Today's Times contains some very important, and illuminating, quotes on Rishi Sunak. I'm not always a huge fan of Tim Shipman's columns - they focus too much on the Westminster "games" rather than policy - but this week's has some really useful nuggets. 🧵
I read that article this morning. Big Rish sounds like he is completely lost and the tories will try to icepick his cranium after the inevitable May 2nd debacle. To be replaced by a Patel/Mourdant cheeky girls anti-immigration dream ticket apparently.
Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, But to be a semi-literate 68 year old GB News watching gammon with a fat neck was very heaven.
Sounds about OK. Your disparaging comments about her medal appropriation aside, PM is fine. She should have some things she wants to do as leader (if she doesn't after all the leadership elections she's been in God help us all), and a good idea of what can be achieved in the little time that remains. Patel shores up the right flank a bit.
Mordaunt is suspected of being insufficiently belligerent toward trans people for tory tastes so Patel balances the ticket because nobody is under any doubt that at her core is a black torrent of spite that springs from Avernus itself.
That's a left-wing pastiche of Tory sentiment.
The truth is she doesn't have the intellectual rigour to challenge ways of thinking - so she simply co-opts what's already there. The concern Tories have about identity politics is that if you view people through the prism of colour, sex, sexuality or class, it leads to hell. No-one who devotes a quarter of their book to bashing It Ain't Half Hot Mum, thinking that gave the royal flush, is thinking straight, or even just thinking.
To be fair, she almost certainly didn't write it, and probably didn't even read it either, but her trouble is it chimed with the suspicions people had about her already.
No Tory (and so she should be a 'least bad' option). But she does strike me as slightly odd as a politician. Like all the bits should fit together to make an effective more moderate leading Tory. But they never quite do. Every time she seems to get a big occasion she seems to sound a bit strange and miss the moment (other than when is carrying a sword). A bit like Badenoch on the right, I think there's an element of people elevating her beyond evidence to date because ticks the boxes of what they'd ideally see as an effective Tory leader.
She was good in one of the debates last time. I think she does have potential as an excellent politician-communicator, possibly with a more neutral sidekick.
For this reason I can't see her and Patel working as a double bill.
But as she didn't get to the final 2 it was hardly 'David Cameron speaks without notes' stuff? Especially given the obvious shortcomings of the other two (and of course backed Truss despite her being an idiot as she thought she'd win).
It's just...well...she's been in parliament 14 years, hasn't had a great office of state and only a senior ministerial role for a few months - not entirely her fault, but still, big beasts can't be ignored forever. Nor has she carved out a position as some kind of firebrand or great communicator of the backbenches offering a new direction (fnarr!).
Where's the beef? A lot of it seems to be based on an imaginary version of her that some Tories see as an ideal leader rather than looking at the reality. Which is that owing to 14 years in government, civil war and squabbles ending careers, and not really intellectually renewing as thought they'd keep on winning, on all sides they are very much down to the B or C team.
Well, I think it might be a similar kind of beef as in the case of Ardern. If your skill is more as a communicator than as a strategist, you're less likely to have left the kind of markers you've mentioned.
I also suspect that some of the Tory enthusiasts for her will have seen some polling on how she comes across compared to the previous PMs of the last 14 years. After all these years of one party's rule, the greatest sin of Tory rule is perceived by the public to be arrogance and out-of-touchness. This is also why I think it's probably only someone who can appear more directly empathic, as Donkeys' post leads to, that just might be able to reduce the sheer scale of the defeat, at this juncture.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
I didn’t say it was a defence under the law for criminal damage. I was just trying to add some context.
That said, I note that there was a trial of 4 people on charges of criminal damage and they were acquitted.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
I’m watching an old episode of come dine with me (we don’t have internet TV here so it’s whatever’s on). What would you serve for your guests if you were on?
Has to be sophisticated enough not to be marked down for laziness. But has to be universally likeable and not odd or spicy enough to divide the field. And there has to be a decent vegetarian option.
So I’m thinking I’d do a roast. Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone do a roast on CDWM.
A roast would be a good idea if you needed to do a vegetarian option as well, because you wouldn’t need to change anything except the meat a gravy. I would try and include a local twist.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I’m sorry to be ignorant but who took down the Colson statue?
I’d agree taking it down is ridiculous and self-defeating however would a notice really not be called out for “wokeness”.
A screaming mob in Bristol - and the Council has then decided not to reinstate it.
Do we know why the Council has not?
The mob is clearly nuts and not in line with public opinion.
Scared of left wing arseholes.
Not true. Marvin Rees had been trying to take it down for years but stymied by opposition from within the city. The compromise eventually reached, much against his will, was that a plaque explaining the role of Colston in the slave trade would be added to the statue. But this foundered because Rees (who as mayor would have to approve it) and the Merchant Venturers (who as the owners would have to pay for it) couldn't agree on the wording.
So when the statue was torn down he was delighted and declared he wouldn't put it back up.
I've sometimes wondered if there was more to that than met the eye. But that may just be because I know Rees slightly and dislike him intensely.
After it was toppled, the Merchant Venturers said, “the fact that [the statue] has gone is right for Bristol”.
Because they were terrified that if they said otherwise they were next in line for throwing in the river.
I don’t think you have to be a Farage or a Patel to fee there’s something rather off about a mainly white mob of not very bright teenagers many of whose connections with Bristol were tenuous at best tearing down a statue, however controversial, and getting away with it on spurious grounds that ‘it hurt their feelings to see it.’
Or, for the matter of that, know as much about Marvin Rees as I do* to think he’s a twat.
*Which to avoid any awkwardness for TSE and RCS I will not discuss on this forum. I will say it is nothing to do with statues.
I’m watching an old episode of come dine with me (we don’t have internet TV here so it’s whatever’s on). What would you serve for your guests if you were on?
Has to be sophisticated enough not to be marked down for laziness. But has to be universally likeable and not odd or spicy enough to divide the field. And there has to be a decent vegetarian option.
So I’m thinking I’d do a roast. Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone do a roast on CDWM.
Fancy starters (prepared ahead of time ideally) and comfort food main is the way to go. Not that I have dinner parties anymore.
In general buy in your desserts, fruit, cheese etc but I guess that doesn't fly for Come Dine with Me.
I think bread and butter pudding for pudding. Can be made ahead of time and easy.
Starter is difficult because the best options are often seafood but CDWM always seems to contain at least one contestant who hates fish. Baked eggs of some sort another option - oeufs en cocotte, eggs florentine, something like that.
I’m watching an old episode of come dine with me (we don’t have internet TV here so it’s whatever’s on). What would you serve for your guests if you were on?
Has to be sophisticated enough not to be marked down for laziness. But has to be universally likeable and not odd or spicy enough to divide the field. And there has to be a decent vegetarian option.
So I’m thinking I’d do a roast. Don’t think I’ve ever seen someone do a roast on CDWM.
Fancy starters (prepared ahead of time ideally) and comfort food main is the way to go. Not that I have dinner parties anymore.
In general buy in your desserts, fruit, cheese etc but I guess that doesn't fly for Come Dine with Me.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
It’s the excuse used by many violent and misogynistic men.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
Today's Times contains some very important, and illuminating, quotes on Rishi Sunak. I'm not always a huge fan of Tim Shipman's columns - they focus too much on the Westminster "games" rather than policy - but this week's has some really useful nuggets. 🧵
I read that article this morning. Big Rish sounds like he is completely lost and the tories will try to icepick his cranium after the inevitable May 2nd debacle. To be replaced by a Patel/Mourdant cheeky girls anti-immigration dream ticket apparently.
Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, But to be a semi-literate 68 year old GB News watching gammon with a fat neck was very heaven.
Sounds about OK. Your disparaging comments about her medal appropriation aside, PM is fine. She should have some things she wants to do as leader (if she doesn't after all the leadership elections she's been in God help us all), and a good idea of what can be achieved in the little time that remains. Patel shores up the right flank a bit.
Mordaunt is suspected of being insufficiently belligerent toward trans people for tory tastes so Patel balances the ticket because nobody is under any doubt that at her core is a black torrent of spite that springs from Avernus itself.
That's a left-wing pastiche of Tory sentiment.
The truth is she doesn't have the intellectual rigour to challenge ways of thinking - so she simply co-opts what's already there. The concern Tories have about identity politics is that if you view people through the prism of colour, sex, sexuality or class, it leads to hell. No-one who devotes a quarter of their book to bashing It Ain't Half Hot Mum, thinking that gave the royal flush, is thinking straight, or even just thinking.
To be fair, she almost certainly didn't write it, and probably didn't even read it either, but her trouble is it chimed with the suspicions people had about her already.
No Tory (and so she should be a 'least bad' option). But she does strike me as slightly odd as a politician. Like all the bits should fit together to make an effective more moderate leading Tory. But they never quite do. Every time she seems to get a big occasion she seems to sound a bit strange and miss the moment (other than when is carrying a sword). A bit like Badenoch on the right, I think there's an element of people elevating her beyond evidence to date because ticks the boxes of what they'd ideally see as an effective Tory leader.
She was good in one of the debates last time. I think she does have potential as an excellent politician-communicator, possibly with a more neutral sidekick.
For this reason I can't see her and Patel working as a double bill.
But as she didn't get to the final 2 it was hardly 'David Cameron speaks without notes' stuff? Especially given the obvious shortcomings of the other two (and of course backed Truss despite her being an idiot as she thought she'd win).
It's just...well...she's been in parliament 14 years, hasn't had a great office of state and only a senior ministerial role for a few months - not entirely her fault, but still, big beasts can't be ignored forever. Nor has she carved out a position as some kind of firebrand or great communicator of the backbenches offering a new direction (fnarr!).
Where's the beef? A lot of it seems to be based on an imaginary version of her that some Tories see as an ideal leader rather than looking at the reality. Which is that owing to 14 years in government, civil war and squabbles ending careers, and not really intellectually renewing as thought they'd keep on winning, on all sides they are very much down to the B or C team.
Why did she not stand in 2016?
Why was she not able to overcome the issues she had when she did run? It shows a lack of political skill.
To me, she’s incredibly overrated.
She only seems good because of the quality of the alternatives.
Am I the only person who thought the header was about the ancient practice of moving stock on to fresh pastures in early humans?
(Transhumance, in case anyone wondered…)
Probably
Surely some of the other history buffs on here too?
Though I’m a geographer so I see transhumance as a modern phenomenon not just something for the archaeologists.
That sounds like an Egyptologist I know who thinks Roman History should be classed as Modern Studies.
No, different point. Transhumance is very much a current mode of life, practised in lots of places around the world including in rich countries in Western Europe and even North America.
In winter the community is together in the valleys, livestock warm in their sheds. Up in the mountains it’s all snowy and dead. Come early summer the snow melts, the grass starts growing on the high pastures and the men (usually) take the herds up to graze for a few months, living an austere but footloose life with few worries except the odd wolf, while the women take care of the kids, go to market and manufacture crafts.
A fascinating life. Little touched on in modern literature or cinema. Strangely enough Brokeback Mountain probably captures the upland grazing bit of it as well as any.
Two things I loved discovering in my time living there were the fact that those who lived permanently in the mountains effectively hibernated like animals during the winter. Pretty much waking up for a couple of hours a day to do necessary things but otherwise sleeping under the blankets until March.
The other was the “Des Alps” tradition where they celebrated bringing the herds down from the mountains in early autumn. My favourite of the fests was the Retour des Alpages in Annecy.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
Well, apart from you know…trading in slaves.
Which was legal at the time, sanctioned by the church and social mores. We should be wary of judging historical figures by modern laws and mores.
He and his company were very controversial in their time. Slavery was not by any means universally accepted anymore than celebrities being allowed to indulge their little vices with kids were universally accepted in the 70s.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
It’s the excuse used by many violent and misogynistic men.
Indeed though I would hesitate to go as far as to compare the rioters with wife beaters.
There is no excuse for either but one is clearly more serious than the other.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
The slave trade is a particularly horrible business. I actually felt ill after visiting an exhibition about it in Liverpool years ago.
I am more in favour of understanding history than trying to change it. Calling out Colston is absolutely fine in my book, albeit criminal damage isn't.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
Well, apart from you know…trading in slaves.
Which was legal at the time, sanctioned by the church and social mores. We should be wary of judging historical figures by modern laws and mores.
He and his company were very controversial in their time. Slavery was not by any means universally accepted anymore than celebrities being allowed to indulge their little vices with kids were universally accepted in the 70s.
And yet it was legal and the church sanctioned it. I doubt anyone batted an eyelid in his day about the slavery part of his business career.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I’m sorry to be ignorant but who took down the Colson statue?
I’d agree taking it down is ridiculous and self-defeating however would a notice really not be called out for “wokeness”.
A screaming mob in Bristol - and the Council has then decided not to reinstate it.
Do we know why the Council has not?
The mob is clearly nuts and not in line with public opinion.
Scared of left wing arseholes.
Not true. Marvin Rees had been trying to take it down for years but stymied by opposition from within the city. The compromise eventually reached, much against his will, was that a plaque explaining the role of Colston in the slave trade would be added to the statue. But this foundered because Rees (who as mayor would have to approve it) and the Merchant Venturers (who as the owners would have to pay for it) couldn't agree on the wording.
So when the statue was torn down he was delighted and declared he wouldn't put it back up.
I've sometimes wondered if there was more to that than met the eye. But that may just be because I know Rees slightly and dislike him intensely.
After it was toppled, the Merchant Venturers said, “the fact that [the statue] has gone is right for Bristol”.
Because they were terrified that if they said otherwise they were next in line for throwing in the river.
I don’t think you have to be a Farage or a Patel to fee there’s something rather off about a mainly white mob of not very bright teenagers many of whose connections with Bristol were tenuous at best tearing down a statue, however controversial, and getting away with it on spurious grounds that ‘it hurt their feelings to see it.’
Or, for the matter of that, know as much about Marvin Rees as I do* to think he’s a twat.
*Which to avoid any awkwardness for TSE and RCS I will not discuss on this forum. I will say it is nothing to do with statues.
Describing them as “not very bright” doesn’t suggest that you are approaching the matter even-handedly.
I know nothing about Rees and haven’t said anything about him. People were campaigning for the statue to go before Rees was ever elected. This isn’t about Rees.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
I didn’t say it was a defence under the law for criminal damage. I was just trying to add some context.
That said, I note that there was a trial of 4 people on charges of criminal damage and they were acquitted.
Not all miscarriages of justice are in favour of the prosecution.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
We live in the present day, and in the present day we can choose who we wish to celebrate now. Do we want to celebrate a slave trader?
The interestding point is that the Colston statue actually got a place in the city museum. And much more attention that way than on that rather long traffic island in the covered over part of the former docks.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
The slave trade is a particularly horrible business. I actually felt ill after visiting an exhibition about it in Liverpool years ago.
I am more in favour of understanding history than trying to change it. Calling out Colston is absolutely fine in my book, albeit criminal damage isn't.
Those accused of criminal damage were acquitted. Ergo, no criminal damage took place!
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
All history is revisionist, else you end up teaching Our Island Story for the next 200 years. It works both ways. There is many a right-wing revisionist work of histdory.
Colston is actually arguably what reaction gets you. The Merchant Venturers stuck out for far too long. It isn't their city and it's not for them to dictate to the elected Mayor what to do and what not to do.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
Well, apart from you know…trading in slaves.
Which was legal at the time, sanctioned by the church and social mores. We should be wary of judging historical figures by modern laws and mores.
He and his company were very controversial in their time. Slavery was not by any means universally accepted anymore than celebrities being allowed to indulge their little vices with kids were universally accepted in the 70s.
And yet it was legal and the church sanctioned it. I doubt anyone batted an eyelid in his day about the slavery part of his business career.
The Quakers were vocal in their opposition to slavery during Colston’s lifetime, although most of the abolitionist movement in Great Britain got going later.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
We live in the present day, and in the present day we can choose who we wish to celebrate now. Do we want to celebrate a slave trader?
I could choose to celebrate a philanthropist who did much good in his life.
Of course we can choose who to celebrate. I just find it rather odd that we judge historical figures against modern standards, as if we would all have been anti slavery if we had been educated as those figures were. People are of their time. There character, and personality are formed from the world they live in. Should we tear down statues of Roman emporers because of the old slavery thing?
Let's take the idea of vaccines. Are vaccines a post humanist/trans humanist improvement of the body? I think that if you regard contraception as trans humanist then they must be. Is she seriously arguing that conservatives should be opposed to vaccines? Because if she is, and we have heard some of this nonsense in the US, not least from RFK, she's lost me and, I hope, most rational people.
Is genetic medicine treating hereditary disorders something we are supposed to oppose? I mean, really?
Or is this supposed axis just not very useful in making sensible decisions about the complicated questions we actually face? That's where I am heading.
Let's take the issue of transgender (hang in there, this will be brief). The issue there is surely not whether some people want to dress as the opposite sex. Good luck to them. Who cares? The State, and anybody even vaguely sane, only shows an interest when the rights that they are asserting interfere with the rights of others or puts them at unacceptable risk. That is the battlefield, not some deontological analysis of what we "ought" to be.
Your last paragraph is absolutely spot on
At its core democracy is simply a mechanism for resolving disputes without violence. It works more often than not.
The whole trans debate boils down to a debate about conflicting rights between different individuals
The whole trans debate boils down to a debate about conflicting rights between different individuals.
If only. It actually boils down to competing ideologies. I know which side I'm on in that battle, but I would never have chosen to fight it. It does no-one any good.
It’s been seized by ideologues but that’s not the same thing.
Take the example of women’s refuges: does a physical male who identifies as female have the right to enter because they are deemed female? Do the women who are currently there have the right to an environment free from the presence of a physical male?
That’s a straight conflict between the rights of two individuals
The manager of a women's refuge in Wales was canvassed on this for the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill. She said her refuge had hosted a couple of trans women but not a single other woman had complained about it. They all realised they were in the same boat and all were looking for a safe space.
Rights don't need to conflict if people are as sensible and humane as the women in that Welsh refuge.
They don’t need to *IF* people are as sensible and human as that
Unfortunately you need to write laws based on the worst case potential outcomes
So you could come up with a structure where women’s’ refuges have the right but not the obligation to allow physical males to stay.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Also: claiming that the acquitted defendants are in fact criminals is not well received by our learned friends, or by OGH and the mods.
The manager of a women's refuge in Wales was canvassed on this for the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill. She said her refuge had hosted a couple of trans women but not a single other woman had complained about it. They all realised they were in the same boat and all were looking for a safe space.
Rights don't need to conflict if people are as sensible and humane as the women in that Welsh refuge.
I suppose my question on a purely practical basis would be, where should these people go? To a trans refuge instead?
Have some refuges that are women only and some that are open to both trans and women. Or if there is enough demand (I hope not) then you can have trans only refuges as well.
What you can’t have is a woman who desperately needs help being scared out of a refuge because of the presence of a physical male. This could be entirely without any fault on the part of the trans individual. Trauma does strange things to people.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
@turbotubbs facile example perhaps but do you draw the line anywhere? What about statues of dictators, or of Hitler? We keep those up?
Good point and it’s absolute right for a society to keep evolving. I think there is a line, for sure. Hitler, Stalin, Mao clearly I would tear down. But someone like Colston who has been found guilty of crimes against modern opinion, I think a more nuanced approach should be possible.
Who decides the line?
I agree with what you are saying for what it’s worth but I find it hard who should decide the line.
There’s an argument that it would be better to leave historical references in place and to educate instead. I would draw the line at Hitler too but I can see the argument.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
I didn’t say it was a defence under the law for criminal damage. I was just trying to add some context.
That said, I note that there was a trial of 4 people on charges of criminal damage and they were acquitted.
If I am frustrated is an excuse then I can burn down cchq, labour and lib dem hqs the houses of parliament and 17 middle street northhampton
Today's Times contains some very important, and illuminating, quotes on Rishi Sunak. I'm not always a huge fan of Tim Shipman's columns - they focus too much on the Westminster "games" rather than policy - but this week's has some really useful nuggets. 🧵
I read that article this morning. Big Rish sounds like he is completely lost and the tories will try to icepick his cranium after the inevitable May 2nd debacle. To be replaced by a Patel/Mourdant cheeky girls anti-immigration dream ticket apparently.
Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, But to be a semi-literate 68 year old GB News watching gammon with a fat neck was very heaven.
Sounds about OK. Your disparaging comments about her medal appropriation aside, PM is fine. She should have some things she wants to do as leader (if she doesn't after all the leadership elections she's been in God help us all), and a good idea of what can be achieved in the little time that remains. Patel shores up the right flank a bit.
Mordaunt is suspected of being insufficiently belligerent toward trans people for tory tastes so Patel balances the ticket because nobody is under any doubt that at her core is a black torrent of spite that springs from Avernus itself.
That's a left-wing pastiche of Tory sentiment.
The truth is she doesn't have the intellectual rigour to challenge ways of thinking - so she simply co-opts what's already there. The concern Tories have about identity politics is that if you view people through the prism of colour, sex, sexuality or class, it leads to hell. No-one who devotes a quarter of their book to bashing It Ain't Half Hot Mum, thinking that gave the royal flush, is thinking straight, or even just thinking.
To be fair, she almost certainly didn't write it, and probably didn't even read it either, but her trouble is it chimed with the suspicions people had about her already.
No Tory (and so she should be a 'least bad' option). But she does strike me as slightly odd as a politician. Like all the bits should fit together to make an effective more moderate leading Tory. But they never quite do. Every time she seems to get a big occasion she seems to sound a bit strange and miss the moment (other than when is carrying a sword). A bit like Badenoch on the right, I think there's an element of people elevating her beyond evidence to date because ticks the boxes of what they'd ideally see as an effective Tory leader.
She was good in one of the debates last time. I think she does have potential as an excellent politician-communicator, possibly with a more neutral sidekick.
For this reason I can't see her and Patel working as a double bill.
But as she didn't get to the final 2 it was hardly 'David Cameron speaks without notes' stuff? Especially given the obvious shortcomings of the other two (and of course backed Truss despite her being an idiot as she thought she'd win).
It's just...well...she's been in parliament 14 years, hasn't had a great office of state and only a senior ministerial role for a few months - not entirely her fault, but still, big beasts can't be ignored forever. Nor has she carved out a position as some kind of firebrand or great communicator of the backbenches offering a new direction (fnarr!).
Where's the beef? A lot of it seems to be based on an imaginary version of her that some Tories see as an ideal leader rather than looking at the reality. Which is that owing to 14 years in government, civil war and squabbles ending careers, and not really intellectually renewing as thought they'd keep on winning, on all sides they are very much down to the B or C team.
Well, I think it might be a similar kind of beef as with Ardern. If your skill is more as a communicator than as a strategist, you're less likely to have laid the kind of markers mentioned.
I also suspect that some of the Tory enthusiasts for her willl have viewed some polling on how she comes across compared to the previous PMs of the last 14 years. After all these years of one party's rule, the greatest sin of Tory rule is perceived to be arrogance and out-of-touchness. This is why I think it's probably only someone who can appear more directly empathic, as Donkeys' post leads to, that might be able to reduce the scale of the defeat, at this juncture.
I get what they think they're going for. The theory of the case so to speak. Having failed with Truss and then Sunak, install someone who can sand off the rough edges. Make them a bit more palatable to the more Tory-sympathetic parts of liberal Britain while still being "sound" on Brexit.
Just not sure it will work for some of the same reasons Sunak hasn't. She's not an outstanding communicator and moderate catnip in the same way Sunak wasn't a supersmart grownup with great judgment. Seems like the same wishful thinking.
In the case of the Ardern comparison, it's fair to say she was always a rising star in her party who zoomed up its ranks spectacularly. A bit, in a way, like Cameron. Not sure you can say that of Mordaunt - who has been one of those set to be the next big thing for a decade now, and the odd reality show aside, hasn't made quite the splash you'd expect by now.
You'd expect some conference fireworks. A signature policy. Getting a big brief and really impressing.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Jury system has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes there are cases where every jury member knows the case before the trial - thiscwould have been the case here (unless @CorrectHorseBattery@BatteryCorrectHorse etc) was on the jury. In this case it looked like a slam dunk, but the jury acquitted, presumably because they had sympathy for the accused, not because they didn’t think them guilty of the offence.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
Yes, people do seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days. For example, a lot of people take offence at content warnings.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
Well, apart from you know…trading in slaves.
Which was legal at the time, sanctioned by the church and social mores. We should be wary of judging historical figures by modern laws and mores.
Yet there were also plenty at the time who said slavery was wrong. (Indeed, slavery in England had been outlawed for many centuries.)
Since the 1100s I think.
The troubling analogue for all of us is eating meat. I do worry from time to time (when not composing hypothetical come done with me dinners) about a future world condemning the brutality of the animal trade of the 21st century.
But slavery as you say was already anathema in domestic law. The analogy would be living in a Britain where meat eating was banned, but making a fortune trading in meat.
There are a few examples out there: marital rape legal until a few decades ago, as was beating one’s wife (“within reason”).
I’d distinguish these from examples of activities being banned for regulatory or personal safety reasons. Nobody’s condemning historical figures because they drank and drove, didn’t build to modern building regs or didn’t wear a seatbelt.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Could you summarise why she is woke?
I petitioned PB for a new word recently, as I do think "woke" has lost all meaning.
Her views on trans ideology, gender ideology and the definition of a woman. She piloted through Parliament a ministerial maternity leave Bill that referred only to “pregnant people", which the Lords overturned, and in response to accepting this said, "trans men are men and trans women are women". Plus, 'her' book - Greater Britain: After the Storm - threw some weird barbs at British cultural history. Tone-deafness towards the past and Year Zeroism is exactly what many Tories dislike about wokery.
She's pretty sheep-dipped in identity politics, even though she's started to row back over the last 2 years as she realises what a millstone that is. But she has a long way to go before people start to believe her.
Why shouldn’t the law refer to pregnant people? The rules are in place to protect everyone who is physically pregnant.
I can imagine a situation where someone who was a women and became pregnant and subsequently decided to transition. Just because they identify as a man why shoudk they lose the rights that other who are physically pregnant benefit from?
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
Well, apart from you know…trading in slaves.
Which was legal at the time, sanctioned by the church and social mores. We should be wary of judging historical figures by modern laws and mores.
He and his company were very controversial in their time. Slavery was not by any means universally accepted anymore than celebrities being allowed to indulge their little vices with kids were universally accepted in the 70s.
Has anyone suggest prosecuting the Libyan “Coastguard”, by the way?
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Also: claiming that the acquitted defendants are in fact criminals is not well received by our learned friends, or by OGH and the mods.
Nope. We are allowed to claim that courts get it wrong. In fact people do that all the time perfectly legitimately. Miscarriages of justice challenges are always based on such claims.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
Yes, people do seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days. For example, a lot of people take offence at content warnings.
I don’t take offence, I just think they are wrong and pointless.
Tories sending out a survey to voters in Guildford. Obviously a central office document but with appropriate name and pictures of the MP added as it asks how you voted last time and how you intend to vote this time and one of the options is Plaid Cymru.
That is assuming Plaid Cymru aren't getting overly ambitious.
Interestingly Scottish Nationalist weren't included (I assume because they are a separate party)
Perhaps there has been a huge influx of Welsh people into Guildford since 2019? They would have been able to vote Plaid.
There was a Plaid Cymru candidate in Maidenhead in 1979.
Well, in the Desborough School mock elections of that year, anyway.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Also: claiming that the acquitted defendants are in fact criminals is not well received by our learned friends, or by OGH and the mods.
Nope. We are allowed to claim that courts get it wrong. In fact people do that all the time perfectly legitimately. Miscarriages of justice challenges are always based on such claims.
Er, that's in the *other* direction. People tend not to sue if they are publicly said by somone on PB not to be criminals when theu have been found guilty. On the other hand, being declared a criminal when acquitted ...
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
Just ignore the demands like sensible people, most know the truth everytime the people interviewed speak
Let's take the idea of vaccines. Are vaccines a post humanist/trans humanist improvement of the body? I think that if you regard contraception as trans humanist then they must be. Is she seriously arguing that conservatives should be opposed to vaccines? Because if she is, and we have heard some of this nonsense in the US, not least from RFK, she's lost me and, I hope, most rational people.
Is genetic medicine treating hereditary disorders something we are supposed to oppose? I mean, really?
Or is this supposed axis just not very useful in making sensible decisions about the complicated questions we actually face? That's where I am heading.
Let's take the issue of transgender (hang in there, this will be brief). The issue there is surely not whether some people want to dress as the opposite sex. Good luck to them. Who cares? The State, and anybody even vaguely sane, only shows an interest when the rights that they are asserting interfere with the rights of others or puts them at unacceptable risk. That is the battlefield, not some deontological analysis of what we "ought" to be.
Your last paragraph is absolutely spot on
At its core democracy is simply a mechanism for resolving disputes without violence. It works more often than not.
The whole trans debate boils down to a debate about conflicting rights between different individuals
The whole trans debate boils down to a debate about conflicting rights between different individuals.
If only. It actually boils down to competing ideologies. I know which side I'm on in that battle, but I would never have chosen to fight it. It does no-one any good.
It’s been seized by ideologues but that’s not the same thing.
Take the example of women’s refuges: does a physical male who identifies as female have the right to enter because they are deemed female? Do the women who are currently there have the right to an environment free from the presence of a physical male?
That’s a straight conflict between the rights of two individuals
The manager of a women's refuge in Wales was canvassed on this for the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill. She said her refuge had hosted a couple of trans women but not a single other woman had complained about it. They all realised they were in the same boat and all were looking for a safe space.
Rights don't need to conflict if people are as sensible and humane as the women in that Welsh refuge.
They don’t need to *IF* people are as sensible and human as that
Unfortunately you need to write laws based on the worst case potential outcomes
So you could come up with a structure where women’s’ refuges have the right but not the obligation to allow physical males to stay.
Yes to your last point. And if you do that, you don't need to legislate for the worst case. You deal with each case on its merits. No women's refuge is obliged to accept men pretending to be trans with no need for a safe space, nor would they ever do so.
The Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill was about making it less difficult for people legally to be who they want to be. I think it was wrong for the UK government to kibosh the whole thing. I doubt the bill required women's refuges to accept trans women but would certainly get rid of that requirement if it did.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
We live in the present day, and in the present day we can choose who we wish to celebrate now. Do we want to celebrate a slave trader?
I could choose to celebrate a philanthropist who did much good in his life.
Of course we can choose who to celebrate. I just find it rather odd that we judge historical figures against modern standards, as if we would all have been anti slavery if we had been educated as those figures were. People are of their time. There character, and personality are formed from the world they live in. Should we tear down statues of Roman emporers because of the old slavery thing?
Statues go up and come down all the time. Just because someone once erected a statue to you doesn’t mean that that statue has to remain for all eternity. Our towns and cities change around us all the time. We make choices.
There have been many philanthropists we can celebrate. Why celebrate the one who was a slave trader? Most of Colston’s contemporaries thought slavery was fine. They were wrong. It was horrendous. The African slave trade was one of the greatest horrors to ever have occurred.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
You raise an interesting point here.
Something I often think about with this issue is, "does it matter". Which is I am sure where Mr Royale will disagree.
I do not see how knowing that a particular National Trust estate was involved a slavery makes a difference, isn't the estate exactly as it was ten years ago and ten years before that? I can walk by these notices just as I do so for ones that say "may contain nuts".
There are other examples which are clearly ridiculous like I've referred to above. But another one I am not quite sure about is putting warnings on comedy programmes - I am not sure if this is really right when comedy in my view has always pushed the boundaries of acceptability and bad taste. But then again I can just avoid these warnings. Perhaps a more ridiculous example would be removing/editing examples of already published works, to me that is "too far" and not something I can easily avoid.
I think this is - for once - a quite interesting debate which I will be honest, is still very much developing in my mind.
The National Trust is an interesting one.
I have a friend whose cousin left one of the family homes to the National Trust. Recently the National Trust “outed” the donor as being gay. He may have been - or may be not; his family thought he might have been but he never disclosed his preferences to anyone.
And yet the NT deemed it appropriate to (a) breach his trust; (b) cause various Daily Mail articles to be written about a very private family; and (c) stated as historical fact something that is unknown and unknowable
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Well the Court of Appeal thought the defence given was invalid and that it should not have been considered as mitigation. They chose not to retry the case which is probably the right decision as it would be petty and a waste of public money given the nature of the crime but their decision invalidated the use of the same defence in future trials.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Also: claiming that the acquitted defendants are in fact criminals is not well received by our learned friends, or by OGH and the mods.
Come on, I don’t think Richard’s expression of his view that the acquittal was a mistake would constitute libel.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Also: claiming that the acquitted defendants are in fact criminals is not well received by our learned friends, or by OGH and the mods.
Nope. We are allowed to claim that courts get it wrong. In fact people do that all the time perfectly legitimately. Miscarriages of justice challenges are always based on such claims.
Er, that's in the *other* direction. People tend not to sue if they are publicly said by somone on PB not to be criminals when theu have been found guilty. On the other hand, being declared a criminal when acquitted ...
As I say the Court of Appeal thought their defence invalid. Maybe they should sue the Court.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
We live in the present day, and in the present day we can choose who we wish to celebrate now. Do we want to celebrate a slave trader?
I could choose to celebrate a philanthropist who did much good in his life.
Of course we can choose who to celebrate. I just find it rather odd that we judge historical figures against modern standards, as if we would all have been anti slavery if we had been educated as those figures were. People are of their time. There character, and personality are formed from the world they live in. Should we tear down statues of Roman emporers because of the old slavery thing?
Statues go up and come down all the time. Just because someone once erected a statue to you doesn’t mean that that statue has to remain for all eternity. Our towns and cities change around us all the time. We make choices.
There have been many philanthropists we can celebrate. Why celebrate the one who was a slave trader? Most of Colston’s contemporaries thought slavery was fine. They were wrong. It was horrendous. The African slave trade was one of the greatest horrors to ever have occurred.
I don’t quite know how I have become a Colston defender. Your point was about applying nuance to appraising historical figures. If you dont like Colston as an example how about Churchill?
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
Not after the watershed (9pm).
That seems fairly consistent although I don’t know why we would need to protect younger people with these, why not let the parents do it?
@turbotubbs facile example perhaps but do you draw the line anywhere? What about statues of dictators, or of Hitler? We keep those up?
Good point and it’s absolute right for a society to keep evolving. I think there is a line, for sure. Hitler, Stalin, Mao clearly I would tear down. But someone like Colston who has been found guilty of crimes against modern opinion, I think a more nuanced approach should be possible.
Who decides the line?
I agree with what you are saying for what it’s worth but I find it hard who should decide the line.
There’s an argument that it would be better to leave historical references in place and to educate instead. I would draw the line at Hitler too but I can see the argument.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
I didn’t say it was a defence under the law for criminal damage. I was just trying to add some context.
That said, I note that there was a trial of 4 people on charges of criminal damage and they were acquitted.
If I am frustrated is an excuse then I can burn down cchq, labour and lib dem hqs the houses of parliament and 17 middle street northhampton
I would be happy to act as a character witness for you in these circumstances.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
If you are going to disqualify rich white kids from political activism, that's the Oxford Union ****ed as a nursery for Toryism (and the LDs and Labour - no idea if PC as well or if there aren't enough at Jesus College).
Let's take the idea of vaccines. Are vaccines a post humanist/trans humanist improvement of the body? I think that if you regard contraception as trans humanist then they must be. Is she seriously arguing that conservatives should be opposed to vaccines? Because if she is, and we have heard some of this nonsense in the US, not least from RFK, she's lost me and, I hope, most rational people.
Is genetic medicine treating hereditary disorders something we are supposed to oppose? I mean, really?
Or is this supposed axis just not very useful in making sensible decisions about the complicated questions we actually face? That's where I am heading.
Let's take the issue of transgender (hang in there, this will be brief). The issue there is surely not whether some people want to dress as the opposite sex. Good luck to them. Who cares? The State, and anybody even vaguely sane, only shows an interest when the rights that they are asserting interfere with the rights of others or puts them at unacceptable risk. That is the battlefield, not some deontological analysis of what we "ought" to be.
Your last paragraph is absolutely spot on
At its core democracy is simply a mechanism for resolving disputes without violence. It works more often than not.
The whole trans debate boils down to a debate about conflicting rights between different individuals
The whole trans debate boils down to a debate about conflicting rights between different individuals.
If only. It actually boils down to competing ideologies. I know which side I'm on in that battle, but I would never have chosen to fight it. It does no-one any good.
It’s been seized by ideologues but that’s not the same thing.
Take the example of women’s refuges: does a physical male who identifies as female have the right to enter because they are deemed female? Do the women who are currently there have the right to an environment free from the presence of a physical male?
That’s a straight conflict between the rights of two individuals
The manager of a women's refuge in Wales was canvassed on this for the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill. She said her refuge had hosted a couple of trans women but not a single other woman had complained about it. They all realised they were in the same boat and all were looking for a safe space.
Rights don't need to conflict if people are as sensible and humane as the women in that Welsh refuge.
They don’t need to *IF* people are as sensible and human as that
Unfortunately you need to write laws based on the worst case potential outcomes
So you could come up with a structure where women’s’ refuges have the right but not the obligation to allow physical males to stay.
Yes to your last point. And if you do that, you don't need to legislate for the worst case. You deal with each case on its merits. No women's refuge is obliged to accept men pretending to be trans with no need for a safe space, nor would they ever do so.
The Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill was about making it less difficult for people legally to be who they want to be. I think it was wrong for the UK government to kibosh the whole thing. I doubt the bill required women's refuges to accept trans women but would certainly get rid of that requirement if it did.
It, IIRC, banned (or attempted to ban) any differential status between women and trans.
So it would have banned a women’s refuge from not accepting a trans person.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I’m sorry to be ignorant but who took down the Colson statue?
I’d agree taking it down is ridiculous and self-defeating however would a notice really not be called out for “wokeness”.
A mob of agitators threw it in the harbour
Haven’t read the below article but attaching based on headline so no ideas if it is good/bad/indifferent
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
@turbotubbs facile example perhaps but do you draw the line anywhere? What about statues of dictators, or of Hitler? We keep those up?
Good point and it’s absolute right for a society to keep evolving. I think there is a line, for sure. Hitler, Stalin, Mao clearly I would tear down. But someone like Colston who has been found guilty of crimes against modern opinion, I think a more nuanced approach should be possible.
Who decides the line?
I agree with what you are saying for what it’s worth but I find it hard who should decide the line.
There’s an argument that it would be better to leave historical references in place and to educate instead. I would draw the line at Hitler too but I can see the argument.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
I didn’t say it was a defence under the law for criminal damage. I was just trying to add some context.
That said, I note that there was a trial of 4 people on charges of criminal damage and they were acquitted.
If I am frustrated is an excuse then I can burn down cchq, labour and lib dem hqs the houses of parliament and 17 middle street northhampton
I would be happy to act as a character witness for you in these circumstances.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Jury system has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes there are cases where every jury member knows the case before the trial - thiscwould have been the case here (unless @CorrectHorseBattery@BatteryCorrectHorse etc) was on the jury. In this case it looked like a slam dunk, but the jury acquitted, presumably because they had sympathy for the accused, not because they didn’t think them guilty of the offence.
They didn’t think them guilty of the offence. That’s literally the only thing the jury said, that they weren’t guilty.
They jury members had probably heard about the case beforehand, but they would have been instructed by the judge to put what they had heard previously aside and to attend just to what they heard in court.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
If you are going to disqualify rich white kids from political activism, that's the Oxford Union ****ed as a nursery for Toryism (and the LDs and Labour - no idea if PC as well or if there aren't enough at Jesus College).
No one is disqualifying them. I just have the feeling that they tend to pick up the fashionaabke cause of the time and run with it. That’s their right.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
I thought that was what we had the watershed for.
Why have a watershed at all?
And the warnings surely show up precisely because you can now view content outside of the watershed?
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
If they do, that’s their choice. Others, as up thread, will seek out material with content warnings. Shouldn’t people get to decide what they want to do themselves?
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Jury system has strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes there are cases where every jury member knows the case before the trial - thiscwould have been the case here (unless @CorrectHorseBattery@BatteryCorrectHorse etc) was on the jury. In this case it looked like a slam dunk, but the jury acquitted, presumably because they had sympathy for the accused, not because they didn’t think them guilty of the offence.
They didn’t think them guilty of the offence. That’s literally the only thing the jury said, that they weren’t guilty.
They jury members had probably heard about the case beforehand, but they would have been instructed by the judge to put what they had heard previously aside and to attend just to what they heard in court.
And of course our fellow man and woman did just that? Right. I think you are naive if you believe all juries behave as we would like them too.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
If they do, that’s their choice. Others, as up thread, will seek out material with content warnings. Shouldn’t people get to decide what they want to do themselves?
Why would a warning be needed on a programme from the 70’s say? Surely a viewer would know that Porridge was written and performed in a different time? What does a warning actually achieve?
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I think the Luftwaffe had a hand in clearing many of the historical buildings in Bristol; for some reason they left the Colston statue in place.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
If you are going to disqualify rich white kids from political activism, that's the Oxford Union ****ed as a nursery for Toryism (and the LDs and Labour - no idea if PC as well or if there aren't enough at Jesus College).
No one is disqualifying them. I just have the feeling that they tend to pick up the fashionaabke cause of the time and run with it. That’s their right.
Anti-slavery was once a salient cause. That didn't disqualify it - and remember, also, that the Colston statue was a problem long, long before BLM became salient.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
Must every thread on PB start with someone making wild and prejudiced claims?
As an aside I think it would be quite a good idea for lots of statues to have explanation plaques. For one it would be great to learn a bit of history about otherwise unknown people and for another it would indeed serve to demistify and humaise (for better and worse) some of our ancestors/national figures and their actions.
Indeed with the system of QR codes these days it would be a matter of simplicity to have a QR code on almost any statue with a link to a website with an in depth study of the person. Even if it was only to their Wiki page.
Mordaunt who as far as I can see would naturally probably bring the silly culture wars to an end is held as being "too woke", despite not being woke at all.
Nah, she's Woke.
Read her "book".
Good, 'woke' just means respecting others.
No, it doesn't - as has been exhaustively explained to you on numerous occasions on here.
But, you either don't want to listen or are a professional timewaster. Possibly both.
I'd like to engage with you on this.
Some of the views and actions by those on the extreme of what they themselves would term 'progressive politics' are of course ridiculous, offensive and dangerous. I doubt anyone on here would disagree with that for the most egregious examples. It is right to object to such extemes and many on the left do so.
At the other end of the spectrum, I beleive we'd all agree* on some basic universal fairness, equality, and inclusion rules that should apply - e.g. no one should be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, etc. etc. (*Although, historically, it wasn't always thus.)
So the issue is surely where to draw the line?
I probably embrace a few diversity and inclusion measures that you find unnecessary or troubling (e.g. I think unconscious bias awareness is good thing; I don't mind the National Trust explaining how some of its stately home were built on slave profits). But these are issues of scale or interpretation, not fundamental diametrically-opposed views.
So I find it a bit baffling that so many on the right get so het up about 'woke' - a term they, not the left, use.
I think the fuss over the Colston statue is as good a place to start as any. Slave trader = bad. But philanthropist = good. He did good works with his I’ll gotten gains. But those I’ll gotten gains were legal at the time, and his use of them would not have been frowned upon by society at the time.
So rather than tear down his statue and remove his name from things he created, how about a bit more nuance. Explanation. But the great danger is the extremes don’t want to engage in debate. The win is the only thing.
I think there’s some context you’re missing from the Colston events. Many of those with concerns about Colston had spent years and years trying to do something like that, have some explanation, some acknowledgement of his slave trading, put next to the statue, while others had just been campaigning for its removal. (The earliest criticism of the statue was in 1920 and it had been often discussed in the 1990s.) However, agreement on a plaque of explanation was elusive and supporters of Colston kept blocking moves. The toppling of the statue represented a reaction against that refusal to engage in some sort of compromise. Campaigners had tried other routes and become frustrated.
Not sure that 'I was frustrated' is much of a defence under the law for criminal damage. Turning to violence when you can't get your own way is infantile in the extreme.
The Coulston Four were acquitted.
Wrongly.
The jury sat through all the evidence and came to their conclusion. Have you spent as much time as the jury considering the case? Or have you just read a few news articles and rushed to judgement?
Also: claiming that the acquitted defendants are in fact criminals is not well received by our learned friends, or by OGH and the mods.
Come on, I don’t think Richard’s expression of his view that the acquittal was a mistake would constitute libel.
Indeed. He is well within his rights to say it. It’s a fascinating case. A classic example of jury nullification: anyone with an interest in legal history should form a view.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
Must every thread on PB start with someone making wild and prejudiced claims?
The latest waste of space Holden accusing Starmer and Rayner of failing to uphold standards in public life .
You really couldn’t make it up .
They are both politicians so I dont see the problem, being a politician implies you are a moral vacuum. I would say in fact the only people that should be barred from being politicians are those that want to be...yes I am sure there are exceptions but so far as I have seen of late politicians of all parties have demonstrated the moral vacuity of our so called political masters
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
But the statue is in a modern town with lots of descendants of those unfortunates.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
I have no skin in the game either way, I am just against revisionist history and using Colston as an example of where extreme wokeness gets you. Nuance is lost, and as @ydoethur says uneducated, frequently rich white teenagers vandalise things in the name of stuff they haven’t really thought about.
You say you’re against revisionist history, and then you make claims about an event without presenting any evidence. The mob who toppled the statue, what evidence do you have that they were (a) mainly teenagers, (b) rich, and (c) hadn’t really thought about their actions?
Must every thread on PB end with someone demanging references? I’d leave that in my day job. A lot of the issues around BLM were that it became the thing to do in the UK, despite the origin in the USA. We see the trope of the rich white kid all the time at demonstrations Extinction Rebellion etc.
Must every thread on PB start with someone making wild and prejudiced claims?
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
I thought that was what we had the watershed for.
Why have a watershed at all?
And the warnings surely show up precisely because you can now view content outside of the watershed?
Not really. Certainly on most of the channels I watch on Sky, if you want to watch a show which would be post watershed but is on in the afternoon then you have to put in your code. It is annoying at times but, for example, many programmes on the History channel or Sky Arts have that system. The example that immediately springs to mind was the brilliant history of Rolling Stone magazine.
As an aside I think it would be quite a good idea for lots of statues to have explanation plaques. For one it would be great to learn a bit of history about otherwise unknown people and for another it would indeed serve to demistify and humaise (for better and worse) some of our ancestors/national figures and their actions.
Indeed with the system of QR codes these days it would be a matter of simplicity to have a QR code on almost any statue with a link to a website with an in depth study of the person. Even if it was only to their Wiki page.
They had this on an estate I visited in Somerset last Summer. I thought it was a great idea.
Another example. Jimmy Saville had his name on buildings and a tombstone that was vandalised. Were these acceptable actions?
I guess as before there is a line.
Saville committed awful crimes during his life. As far as I know, Colston did not.
from his wikibio:
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
We live in the present day, and in the present day we can choose who we wish to celebrate now. Do we want to celebrate a slave trader?
I could choose to celebrate a philanthropist who did much good in his life.
Of course we can choose who to celebrate. I just find it rather odd that we judge historical figures against modern standards, as if we would all have been anti slavery if we had been educated as those figures were. People are of their time. There character, and personality are formed from the world they live in. Should we tear down statues of Roman emporers because of the old slavery thing?
Statues go up and come down all the time. Just because someone once erected a statue to you doesn’t mean that that statue has to remain for all eternity. Our towns and cities change around us all the time. We make choices.
There have been many philanthropists we can celebrate. Why celebrate the one who was a slave trader? Most of Colston’s contemporaries thought slavery was fine. They were wrong. It was horrendous. The African slave trade was one of the greatest horrors to ever have occurred.
I don’t quite know how I have become a Colston defender. Your point was about applying nuance to appraising historical figures. If you dont like Colston as an example how about Churchill?
I’m not seeking to pull down any Churchill statues. I think we should talk about Churchill’s good and bad side. I wish we could do that without having to worry about hurting the feelings of the snowflakes who don’t want anyone to ever mention the bad stuff.
What about comedy? Should we have warnings on offensive content? I see they now have warnings on The IT Crowd.
Personally I wouldn’t, no4 would I on old plays, Agatha Christie novels etc. People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
So what about getting rid of ratings on films? Where do you draw the line?
Ratings is a totally different question. That’s about age appropriateness.
Why is choosing if something is appropriate that different to whether we have warnings? Perhaps you don’t feel IT Crowd is appropriate for you, isn’t that the point of the warning?
An interesting point, but surely the danger is that people end up in their own bubbles, never challenging themselves with ‘difficult’ stuff.
Again, don’t think I’m not agreeing with you I’m just understanding.
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
I thought that was what we had the watershed for.
You've heard of streaming?
So this is about age warnings, not the content warnings (e.g. of ‘outdated’ attitudes). Yes streaming does present challenges. Parental controls is one approach.
Comments
I also suspect that some of the Tory enthusiasts for her will have seen some polling on how she comes across compared to the previous PMs of the last 14 years. After all these years of one party's rule, the greatest sin of Tory rule is perceived by the public to be arrogance and out-of-touchness. This is also why I think it's probably only someone who can appear more directly empathic, as Donkeys' post leads to, that just might be able to reduce the sheer scale of the defeat, at this juncture.
That said, I note that there was a trial of 4 people on charges of criminal damage and they were acquitted.
I’m agreeing with you just playing devil’s advocate
During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692, it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom as many as 19,000 may have died on the journey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Colston
I don’t think you have to be a Farage or a Patel to fee there’s something rather off about a mainly white mob of not very bright teenagers many of whose connections with Bristol were tenuous at best tearing down a statue, however controversial, and getting away with it on spurious grounds that ‘it hurt their feelings to see it.’
Or, for the matter of that, know as much about Marvin Rees as I do* to think he’s a twat.
*Which to avoid any awkwardness for TSE and RCS I will not discuss on this forum. I will say it is nothing to do with statues.
We should be wary of judging historical figures by modern laws and mores.
Starter is difficult because the best options are often seafood but CDWM always seems to contain at least one contestant who hates fish. Baked eggs of some sort another option - oeufs en cocotte, eggs florentine, something like that.
We should be wary of judging historical figures with modern laws.
The other was the “Des Alps” tradition where they celebrated bringing the herds down from the mountains in early autumn. My favourite of the fests was the Retour des Alpages in Annecy.
There's no law that a statue has to remain in situ forever. Nor is there a law that enables the local oligarchy to say no forever.
If it had been in the way of traffic - it would have gone instantly. Or if it had been in the way of modern architects and developers. A single walk around Bristol is quite sufficient to show that. Look, for instance, at what happened to the central area.
There is no excuse for either but one is clearly more serious than the other.
I am more in favour of understanding history than trying to change it. Calling out Colston is absolutely fine in my book, albeit criminal damage isn't.
I know nothing about Rees and haven’t said anything about him. People were campaigning for the statue to go before Rees was ever elected. This isn’t about Rees.
People seem to want to take offence at almost anything these days and these warnings are part of this weird world.
Do we really need to resurrect it ?
What are they warning of?
Colston is actually arguably what reaction gets you. The Merchant Venturers stuck out for far too long. It isn't their city and it's not for them to dictate to the elected Mayor what to do and what not to do.
Of course we can choose who to celebrate. I just find it rather odd that we judge historical figures against modern standards, as if we would all have been anti slavery if we had been educated as those figures were.
People are of their time. There character, and personality are formed from the world they live in. Should we tear down statues of Roman emporers because of the old slavery thing?
Unfortunately you need to write laws based on the worst case potential outcomes
So you could come up with a structure where women’s’ refuges have the right but not the obligation to allow physical males to stay.
What you can’t have is a woman who desperately needs help being scared out of a refuge because of the presence of a physical male. This could be entirely without any fault on the part of the trans individual. Trauma does strange things to people.
That said, I note that there was a trial of 4 people on charges of criminal damage and they were acquitted.
If I am frustrated is an excuse then I can burn down cchq, labour and lib dem hqs the houses of parliament and 17 middle street northhampton
Just not sure it will work for some of the same reasons Sunak hasn't. She's not an outstanding communicator and moderate catnip in the same way Sunak wasn't a supersmart grownup with great judgment. Seems like the same wishful thinking.
In the case of the Ardern comparison, it's fair to say she was always a rising star in her party who zoomed up its ranks spectacularly. A bit, in a way, like Cameron. Not sure you can say that of Mordaunt - who has been one of those set to be the next big thing for a decade now, and the odd reality show aside, hasn't made quite the splash you'd expect by now.
You'd expect some conference fireworks. A signature policy. Getting a big brief and really impressing.
The troubling analogue for all of us is eating meat. I do worry from time to time (when not composing hypothetical come done with me dinners) about a future world condemning the brutality of the animal trade of the 21st century.
But slavery as you say was already anathema in domestic law. The analogy would be living in a Britain where meat eating was banned, but making a fortune trading in meat.
There are a few examples out there: marital rape legal until a few decades ago, as was beating one’s wife (“within
reason”).
I’d distinguish these from examples of activities being banned for regulatory or personal safety reasons. Nobody’s condemning historical figures because they drank and drove, didn’t build to modern building regs or didn’t wear a seatbelt.
I can imagine a situation where someone who was a women and became pregnant and subsequently decided to transition. Just because they identify as a man why shoudk they lose the rights that other who are physically pregnant benefit from?
Is a warning on an Inbetweeners episode that it contains swearing not necessary then?
I have to deliver his leaflets
How many should I post through the Lib Dem PPC's letterbox for comedy?
The Scottish Gender Recognition Reform bill was about making it less difficult for people legally to be who they want to be. I think it was wrong for the UK government to kibosh the whole thing. I doubt the bill required women's refuges to accept trans women but would certainly get rid of that requirement if it did.
There have been many philanthropists we can celebrate. Why celebrate the one who was a slave trader? Most of Colston’s contemporaries thought slavery was fine. They were wrong. It was horrendous. The African slave trade was one of the greatest horrors to ever have occurred.
I have a friend whose cousin left one of the family homes to the National Trust. Recently the National Trust “outed” the donor as being gay. He may have been - or may be not; his family thought he might have been but he never disclosed his preferences to anyone.
And yet the NT deemed it appropriate to (a) breach his trust; (b) cause various Daily Mail articles to be written about a very private family; and (c) stated as historical fact something that is unknown and unknowable
That’s problematic for all sorts of reasons
So yes, as I said, wrongly acquitted.
If you dont like Colston as an example how about Churchill?
I would be happy to act as a character witness for you in these circumstances.
So it would have banned a women’s refuge from not accepting a trans person.
Haven’t read the below article but attaching based on headline so no ideas if it is good/bad/indifferent
https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/08/who-was-edward-colston-and-why-was-his-bristol-statue-toppled-slave-trader-black-lives-matter-protests
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12577089/I-lost-career-wife-friends-reputation-engulfed-tsunami-trans-rights-madness-says-Father-Ted-creator-GRAHAM-LINEHAN.html
No thanks I would prefer to be found not guilty
They jury members had probably heard about the case beforehand, but they would have been instructed by the judge to put what they had heard previously aside and to attend just to what they heard in court.
And the warnings surely show up precisely because you can now view content outside of the watershed?
The latest waste of space Holden accusing Starmer and Rayner of failing to uphold standards in public life .
You really couldn’t make it up .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Blitz
Indeed with the system of QR codes these days it would be a matter of simplicity to have a QR code on almost any statue with a link to a website with an in depth study of the person. Even if it was only to their Wiki page.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification