the #Biden regime is found to be involved in the terrorist mass murder underway in Moscow a virtual state of war between the super-powers will exist #Russia #USA #Moscow
There is a missing 'If' in the above. This error is the difference, so it seems, between WWIII If and world peace.
AI needs to up its game.
(Hope the good people of Rochdale are enjoying their new MPs rhetoric).
As well as a missing "if", and the old-fashioned usage of "super-powers", there's an intrusive "virtual". If the Russian government publicly accuses the US government of involvement in the Crocus City Hall massacre, that's way beyond accusing them of involvement in the Nordstrom sabotage.
The US government warned its citizens in Russia of the risk of imminent terrorist attacks on "large gatherings". Presumably they warned the FSB of the risk too, giving them more intelligence than they put out publicly. Given the time-frame specified in the notice, it could be that one or more attacks were averted before yesterday's.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
I recall one of Leon's previous incarnations waxing lyrical about our power and influence at the time. Now he's contemplating permanent self-exile.
That’s got a lot more to do with age and weather than geopolitics. Sadly
I just can’t hack the British climate any more and it gets WORSE as you get older
Speaking of which, good morning from a beautiful wam and sunny Tayrona jungle. All I can hear is magnificently vivid birdlife and the rush of Caribbean waves
Colombia has 2000 bird species. All of Europe has 900
the #Biden regime is found to be involved in the terrorist mass murder underway in Moscow a virtual state of war between the super-powers will exist #Russia #USA #Moscow
Gosh. Are you really so useless you can't come up with *any* vaguely sane sources?
You'll be quoting Goebbels next.
Come on, make more of an effort.
At the moment whatever Putin is paying, you're not worth it.
Heck, even those losers at British Gas would give you the push. They can at least spell and punctuate, even if they can't lay out formal letters properly.
It's a rare utility company nowadays that can write a letter without at least one run-on sentence.
Russian state news are reporting that Ukraine are behind the theatre attack, and they they apprehended suspects trying to flee West from Moscow towards the war zone.
It’s likely to be total bollocks of course, but that’s what they’re saying.
The problem for Putin is that
1) he was warned, specifically 2) multiple ISIS small attacks were foiled recently in Russia 3) he publicly rejected the warning 4) part of the whole strongman schtick it that “this doesn’t happen if I am in charge”
They’re now saying that the Americans are something to do with it, because they issued a warning about an imminent attack - and why would they do that, unless they were behind it?
Wifey thinks that this is a pretext for an escalation of the war, or at least preparing Russians for another non-voluntary mobilisation of young men.
I was thinking flag of convenience rather than false flag last night and details since then suggest it’s not even been competently spun by the Russian leadership since - it clearly caught them completely off guard. It’s a long time since serious jihadist attacks in Russia. They’ve been happy to watch and encourage them elsewhere but forgot about home.
Seems the attackers were Tajiks. So pure jihadist mentalists rather than something linked to Russian activity in Syria or the Sahel.
They’ll now try to spin some Ukraine connection but I’m not sure even Russians will buy that one.
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
That’s a verbose way of saying ‘yeah Brexit was won on a torrent of bullshit and this isn’t necessarily the Brexit I voted for but SOVEREIGNTEE!!!!’
I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my EU citizenship. I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my FoM. I’m still fucking livid that the Tory EU-phobic psychodrama has turned me into a second class citizen on my own continent. I’m fucking livid that it has reduced the Tory Party to the fucking right-wing culture war mess it is, and the baleful impact that has had on this country with policies designed to appeal to the basest impulses of the worst part of our population.
The main impact for me isn’t the economic impact - and though I don’t pretend to understand economics the most superficial google will bring you up reams of analysis of the massively detrimental impact of leaving the EU, particularly on small and medium businesses - including musicians who contribute so much to our economy - thanks in large part to new paperwork whose impact seems to be much larger than ‘very mildly worse’.
I’m fucking livid that really, Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s a project designed to make us a more Conservative country, a more right-wing country. A smaller state country. That’s what its funders want, that’s what the Tories want. They sold Brexit on a pack of lies, on mutually exclusive torrents of horseshit, and by tipping a nod and a wink to the most reactionary parts of this country that all their prayers would be answered. And your ‘regret’, quite frankly, boils my piss.
Then stop fucking moaning, you stupid Remoaner twat, and persuade Starmer to call a Rejoin election. You will never get a better chance. He will have a stonking majority, the polls will be all in his favour, he can turn around and sadly say “things are so bad we need to do this”, his honeymooning voters will forgive him, and besides 70% of them will agree with him. So this is it - this year - after the election, you can actually stop Remoaning and do it. Rejoin. The chance will not come again - ask Blair
Except Starmer won’t do this. Why? BECAUSE he’s a Remoaner like you, and he’s terrified people will remember that he was Second Voter, he literally wanted to cancel democracy and annul the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. So he won’t go there and all you will do is carry on moaning. Cause you’re a Remoaner. It’s all you guys do
There should be a word for Beyond Pathetic: that’s you
After three or four years of a quietly competent Starmer/Rayner/Reeves government we should have another referendum with a strong recommendation to Rejoin. That would settle the matter.
On the topic of Brexit, I had lunch with an academic friend of mine yesterday. He had been a vociferous Remainer, but was saying how good it was that his university could replace EU students paying home fees with overseas students paying international fees. So I heard much less from him than usual (in fact nothing at all now I think about it) about how wonderful the EU is.
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
That’s a verbose way of saying ‘yeah Brexit was won on a torrent of bullshit and this isn’t necessarily the Brexit I voted for but SOVEREIGNTEE!!!!’
I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my EU citizenship. I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my FoM. I’m still fucking livid that the Tory EU-phobic psychodrama has turned me into a second class citizen on my own continent. I’m fucking livid that it has reduced the Tory Party to the fucking right-wing culture war mess it is, and the baleful impact that has had on this country with policies designed to appeal to the basest impulses of the worst part of our population.
The main impact for me isn’t the economic impact - and though I don’t pretend to understand economics the most superficial google will bring you up reams of analysis of the massively detrimental impact of leaving the EU, particularly on small and medium businesses - including musicians who contribute so much to our economy - thanks in large part to new paperwork whose impact seems to be much larger than ‘very mildly worse’.
I’m fucking livid that really, Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s a project designed to make us a more Conservative country, a more right-wing country. A smaller state country. That’s what its funders want, that’s what the Tories want. They sold Brexit on a pack of lies, on mutually exclusive torrents of horseshit, and by tipping a nod and a wink to the most reactionary parts of this country that all their prayers would be answered. And your ‘regret’, quite frankly, boils my piss.
Then stop fucking moaning, you stupid Remoaner twat, and persuade Starmer to call a Rejoin election. You will never get a better chance. He will have a stonking majority, the polls will be all in his favour, he can turn around and sadly say “things are so bad we need to do this”, his honeymooning voters will forgive him, and besides 70% of them will agree with him. So this is it - this year - after the election, you can actually stop Remoaning and do it. Rejoin. The chance will not come again - ask Blair
Except Starmer won’t do this. Why? BECAUSE he’s a Remoaner like you, and he’s terrified people will remember that he was Second Voter, he literally wanted to cancel democracy and annul the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. So he won’t go there and all you will do is carry on moaning. Cause you’re a Remoaner. It’s all you guys do
There should be a word for Beyond Pathetic: that’s you
After three or four years of a quietly competent Starmer/Rayner/Reeves government we should have another referendum with a strong recommendation to Rejoin. That would settle the matter.
LOL
you're off your head mate.
The EU has had enough of us and will not be rushing towards us with open arms. Currrently they have enough of their own problems liked budget shortfalls and angry farmers.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
John, Henry VI and Stephen as arch-Brexiteers, along with Richard III.
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
That’s a verbose way of saying ‘yeah Brexit was won on a torrent of bullshit and this isn’t necessarily the Brexit I voted for but SOVEREIGNTEE!!!!’
I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my EU citizenship. I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my FoM. I’m still fucking livid that the Tory EU-phobic psychodrama has turned me into a second class citizen on my own continent. I’m fucking livid that it has reduced the Tory Party to the fucking right-wing culture war mess it is, and the baleful impact that has had on this country with policies designed to appeal to the basest impulses of the worst part of our population.
The main impact for me isn’t the economic impact - and though I don’t pretend to understand economics the most superficial google will bring you up reams of analysis of the massively detrimental impact of leaving the EU, particularly on small and medium businesses - including musicians who contribute so much to our economy - thanks in large part to new paperwork whose impact seems to be much larger than ‘very mildly worse’.
I’m fucking livid that really, Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s a project designed to make us a more Conservative country, a more right-wing country. A smaller state country. That’s what its funders want, that’s what the Tories want. They sold Brexit on a pack of lies, on mutually exclusive torrents of horseshit, and by tipping a nod and a wink to the most reactionary parts of this country that all their prayers would be answered. And your ‘regret’, quite frankly, boils my piss.
Then stop fucking moaning, you stupid Remoaner twat, and persuade Starmer to call a Rejoin election. You will never get a better chance. He will have a stonking majority, the polls will be all in his favour, he can turn around and sadly say “things are so bad we need to do this”, his honeymooning voters will forgive him, and besides 70% of them will agree with him. So this is it - this year - after the election, you can actually stop Remoaning and do it. Rejoin. The chance will not come again - ask Blair
Except Starmer won’t do this. Why? BECAUSE he’s a Remoaner like you, and he’s terrified people will remember that he was Second Voter, he literally wanted to cancel democracy and annul the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. So he won’t go there and all you will do is carry on moaning. Cause you’re a Remoaner. It’s all you guys do
There should be a word for Beyond Pathetic: that’s you
After three or four years of a quietly competent Starmer/Rayner/Reeves government we should have another referendum with a strong recommendation to Rejoin. That would settle the matter.
It will never settle the matter. Anyone who thinks it would doesn't understand either the EU or the UK.
Whenever the Remainer comments on here get too boring - nearly always - I generally ask Claude Opus 3 to write my reply. I can’t be arsed
Claude Opus 3 writes good replies in my own chosen style; I just sit back and sip superb Colombian coffee
Also, and with perfect piquance, I can only do this because I am outside the EU. The best AI chatbot in the world - the best A.I. - is not available in the EU because of stupid EU regulations. Yet you can use it in the UK. This is an Official Brexit Benefit brought to you, and predicted by, the Leave campaign
When a cult takes over a political party there is a tendency to tell existing supporters to go and vote for somebody else, we saw this with SKS who literally said if you don't like the direction I am taking the party there's the door.
Jezza never said anything of that nature and 12.9m voted for him in 2017
In Jezza’s case there was no need sensible people left the Labour Party in disgust.
Which is why SKS had to say what he did as he wanted the left wing loonies to leave quietly which many of them have
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
That’s a verbose way of saying ‘yeah Brexit was won on a torrent of bullshit and this isn’t necessarily the Brexit I voted for but SOVEREIGNTEE!!!!’
I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my EU citizenship. I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my FoM. I’m still fucking livid that the Tory EU-phobic psychodrama has turned me into a second class citizen on my own continent. I’m fucking livid that it has reduced the Tory Party to the fucking right-wing culture war mess it is, and the baleful impact that has had on this country with policies designed to appeal to the basest impulses of the worst part of our population.
The main impact for me isn’t the economic impact - and though I don’t pretend to understand economics the most superficial google will bring you up reams of analysis of the massively detrimental impact of leaving the EU, particularly on small and medium businesses - including musicians who contribute so much to our economy - thanks in large part to new paperwork whose impact seems to be much larger than ‘very mildly worse’.
I’m fucking livid that really, Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s a project designed to make us a more Conservative country, a more right-wing country. A smaller state country. That’s what its funders want, that’s what the Tories want. They sold Brexit on a pack of lies, on mutually exclusive torrents of horseshit, and by tipping a nod and a wink to the most reactionary parts of this country that all their prayers would be answered. And your ‘regret’, quite frankly, boils my piss.
Then stop fucking moaning, you stupid Remoaner twat, and persuade Starmer to call a Rejoin election. You will never get a better chance. He will have a stonking majority, the polls will be all in his favour, he can turn around and sadly say “things are so bad we need to do this”, his honeymooning voters will forgive him, and besides 70% of them will agree with him. So this is it - this year - after the election, you can actually stop Remoaning and do it. Rejoin. The chance will not come again - ask Blair
Except Starmer won’t do this. Why? BECAUSE he’s a Remoaner like you, and he’s terrified people will remember that he was Second Voter, he literally wanted to cancel democracy and annul the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. So he won’t go there and all you will do is carry on moaning. Cause you’re a Remoaner. It’s all you guys do
There should be a word for Beyond Pathetic: that’s you
After three or four years of a quietly competent Starmer/Rayner/Reeves government we should have another referendum with a strong recommendation to Rejoin. That would settle the matter.
It will never settle the matter. Anyone who thinks it would doesn't understand either the EU or the UK.
I reckon a 'stay out' vote would settle it for good.
Paradoxically, a quietly competent government would make that more likely.
Sad news about kate middleton too. Lots of young people getting cancer recently.
THERE IS A LINK BETWEEN TURBO CANCERS AND THE COVID VACCINES -
IT IS TIME THAT OUR GOVERNMENT AND ALL THE GOVERNMENTS THAT PUSHED THIS UNTESTED MEDICAL PROCEDURE ON IT’S PEOPLE THOROUGHLY LOOKED INTO IT AND INVESTIGATED THE MATTER.
On the topic of Brexit, I had lunch with an academic friend of mine yesterday. He had been a vociferous Remainer, but was saying how good it was that his university could replace EU students paying home fees with overseas students paying international fees. So I heard much less from him than usual (in fact nothing at all now I think about it) about how wonderful the EU is.
It is clearly one of our best opportunities to improve our balance of payments situation. It is also clearly counter to the wish of many Brexiteers to have very low levels of immigration. (International students are not just temporary, a reasonable proportion end up staying on which matters when the govt sought to increase overseas student numbers both dramatically and from countries where a lot of the upper middle class want to emigrate to the West).
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
That’s a verbose way of saying ‘yeah Brexit was won on a torrent of bullshit and this isn’t necessarily the Brexit I voted for but SOVEREIGNTEE!!!!’
I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my EU citizenship. I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my FoM. I’m still fucking livid that the Tory EU-phobic psychodrama has turned me into a second class citizen on my own continent. I’m fucking livid that it has reduced the Tory Party to the fucking right-wing culture war mess it is, and the baleful impact that has had on this country with policies designed to appeal to the basest impulses of the worst part of our population.
The main impact for me isn’t the economic impact - and though I don’t pretend to understand economics the most superficial google will bring you up reams of analysis of the massively detrimental impact of leaving the EU, particularly on small and medium businesses - including musicians who contribute so much to our economy - thanks in large part to new paperwork whose impact seems to be much larger than ‘very mildly worse’.
I’m fucking livid that really, Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s a project designed to make us a more Conservative country, a more right-wing country. A smaller state country. That’s what its funders want, that’s what the Tories want. They sold Brexit on a pack of lies, on mutually exclusive torrents of horseshit, and by tipping a nod and a wink to the most reactionary parts of this country that all their prayers would be answered. And your ‘regret’, quite frankly, boils my piss.
Then stop fucking moaning, you stupid Remoaner twat, and persuade Starmer to call a Rejoin election. You will never get a better chance. He will have a stonking majority, the polls will be all in his favour, he can turn around and sadly say “things are so bad we need to do this”, his honeymooning voters will forgive him, and besides 70% of them will agree with him. So this is it - this year - after the election, you can actually stop Remoaning and do it. Rejoin. The chance will not come again - ask Blair
Except Starmer won’t do this. Why? BECAUSE he’s a Remoaner like you, and he’s terrified people will remember that he was Second Voter, he literally wanted to cancel democracy and annul the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. So he won’t go there and all you will do is carry on moaning. Cause you’re a Remoaner. It’s all you guys do
There should be a word for Beyond Pathetic: that’s you
After three or four years of a quietly competent Starmer/Rayner/Reeves government we should have another referendum with a strong recommendation to Rejoin. That would settle the matter.
It will never settle the matter. Anyone who thinks it would doesn't understand either the EU or the UK.
I reckon a 'stay out' vote would settle it for good.
Paradoxically, a quietly competent government would make that more likely.
This is a good point. It’s the same paradox faced by the SNP. If they actually govern Scotland well and make it prosperous, support for YES could easily drop. People don’t vote for wrenching changes (esp after the trauma of Brexit) if they are affluent and contented. Brexit passed because enough people were angry
This is even more true for Remoaner Starmer. If he returns Britain to some sensible path and we do OK, the desire to Rejoin will fade - especially if the EU suffers (and I think it will likely suffer in the medium term as the main engine Germany now faces fundamental problems)
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
That’s a verbose way of saying ‘yeah Brexit was won on a torrent of bullshit and this isn’t necessarily the Brexit I voted for but SOVEREIGNTEE!!!!’
I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my EU citizenship. I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my FoM. I’m still fucking livid that the Tory EU-phobic psychodrama has turned me into a second class citizen on my own continent. I’m fucking livid that it has reduced the Tory Party to the fucking right-wing culture war mess it is, and the baleful impact that has had on this country with policies designed to appeal to the basest impulses of the worst part of our population.
The main impact for me isn’t the economic impact - and though I don’t pretend to understand economics the most superficial google will bring you up reams of analysis of the massively detrimental impact of leaving the EU, particularly on small and medium businesses - including musicians who contribute so much to our economy - thanks in large part to new paperwork whose impact seems to be much larger than ‘very mildly worse’.
I’m fucking livid that really, Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s a project designed to make us a more Conservative country, a more right-wing country. A smaller state country. That’s what its funders want, that’s what the Tories want. They sold Brexit on a pack of lies, on mutually exclusive torrents of horseshit, and by tipping a nod and a wink to the most reactionary parts of this country that all their prayers would be answered. And your ‘regret’, quite frankly, boils my piss.
Then stop fucking moaning, you stupid Remoaner twat, and persuade Starmer to call a Rejoin election. You will never get a better chance. He will have a stonking majority, the polls will be all in his favour, he can turn around and sadly say “things are so bad we need to do this”, his honeymooning voters will forgive him, and besides 70% of them will agree with him. So this is it - this year - after the election, you can actually stop Remoaning and do it. Rejoin. The chance will not come again - ask Blair
Except Starmer won’t do this. Why? BECAUSE he’s a Remoaner like you, and he’s terrified people will remember that he was Second Voter, he literally wanted to cancel democracy and annul the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. So he won’t go there and all you will do is carry on moaning. Cause you’re a Remoaner. It’s all you guys do
There should be a word for Beyond Pathetic: that’s you
After three or four years of a quietly competent Starmer/Rayner/Reeves government we should have another referendum with a strong recommendation to Rejoin. That would settle the matter.
It will never settle the matter. Anyone who thinks it would doesn't understand either the EU or the UK.
I reckon a 'stay out' vote would settle it for good.
Paradoxically, a quietly competent government would make that more likely.
Sad news about kate middleton too. Lots of young people getting cancer recently.
THERE IS A LINK BETWEEN TURBO CANCERS AND THE COVID VACCINES -
IT IS TIME THAT OUR GOVERNMENT AND ALL THE GOVERNMENTS THAT PUSHED THIS UNTESTED MEDICAL PROCEDURE ON IT’S PEOPLE THOROUGHLY LOOKED INTO IT AND INVESTIGATED THE MATTER.
When a cult takes over a political party there is a tendency to tell existing supporters to go and vote for somebody else, we saw this with SKS who literally said if you don't like the direction I am taking the party there's the door.
Jezza never said anything of that nature and 12.9m voted for him in 2017
But more people voted for TMay, and she won 55 more seats than he did.
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
That’s a verbose way of saying ‘yeah Brexit was won on a torrent of bullshit and this isn’t necessarily the Brexit I voted for but SOVEREIGNTEE!!!!’
I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my EU citizenship. I’m still fucking livid I’ve lost my FoM. I’m still fucking livid that the Tory EU-phobic psychodrama has turned me into a second class citizen on my own continent. I’m fucking livid that it has reduced the Tory Party to the fucking right-wing culture war mess it is, and the baleful impact that has had on this country with policies designed to appeal to the basest impulses of the worst part of our population.
The main impact for me isn’t the economic impact - and though I don’t pretend to understand economics the most superficial google will bring you up reams of analysis of the massively detrimental impact of leaving the EU, particularly on small and medium businesses - including musicians who contribute so much to our economy - thanks in large part to new paperwork whose impact seems to be much larger than ‘very mildly worse’.
I’m fucking livid that really, Brexit isn’t about economics. It’s a project designed to make us a more Conservative country, a more right-wing country. A smaller state country. That’s what its funders want, that’s what the Tories want. They sold Brexit on a pack of lies, on mutually exclusive torrents of horseshit, and by tipping a nod and a wink to the most reactionary parts of this country that all their prayers would be answered. And your ‘regret’, quite frankly, boils my piss.
Then stop fucking moaning, you stupid Remoaner twat, and persuade Starmer to call a Rejoin election. You will never get a better chance. He will have a stonking majority, the polls will be all in his favour, he can turn around and sadly say “things are so bad we need to do this”, his honeymooning voters will forgive him, and besides 70% of them will agree with him. So this is it - this year - after the election, you can actually stop Remoaning and do it. Rejoin. The chance will not come again - ask Blair
Except Starmer won’t do this. Why? BECAUSE he’s a Remoaner like you, and he’s terrified people will remember that he was Second Voter, he literally wanted to cancel democracy and annul the biggest democratic mandate in UK history. So he won’t go there and all you will do is carry on moaning. Cause you’re a Remoaner. It’s all you guys do
There should be a word for Beyond Pathetic: that’s you
After three or four years of a quietly competent Starmer/Rayner/Reeves government we should have another referendum with a strong recommendation to Rejoin. That would settle the matter.
It will never settle the matter. Anyone who thinks it would doesn't understand either the EU or the UK.
I reckon a 'stay out' vote would settle it for good.
Paradoxically, a quietly competent government would make that more likely.
F1: annoyingly, the markets are almost all up except the group bets which can often be worthwhile (last race's Magnussen bet was a bit unlucky, as he had it on pace but decided to make stupid judgements and rack up 20s of penalties).
I'll give it a little bit longer, but may end up just keeping the Perez bet.
Edited extra bit: Perez has a 3 place penalty for impeding Hulkenberg. An early thought, I'll start consider, on Leclerc getting a podium would've been better value if the stewards didn't faff about but there we are.
When a cult takes over a political party there is a tendency to tell existing supporters to go and vote for somebody else, we saw this with SKS who literally said if you don't like the direction I am taking the party there's the door.
Jezza never said anything of that nature and 12.9m voted for him in 2017
But more people voted for TMay, and she won 55 more seats than he did.
BTW how many voted for Jezza in 2019?
No matter how many times we tell him BJO still thinks Corbyn won the 2017 GE.
When a cult takes over a political party there is a tendency to tell existing supporters to go and vote for somebody else, we saw this with SKS who literally said if you don't like the direction I am taking the party there's the door.
Jezza never said anything of that nature and 12.9m voted for him in 2017
But more people voted for TMay, and she won 55 more seats than he did.
BTW how many voted for Jezza in 2019?
No matter how many times we tell him BJO still thinks Corbyn won the 2017 GE.
It's notable that he uses the same justification as Trump does for claiming the 2020 Presidential: namely I increased the number of votes I got; ergo I must have won.
p.s. As everyone else seems to have gone off for lunch I may as well talk to myself.
I may be completely out of my mind, but I suspect the average UK citizen hasn't really noticed any effects from Brexit, mainly due to Covid and the various wars and general global economic downturn. What effect Brexit really has had is that it's turned our already chaotic and outdated political system into a complete shitshow, with the government ripping itself apart trying to appease its various factions rather than running the country competently. The country is a bit knackered, but due entirely to the government, not Brexit.
Sorry, no.
On a very simple level, everyone who goes abroad now can see what a bloody pain in the ass it is. That’s c. 100 million trips per year and rising. Roughly 1/3rd of us will go abroad this summer alone.
And if you talk to anyone at all who has business dealings with Europe they are tearing their hair out.
Likewise, bringing goods in from Europe has become an absolute pain in the proverbial.
Then there is services and entertainment, brought to its knees by covid and brexit. We are chronically short of overseas workers and shunting Nigerian nurses into the NHS is not exactly what people had in mind when they voted for the bloody thing.
I could go on and on. Brexit is to blame for a large part of this country's cock ups.
I fly via Schiphol - don’t think I’ve ever had any hassle getting through immigration - it’s 5 minutes max and was the same previously when I was flying on a weekly basis
Snap
I went though Schipol twice this week without any problems.
Funny that there are fewer problems travelling at quieter times like the middle of March.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
When a cult takes over a political party there is a tendency to tell existing supporters to go and vote for somebody else, we saw this with SKS who literally said if you don't like the direction I am taking the party there's the door.
Jezza never said anything of that nature and 12.9m voted for him in 2017
But more people voted for TMay, and she won 55 more seats than he did.
BTW how many voted for Jezza in 2019?
No matter how many times we tell him BJO still thinks Corbyn won the 2017 GE.
It's notable that he uses the same justification as Trump does for claiming the 2020 Presidential: namely I increased the number of votes I got; ergo I must have won.
p.s. As everyone else seems to have gone off for lunch I may as well talk to myself.
When a cult takes over a political party there is a tendency to tell existing supporters to go and vote for somebody else, we saw this with SKS who literally said if you don't like the direction I am taking the party there's the door.
Jezza never said anything of that nature and 12.9m voted for him in 2017
But more people voted for TMay, and she won 55 more seats than he did.
BTW how many voted for Jezza in 2019?
No matter how many times we tell him BJO still thinks Corbyn won the 2017 GE.
It's notable that he uses the same justification as Trump does for claiming the 2020 Presidential: namely I increased the number of votes I got; ergo I must have won.
p.s. As everyone else seems to have gone off for lunch I may as well talk to myself.
I was about to mention Trump too!
Did you find some Lib Dems with spare time on their hands?
I may be completely out of my mind, but I suspect the average UK citizen hasn't really noticed any effects from Brexit, mainly due to Covid and the various wars and general global economic downturn. What effect Brexit really has had is that it's turned our already chaotic and outdated political system into a complete shitshow, with the government ripping itself apart trying to appease its various factions rather than running the country competently. The country is a bit knackered, but due entirely to the government, not Brexit.
Sorry, no.
On a very simple level, everyone who goes abroad now can see what a bloody pain in the ass it is. That’s c. 100 million trips per year and rising. Roughly 1/3rd of us will go abroad this summer alone.
And if you talk to anyone at all who has business dealings with Europe they are tearing their hair out.
Likewise, bringing goods in from Europe has become an absolute pain in the proverbial.
Then there is services and entertainment, brought to its knees by covid and brexit. We are chronically short of overseas workers and shunting Nigerian nurses into the NHS is not exactly what people had in mind when they voted for the bloody thing.
I could go on and on. Brexit is to blame for a large part of this country's cock ups.
I fly via Schiphol - don’t think I’ve ever had any hassle getting through immigration - it’s 5 minutes max and was the same previously when I was flying on a weekly basis
Snap
I went though Schipol twice this week without any problems.
Funny that there are fewer problems travelling at quieter times like the middle of March.
I usually travel at 8-9am on a Monday morning - that’s peak business travel.
In fact I usually end up with longer waits if I travel on Thursday / Friday night when they only have 3-4 people on the border
I see that last night Ukraine hit a Russian oil refinery again.
Re-hit. One they have attacked before.
Russians are saying the new Ukrainian drones are much more difficult to impact with electronic warfare measures. As much as 16% of Russian refining capacity has already been hit. It is disproportionately located in western Russia, in range of drones able to travel over 1,000 km - seemingly without facing any meaningful air defences.
Shame the Severnaya Goldeneye satellite got blown up.
If they can do 1000km they are not far from being able sensibly to reach the fleet in St Petersburg.
Refineries have been hit near St Petersburg.
Refineries and airbases are probably higher value targets than the Baltic Fleet. Last I heard the Black Sea Fleet was still in hiding and refusing to leave port.
I'd like to see a report on the damage at Engels (sp?) Airbase from the most recent raid.
#RedStormRising
The one where they time the missile strike to catch the bombers on the ground, refuelling.
I may be completely out of my mind, but I suspect the average UK citizen hasn't really noticed any effects from Brexit, mainly due to Covid and the various wars and general global economic downturn. What effect Brexit really has had is that it's turned our already chaotic and outdated political system into a complete shitshow, with the government ripping itself apart trying to appease its various factions rather than running the country competently. The country is a bit knackered, but due entirely to the government, not Brexit.
Sorry, no.
On a very simple level, everyone who goes abroad now can see what a bloody pain in the ass it is. That’s c. 100 million trips per year and rising. Roughly 1/3rd of us will go abroad this summer alone.
And if you talk to anyone at all who has business dealings with Europe they are tearing their hair out.
Likewise, bringing goods in from Europe has become an absolute pain in the proverbial.
Then there is services and entertainment, brought to its knees by covid and brexit. We are chronically short of overseas workers and shunting Nigerian nurses into the NHS is not exactly what people had in mind when they voted for the bloody thing.
I could go on and on. Brexit is to blame for a large part of this country's cock ups.
There are some tragic stories of the impact it has had on small import/export businesses, if you care to go looking for them. And remember that the more punitive red tape and checks have so far been postponed, some yet to start until next month and some pushed off to the summer.
And as someone who contributes regularly to a number of pet travel forums, I can assure you that pet owners who travel are very much aware of the downside (that may be a minority interest, but it is the fastest growing category of tourism). The added cost and administrative hurdles when taking your pet abroad are significant, and there’s no compensating upside.
One of the quieter sporting weekends as we bask in the interregnum between Cheltenham, the Boat Race, Aintree, the Cup semi-finals and the start of the new cricket season.
I rarely venture into the shark-infested waters of the EU debate but just to allow @Leon a chance to give whatever his latest toy is a runout, my two cents.
We won't go back anytime soon - what would be the point? The whole sideshow would just start again as it did from 1949 to 2016. Simply put, we have struggled to define our post-Imperial relationship with Europe just as we have with other parts of the world and still haven't got a coherent view.
A part of Europe but not apart from Europe, in Europe but not run by Europe, wordplay and juxtaposing prepositions can make us all feel smug (or not) but until we work out what we want the relationship to be we are, to use a hackneyed old expression, better off out.
The 43 years of half hearted, rebate obsessed, opt out filled membership satisfied no one - it didn't work for us, it didn't work for the EU. Yes, we wanted it to stay just as it was in 1973 - a common market, a free trading bloc of sovereign nations but that was never going to happen. Schumann and others painted a clear path to a united Europe, a European Federation with what we know as nations provinces in the greater whole.
A nation which has proudly asserted its independence (verbally if not factually in truth we've had little freedom of action since 1914) would never voluntarily give that up to a body in which it would be one voice among many - it's not NATO.
Rather like the social legislation of the 1960s, the decision of 2016 may come to be seen as flawed by some if not many but no one wants to go through the anguish of reversing it - we don't want it, the Europeans don't want it.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Edward 8th/Duke of Windsor had a good go too...
Well, he suggested to French soldiers that if Britain and France joined together they would make an enormous fart.
Yawn, these Russian prats must think we are REALLY dumb. What is the aim here, can anyone explain?
In theory, it's to spread rancour and despondency. In practice, it's to give us all a good chuckle, except for those who somehow aren't in on the joke.
Let's face it, we need a good chuckle.
Indeed ukraine getting spanked by russia is funny.
Hardly. And even the reverse wouldn't be that funny; it's still humans suffering because of the addled fantasies of an increasingly decrepit despot.
Still, I'm sure you're doing very good work.
Indeed. Which is why peace is needed.
Which, if your lot f*** off to whence they came, peace is exactly what we get.
I raised this last evening and it's still troubling me today.
Duke Ellington once opined "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing".
Regional polls show the swing from Conservative to Labour at 9.5% in London, 9% in Wales and 12.5% in Scotland yet the GB polls show a swing of 18%. There must be some huge swings in provincial England - I cited the Clacton constituency polling which showed a 24.5% swing (but the Conservatives still retaining the seat).
The movement was Conservative down 34 and Labour up 15 on 2019. We need much more evidence before conclusions are drawn but I would offer the theory Reform are polling best where the Conservatives are strongest. They are tearing chunks out of the Conservative vote while Labour advance. This means even seats with large Conservative majorities (20,000+) are vulnerable.
How does that equate to the hypothesis Reform voters will run back to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder? Put simply, we don't know - what polling we have suggests no more than a third would vote Conservative were there to be no Reform candidate in their constituency.
Reform's problem is while leading figures like Tice and Farage are small state, tax cutting conservatives, the membership isn't - the membership wants money spent on the poorer areas where the WWC predominates. It remembers promises of "levelling up" and wants to see that so the long term future of Reform is more complex than the usual "they'll merge with the Tories".
IF there is a schism. some will go back to a populist Conservative Party but the next big thing in UK politics will the populist party on the other flank - socially conservative, patriotic, nationalist but interventionist - "spend our money on our people" for example. In five years we could be sitting there asking why this new group is tearing lumps out of the Labour vote in their strongholds.
One of the quieter sporting weekends as we bask in the interregnum between Cheltenham, the Boat Race, Aintree, the Cup semi-finals and the start of the new cricket season.
I rarely venture into the shark-infested waters of the EU debate but just to allow @Leon a chance to give whatever his latest toy is a runout, my two cents.
We won't go back anytime soon - what would be the point? The whole sideshow would just start again as it did from 1949 to 2016. Simply put, we have struggled to define our post-Imperial relationship with Europe just as we have with other parts of the world and still haven't got a coherent view.
A part of Europe but not apart from Europe, in Europe but not run by Europe, wordplay and juxtaposing prepositions can make us all feel smug (or not) but until we work out what we want the relationship to be we are, to use a hackneyed old expression, better off out.
The 43 years of half hearted, rebate obsessed, opt out filled membership satisfied no one - it didn't work for us, it didn't work for the EU. Yes, we wanted it to stay just as it was in 1973 - a common market, a free trading bloc of sovereign nations but that was never going to happen. Schumann and others painted a clear path to a united Europe, a European Federation with what we know as nations provinces in the greater whole.
A nation which has proudly asserted its independence (verbally if not factually in truth we've had little freedom of action since 1914) would never voluntarily give that up to a body in which it would be one voice among many - it's not NATO.
Rather like the social legislation of the 1960s, the decision of 2016 may come to be seen as flawed by some if not many but no one wants to go through the anguish of reversing it - we don't want it, the Europeans don't want it.
There is no need to fire up the Opus, I agree with all of this
Occasionally when I look at polls showing a large majority for Rejoin or an even larger one showing Bregret, then i think: ooh, it could happen
But then I calm down. The first two years of the Starmer government will be THE window of opportunity (cf Blair and the euro) but he won’t go through it because he’s innately cautious, a new vote will be agonising, and he is a Remoaning 2nd voter, and he’s terrified of people recalling this
Not gonna happen. After that the practical and political obstacles to Rejoin will only grow, especially as Europe swings populist right. Imagine trying to sell Rejoin to British lefties if France is led by Le Pen. Etc
It’s over and done. We’re out and out for good. There will be readjustments aplenty, however. See Switzerland
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
One of the quieter sporting weekends as we bask in the interregnum between Cheltenham, the Boat Race, Aintree, the Cup semi-finals and the start of the new cricket season.
I rarely venture into the shark-infested waters of the EU debate but just to allow @Leon a chance to give whatever his latest toy is a runout, my two cents.
We won't go back anytime soon - what would be the point? The whole sideshow would just start again as it did from 1949 to 2016. Simply put, we have struggled to define our post-Imperial relationship with Europe just as we have with other parts of the world and still haven't got a coherent view.
A part of Europe but not apart from Europe, in Europe but not run by Europe, wordplay and juxtaposing prepositions can make us all feel smug (or not) but until we work out what we want the relationship to be we are, to use a hackneyed old expression, better off out.
The 43 years of half hearted, rebate obsessed, opt out filled membership satisfied no one - it didn't work for us, it didn't work for the EU. Yes, we wanted it to stay just as it was in 1973 - a common market, a free trading bloc of sovereign nations but that was never going to happen. Schumann and others painted a clear path to a united Europe, a European Federation with what we know as nations provinces in the greater whole.
A nation which has proudly asserted its independence (verbally if not factually in truth we've had little freedom of action since 1914) would never voluntarily give that up to a body in which it would be one voice among many - it's not NATO.
Rather like the social legislation of the 1960s, the decision of 2016 may come to be seen as flawed by some if not many but no one wants to go through the anguish of reversing it - we don't want it, the Europeans don't want it.
There is no need to fire up the Opus, I agree with all of this
Occasionally when I look at polls showing a large majority for Rejoin or an even larger one showing Bregret, then i think: ooh, it could happen
But then I calm down. The first two years of the Starmer government will be THE window of opportunity (cf Blair and the euro) but he won’t go through it because he’s innately cautious, a new vote will be agonising, and he is a Remoaning 2nd voter, and he’s terrified of people recalling this
Not gonna happen. After that the practical and political obstacles to Rejoin will only grow, especially as Europe swings populist right. Imagine trying to sell Rejoin to British lefties if France is led by Le Pen. Etc
It’s over and done. We’re out and out for good. There will be readjustments aplenty, however. See Switzerland
You don’t need to try to think about this.
The trajectory is towards where Norway is. Which the Tories, had they been clever, would have dropped us, but Labour will slowly, but surely, progressively return us. If the Tories are nearly wiped out, then quickly; otherwise, more slowly.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
I’m surprised that you thought this an appropriate moment to display your ever-astonishing if all too familiar, to long-term PB’ers, ignorance.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Apart from all that business of sending soldiers to Ireland and the Netherlands.
I raised this last evening and it's still troubling me today.
Duke Ellington once opined "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing".
Regional polls show the swing from Conservative to Labour at 9.5% in London, 9% in Wales and 12.5% in Scotland yet the GB polls show a swing of 18%. There must be some huge swings in provincial England - I cited the Clacton constituency polling which showed a 24.5% swing (but the Conservatives still retaining the seat).
The movement was Conservative down 34 and Labour up 15 on 2019. We need much more evidence before conclusions are drawn but I would offer the theory Reform are polling best where the Conservatives are strongest. They are tearing chunks out of the Conservative vote while Labour advance. This means even seats with large Conservative majorities (20,000+) are vulnerable.
How does that equate to the hypothesis Reform voters will run back to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder? Put simply, we don't know - what polling we have suggests no more than a third would vote Conservative were there to be no Reform candidate in their constituency.
Reform's problem is while leading figures like Tice and Farage are small state, tax cutting conservatives, the membership isn't - the membership wants money spent on the poorer areas where the WWC predominates. It remembers promises of "levelling up" and wants to see that so the long term future of Reform is more complex than the usual "they'll merge with the Tories".
IF there is a schism. some will go back to a populist Conservative Party but the next big thing in UK politics will the populist party on the other flank - socially conservative, patriotic, nationalist but interventionist - "spend our money on our people" for example. In five years we could be sitting there asking why this new group is tearing lumps out of the Labour vote in their strongholds.
The reform manifesto is a list of items that are mutually exclusive - but without the £350m on a bus that made them look vaguely plausible
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Apart from all that business of sending soldiers to Ireland and the Netherlands.
Her entire reign was about English independence and fighting off control from mainland Europe (usually Spain, sometimes France via Scotland)
She was probably the most Leavery monarch in our history, after her maybe William of Orange? Victoria perhaps, but only because Britain was so puissant in her reign. Then Elizabeth II, definitely Leave; I suspect KCIII is Remain
Before the 14th century it gets harder. I guess Alfried the Great was probably Leave. Vortigern is hard to call. Leave tendencies - based mainly in the Red Wall - but also a foreign Remainy name
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Apart from all that business of sending soldiers to Ireland and the Netherlands.
Her entire reign was about English independence and fighting off control from mainland Europe (usually Spain, sometimes France via Scotland)
She was probably the most Leavery monarch in our history, after her maybe William of Orange? Victoria perhaps, but only because Britain was so puissant in her reign. Then Elizabeth II, definitely Leave; I suspect KCIII is Remain
Before the 14th century it gets harder. I guess Alfried the Great was probably Leave. Vortigern is hard to call. Leave tendencies - based mainly in the Red Wall - but also a foreign Remainy name
With Alfred we are back to the 9th century and more than 1100 years of Brexit arguments. Surely that is enough, even for @Scott_xP ??
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
There was, in fact, a long running issue of papal supremacy in England, mixed up with early versions of what became Protestantism.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Apart from all that business of sending soldiers to Ireland and the Netherlands.
Her entire reign was about English independence and fighting off control from mainland Europe (usually Spain, sometimes France via Scotland)
She was probably the most Leavery monarch in our history, after her maybe William of Orange? Victoria perhaps, but only because Britain was so puissant in her reign. Then Elizabeth II, definitely Leave; I suspect KCIII is Remain
Before the 14th century it gets harder. I guess Alfried the Great was probably Leave. Vortigern is hard to call. Leave tendencies - based mainly in the Red Wall - but also a foreign Remainy name
With Alfred we are back to the 9th century and more than 1100 years of Brexit arguments. Surely that is enough, even for @Scott_xP ??
King Lud? Leaver
Gog and Magog? Remainers, remind me of Jolyon Maugham and AC Grayling
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Apart from all that business of sending soldiers to Ireland and the Netherlands.
Her entire reign was about English independence and fighting off control from mainland Europe (usually Spain, sometimes France via Scotland)
She was probably the most Leavery monarch in our history, after her maybe William of Orange? Victoria perhaps, but only because Britain was so puissant in her reign. Then Elizabeth II, definitely Leave; I suspect KCIII is Remain
Before the 14th century it gets harder. I guess Alfried the Great was probably Leave. Vortigern is hard to call. Leave tendencies - based mainly in the Red Wall - but also a foreign Remainy name
With Alfred we are back to the 9th century and more than 1100 years of Brexit arguments. Surely that is enough, even for @Scott_xP ??
King Lud? Leaver
Gog and Magog? Remainers, remind me of Jolyon Maugham and AC Grayling
There is a reason that the Reformation became a popular movement across most of previously Catholic Europe - even in many places where repression later enforced the counter-Reformation. Henry VIII was the means of religious change in England rather than its cause. Read a bit of Luther for some clues why
I raised this last evening and it's still troubling me today.
Duke Ellington once opined "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing".
Regional polls show the swing from Conservative to Labour at 9.5% in London, 9% in Wales and 12.5% in Scotland yet the GB polls show a swing of 18%. There must be some huge swings in provincial England - I cited the Clacton constituency polling which showed a 24.5% swing (but the Conservatives still retaining the seat).
The movement was Conservative down 34 and Labour up 15 on 2019. We need much more evidence before conclusions are drawn but I would offer the theory Reform are polling best where the Conservatives are strongest. They are tearing chunks out of the Conservative vote while Labour advance. This means even seats with large Conservative majorities (20,000+) are vulnerable.
How does that equate to the hypothesis Reform voters will run back to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder? Put simply, we don't know - what polling we have suggests no more than a third would vote Conservative were there to be no Reform candidate in their constituency.
Reform's problem is while leading figures like Tice and Farage are small state, tax cutting conservatives, the membership isn't - the membership wants money spent on the poorer areas where the WWC predominates. It remembers promises of "levelling up" and wants to see that so the long term future of Reform is more complex than the usual "they'll merge with the Tories".
IF there is a schism. some will go back to a populist Conservative Party but the next big thing in UK politics will the populist party on the other flank - socially conservative, patriotic, nationalist but interventionist - "spend our money on our people" for example. In five years we could be sitting there asking why this new group is tearing lumps out of the Labour vote in their strongholds.
The reform manifesto is a list of items that are mutually exclusive - but without the £350m on a bus that made them look vaguely plausible
It will be interesting to see whether Tice and Farage even try to square the circle (why should they, no one else will) of greater spending vs lower taxes.
MY suspicion is they are small-state Thatcherites at heart which is curious because Boris Johnson isn't and neither are many of their supporters. They want the Johnsonian Manifesto of the magic money tree for the WWC which is why when (not if) Reform fractures only a few of the supporters will move over to the Conservative Party.
As was the case with the Social Democrats and Liberals in 1981 who tried unsuccessfully to exploit a galp between Thatcher's Conservatives and Foot's Labour, there is an opportunity to establish the alternative version of a populist party such as we are seeing in Germany. A socially conservative, economically nationalist, patriotic party of the working class, looking to spend public money on that group while maintaining a cultural identity based around a nationalist anti-immigrant outlook.
It is often the case when parties are at their strongest they are also at their weakest - the broader the tent the more likely it is to collapse under the weight of its contradictions.
I forgot Boudicca. Totally Leave. And a great campaigner. Kind of like Boris but with more rape and pillage and brutal castration of Roman priests by the Thames
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Also, has none of her own teeth. Classic Leave voter.
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Also, has none of her own teeth. Classic Leave voter.
Droll
Also Edward II, pathetic moaning gaylord who ended up being sodomised to death in Berkeley Castle with a red hot poker - obvious Remainer. Probably a 2nd voter
I just saw that new Ghostbusters movie, which was pretty decent if flawed, but I will only say this - Walter Peck from the first movie was right the whole time.
I raised this last evening and it's still troubling me today.
Duke Ellington once opined "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing".
Regional polls show the swing from Conservative to Labour at 9.5% in London, 9% in Wales and 12.5% in Scotland yet the GB polls show a swing of 18%. There must be some huge swings in provincial England - I cited the Clacton constituency polling which showed a 24.5% swing (but the Conservatives still retaining the seat).
The movement was Conservative down 34 and Labour up 15 on 2019. We need much more evidence before conclusions are drawn but I would offer the theory Reform are polling best where the Conservatives are strongest. They are tearing chunks out of the Conservative vote while Labour advance. This means even seats with large Conservative majorities (20,000+) are vulnerable.
How does that equate to the hypothesis Reform voters will run back to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder? Put simply, we don't know - what polling we have suggests no more than a third would vote Conservative were there to be no Reform candidate in their constituency.
Reform's problem is while leading figures like Tice and Farage are small state, tax cutting conservatives, the membership isn't - the membership wants money spent on the poorer areas where the WWC predominates. It remembers promises of "levelling up" and wants to see that so the long term future of Reform is more complex than the usual "they'll merge with the Tories".
IF there is a schism. some will go back to a populist Conservative Party but the next big thing in UK politics will the populist party on the other flank - socially conservative, patriotic, nationalist but interventionist - "spend our money on our people" for example. In five years we could be sitting there asking why this new group is tearing lumps out of the Labour vote in their strongholds.
The reform manifesto is a list of items that are mutually exclusive - but without the £350m on a bus that made them look vaguely plausible
It will be interesting to see whether Tice and Farage even try to square the circle (why should they, no one else will) of greater spending vs lower taxes.
MY suspicion is they are small-state Thatcherites at heart which is curious because Boris Johnson isn't and neither are many of their supporters. They want the Johnsonian Manifesto of the magic money tree for the WWC which is why when (not if) Reform fractures only a few of the supporters will move over to the Conservative Party.
As was the case with the Social Democrats and Liberals in 1981 who tried unsuccessfully to exploit a galp between Thatcher's Conservatives and Foot's Labour, there is an opportunity to establish the alternative version of a populist party such as we are seeing in Germany. A socially conservative, economically nationalist, patriotic party of the working class, looking to spend public money on that group while maintaining a cultural identity based around a nationalist anti-immigrant outlook.
It is often the case when parties are at their strongest they are also at their weakest - the broader the tent the more likely it is to collapse under the weight of its contradictions.
Roughly where the Continuity SDP have ended up, then? Who haven't really got anywhere. Partly because Farage does what he does very well, even if you don't like what he does.
But also because nobody is interested in funding or promoting left wing economic nationalism, and the threshold to break through is so high.
(Galloway is also in that "good at what he does, but boy I wish he didn't category". His pitch to WWC voters comes close as well.)
So we continue to have this contradiction between elite and popular national populism. As long as it remains an opposition voice it doesn't matter. But even Boris was struggling to hold the two together in office.
Will a Labour government want to rejoin an EU with Le Pen as President of France?
Her niece describes it as a failed project that has left Europe a digital colony of America, an economic colony of China, and on the way to becoming a demographic colony of Africa and religious and cultural colony of Islam.
I have read The Rising Down, by Alexandra Harris (nominally published last Thursday).
Fair disclosure: Initially I started reading only because a) I was sent a free copy by the publisher/author, and b) they/she included a free piece of Horsham gingerbread with it. I didn't know Horsham gingerbread was a thing, but it is, and it is delicious.
So too is this book: a glorious lyrical and passionate evocation of landscape, people and history. There is probably a technical term for this type of book, which other more learned readers will be able to identify, but I think of this as a mosaic history: each chapter taking an episode or personage from history, and turning over the details as if examining a flint from a downland field, before adding it to a narrative that is discontinuous but consistent; reiterating themes as they return, each time folded and deposited into a new form.
From the water bailiff on the Arun in the 1600s, naming the tributaries, fisheries and landowners, to the Henty family of Tarring who emigrate to Australia in the 1800s with their Southdown sheep and medieval church font, to SOE operatives training at Bignor before their brief careers and martyrdoms in Occupied Europe, to Polish refugees camped in the Storrington woodlands, making churches and schools, everyone is counted and everyone counts. William Blake and Jomo Kenyatta, Ivon Hitchens and Laurie Lee, Edward Elgar and John Constable, all feature, but no more (and no less) important than the villagers, labourers, clergymen and nurses who populate these pages, intricately woven in to her own story, her family and friends.
This is an absolute jewel of a book: Professor Harris grew up in West Sussex, and has maintained a love of the landscape of her childhood; she writes fluid and clear prose, like a downland stream; she has a talent for finding the best elements of each story, and a knack for finding the best stories to tell. Perhaps it means more to me because I am so familiar (though apparently not familiar enough!) with these landscapes and histories, but I am sure that even for those who do not live on or near the downs, there is still a huge amount of pleasure and profit to be found in this.
I missed this prediction competition for the GE as I was off air for a long time whilst travelling. Presumably the comp is still open until the day itself? @Benpointer
You all know my views on this, resolutely stated over the past couple of years. So I’ll punt for the number of Cons MPs to be 80-130 after the GE, which equates to I don’t know what in terms of a Labour majority. I guess around 250?
If the comp is still open then I'd also like to enter, but predicting a hung Parliament.
At this juncture a Labour landslide looks more probable, but I'm stubborn.
Why would the competition still be open? Predictions (usually) get easier the nearer you get to the event. A competition needs to have a deadline.
Still, to predict an outcome that has become even less likely since the competition closed is brave!
The way I look at it, if I'm proven right I get to play the genius (yes, I know, stopped clocks etc etc) and if I'm disastrously wrong then the Tories get the stuffing they thoroughly deserve. So it's a bit of a win-win.
The really brave prediction would be another Tory win, but not even I am that crackers.
Bart and I used to predict that Boris Johnson would win the next election with an increased majority - a lot has happened since then! Perhaps enough that most people will forget the prediction.
To be fair I said it was a possibility but I'd want to lay it at 2-1, and that I'd want at least 4-1 to back it.
But yes its certainly not a possibility (with or without Boris) anymore.
Will a Labour government want to rejoin an EU with Le Pen as President of France?
Her niece describes it as a failed project that has left Europe a digital colony of America, an economic colony of China, and on the way to becoming a demographic colony of Africa and religious and cultural colony of Islam.
Will a Labour government want to rejoin an EU with Le Pen as President of France?
Her niece describes it as a failed project that has left Europe a digital colony of America, an economic colony of China, and on the way to becoming a demographic colony of Africa and religious and cultural colony of Islam.
I can see hummingbirds as I sip my morning cafe con leche
Life should always be like this
BREAKFAST WITH HUMMINGBIRDS
Is there any other animal which brings such immediate innocent delight to humans? Dolphins, perhaps. Lemurs maybe
Bumblebees, hedgehogs, dormice.
The one that tops it for me, along with hummingbirds, is the sea horse I saw many years ago off the coast of Kenya.
I saw a tortoise in the wild in Athens last year. I had only thought of them as pets and not really paid attention to which countries they were native to - I had assumed North Africa or Asia. Made my day.
Domestically, you can’t beat an unexpected owl sighting. Or seeing a family of weasels or stoats trotting across the road in a line, half upright.
On topic: One advantage Sherrod Brown has in Ohio is that he is anti-free trade. "Brown has criticized free trade with China and other countries. In a 2006 Washington Post article, Brown argued against free trade on the grounds that labor activism was responsible for the growth of the U.S. middle class, and that the U.S. economy is harmed by trade relations with countries that lack the kind of labor regulations that have resulted from that activism.[131]
In 2011, the Columbus Dispatch noted that Brown "loves to rail against international trade agreements."[132] Brown's book Myths of Free Trade argues that "an unregulated global economy is a threat to all of us."[133] In the book he recommends measures that would allow for emergency tariffs, protect Buy America laws, including those that give preference to minority and women-owned businesses, and hold foreign producers to American labor and environmental standards.[134] Brown was the co-author and sponsor of a bill that would officially declare China a currency manipulator and require the Department of Commerce to impose countervailing duties on Chinese imports." source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherrod_Brown#Political_positions
Most economists may love free trade -- but many voters in the US don't.
(My own view: I think NAFTA has been a solid success, good for all three nations -- but I recognize that it is not especially popular in any of the three. Incidentally, it is a bipartisan success: RR proposed it, GHWB negotiated it, and BC got it ratified.
Trade with China, on the other hand, has been a mixed bag. For example, I think we here in the US are going to have to think very hard about their technology thefts. I have seen estimates of a trillion dollars stolen.)
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
Yup. The interesting thing about the 2012 Olympics is that in many ways it was a huge nostalgiafest for a recent past that was already receding into the rearview mirror. Danny Boyle. The Spice Girls. David Beckham, Underworld.
Even the sporting excellence too, as it was the peak of lottery and government funding for sport. Laura Trott retiring is kind of one of the last of that generation of athletes whose talent delivered golds on an incredible scale because of funding and a setup that was streets ahead of other nations. If Rishi Sunak hopes for a gold rush in Paris this year he is likely to be disappointed.
Very much the epilogue to the New Labour years and something that had already gone rather than the start of something new.
Nobody really cares about the Olympics in any case. A bunch of unpopular sports thar few pay much attention too any other time, coupled with Mickey Mouse competitions in popular sports like golf, football and tennis.
Almost as boring as the Commonwealth games. Both disappearing up their own fundamentals as people / sponsors realise they are crap.
Morning Malc. What do you make of Scotland’s chances in the Euros?
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
Yup. The interesting thing about the 2012 Olympics is that in many ways it was a huge nostalgiafest for a recent past that was already receding into the rearview mirror. Danny Boyle. The Spice Girls. David Beckham, Underworld.
Even the sporting excellence too, as it was the peak of lottery and government funding for sport. Laura Trott retiring is kind of one of the last of that generation of athletes whose talent delivered golds on an incredible scale because of funding and a setup that was streets ahead of other nations. If Rishi Sunak hopes for a gold rush in Paris this year he is likely to be disappointed.
Very much the epilogue to the New Labour years and something that had already gone rather than the start of something new.
Nobody really cares about the Olympics in any case. A bunch of unpopular sports thar few pay much attention too any other time, coupled with Mickey Mouse competitions in popular sports like golf, football and tennis.
Almost as boring as the Commonwealth games. Both disappearing up their own fundamentals as people / sponsors realise they are crap.
Morning Malc. What do you make of Scotland’s chances in the Euros?
I understand why @rcs1000 was emotionally attached to the post about Brexit but it is not coherent either logically, practically or emotionally.
@RochdalePioneers (a Brexiter) has given us chapter and verse about some of the economic hurdles now in place. Two anecdotally and trivially from me are movements of horses to and from the EU and a very small luxury clothing business which now finds it too expensive to import from the EU.
But more important wrt the "decisions made closer to home" bullshit (soz) is that, in the words of that noble and fearless Brexiter David Davis, we were always s*v*r**gn. The tiniest number of things were subject to EU lawmaking (VAT on home energy and Droit de Suite for example and you have no idea what one of those is).
You guys keep bleating on about shoulda woulda coulda but you sound like all those mad communists still agitating for that system. A great idea just that no one has done it right.
And with that, we're back on topic. The "good idea, done badly, not gone far enough" is the sort of thing that devotees of St Jeremy The Martyr say as well.
The will of the people is pretty clearly that this isn't going well and is probably a mistake. There's not much enthusiasm for any alternative but the status quo is seen as rubbish. The only useful questions are what the British state does with that information and when?
It's now more than ever that we are expected to embrace our national motto: mustn't grumble.
If there is one thing Britons can unite around it is having a good moan. "Mustn't grumble" is superb British irony considering that is what we do most.
There being a lot more than usual to grumble about right now
Good morning
Oh I don't know about that. Things have been going to hell in a handcart for many years.
Well yes. I now look back fondly to the 2012 London Olympics as the Cool Britannia swansong. It has been all downhill ever since.
But what about the wrong coloured flags on the kit in 2012? Surely that spoiled the whole thing.
On which topic next PM Penny Mordaunt is this morning showing she’s a serious politician for serious times:
I’m going to make myself unpopular on here but I loathe the flag of St George and its connotations. It’s as historically ridiculous to associate it with England as three lions. What the heck have lions got to do with this country? Nothing at all. Nor has the myth of a dragon-slaying Cappadocian. Worse still, it has all become wrapped up in Crusader English nationalism of a particular kind. Yuck.
And don’t get me started on our execrable ’national’ anthem. It was lovely to hear the Welsh lustily singing a great tune the other night and Flower of Scotland is magnificent: the tune possibly more than the odd dodgy line - like La Marseillaise.
Anti-English rant over. Please excuse me.
p.s. I don’t agree with nations, nationhood, or national flags. We’re a human race comprising a multiplicity of different ethnicities, cultures, languages, and histories but essential one race. And we need to learn to get along.
Perhaps we will if one of Sean’s alien spaceships lands here. That’s if they don’t eat us.
The three lions were Richard Coeur de Lion’s personal sigil. They’ve been a recognised symbol of England for some 850 years
He spent most of his reign in France. Would've voted remain.
What is now considered France. Was his kingdom then, as well as England. But you’re right; wouldn’t have thought of England (at least) as other than closely linked to Europe. Western Europe, anyway!
Remainers: "Leavers are all backward-looking people obsessed with an idealised version of the 1950s that never existed."
Also Remainers: "Richard the Lionheart, 12th century monarch of the Angevin Empire, would have voted Remain."
Perhaps we should do all the UK monarchs. The Scottish ones would generally be for remain - "Auld Alliance" and all that.
In fact, most of the English medieval ones were trying to develop European unions too.
Henry VIII was a Leaver, he LEFT the Church of Rome.
Read the history, and it seems pretty apparent that he just wanted rid of his wife (to get an heir), and later the cash from the monasteries, and was somewhat surprised what wider changes those more politically savvy around him managed to piggy back upon it. It was his son that saw the advantages of aligning with the emerging Protestant view on the continent.
Elizabeth !, Gloriana, our Great Virgin Queen (five times the monarch that her feckless father was) is the ultimate Royal Leaver. Patriotic Englishwoman, thinks foul scorn of the pathetic Remoaning Catholics, but is noble enough not to punch windows in their dog-loving souls
Apart from all that business of sending soldiers to Ireland and the Netherlands.
Her entire reign was about English independence and fighting off control from mainland Europe (usually Spain, sometimes France via Scotland)
She was probably the most Leavery monarch in our history, after her maybe William of Orange? Victoria perhaps, but only because Britain was so puissant in her reign. Then Elizabeth II, definitely Leave; I suspect KCIII is Remain
Before the 14th century it gets harder. I guess Alfried the Great was probably Leave. Vortigern is hard to call. Leave tendencies - based mainly in the Red Wall - but also a foreign Remainy name
With Alfred we are back to the 9th century and more than 1100 years of Brexit arguments. Surely that is enough, even for @Scott_xP ??
King Lud? Leaver
Gog and Magog? Remainers, remind me of Jolyon Maugham and AC Grayling
Before THAT I do admit it gets harder
Presumably ur-Leon skeddadled from his prehistoric mud hole in West Britain to sunny Göbekli Tepe as fast as his short fat hairy legs could take him.
Comments
There are a lot of idiots out there (and bots).
The US government warned its citizens in Russia of the risk of imminent terrorist attacks on "large gatherings". Presumably they warned the FSB of the risk too, giving them more intelligence than they put out publicly. Given the time-frame specified in the notice, it could be that one or more attacks were averted before yesterday's.
I just can’t hack the British climate any more and it gets WORSE as you get older
Speaking of which, good morning from a beautiful wam and sunny Tayrona jungle. All I can hear is magnificently vivid birdlife and the rush of Caribbean waves
Colombia has 2000 bird species. All of Europe has 900
That would settle the matter.
you're off your head mate.
The EU has had enough of us and will not be rushing towards us with open arms. Currrently they have enough of their own problems liked budget shortfalls and angry farmers.
Claude Opus 3 writes good replies in my own chosen style; I just sit back and sip superb Colombian coffee
Also, and with perfect piquance, I can only do this because I am outside the EU. The best AI chatbot in the world - the best A.I. - is not available in the EU because of stupid EU regulations. Yet you can use it in the UK. This is an Official Brexit Benefit brought to you, and predicted by, the Leave campaign
Which is why SKS had to say what he did as he wanted the left wing loonies to leave quietly which many of them have
Paradoxically, a quietly competent government would make that more likely.
Awful scenes in Moscow overnight. I wonder why they (whowever "they" are) chose to attack the very same day Russia vetoed the US resolution on Gaza.
drop. People don’t vote for wrenching changes (esp after the trauma of Brexit) if they are affluent and contented. Brexit passed because enough people were angry
This is even more true for Remoaner Starmer. If he returns Britain to some sensible path and we do OK, the desire to Rejoin will fade - especially if the EU suffers (and I think it will likely suffer in the medium term as the main engine Germany now faces fundamental problems)
Today’s was lamentable. I knew we’d miss the brilliant @truman
I’m not sure he ever actually came out with pro-Putin talking points. Of if he did it was subtle
BTW how many voted for Jezza in 2019?
I'll give it a little bit longer, but may end up just keeping the Perez bet.
Edited extra bit: Perez has a 3 place penalty for impeding Hulkenberg. An early thought, I'll start consider, on Leclerc getting a podium would've been better value if the stewards didn't faff about but there we are.
p.s. As everyone else seems to have gone off for lunch I may as well talk to myself.
We've never seen anything like this.
13 out of the past 14 days, #WindWaterSolar supply has exceeded demand on California's grid.
Today's peak: 111.4% #WWS as a percent of demand.
100% reached today (Thu Mar 21) at 10:45.
https://twitter.com/mzjacobson/status/1770916026642792536
In fact I usually end up with longer waits if I travel on Thursday / Friday night when they only have 3-4 people on the border
The one where they time the missile strike to catch the bombers on the ground, refuelling.
And as someone who contributes regularly to a number of pet travel forums, I can assure you that pet owners who travel are very much aware of the downside (that may be a minority interest, but it is the fastest growing category of tourism). The added cost and administrative hurdles when taking your pet abroad are significant, and there’s no compensating upside.
One of the quieter sporting weekends as we bask in the interregnum between Cheltenham, the Boat Race, Aintree, the Cup semi-finals and the start of the new cricket season.
I rarely venture into the shark-infested waters of the EU debate but just to allow @Leon a chance to give whatever his latest toy is a runout, my two cents.
We won't go back anytime soon - what would be the point? The whole sideshow would just start again as it did from 1949 to 2016. Simply put, we have struggled to define our post-Imperial relationship with Europe just as we have with other parts of the world and still haven't got a coherent view.
A part of Europe but not apart from Europe, in Europe but not run by Europe, wordplay and juxtaposing prepositions can make us all feel smug (or not) but until we work out what we want the relationship to be we are, to use a hackneyed old expression, better off out.
The 43 years of half hearted, rebate obsessed, opt out filled membership satisfied no one - it didn't work for us, it didn't work for the EU. Yes, we wanted it to stay just as it was in 1973 - a common market, a free trading bloc of sovereign nations but that was never going to happen. Schumann and others painted a clear path to a united Europe, a European Federation with what we know as nations provinces in the greater whole.
A nation which has proudly asserted its independence (verbally if not factually in truth we've had little freedom of action since 1914) would never voluntarily give that up to a body in which it would be one voice among many - it's not NATO.
Rather like the social legislation of the 1960s, the decision of 2016 may come to be seen as flawed by some if not many but no one wants to go through the anguish of reversing it - we don't want it, the Europeans don't want it.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/23/coffee-drinkers-much-lower-risk-bowel-cancer-recurrence-study
I understand he got his genders mixed.
Duke Ellington once opined "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing".
Regional polls show the swing from Conservative to Labour at 9.5% in London, 9% in Wales and 12.5% in Scotland yet the GB polls show a swing of 18%. There must be some huge swings in provincial England - I cited the Clacton constituency polling which showed a 24.5% swing (but the Conservatives still retaining the seat).
The movement was Conservative down 34 and Labour up 15 on 2019. We need much more evidence before conclusions are drawn but I would offer the theory Reform are polling best where the Conservatives are strongest. They are tearing chunks out of the Conservative vote while Labour advance. This means even seats with large Conservative majorities (20,000+) are vulnerable.
How does that equate to the hypothesis Reform voters will run back to the Conservatives at the first whiff of electoral gunpowder? Put simply, we don't know - what polling we have suggests no more than a third would vote Conservative were there to be no Reform candidate in their constituency.
Reform's problem is while leading figures like Tice and Farage are small state, tax cutting conservatives, the membership isn't - the membership wants money spent on the poorer areas where the WWC predominates. It remembers promises of "levelling up" and wants to see that so the long term future of Reform is more complex than the usual "they'll merge with the Tories".
IF there is a schism. some will go back to a populist Conservative Party but the next big thing in UK politics will the populist party on the other flank - socially conservative, patriotic, nationalist but interventionist - "spend our money on our people" for example. In five years we could be sitting there asking why this new group is tearing lumps out of the Labour vote in their strongholds.
Occasionally when I look at polls showing a large majority for Rejoin or an even larger one showing Bregret, then i think: ooh, it could happen
But then I calm down. The first two years of the Starmer government will be THE window of opportunity (cf Blair and the euro) but he won’t go through it because he’s innately cautious, a new vote will be agonising, and he is a Remoaning 2nd voter, and he’s terrified of people recalling this
Not gonna happen. After that the practical and political obstacles to Rejoin will only grow, especially as Europe swings populist right. Imagine trying to sell Rejoin to British lefties if France is led by Le Pen. Etc
It’s over and done. We’re out and out for good. There will be readjustments aplenty, however. See Switzerland
The trajectory is towards where Norway is. Which the Tories, had they been clever, would have dropped us, but Labour will slowly, but surely, progressively return us. If the Tories are nearly wiped out, then quickly; otherwise, more slowly.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2024/03/australia-pre-race-2024.html
Life should always be like this
BREAKFAST WITH HUMMINGBIRDS
Is there any other animal which brings such immediate innocent delight to humans? Dolphins, perhaps. Lemurs maybe
She was probably the most Leavery monarch in our history, after her maybe William of Orange? Victoria perhaps, but only because Britain was so puissant in her reign. Then Elizabeth II, definitely Leave; I suspect KCIII is Remain
Before the 14th century it gets harder. I guess Alfried the Great was probably Leave. Vortigern is hard to call. Leave tendencies - based mainly in the Red Wall - but also a foreign Remainy name
Lord Cobham - chum of Henry V. Until he wasn’t…
Wycliffe had a lot of noble support, as well.
Gog and Magog? Remainers, remind me of Jolyon Maugham and AC Grayling
Before THAT I do admit it gets harder
Pertinax, Claudius and Caesar - Remainers.
Just wonderful
And now - on to meet our elder brothers. The Kogi! Last of the pre Colombian civilisations
MY suspicion is they are small-state Thatcherites at heart which is curious because Boris Johnson isn't and neither are many of their supporters. They want the Johnsonian Manifesto of the magic money tree for the WWC which is why when (not if) Reform fractures only a few of the supporters will move over to the Conservative Party.
As was the case with the Social Democrats and Liberals in 1981 who tried unsuccessfully to exploit a galp between Thatcher's Conservatives and Foot's Labour, there is an opportunity to establish the alternative version of a populist party such as we are seeing in Germany. A socially conservative, economically nationalist, patriotic party of the working class, looking to spend public money on that group while maintaining a cultural identity based around a nationalist anti-immigrant outlook.
It is often the case when parties are at their strongest they are also at their weakest - the broader the tent the more likely it is to collapse under the weight of its contradictions.
Also Edward II, pathetic moaning gaylord who ended up being sodomised to death in Berkeley Castle with a red hot poker - obvious Remainer. Probably a 2nd voter
But also because nobody is interested in funding or promoting left wing economic nationalism, and the threshold to break through is so high.
(Galloway is also in that "good at what he does, but boy I wish he didn't category". His pitch to WWC voters comes close as well.)
So we continue to have this contradiction between elite and popular national populism. As long as it remains an opposition voice it doesn't matter. But even Boris was struggling to hold the two together in office.
Have you noticed the picture on my profile? The best photograph I've ever taken.
Her niece describes it as a failed project that has left Europe a digital colony of America, an economic colony of China, and on the way to becoming a demographic colony of Africa and religious and cultural colony of Islam.
https://x.com/marionmarechal/status/1770894693481537884
The one that tops it for me, along with hummingbirds, is the sea horse I saw many years ago off the coast of Kenya.
Fair disclosure: Initially I started reading only because a) I was sent a free copy by the publisher/author, and b) they/she included a free piece of Horsham gingerbread with it. I didn't know Horsham gingerbread was a thing, but it is, and it is delicious.
So too is this book: a glorious lyrical and passionate evocation of landscape, people and history. There is probably a technical term for this type of book, which other more learned readers will be able to identify, but I think of this as a mosaic history: each chapter taking an episode or personage from history, and turning over the details as if examining a flint from a downland field, before adding it to a narrative that is discontinuous but consistent; reiterating themes as they return, each time folded and deposited into a new form.
From the water bailiff on the Arun in the 1600s, naming the tributaries, fisheries and landowners, to the Henty family of Tarring who emigrate to Australia in the 1800s with their Southdown sheep and medieval church font, to SOE operatives training at Bignor before their brief careers and martyrdoms in Occupied Europe, to Polish refugees camped in the Storrington woodlands, making churches and schools, everyone is counted and everyone counts. William Blake and Jomo Kenyatta, Ivon Hitchens and Laurie Lee, Edward Elgar and John Constable, all feature, but no more (and no less) important than the villagers, labourers, clergymen and nurses who populate these pages, intricately woven in to her own story, her family and friends.
This is an absolute jewel of a book: Professor Harris grew up in West Sussex, and has maintained a love of the landscape of her childhood; she writes fluid and clear prose, like a downland stream; she has a talent for finding the best elements of each story, and a knack for finding the best stories to tell. Perhaps it means more to me because I am so familiar (though apparently not familiar enough!) with these landscapes and histories, but I am sure that even for those who do not live on or near the downs, there is still a huge amount of pleasure and profit to be found in this.
But yes its certainly not a possibility (with or without Boris) anymore.
Domestically, you can’t beat an unexpected owl sighting. Or seeing a family of weasels or stoats trotting across the road in a line, half upright.
New Thread
"Brown has criticized free trade with China and other countries. In a 2006 Washington Post article, Brown argued against free trade on the grounds that labor activism was responsible for the growth of the U.S. middle class, and that the U.S. economy is harmed by trade relations with countries that lack the kind of labor regulations that have resulted from that activism.[131]
In 2011, the Columbus Dispatch noted that Brown "loves to rail against international trade agreements."[132] Brown's book Myths of Free Trade argues that "an unregulated global economy is a threat to all of us."[133] In the book he recommends measures that would allow for emergency tariffs, protect Buy America laws, including those that give preference to minority and women-owned businesses, and hold foreign producers to American labor and environmental standards.[134] Brown was the co-author and sponsor of a bill that would officially declare China a currency manipulator and require the Department of Commerce to impose countervailing duties on Chinese imports."
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherrod_Brown#Political_positions
Most economists may love free trade -- but many voters in the US don't.
(My own view: I think NAFTA has been a solid success, good for all three nations -- but I recognize that it is not especially popular in any of the three. Incidentally, it is a bipartisan success: RR proposed it, GHWB negotiated it, and BC got it ratified.
Trade with China, on the other hand, has been a mixed bag. For example, I think we here in the US are going to have to think very hard about their technology thefts. I have seen estimates of a trillion dollars stolen.)
What conclusions can we draw from the low voter turnout in EU elections?
I am not asking those questions to be provocative; I would be delighted if there were positive answers to both.
@Anabobazina
I say our..