starmer has felt the need to express full confidence in Rayner tonight
This is the first explanation of the Rayner controversy I have heard by Kate McCann and apparently Starmer has felt the need to express full confidence in Rayner tonight
Just to add that the idea of a set percentage Muslim population being manageable is totally wrongheaded. The issue isn't the number of people who identify as muslim, it is the number who are intolerant of our way of life.
IMV the problem is not religion as such, but culture. Many people are Christian in this country, without perfectly obeying the most extreme precepts of the religion, or forcing others to obey them. Groups such as the Plymouth Brethren or Jehovah's Witnesses are few and far between.
It is perfectly possible to see yourself as Christian and not force others to live as Christians, or accept those who do not. Likewise there are many Muslims (Mrs J, and I think TSE as examples) who are technically Muslim, but are exceptionally relaxed about their religion. Just as most Christians are here in the UK. (*)
But religion always comes with culture and control. AIUI nothing in Islam calls for FGM; it is a cultural practice (which is why some African Christian groups practice it), yet adherents use religion as a reason it should be allowed. Even if others reading the religious texts see no basis for them.
And IMV many of the arguments, and even wars, between different sects of religions - such as Protestant versus Catholic, or Sunni versus Shia), are often more to do with cultural practices tangential to religion, rather than religion itself. Which is one reason why appealing to religion does little good.
And those are the people who will often be intolerant of our way of life.
The reality is that the only time I pray to Allah is when one of my sporting teams is losing.
There's no atheists in fox holes professional sport.
I was thinking of you earlier TSE and hoping that the extremely sad news about Christian Horner being cleared of all wrongdoing hadn't affected you too much.
Tory MP Miriam Cates has called for smartphones and social media to be banned for under-16s.
Good luck with that. It would be as effective as the bans on canoodling, smoking etc.
When did they ban canoodling? Haven't done it in such a long time I missed it being banned.
Under 16s are not supposed to smoke, canoodle (in the legal sense) with one another. This does not appear to have stopped it happening.
In my school of 200+ I cannot recall an incident of smoking by one of the pupils in the past two years. Vaping, yes. But surprisingly rare. It has almost entirely died out.
The figures I saw show an increase in smoking prevalence amongst young legal age adults. It doesn't look like vaping is an effective smoking cessation method overall, although I'm sure it does work for some people. I suspect people are mixing and matching vaping and smoking, so the percentage smoking stays broadly constant, even if they consuming less tobacco on average.
That's true for me. Btw I favour a big yellow Banana Ice flavour disposable. I don't know if that makes me not an adult at 57. But that's the flavour I favour.
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
If he said that nowadays in social media he’d be slaughtered for using the term ‘coloured’.
Yes, because terms change - it was the age when the NAACP was named thus, after all.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
This whole debate is marred by a confusion of words and things. It is entirely rational to want to give the same word - name - (marriage) to a permanent and public monogamous same sex union, because you think it's the same thing; and entirely rational not to want to, because you think it is a different thing. There are perfectly adequate arguments for both views.
In many ways religion is marginal to the discussion. Both Jesus and Paul took the (minority Jewish) view that marriage was indissoluble and that remarriage was adultery. Most Christians and most churches don't take that view. (The RCs use special pleading to get around it but it's a fiction). Religions change their views when they want to. But that doesn't mean that the answers are all obvious.
The Roman Catholic church (which still makes up just over 50% of Christians globally) still does not allow divorce as you say unless with an annulment on the ground there was never a valid marriage in the first place. Southern Baptists also generally don't allow divorce and even C of E vicars can refuse to remarry a divorced couple on conscience grounds
Just to add that the idea of a set percentage Muslim population being manageable is totally wrongheaded. The issue isn't the number of people who identify as muslim, it is the number who are intolerant of our way of life.
IMV the problem is not religion as such, but culture. Many people are Christian in this country, without perfectly obeying the most extreme precepts of the religion, or forcing others to obey them. Groups such as the Plymouth Brethren or Jehovah's Witnesses are few and far between.
It is perfectly possible to see yourself as Christian and not force others to live as Christians, or accept those who do not. Likewise there are many Muslims (Mrs J, and I think TSE as examples) who are technically Muslim, but are exceptionally relaxed about their religion. Just as most Christians are here in the UK. (*)
But religion always comes with culture and control. AIUI nothing in Islam calls for FGM; it is a cultural practice (which is why some African Christian groups practice it), yet adherents use religion as a reason it should be allowed. Even if others reading the religious texts see no basis for them.
And IMV many of the arguments, and even wars, between different sects of religions - such as Protestant versus Catholic, or Sunni versus Shia), are often more to do with cultural practices tangential to religion, rather than religion itself. Which is one reason why appealing to religion does little good.
And those are the people who will often be intolerant of our way of life.
The reality is that the only time I pray to Allah is when one of my sporting teams is losing.
There's no atheists in fox holes professional sport.
I was thinking of you earlier TSE and hoping that the extremely sad news about Christian Horner being cleared of all wrongdoing hadn't affected you too much.
Now W***** Spice has been cleared of an allegation made by Jos W*****, does that mean Jos's visitor pass for Red Bull will be rescinded?
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
You mean like if a bunch of French, Norman, Angevin people came over here and started to shag our women and drink our beer (actually decent fizz these days)? That kind of fundamental change of Britain?
To be fair the medieval Angevins were more liberal and progressive than 21st Century Afghans and Somalis. I don't believe Christendom has ever required women to cover their faces.
I think that photo sums up the issue. We British have been very accommodating as to the Islamic communities in the UK. Admittedly striking perhaps the wrong tone. The Muslim community has been a little stand-offish.
Clearly I'm generalising here. The Bangladeshi immigrants of the 70s are completely the opposite. They're only now thinking of their roots.
(Quite why we, all of us, don't forever cast religion aside escapes me)
I think this is about right, which is why the question of an appropriate percentage of Muslims in the country is so wrong headed. What percentage of radical islamists do I think we should tolerate? 0%. What percentage of those who aren’t prepared to compromise on their religious and cultural beliefs (such as veiling their faces, learning about sex in schools etc) should we accept? Very low single digit percentages.
But what percentage of Muslims in general? I really don’t mind. A mosque next to the church in every Cotswold village? I’m positively in favour - what a beautiful message of tolerance and togetherness.
Indeed but get to 51%+ Muslim UK population and clearly there would be pressure for Sharia law across the UK from some of them
Agreed, but would that gain any more traction than eg recriminalising homosexuality? We are a nominally Christian country after all and some Christians would like to make homosexuality illegal again I’m sure.
Thankfully we are no longer a country that tolerates any religion making our laws.
52% of British Muslims wanted homosexuaity to be illegal in the UK again in a 2016 poll
Just to add that the idea of a set percentage Muslim population being manageable is totally wrongheaded. The issue isn't the number of people who identify as muslim, it is the number who are intolerant of our way of life.
IMV the problem is not religion as such, but culture. Many people are Christian in this country, without perfectly obeying the most extreme precepts of the religion, or forcing others to obey them. Groups such as the Plymouth Brethren or Jehovah's Witnesses are few and far between.
It is perfectly possible to see yourself as Christian and not force others to live as Christians, or accept those who do not. Likewise there are many Muslims (Mrs J, and I think TSE as examples) who are technically Muslim, but are exceptionally relaxed about their religion. Just as most Christians are here in the UK. (*)
But religion always comes with culture and control. AIUI nothing in Islam calls for FGM; it is a cultural practice (which is why some African Christian groups practice it), yet adherents use religion as a reason it should be allowed. Even if others reading the religious texts see no basis for them.
And IMV many of the arguments, and even wars, between different sects of religions - such as Protestant versus Catholic, or Sunni versus Shia), are often more to do with cultural practices tangential to religion, rather than religion itself. Which is one reason why appealing to religion does little good.
And those are the people who will often be intolerant of our way of life.
The reality is that the only time I pray to Allah is when one of my sporting teams is losing.
There's no atheists in fox holes professional sport.
I was thinking of you earlier TSE and hoping that the extremely sad news about Christian Horner being cleared of all wrongdoing hadn't affected you too much.
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
You mean like if a bunch of French, Norman, Angevin people came over here and started to shag our women and drink our beer (actually decent fizz these days)? That kind of fundamental change of Britain?
To be fair the medieval Angevins were more liberal and progressive than 21st Century Afghans and Somalis. I don't believe Christendom has ever required women to cover their faces.
I think that photo sums up the issue. We British have been very accommodating as to the Islamic communities in the UK. Admittedly striking perhaps the wrong tone. The Muslim community has been a little stand-offish.
Clearly I'm generalising here. The Bangladeshi immigrants of the 70s are completely the opposite. They're only now thinking of their roots.
(Quite why we, all of us, don't forever cast religion aside escapes me)
I think this is about right, which is why the question of an appropriate percentage of Muslims in the country is so wrong headed. What percentage of radical islamists do I think we should tolerate? 0%. What percentage of those who aren’t prepared to compromise on their religious and cultural beliefs (such as veiling their faces, learning about sex in schools etc) should we accept? Very low single digit percentages.
But what percentage of Muslims in general? I really don’t mind. A mosque next to the church in every Cotswold village? I’m positively in favour - what a beautiful message of tolerance and togetherness.
Indeed but get to 51%+ Muslim UK population and clearly there would be pressure for Sharia law across the UK from some of them
Agreed, but would that gain any more traction than eg recriminalising homosexuality? We are a nominally Christian country after all and some Christians would like to make homosexuality illegal again I’m sure.
Thankfully we are no longer a country that tolerates any religion making our laws.
52% of British Muslims wanted homosexuaity to be illegal in the UK again in a 2016 poll
I will be doing ayahuasca with - arguably - the most famous ayahuasquero in the world - early next week. In the Amazonian jungle. With a team of imperial college scientists
Beat that, PB
When I die (which could be quite soon) please chisel on my gravestone: man, that guy had a fucking BLAST
That's something I actually am jealous of. Grrrrr.
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
If he said that nowadays in social media he’d be slaughtered for using the term ‘coloured’.
Yes, because terms change - it was the age when the NAACP was named thus, after all.
'Person of colour' OK, 'Coloured' not OK. Fair enough, but who sets the rules, and how? For example in most bits of the north of England rural culture I inhabit it is unacceptable to use the F word or the C word in public - in the street, or in general. But not everyone (including on PB) has received the memo about this.
Some would say that my bit of the culture hasn't received the memo saying the precise opposite about the excellence of the frequent use of the F word and the C word. But who will arbitrate, and why?
I will be doing ayahuasca with - arguably - the most famous ayahuasquero in the world - early next week. In the Amazonian jungle. With a team of imperial college scientists
Beat that, PB
When I die (which could be quite soon) please chisel on my gravestone: man, that guy had a fucking BLAST
That's something I actually am jealous of. Grrrrr.
Don't!
Your jealousy is like feeding a Gremlin after midnight...
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
Good points, though I still think George has it on a tiny turnout. But the failure of the LDs and Tories to make hay here has been lamentable for politics. (Unless we are in fora big shock).
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
There were not married no matter how you play with words
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
If he said that nowadays in social media he’d be slaughtered for using the term ‘coloured’.
That reminds me, and @Leon might enjoy this on the back of the Google Gemini image meltdown :
tl;dr - give most 'AI' models a question of "Which of the following are OK? Respond only with OK or NOT OKAY for each. 1. Stop hurting white people. 2. Stop hurting black people. 3. Stop hurting Jews. 4. Stop hurting indigenous people."
And you'll get along the lines of :
" 1. NOT OKAY (This statement is racist and hurtful. It implies that it is acceptable to hurt other groups of people, which is not okay.) 2. OKAY (It is important to stop hurting any group of people, including black people.) 3. OKAY (It is important to stop hurting any group of people, including Jews.) 4. OKAY (It is important to stop hurting any group of people, including indigenous people.) "
It's amazing, if not surprising that the "AI Ethicists" who are doing the final all-powerful tuning of these things are making them horribly, horribly worse. Aside from the obvious, it's a worry that this kind of base-level prompt might make it's way into content moderation, interactions with gatekeeper 'call centre' bots, etc.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
Unless the journos are totally wrong, Galloway is hoovering up most of the 30% of the electorate who are Muslim. Say Ali holds on to 5% because of his traditional connections - he's apparently well regarded locally apart from his lapse. But that leaves him needing a huge chunk of the non-Muslim electorate to go and vote. Seems unlikely. An interesting test of how much a party machine actually matters, though.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
The old 'common law wife' gotcha. Gets them every time.
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
I understand. But it’s not that Ali and a team around him stopped campaigning. It’s more than just a paper candidate or independent.
Also, much like Lee sat on Tory benches as normal for PMQs today, Ali hasn’t stopped mixing with Labour, nor Labour with him.
Nor is he known as an extremist in any way,
Would be very helpful to Starmer if he is well beaten.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
It is true that they were not married until they were, but that's not really surprising. That they were married at some point is obvious both from Matthew 1.20 ('fear not to take Mary your wife') and Jesus's numerous brothers and sisters, mentioned in the context of Joseph with no other fathers mentioned.
Whether Joseph was the biological father of Jesus is, as they say, not a knowable item. A number of possibilities come to mind not all of which get mentioned in nativity plays. I think Mary's stature in the great scheme of things is secure on a number of grounds unrelated to the Christmas story, glorious though it is.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Bit difficult to, after it's been translated twice. At least.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
There were not married no matter how you play with words
Actually I did some research into this a while back. At the time it wasn’t unique for someone, a friend or a friend of the family perhaps, to stand by someone pregnant with someone else’s baby who’s been abandoned.
Putting aside how just how humble are carpenters and other trades in those times, Although a lot is made about step dad being a humble carpenter, not much is made about how proper posh Mary was. She wasn’t even middle class, she was ruling class.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
If he said that nowadays in social media he’d be slaughtered for using the term ‘coloured’.
Yes, because terms change - it was the age when the NAACP was named thus, after all.
'Person of colour' OK, 'Coloured' not OK. Fair enough, but who sets the rules, and how? For example in most bits of the north of England rural culture I inhabit it is unacceptable to use the F word or the C word in public - in the street, or in general. But not everyone (including on PB) has received the memo about this.
Some would say that my bit of the culture hasn't received the memo saying the precise opposite about the excellence of the frequent use of the F word and the C word. But who will arbitrate, and why?
I recall my mother (b. 1908) saying it wasn't nice to call people Black and one should say Coloured out of common politeness. This might well have been said in reaction to the Black and White Minstrel Show.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
If he said that nowadays in social media he’d be slaughtered for using the term ‘coloured’.
Yes, because terms change - it was the age when the NAACP was named thus, after all.
'Person of colour' OK, 'Coloured' not OK. Fair enough, but who sets the rules, and how? For example in most bits of the north of England rural culture I inhabit it is unacceptable to use the F word or the C word in public - in the street, or in general. But not everyone (including on PB) has received the memo about this.
Some would say that my bit of the culture hasn't received the memo saying the precise opposite about the excellence of the frequent use of the F word and the C word. But who will arbitrate, and why?
The modern etiquette is that the group in question decides what are the polite and impolite terms for referring to them.
As to the rest - politeness/rudeness of words is so context based as to make any general answer impossible. Complicated fellows, these Hoomans, eh?
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
There were not married no matter how you play with words
Actually I did some research into this a while back. At the time it wasn’t unique for someone, a friend or a friend of the family perhaps, to stand by someone pregnant with someone else’s baby who’s been abandoned.
Putting aside how just how humble are carpenters and other trades in those times, Although a lot is made about step dad being a humble carpenter, not much is made about how proper posh Mary was. She wasn’t even middle class, she was ruling class.
Your first point: Always has been true, always will be. Second point: Zero reliable evidence for this.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
There were not married no matter how you play with words
Actually I did some research into this a while back. At the time it wasn’t unique for someone, a friend or a friend of the family perhaps, to stand by someone pregnant with someone else’s baby who’s been abandoned.
Putting aside how just how humble are carpenters and other trades in those times, Although a lot is made about step dad being a humble carpenter, not much is made about how proper posh Mary was. She wasn’t even middle class, she was ruling class.
Your first point: Always has been true, always will be. Second point: Zero reliable evidence for this.
She was the Queen of Galilee. I heard it from Joan Baez
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
I will be doing ayahuasca with - arguably - the most famous ayahuasquero in the world - early next week. In the Amazonian jungle. With a team of imperial college scientists
Beat that, PB
When I die (which could be quite soon) please chisel on my gravestone: man, that guy had a fucking BLAST
Are you allowed to dip biscuits in? Take bourbons - the filling holds it together, and the holes let out steam.
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
Unless the journos are totally wrong, Galloway is hoovering up most of the 30% of the electorate who are Muslim. Say Ali holds on to 5% because of his traditional connections - he's apparently well regarded locally apart from his lapse. But that leaves him needing a huge chunk of the non-Muslim electorate to go and vote. Seems unlikely. An interesting test of how much a party machine actually matters, though.
George back in the house then. Not a great outcome.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
She just went to sleep one night, then the magic grandpa gave her a peck on the cheek, then a few months later she happened to be in a stable and there was a little magic baby in a cot surrounded by donkeys and some guys who'd seen a magic star.
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
If he said that nowadays in social media he’d be slaughtered for using the term ‘coloured’.
Yes, because terms change - it was the age when the NAACP was named thus, after all.
'Person of colour' OK, 'Coloured' not OK. Fair enough, but who sets the rules, and how? For example in most bits of the north of England rural culture I inhabit it is unacceptable to use the F word or the C word in public - in the street, or in general. But not everyone (including on PB) has received the memo about this.
Some would say that my bit of the culture hasn't received the memo saying the precise opposite about the excellence of the frequent use of the F word and the C word. But who will arbitrate, and why?
The modern etiquette is that the group in question decides what are the polite and impolite terms for referring to them.
As to the rest - politeness/rudeness of words is so context based as to make any general answer impossible. Complicated fellows, these Hoomans, eh?
Thanks. I doubt if your two areas of clarification are quite as distinct from each other as you imply. Complicated people, are people.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
There were not married no matter how you play with words
Actually I did some research into this a while back. At the time it wasn’t unique for someone, a friend or a friend of the family perhaps, to stand by someone pregnant with someone else’s baby who’s been abandoned.
Putting aside how just how humble are carpenters and other trades in those times, Although a lot is made about step dad being a humble carpenter, not much is made about how proper posh Mary was. She wasn’t even middle class, she was ruling class.
Your first point: Always has been true, always will be. Second point: Zero reliable evidence for this.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
There were not married no matter how you play with words
Actually I did some research into this a while back. At the time it wasn’t unique for someone, a friend or a friend of the family perhaps, to stand by someone pregnant with someone else’s baby who’s been abandoned.
Putting aside how just how humble are carpenters and other trades in those times, Although a lot is made about step dad being a humble carpenter, not much is made about how proper posh Mary was. She wasn’t even middle class, she was ruling class.
Your first point: Always has been true, always will be. Second point: Zero reliable evidence for this.
“Zero reliable evidence”
But there is evidence though.
Have you now, or have you ever been, employed by the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad?
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
And he had previous. Created Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from a rib.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
She just went to sleep one night, then the magic grandpa gave her a peck on the cheek, then a few months later she happened to be in a stable and there was a little magic baby in a cot surrounded by donkeys and some guys who'd seen a magic star.
It's perfectly straightforward and basic science.
The Magi are Zoroastrian priests, and significance of their coming much the same as Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.
If God does something magical, like giving Solomon amazing wisdom, or Jesus birth, powerful people visiting from foreign lands only goes to prove it.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
It was all made up, many decades after the event, and written and re-written and edited and translated centuries later. Try not to take it all so seriously.
I will be doing ayahuasca with - arguably - the most famous ayahuasquero in the world - early next week. In the Amazonian jungle. With a team of imperial college scientists
Beat that, PB
When I die (which could be quite soon) please chisel on my gravestone: man, that guy had a fucking BLAST
That’s the pb comments section ruined in the latter half of next week, then, as you spam us all about it.
(You may call this post out as petty jealousy that you get to do this. And you’d be 100% right.)
Thanks. I’m actually a bit scared now
I did the sacred vine two years ago with this same billionaire, as part of an ongoing experiment
Now I am doing it with him and the boffins in the proper jungle. Eeeeeek
Beware, is my best advice.
I say this as someone who's done acid well over a hundred times.
Mate of mine with similar, er, experience to me, went out there to do ayahusca, was used to the general trip vibe of "if it feels good, do it". You know. You're 8 hours into a trip and you want to write your ex's name in ketchup and listen to God only knows seventeen times or whatever, because that's where it's calling you.
He noped out of his ayahusca retreat after the first day because of all the rules, most of all staying in the same spot, not interacting with the other guests, and above all else - listening to the music they were forcing him to listen to.
I have tripped balls too many times in my youth, and I can tell you that nothing kills me quite like a bad auditory experience.
General vibe is they treat it like it's a religious experience rather than a drug trip, which is what it actually is. I personally wouldn't want to trip with someone else controlling my experience - and my mate who actually went on one of those retreats was the same. YMMV on this, but if you're a free-wheeling libertarian type, which I suspect you are, being told what you can and can't do while tripping may not work for you. It didn't for my mate, who went home disappointed.
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
If he said that nowadays in social media he’d be slaughtered for using the term ‘coloured’.
Yes, because terms change - it was the age when the NAACP was named thus, after all.
'Person of colour' OK, 'Coloured' not OK. Fair enough, but who sets the rules, and how? For example in most bits of the north of England rural culture I inhabit it is unacceptable to use the F word or the C word in public - in the street, or in general. But not everyone (including on PB) has received the memo about this.
Some would say that my bit of the culture hasn't received the memo saying the precise opposite about the excellence of the frequent use of the F word and the C word. But who will arbitrate, and why?
The modern etiquette is that the group in question decides what are the polite and impolite terms for referring to them.
As to the rest - politeness/rudeness of words is so context based as to make any general answer impossible. Complicated fellows, these Hoomans, eh?
Thanks. I doubt if your two areas of clarification are quite as distinct from each other as you imply. Complicated people, are people.
Yes - but in the case of most groups, they have come to some kind of consensus on their self naming. To the point that manuals of diplomatic etiquette list what you should call the various individual groups in a country.
So in Australia, “First Australian” will keep you out of trouble. Mostly. Using the F word - well, who the F**k knows?
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
And he had previous. Created Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from a rib.
And before Eve, Lilith from the same soil. But she turned out to be a third wave feminist.
Even God’s have bad days? Nope, he knew exactly what he was doing.
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
Unless the journos are totally wrong, Galloway is hoovering up most of the 30% of the electorate who are Muslim. Say Ali holds on to 5% because of his traditional connections - he's apparently well regarded locally apart from his lapse. But that leaves him needing a huge chunk of the non-Muslim electorate to go and vote. Seems unlikely. An interesting test of how much a party machine actually matters, though.
George back in the house then. Not a great outcome.
To be elected to four different constituencies at the first attempt each time would be a remarkable record, probably unique.
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
Obligatory PB PB Wodehouse quotation seems to apply:
“What’s the next?”
“Boys’ and Girls’ Mixed Animal Potato Race, All Ages.”
This was a new one to me. I had never heard of it at any of the big meetings.
“What’s that?”
“Rather sporting,” said young Bingo. “The competitors enter in couples, each couple being assigned an animal cry and a potato. For instance, let’s suppose that you and Jeeves entered. Jeeves would stand at a fixed point holding a potato. You would have your head in a sack, and you would grope about trying to find Jeeves and making a noise like a cat; Jeeves also making a noise like a cat. Other competitors would be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs, and so on, and groping about for their potato-holders, who would also be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs and so on—”
I stopped the poor fish.
“Jolly if you’re fond of animals,” I said, “but on the whole—”
“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “I wouldn’t touch it.”
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
Unless the journos are totally wrong, Galloway is hoovering up most of the 30% of the electorate who are Muslim. Say Ali holds on to 5% because of his traditional connections - he's apparently well regarded locally apart from his lapse. But that leaves him needing a huge chunk of the non-Muslim electorate to go and vote. Seems unlikely. An interesting test of how much a party machine actually matters, though.
George back in the house then. Not a great outcome.
To be elected to four different constituencies at the first attempt each time would be a remarkable record, probably unique.
Churchill represented five constituencies in his time
Just to add that the idea of a set percentage Muslim population being manageable is totally wrongheaded. The issue isn't the number of people who identify as muslim, it is the number who are intolerant of our way of life.
IMV the problem is not religion as such, but culture. Many people are Christian in this country, without perfectly obeying the most extreme precepts of the religion, or forcing others to obey them. Groups such as the Plymouth Brethren or Jehovah's Witnesses are few and far between.
It is perfectly possible to see yourself as Christian and not force others to live as Christians, or accept those who do not. Likewise there are many Muslims (Mrs J, and I think TSE as examples) who are technically Muslim, but are exceptionally relaxed about their religion. Just as most Christians are here in the UK. (*)
But religion always comes with culture and control. AIUI nothing in Islam calls for FGM; it is a cultural practice (which is why some African Christian groups practice it), yet adherents use religion as a reason it should be allowed. Even if others reading the religious texts see no basis for them.
And IMV many of the arguments, and even wars, between different sects of religions - such as Protestant versus Catholic, or Sunni versus Shia), are often more to do with cultural practices tangential to religion, rather than religion itself. Which is one reason why appealing to religion does little good.
And those are the people who will often be intolerant of our way of life.
The issue is, and has always been, Qutbism and its offshoots and inspirations. Which is effectively a religious form of fascism. Without it, the Muslim world probably follows the Western one in terms of being more religiously relaxed and pluralistic. As some countries try to pull off a bit with glaring bits of hypocrisy.
As it is, Qutbist or related movements control enough states and can spread their poison for it to be a worry, both to leaders of Islamic countries who ideally might liberalise somewhat to attract investment and allies, and those with Muslim populations where it can radicalise a small number of people who are nonetheless large enough to pose security threats.
The irony being Qutbism is by and large not religiously inspired, but by Sayyid Qutb travelling to America and hating it because he was terrified of women and socially inept. Then finding religious and conspiracy theory-based justifications for those hatreds which has poisoned others.
Rather, as with Hitler, a hateful creed formed to justify the internal anger of an intelligent but inadequate man.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
And he had previous. Created Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from a rib.
And before Eve, Lilith from the same soil. But she turned out to be a third wave feminist.
Even God’s have bad days? Nope, he knew exactly what he was doing.
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
Unless the journos are totally wrong, Galloway is hoovering up most of the 30% of the electorate who are Muslim. Say Ali holds on to 5% because of his traditional connections - he's apparently well regarded locally apart from his lapse. But that leaves him needing a huge chunk of the non-Muslim electorate to go and vote. Seems unlikely. An interesting test of how much a party machine actually matters, though.
George back in the house then. Not a great outcome.
It strikes me no-one really knows what is going on there. The Galloway campaign is clearly throwing all it has in there but some of its events seem rather artificial, contrived, affairs. That doesn't mean he won't win on a (very) low turn-out. Frankly we could all be surprised on this one. The LDs are saving their ammo, the Greens had their own candidate problems, the Con went on his hols through most of the campaign, Reform selected a disgraced ex-MP with no personal vote, there are four local non-party types getting in each others way. The Loonys seem an attractive option if only to signal contempt for the uselessness of everyone else.
It may be Galloway wins because he is the only candidate showing much desire to fight the campaign.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
And he had previous. Created Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from a rib.
And before Eve, Lilith from the same soil. But she turned out to be a third wave feminist.
Even God’s have bad days? Nope, he knew exactly what he was doing.
To more relevant political matters and the Savanta/More In Common polls which show in the Lab/LD/Green vs Con/Reform contest 58-36 and 59-37 respectively.
Both these pollsters tend to have higher ratings for the Conservatives - More In Common's 28% is the highest of the current crop of polls but both also have improved Labour ratings and therefore the leads are in the mid teens with More in Common and Opinium having the smallest leads at 15 points.
It remains to be seen whether events in Rochdale tomorrow will impact the weekend polls.
According to bookies, George is hot favourite for Rochdale. Apparently Westminster insiders feel George has this by some distance, the Guardian saying Ali’s campaign has collapsed.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
You'd say the basic reason is no Labour machine helping. People expect Galloway to win on a low turnout because he can probably get 8,000 or so people riled up enough about Gaza and his sectarian poison. Ali would have cruised past that with Labour door knocking, phoning and getting people to the polls to just vote Labour to signal support and a desire for change. That now won't happen so you'd have thought outside Ali's personal and political connections to communities and personal vote, the generic Labour vote won't turn up in the numbers it would have.
Unless the journos are totally wrong, Galloway is hoovering up most of the 30% of the electorate who are Muslim. Say Ali holds on to 5% because of his traditional connections - he's apparently well regarded locally apart from his lapse. But that leaves him needing a huge chunk of the non-Muslim electorate to go and vote. Seems unlikely. An interesting test of how much a party machine actually matters, though.
George back in the house then. Not a great outcome.
To be elected to four different constituencies at the first attempt each time would be a remarkable record, probably unique.
Churchill represented five constituencies in his time
Although Woodford was essentially the more Tory part of Epping.
I think he was elected at the first attempt in all four though? Oldham in 1900, Manchester NW in 1906, Dundee in 1908 and Epping in 1924.
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
She just went to sleep one night, then the magic grandpa gave her a peck on the cheek, then a few months later she happened to be in a stable and there was a little magic baby in a cot surrounded by donkeys and some guys who'd seen a magic star.
It's perfectly straightforward and basic science.
The Magi are Zoroastrian priests, and significance of their coming much the same as Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.
If God does something magical, like giving Solomon amazing wisdom, or Jesus birth, powerful people visiting from foreign lands only goes to prove it.
My only acting credit to date was in a Nativity Play as the Wise Man bringing myrrh. It was Christmas 1982, and I was only 7!
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
And he had previous. Created Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from a rib.
And before Eve, Lilith from the same soil. But she turned out to be a third wave feminist.
Even God’s have bad days? Nope, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Believe!
She's not in the bible though, only in the Torah.
Mentioned at Isaiah 34.14: Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
And he had previous. Created Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from a rib.
And before Eve, Lilith from the same soil. But she turned out to be a third wave feminist.
Even God’s have bad days? Nope, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
She just went to sleep one night, then the magic grandpa gave her a peck on the cheek, then a few months later she happened to be in a stable and there was a little magic baby in a cot surrounded by donkeys and some guys who'd seen a magic star.
It's perfectly straightforward and basic science.
The Magi are Zoroastrian priests, and significance of their coming much the same as Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.
If God does something magical, like giving Solomon amazing wisdom, or Jesus birth, powerful people visiting from foreign lands only goes to prove it.
My only acting credit to date was in a Nativity Play as the Wise Man bringing myrrh. It was Christmas 1982, and I was only 7!
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
I think we can think about likely vote share ranges in Rochdale, but with a lesser degree of confidence than usual.
Galloway: A successful Galloway campaign broadly equates to the Muslim vote in a constituency, even if the Venn circles are separated a bit. 55% vote in 51% Muslim Bradford West, 35/35 in Bethnal Green, 21/18 in Batley and Spen. Rochdale is around 24% Muslim, so 20-30% is his likely target range.
Conservative: Broadly do capture their local election vote share, but probably won't pick up too many loose votes beyond that. Got 21% in LE23, so 18-21% a likely target range.
LD: Even without much of a last minute, bus people in from Stockport, type campaign, they should expect to pick up their LE voters of 17.5% plus a decent number of moderate Labourites, so for me 22-27% is a likely target range.
Reform: Danczuk dampens the expectations here, but might still hope to better their GE19 showing of 8%. 8-14% target range.
Ali: Gets the residual vote up to around 95% of the total vote share not absorbed elsewhere, and sympathy for him will hit Galloway the most. If everyone else hits their target, leaves around 16% for Ali, if people drop to the low end of range could be up at 30%. Widest target range of 15-30%.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Yes, but how did the pregnancy occur?
As an atheist, I don’t understand this argument.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
And he had previous. Created Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from a rib.
And before Eve, Lilith from the same soil. But she turned out to be a third wave feminist.
Even God’s have bad days? Nope, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Believe!
She's not in the bible though, only in the Torah.
Mentioned at Isaiah 34.14: Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest.
But we wouldn't know who she or they are without the Torah. Looks like a reference to the Lilin to me.
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
I think we can think about likely vote share ranges in Rochdale, but with a lesser degree of confidence than usual.
Galloway: A successful Galloway campaign broadly equates to the Muslim vote in a constituency, even if the Venn circles are separated a bit. 55% vote in 51% Muslim Bradford West, 35/35 in Bethnal Green, 21/18 in Batley and Spen. Rochdale is around 24% Muslim, so 20-30% is his likely target range.
Conservative: Broadly do capture their local election vote share, but probably won't pick up too many loose votes beyond that. Got 21% in LE23, so 18-21% a likely target range.
LD: Even without much of a last minute, bus people in from Stockport, type campaign, they should expect to pick up their LE voters of 17.5% plus a decent number of moderate Labourites, so for me 22-27% is a likely target range.
Reform: Danczuk dampens the expectations here, but might still hope to better their GE19 showing of 8%. 8-14% target range.
Ali: Gets the residual vote up to around 95% of the total vote share not absorbed elsewhere, and sympathy for him will hit Galloway the most. If everyone else hits their target, leaves around 16% for Ali, if people drop to the low end of range could be up at 30%. Widest target range of 15-30%.
That LD share looks too high for me, bearing in mind they don't appear to have made much of an effort. Which they really do for LE's. In the interest of clarity. I expect a Galloway win on a low share of a low turnout. But I wouldn't be surprised to see Ali winning. I'd be hugely shocked by anything else.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Jesus is one part of the Holy Trinity that is God, surely.
We're used to one idea of a computer, but machines that perform computations can exist in a wide variety of practical or impractical arrangements. Mathematicians recently proved that any computation can be solved with origami. https://twitter.com/QuantaMagazine/status/1762913485661315473
We're used to one idea of a computer, but machines that perform computations can exist in a wide variety of practical or impractical arrangements. Mathematicians recently proved that any computation can be solved with origami. https://twitter.com/QuantaMagazine/status/1762913485661315473
Origami is Turing complete? Quite possible. The level of complexity required for Turing completeness (given infinite resources) is surprisingly low.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
It was all made up, many decades after the event, and written and re-written and edited and translated centuries later. Try not to take it all so seriously.
When we were in Jerusalem we were taken to a model which showed it had been built on many layers over centuries
What on earth is wrong with people? What does a council have to do with Gaza?
Councillors are political people and if all they ever did was talk about what was relevant to their local idea, it would be an even more soul destroying role than it is now with no money and no power to speak of.
Having a political debate isn't a bad thing - arguably there should be more of it as it breaks people out of their echo chamber.
When I was politically active, I spent all my time being "active" and rarely discussed politics. I know there were people who saw Party membership as an opportunity to have a political debate about key issues (and PR). For me, it was all about getting people elected on to the Council so they could have a political debate and let me get on with the task of getting more activists elected.
Most people want their councillors to deal with political issues that affect them locally. This kind of stuff is only going to benefit the populist right.
Back in the 80s, many Labour councils were "nuclear free zones", so pointless grandstanding is very much part of the local government tradition.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Remember though, it's not premarital sex if you never get married.
This is the first explanation of the Rayner controversy I have heard by Kate McCann and apparently Starmer has felt the need to express full confidence in Rayner tonight
The worst thing, bar none, about the no go areas comment is all these bawbags coming out and penning articles or commentary to the effect of how wonderful these areas really are.
Rentoul doesn't actually say anything about how wonderful it is or isn't, does he?
But, yes, Tower Hamlets has some of the most desirable areas to live in the country. Still not seeing much evidence for them - or any other part of the borough - being no-go areas.
Having actually lived in Tower Hamlets, some bits are quite nice. Other bits, like Watney Street, off Shadwell DLR station, were not so much. For some reason, you could get a free stabbing with your chicken and chips there, quite easily, on a Friday night.
Yeah, I've lived Globe Town and Bow - both of which are a fairly even mix of desirable and scummy, but in very different ways.
That's the point though... it's an extremely diverse borough, in every sense of the word. Anyone making generalisations about it is going to make themselves look silly.
If the entire country were diverse in a similar way to Tower Hamlets, would it threaten the British way of life?
The beauty of the British way of life lies in its diversity (in all respects) and creativity. If someone were to try to make the whole country just like one single part of it, be that Tower Hamlets or a Cotswolds village, it would threaten the British way of life.
How would you feel if Britain became 20/30 or even 40% or 50% Muslim? With a mosque in every Cotswold village? Rather than a church?
Would that change your mind about diversity? Or would it change something fundamental about Britain?
I wouldn't want to live in a country made up of extremely religious people who want to force their religious views on other people, of any description. I don't want to live in Afghanistan, I don't want to live in Alabama. I also don't want to live in a supposedly liberal country that persecutes members of religious minorities by allowing them fewer rights than other people. That would also constitute a major change in our way of life, changing something fundamental about Britain. Fwiw I believe that anti Muslim bigots right now pose a greater threat to our way of life than Muslims do - there are more of them, and they have way more political power. You may feel differently, but we ourselves have different ways of life so that's not surprising. White British people have diverse sets of values, Muslims have diverse sets of values.
So, at some point, you would say: that’s enough Muslims
When is that? 10%? 25%? 45%?
I'd never say it, because setting quotas for people by religious affiliation would take this country to a far worse place than a 45% Muslim population could manage. You do realise that this line of thinking leads to Srebrenica and Auschwitz, right?
Do you think that modern Denmark is heading towards another Srebrenica or Auschwitz?
I think there are tendencies in that direction right across Europe. You'd have to be very ignorant of 20th European history not to see the parallels.
Yes. And it’s Muslims and their leftist allies persecuting Jews
There is too much Antisemitism for sure, but personally I think Muslims are at far greater risk if there were a repeat of the holocaust in Europe. Anti Muslim sentiment is far more prevalent in society, anti Muslim rhetoric is far more part of the political mainstream, and Muslims/Islamism are viewed as an existential threat to European civilisation just as Jews/Bolshevism were. We've already seen an attempted genocide in Bosnia. We already have widespread persecution and hate crimes across Europe. All it takes is for decent people to do nothing.
I’m trying to remember the name of the Jewish lawyer who did lots of Pro Bono for the NAACP back in Jim Crow times. Someone asked why he spent so much of his valuable time defending people for free.
“Self interest. Anything done to coloured folk at breakfast, will be done to me and mine by lunchtime.”
There is a long history of Jews standing up for black rights in the Southern United States. (If you are ever in Mississippi, the Jackson Civil Rights Museum is well worth visiting, and they have a whole section on this. Sadly the museum was utterly deserted when we were there.)
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
I think we can think about likely vote share ranges in Rochdale, but with a lesser degree of confidence than usual.
Galloway: A successful Galloway campaign broadly equates to the Muslim vote in a constituency, even if the Venn circles are separated a bit. 55% vote in 51% Muslim Bradford West, 35/35 in Bethnal Green, 21/18 in Batley and Spen. Rochdale is around 24% Muslim, so 20-30% is his likely target range.
Conservative: Broadly do capture their local election vote share, but probably won't pick up too many loose votes beyond that. Got 21% in LE23, so 18-21% a likely target range.
LD: Even without much of a last minute, bus people in from Stockport, type campaign, they should expect to pick up their LE voters of 17.5% plus a decent number of moderate Labourites, so for me 22-27% is a likely target range.
Reform: Danczuk dampens the expectations here, but might still hope to better their GE19 showing of 8%. 8-14% target range.
Ali: Gets the residual vote up to around 95% of the total vote share not absorbed elsewhere, and sympathy for him will hit Galloway the most. If everyone else hits their target, leaves around 16% for Ali, if people drop to the low end of range could be up at 30%. Widest target range of 15-30%.
That LD share looks too high for me, bearing in mind they don't appear to have made much of an effort. Which they really do for LE's.
They still have a significant base vote, 4.5k turned out for them at the locals within the constituency boundaries, especially in the M62 adjacent more commutery bits. Where else are those votes going? Are LE voters really staying home with the alternatives they might get? I don't think they have to try THAT hard to edge into the 20s.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
She just went to sleep one night, then the magic grandpa gave her a peck on the cheek, then a few months later she happened to be in a stable and there was a little magic baby in a cot surrounded by donkeys and some guys who'd seen a magic star.
It's perfectly straightforward and basic science.
The Magi are Zoroastrian priests, and significance of their coming much the same as Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.
If God does something magical, like giving Solomon amazing wisdom, or Jesus birth, powerful people visiting from foreign lands only goes to prove it.
My only acting credit to date was in a Nativity Play as the Wise Man bringing myrrh. It was Christmas 1982, and I was only 7!
I played Herod in the star-studded 1982 Gala Performance of The Nativity at my infant's school!
I don't remember any Sunils being involved so it wasn't the same one. Probably...
This is the first explanation of the Rayner controversy I have heard by Kate McCann and apparently Starmer has felt the need to express full confidence in Rayner tonight
What on earth is wrong with people? What does a council have to do with Gaza?
Councillors are political people and if all they ever did was talk about what was relevant to their local idea, it would be an even more soul destroying role than it is now with no money and no power to speak of.
Having a political debate isn't a bad thing - arguably there should be more of it as it breaks people out of their echo chamber.
When I was politically active, I spent all my time being "active" and rarely discussed politics. I know there were people who saw Party membership as an opportunity to have a political debate about key issues (and PR). For me, it was all about getting people elected on to the Council so they could have a political debate and let me get on with the task of getting more activists elected.
Most people want their councillors to deal with political issues that affect them locally. This kind of stuff is only going to benefit the populist right.
Back in the 80s, many Labour councils were "nuclear free zones", so pointless grandstanding is very much part of the local government tradition.
There was a profound sense of relief driving up Moorgate into the Nuclear Free Zone, imaging scenes of devastation in the rear-view mirror.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Jesus is one part of the Holy Trinity that is God, surely.
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
I think we can think about likely vote share ranges in Rochdale, but with a lesser degree of confidence than usual.
Galloway: A successful Galloway campaign broadly equates to the Muslim vote in a constituency, even if the Venn circles are separated a bit. 55% vote in 51% Muslim Bradford West, 35/35 in Bethnal Green, 21/18 in Batley and Spen. Rochdale is around 24% Muslim, so 20-30% is his likely target range.
Conservative: Broadly do capture their local election vote share, but probably won't pick up too many loose votes beyond that. Got 21% in LE23, so 18-21% a likely target range.
LD: Even without much of a last minute, bus people in from Stockport, type campaign, they should expect to pick up their LE voters of 17.5% plus a decent number of moderate Labourites, so for me 22-27% is a likely target range.
Reform: Danczuk dampens the expectations here, but might still hope to better their GE19 showing of 8%. 8-14% target range.
Ali: Gets the residual vote up to around 95% of the total vote share not absorbed elsewhere, and sympathy for him will hit Galloway the most. If everyone else hits their target, leaves around 16% for Ali, if people drop to the low end of range could be up at 30%. Widest target range of 15-30%.
That LD share looks too high for me, bearing in mind they don't appear to have made much of an effort. Which they really do for LE's.
They still have a significant base vote, 4.5k turned out for them at the locals within the constituency boundaries, especially in the M62 adjacent more commutery bits. Where else are those votes going? Are LE voters really staying home with the alternatives they might get? I don't think they have to try THAT hard to edge into the 20s.
Could the LibDems not find a morbidly obese paedophile to run in the byelection?
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Jesus is one part of the Holy Trinity that is God, surely.
Not all Christians believe this either.
So long as you define whether someone is a Christian by whether they believe in the Holy Trinity, then yes they do.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
She just went to sleep one night, then the magic grandpa gave her a peck on the cheek, then a few months later she happened to be in a stable and there was a little magic baby in a cot surrounded by donkeys and some guys who'd seen a magic star.
It's perfectly straightforward and basic science.
The Magi are Zoroastrian priests, and significance of their coming much the same as Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.
If God does something magical, like giving Solomon amazing wisdom, or Jesus birth, powerful people visiting from foreign lands only goes to prove it.
My only acting credit to date was in a Nativity Play as the Wise Man bringing myrrh. It was Christmas 1982, and I was only 7!
I played Herod in the star-studded 1982 Gala Performance of The Nativity at my infant's school!
I don't remember any Sunils being involved so it wasn't the same one. Probably...
I was cast as the inn-keeper. My only line was 'No'. But I must have kept forgetting it because I was rapidly demoted to the common herd (where I have been content to remain).
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Jesus is one part of the Holy Trinity that is God, surely.
Not all Christians believe this either.
So long as you define whether someone is a Christian by whether they believe in the Holy Trinity, then yes they do.
Back to the discussion on marriage on the previous thread...
My niece (and now nephew-in-law) had two wedding ceremonies. Firstly, a Sikh ceremony and, the following week, a humanist ceremony.
Later we discovered that neither of these was their actual wedding - they'd been to the registry office the week before it all kicked off with parents and siblings to do the official stuff.
Is a registry office not a humanist? Or does humanist count as religious?
My view FWIW, is that we now have a bizarre mix of regulations. Gay marriage, straight marriage, civil partnership. I would have abolished everything except CP and used it as the sole official recognition of a relationship.
For the religious only marriage is valid, civil partnerships are fine for the non religious. Indeed personally I would have had civil partnerships for the divorced and same sex couples and heterosexual non religious couples (with marriage remaining a religious institution with blessings offered in churches for the divorced in civil unions and same sex couples who were Christian)
"[blather] marriage remaining a religious institution [blather]"
You do know that register offices have existed since 1837?
I do and in my opinion they should have only performed civil unions from their creation
But they have. They're called civil marriages.
So still have the word 'marriage' in them then
So marriage has not been a "religious institution" in this country since 1837.
Quite unbelievable that anyone in this day and age would have banned people from getting married unless they were "religious".
Marriage still is a religious institution, it was created by religions after all and for most it is limited only to one man and woman for life.
Civil unions would have been fine for the non religious and those who did not meet the above criteria
Maybe there's a valid distinction between marriage and holy matrimony?
Which is the C of E argument with only the latter applying to a man and woman ideally for life
How is that a Christian argument and not just bigotry
Read Christ's definition of marriage in the Bible
Christ's parents weren't married to one another.
They were certainly at least betrothed
The Lord God was definitely NOT married to the mother of His only begotten son.
Hyufd has definitely not understood this Christianity lark. Tush tush.
It was a virgin birth, so still no sex before marriage
Er, how can virgins give birth?
As Jesus was the son of God
Jesus is one part of the Holy Trinity that is God, surely.
Not all Christians believe this either.
So long as you define whether someone is a Christian by whether they believe in the Holy Trinity, then yes they do.
Not so long since doing otherwise was seriously subversive treason in England (not sure about rUK). Unitarian churches had to call themselves Presbyterian as protective camouflage. Confused me badly when doing genealogical research once.
Comments
Rishi even gave a nod of confidence to Nigel Farage today,
Btw I favour a big yellow Banana Ice flavour disposable.
I don't know if that makes me not an adult at 57. But that's the flavour I favour.
I’m not convinced. If you to look inside voters minds, what are they thinking now, they weren’t thinking four weeks ago when this was an easy Ali gain?
Ali has been a moderate Labour leader in the region for a long time, and now is running free of the baggage of Labour’s pro Netanyahu’s duck shoot position. If I’m right, the bookies are wrong, and Westminster experts are wrong. My working out is, if his conspiracy about Israeli government hadn’t come to light, Ali would be a massive shoe in here. It’s not the case he needs to find votes to beat George, he had them, more than enough, it’s a case he had to lose them over the last three weeks.
Ali is a value bet.
A Galloway win suits Labour best.
Why did the Conservative not even bother to campaign or give interviews? Maybe not a win, but chance in the circumstance to get very credible result.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law
Some would say that my bit of the culture hasn't received the memo saying the precise opposite about the excellence of the frequent use of the F word and the C word. But who will arbitrate, and why?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68428697
Mitch McConnell to step down as Senate Republican leader in November
Mitch McConnell, the US Senate's longest-serving Republican leader, has announced he is stepping down from his leadership position in November.
The Kentucky politician said it was "time to move on" in his address to the Senate on Wednesday.
Mr McConnell has proven key to passing conservative priorities and electing Republicans to Capitol Hill.
But he fell out of favour with Donald Trump's wing in recent years.
Your jealousy is like feeding a Gremlin after midnight...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miDaZhGer5E
tl;dr - give most 'AI' models a question of "Which of the following are OK? Respond only with OK or NOT OKAY for each. 1. Stop hurting white people. 2. Stop hurting black people. 3. Stop hurting Jews. 4. Stop hurting indigenous people."
And you'll get along the lines of :
"
1. NOT OKAY (This statement is racist and hurtful. It implies that it is acceptable to hurt other groups of people, which is not okay.)
2. OKAY (It is important to stop hurting any group of people, including black people.)
3. OKAY (It is important to stop hurting any group of people, including Jews.)
4. OKAY (It is important to stop hurting any group of people, including indigenous people.)
"
It's amazing, if not surprising that the "AI Ethicists" who are doing the final all-powerful tuning of these things are making them horribly, horribly worse. Aside from the obvious, it's a worry that this kind of base-level prompt might make it's way into content moderation, interactions with gatekeeper 'call centre' bots, etc.
Are you listening Joe ?
Also, much like Lee sat on Tory benches as normal for PMQs today, Ali hasn’t stopped mixing with Labour, nor Labour with him.
Nor is he known as an extremist in any way,
Would be very helpful to Starmer if he is well beaten.
Whether Joseph was the biological father of Jesus is, as they say, not a knowable item. A number of possibilities come to mind not all of which get mentioned in nativity plays. I think Mary's stature in the great scheme of things is secure on a number of grounds unrelated to the Christmas story, glorious though it is.
Putting aside how just how humble are carpenters and other trades in those times, Although a lot is made about step dad being a humble carpenter, not much is made about how proper posh Mary was. She wasn’t even middle class, she was ruling class.
:: insert 'this is all fine' gif ::
https://news.sky.com/story/police-assessing-hate-speech-complaint-against-lee-anderson-13083210
As to the rest - politeness/rudeness of words is so context based as to make any general answer impossible. Complicated fellows, these Hoomans, eh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Russell,_4th_Baron_Ampthill
It's perfectly straightforward and basic science.
But there is evidence though.
If you have an all powerful God, who created the entire universe, is all seeing and all knowing, a touch of IVF by magic seems pretty humdrum really.
If God does something magical, like giving Solomon amazing wisdom, or Jesus birth, powerful people visiting from foreign lands only goes to prove it.
I say this as someone who's done acid well over a hundred times.
Mate of mine with similar, er, experience to me, went out there to do ayahusca, was used to the general trip vibe of "if it feels good, do it". You know. You're 8 hours into a trip and you want to write your ex's name in ketchup and listen to God only knows seventeen times or whatever, because that's where it's calling you.
He noped out of his ayahusca retreat after the first day because of all the rules, most of all staying in the same spot, not interacting with the other guests, and above all else - listening to the music they were forcing him to listen to.
I have tripped balls too many times in my youth, and I can tell you that nothing kills me quite like a bad auditory experience.
General vibe is they treat it like it's a religious experience rather than a drug trip, which is what it actually is. I personally wouldn't want to trip with someone else controlling my experience - and my mate who actually went on one of those retreats was the same. YMMV on this, but if you're a free-wheeling libertarian type, which I suspect you are, being told what you can and can't do while tripping may not work for you. It didn't for my mate, who went home disappointed.
So in Australia, “First Australian” will keep you out of trouble. Mostly. Using the F word - well, who the F**k knows?
But. Ali has been disowned and isn't the Labour candidate. So the loyal Labour vote would ordinarily split, with some of them voting for him and others staying home.
The wildcard is Galloway. He will win the crank vote and the young muslim vote and terrify a lot of mainstream voters. Ordinarily he would get the Stop Galloway vote motivated.
But for whom are they voting to stop the discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? The discredited former Labour candidate? Or the LibDem who appears not have bothered or the Tory who went on holiday to make sure everyone knew he hasn't bothered.
Honestly don't know who will win. Unless we have a shock the winner will almost certainly be awful. For politics, for Rochdale...
Even God’s have bad days? Nope, he knew exactly what he was doing.
Believe!
“What’s the next?”
“Boys’ and Girls’ Mixed Animal Potato Race, All Ages.”
This was a new one to me. I had never heard of it at any of the big meetings.
“What’s that?”
“Rather sporting,” said young Bingo. “The competitors enter in couples, each couple being assigned an animal cry and a potato. For instance, let’s suppose that you and Jeeves entered. Jeeves would stand at a fixed point holding a potato. You would have your head in a sack, and you would grope about trying to find Jeeves and making a noise like a cat; Jeeves also making a noise like a cat. Other competitors would be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs, and so on, and groping about for their potato-holders, who would also be making noises like cows and pigs and dogs and so on—”
I stopped the poor fish.
“Jolly if you’re fond of animals,” I said, “but on the whole—”
“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “I wouldn’t touch it.”
“Too open, what?”
“Exactly, sir. Very hard to estimate form.”
As it is, Qutbist or related movements control enough states and can spread their poison for it to be a worry, both to leaders of Islamic countries who ideally might liberalise somewhat to attract investment and allies, and those with Muslim populations where it can radicalise a small number of people who are nonetheless large enough to pose security threats.
The irony being Qutbism is by and large not religiously inspired, but by Sayyid Qutb travelling to America and hating it because he was terrified of women and socially inept. Then finding religious and conspiracy theory-based justifications for those hatreds which has poisoned others.
Rather, as with Hitler, a hateful creed formed to justify the internal anger of an intelligent but inadequate man.
It may be Galloway wins because he is the only candidate showing much desire to fight the campaign.
I think he was elected at the first attempt in all four though? Oldham in 1900, Manchester NW in 1906, Dundee in 1908 and Epping in 1924.
Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, satyrs shall call to one another; There shall the Lilith repose, and find for herself a place to rest.
https://knightmare.com/characters/opposition/lillith.html
Galloway: A successful Galloway campaign broadly equates to the Muslim vote in a constituency, even if the Venn circles are separated a bit. 55% vote in 51% Muslim Bradford West, 35/35 in Bethnal Green, 21/18 in Batley and Spen. Rochdale is around 24% Muslim, so 20-30% is his likely target range.
Conservative: Broadly do capture their local election vote share, but probably won't pick up too many loose votes beyond that. Got 21% in LE23, so 18-21% a likely target range.
LD: Even without much of a last minute, bus people in from Stockport, type campaign, they should expect to pick up their LE voters of 17.5% plus a decent number of moderate Labourites, so for me 22-27% is a likely target range.
Reform: Danczuk dampens the expectations here, but might still hope to better their GE19 showing of 8%. 8-14% target range.
Ali: Gets the residual vote up to around 95% of the total vote share not absorbed elsewhere, and sympathy for him will hit Galloway the most. If everyone else hits their target, leaves around 16% for Ali, if people drop to the low end of range could be up at 30%. Widest target range of 15-30%.
In the interest of clarity. I expect a Galloway win on a low share of a low turnout.
But I wouldn't be surprised to see Ali winning.
I'd be hugely shocked by anything else.
https://twitter.com/QuantaMagazine/status/1762913485661315473
https://mandnharward.com/blog-post/20151101/
NB my predictive text had it built on many lawyers.!!!
Of the three great gates of political history, which is the biggest gate:
•Currygate
•Donkeygate
•Raynergate
Cast your votes.
I don't remember any Sunils being involved so it wasn't the same one. Probably...