I may be wrong but I think if you’re paying council tax it tends to focus you on what value you’re getting for it, in a way that a more amorphous national tax doesn’t? Most council taxpayers I know are pretty invested in their local services.
If they were, they would be agitating for higher council tax.
An incredible amount of council tax goes on adult social care.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
I lived there for 20 years! You are right - it is a place very few people who don't live there know anything about. It also has Watling Street - the old divide between the Danelaw and Anglo-Saxon England - running through the heart of it. That border does still seem real. It's amazing how the place names and accents change immediately on either side.
On topic, an interesting thread but probably one that seeks to read too much into results in a single, pretty small district council.
In 2022, very much against the national trend, Conservatives made a couple of gains in Nuneaton & Bedworth. If they did so again, I'd not read into that a story about absence of RefUK candidates or anything like that - the 2022 results simply indicate the district council was, at that time, considered by residents to be reasonably well run. Equally, if Labour bounce back then at least some of it will be regaining ground after a poor run of results at council level there.
There are always local factors at play in local elections that make individual results very hard to draw conclusions from. You can only really draw conclusions stepping back and looking at results as a whole, where the local quirks and variations even out on the averages.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
An interesting header, thank-you. I haven't really got a handle on where local elections are, except that they are not here in Notts. Looking, they seem to be mainly in the South.
It's interesting that there are 7 TUSC candidates - Nellist Country !
I think the results of PCC elections, which have Tories in place in 30 out of 39 positions in England and Wales (Lab 8, PC 1), will give an interesting take on the Lab/Con balance. It's worth remembering that the Govt have also changed these to First Past the Post.
Equally Mayoral Elections are mainly in the North (except London, which is probably the slow political suicide of Susan Hall).
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
The accent is another of those we hear frequently yet rarely place. Best epitomised by the sadly recently departed Jonnie Irwin of Escape to the Country - his is a classic Rugby accent. And I suppose Lineker's Leicester accent is fairly typical of the region too, similar to Jonnie's.
Lincolnshire I think is a place apart. Not the same as the driveover states. Economically, historically and politically. More Northern, on the A1 not M1 corridor, on the East Coast not the West Coast mainline, not on HS2, substantially poorer. The driveover counties are at the absolute heart of the country geographically and logistically.
If they are Kansas perhaps Lincs is Mississippi.
I have a friend from Peterborough. He has a very hard to identify accent - slightly northern, slightly southern, neither Estuary nor RP. He is utterly scathing about the place. I probably don't know anyone as negative about his hometown as he is.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
It may be possible to walk that tight rope - but the odds of this Government pulling it off is about a billion to one (and I don’t think even those odds would be a value bet).
I was saying this over the weekend. The facts of today's trial are not actually in dispute. The question for Trump is whether he should be held to account for his actions. He believes not for reasons...well, reasons.
Still incredulous that they are going to take 2-3 weeks to select a jury though.
They are presumably scouring other planets for jurors who have never heard of Trump.
Which is a bit of a double edged sword when you think about it. Anyone that disengaged from current affairs is highly likely to be (a) thick as 2 short planks and (b) pretty random in his or her views of life.
In Scotland the jury are selected without any faff. Once selected they are asked 4 questions:
1. Do they directly or indirectly know the accused or anyone else who is mentioned on the indictment? 2. Do they recognise the person in the dock (admittedly that might be a problem in this case). 3.Do they know of anyone who might be a witness in the case? 4. The trial is going to last X days. Is that going to cause them a problem beyond mere inconvenience and make their lives impossible?
We then have an adjournment so anyone saying yes or maybe can be discussed and, if appropriate, replaced with one of the 5 substitutes available for that purpose.
This used to be an obsession of mine but I gave up on it.
There seems to be a presumption that the less the jurors know about the matter before them the more just their verdict is likely to be. It's nonsense, and it used to rankle with me particularly in fraud and similar financial cases where the courts went to great lengths to ensure the jury knew nothing about such matters. A friend once sat on a jury for three months in a city fraud case and when the foreman announced a not guilty verdict the judge said 'Well I'm surprised', to which the foreman replied 'You shouldn't be. We didn't understand a word of what was going on.'
Sounds to me the Scots have a healthier approach than we do down here.
Do English juries have any right to put questions to the judge about evidence they simply don't understand ? (As opposed to matters of law.)
Yes, but the judge cannot add to, interpret, draw conclusions from or try to explain the evidence. He can repeat what has been said and (at a risk) put it in different words. But going outside the evidence will risk giving rise to an appeal.
It is the task of the prosecution to be comprehensible. (The defence task is often of course to cause incomprehension).
I was thinking about earlier in the trial, so the lawyers on both sides become aware of the incomprehension.
In the US, the grand jury system does allow direct questioning by the jurors. Perhaps not a bad idea to have something along those lines in complex cases, ahead of an actual trial ?
The jury can't stand up and interrupt. They can send a note to the judge during the trial. This is not much encouraged as it always has to be shown to all parties and discussed, and, crucially, can be the foundation of an appeal. (It may for example show they don't understand anything at all, or have a massive bias). Our criminal system, rightly or wrongly, depends heavily on total ignorance of what the jury is up to; the moment you ask those questions a Pandora's box opens.
IMHO for quite a few complex frauds there should be a judge and expert assessor system in place of the jury.
If I ran a major country's intelligence organisation I would be paying special attention to Cyprus at the moment, because I suspect it may be receiving large numbers of refugees from somewhere else quite soon, and that preparations are being made.
I was saying this over the weekend. The facts of today's trial are not actually in dispute. The question for Trump is whether he should be held to account for his actions. He believes not for reasons...well, reasons.
Still incredulous that they are going to take 2-3 weeks to select a jury though.
They are presumably scouring other planets for jurors who have never heard of Trump.
Which is a bit of a double edged sword when you think about it. Anyone that disengaged from current affairs is highly likely to be (a) thick as 2 short planks and (b) pretty random in his or her views of life.
In Scotland the jury are selected without any faff. Once selected they are asked 4 questions:
1. Do they directly or indirectly know the accused or anyone else who is mentioned on the indictment? 2. Do they recognise the person in the dock (admittedly that might be a problem in this case). 3.Do they know of anyone who might be a witness in the case? 4. The trial is going to last X days. Is that going to cause them a problem beyond mere inconvenience and make their lives impossible?
We then have an adjournment so anyone saying yes or maybe can be discussed and, if appropriate, replaced with one of the 5 substitutes available for that purpose.
This used to be an obsession of mine but I gave up on it.
There seems to be a presumption that the less the jurors know about the matter before them the more just their verdict is likely to be. It's nonsense, and it used to rankle with me particularly in fraud and similar financial cases where the courts went to great lengths to ensure the jury knew nothing about such matters. A friend once sat on a jury for three months in a city fraud case and when the foreman announced a not guilty verdict the judge said 'Well I'm surprised', to which the foreman replied 'You shouldn't be. We didn't understand a word of what was going on.'
Sounds to me the Scots have a healthier approach than we do down here.
Many years ago I was involved in a solicitor fraud case in Edinburgh. The jury were given a lot of the productions and i noted that they seemed to be cross referencing them. My senior explained that this was an Edinburgh jury and at least a third of them would work in financial services.
One of the challenges in such trials is to pitch things at a level that the jury is likely to understand. I had a trial at the end of last year which involved the theft of Bitcoin. We had to find witnesses who could give the jury a sufficient idea of what bitcoin were and how they were transferred without losing them in the complexities.
Very interesting prog on Ch4 The Jury: Murder Trial where they have two parallel juries examining the same evidence. Although the format and content (despite it being a transcript of an actual case) has drawn much criticism from the legal profession.
On topic - I confess to having no idea who my counsellors are and have no idea who if anyone I will vote for. Perhaps some research is required.
I watched the program and it was interesting. Not sure what the criticism of it was. What it showed, particularly in respect of one jury, is that a very strong willed juror can turn things his own way but, then, anyone who has watched 12 angry men knew that.
There may be a bit of Schrodinger's Cat about it as well. Does the fact that they knew that it was not a real trial and that they were being watched and recorded affect their behaviour? I think that is a more legitimate criticism but both juries did seem to take their role pretty seriously.
And no, I don't know who my local councillor is either.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
The West Midlands marginal seats normally decide UK general elections like the Midwest rustbelt states such as Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin and the Congressional districts they contain normally decide US presidential and Congressional elections
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
That will be a problem for the Labour government to address...
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
In practice, it's Starmer and Cooper's problem by then.
(My hunch is that the politics of Rwanda work a lot better while it is still hypothetical and that it starts to unravel pretty quickly once it's concrete. Sunak really reminds me of the Colonel in the Bridge on the River Kwai.)
With no Reform candidates, we can test a couple of polling hypotheses – first, the notion the Reform vote is all disaffected Conservatives who will return to the blue rosette. If we have no Reform candidates, these voters will either stay at home for the locals or support the local Conservative. The second hypothesis is the limited polling evidence showing only a third of Reform voters would support the Conservatives in the absence of a Reform candidate.
How does turnout in local elections comoare with a general election, though ? It's not a great comparison, particularly if you're looking at propensity to stay at home.
We used to worry about that, back when I faced an election on the same day as a wider one. The analysis I did looking at canvassing and turnout over a twenty year period suggested that while turnout varied considerably, having a big jump in turnout didn’t make a massive difference to the political balance of those turning out. Which wasn’t what I expected to find, especially for us as the LibDems relying on local campaigning and local issues; I thought that those interested (or even aware of) such would be more likely to turn out in a local election than those not. But when I ran the numbers, that effect was marginal - there were almost as many declared supporters for us who only turned out for the GE as there were for the other parties.
The biggest determinant of whether someone turned out in a local election was how long they’d been living there, with a huge difference between those of twenty or more years’ residence and those with less. Newbies to the area hardly turned out at all. Insofar as there was a GE effect as above, the bias away from us arose from newbies to the area (first election at current address) turning out in a GE while being unaware of our local efforts. But some of those people don’t fill I; the local election ballot at all - it’s not uncommon for someone going to a polling station for a ‘big’ election just to ignore ballot papers for a smaller one - we see the same here for county and parish.
You’d think with the bias in turnout towards those living in an area for a long time (which I definitely sense here in Brockley too) that there would be a benefit to the conservatives in locals given the stark differences in VI by age.
Labour always seem to underperform in local elections because they leak votes to green and Lib Dem. I assume that will happen this time, but it will be useful to compare LLG and RefCon bloc numbers with polls.
In the 2023 locals the NEV for LLG was around 60%, several points higher than the polls (you’d expect it to be a touch higher than polls because of the absence of the SNP and Plaid in English local elections). Hard to estimate RefCon because the right wing minor parties were all buried within “other”.
I suspect there is a benefit to the Tories arising from that, as age too is correlated with turnout, especially at local elections.
However this is balanced off by the LibDems' local efforts being more attractive to older, settled voters - there are a lot of "LibDem local, Tory national" types (most LibDem wards having been won from the Tories in the first place), and there's also a small bias toward Labour at local elections as well, I believe, explained by people wanting prudent financial management nationally (remembering times when the Tories could actually deliver it) and relative largesse locally.
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
It's pretty obvious how they will do it. Low key, grim faced announcement from the govt. about terrible necessities, protecting our precious way of life, etc. while an A330 lumbers into the leaden skies over Boscombe. It will be left to their grim outriders at Al-GBeeba, the DM and the usual tory scum on here to cavort in glee over the misery inflicted.
With no Reform candidates, we can test a couple of polling hypotheses – first, the notion the Reform vote is all disaffected Conservatives who will return to the blue rosette. If we have no Reform candidates, these voters will either stay at home for the locals or support the local Conservative. The second hypothesis is the limited polling evidence showing only a third of Reform voters would support the Conservatives in the absence of a Reform candidate.
There is of course a third option, to vote Labour, Green or even for the lonely LD.
I am of the opinion that while the Tories are nationally deeply unpopular, at a local level people may well support their Councillor. No doubt some will vote on national issues and sympathies, not all will and it may well deliver false hope to Rishi.
Once again we have a dearth of betting markets, apart from the mayoral elections. A market on the NEV for the main parties would be of interest.
How many people know - or care - who their councillors are?
Yesterday I was talking to a neighbour about cutbacks to local library services, and she said "I suppose the orders for it come down from on high." It seemed to come as news to her that we even had elected councillors.
But in effect your neighbour is quite right. This Conservative Government has cut back massively on central financial support for local government, even as it has loaded it with vastly increased responsibilities. You cannot expect local government to do more with less resources.
Here, like most of the country, we suffer from an abundance of potholes. Our Conservative county councillors complain about the lack of money from Central Government. Almost as though the Conservative Government was nothing at all to do with them.
The basic problem is that the Conservatives is not that there is a shortage of money. It is that the Conservatives have the wrong priorities, like providing even more tax breaks for their already unbelievably wealthy chums.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
The West Midlands marginal seats normally decide UK general elections like the Midwest rustbelt states such as Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin and the Congressional districts they contain normally decide US presidential and Congressional elections
West Midlands is a different entity altogether though, just as the rustbelt is not the same as the prairie states. Everyone knows the WMids or thinks they do. They know the accent, the car industry, the heavy metal acts, Edgbaston cricket ground, the NEC.
Southam Observer gets it, he's lived in the driveover lands. Or could we call them the Lake Harrison lands? That's another element of the borderland - the glacial lake that covered much of the same area, draining through the Fenny Compton gap closer to Observer's hometown. The end moraine of the last glaciation forms the gravel ridges close to the Watford gap which will in due course be excellent viticultural land.
And of course Fenny Compton, in the deep Mezzogiorno of the driveover counties, its Midi, was the place chosen for its centrality by Alan Bates when he started convening subpostmasters meetings to discuss Horizon.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
The accent is another of those we hear frequently yet rarely place. Best epitomised by the sadly recently departed Jonnie Irwin of Escape to the Country - his is a classic Rugby accent. And I suppose Lineker's Leicester accent is fairly typical of the region too, similar to Jonnie's.
Lincolnshire I think is a place apart. Not the same as the driveover states. Economically, historically and politically. More Northern, on the A1 not M1 corridor, on the East Coast not the West Coast mainline, not on HS2, substantially poorer. The driveover counties are at the absolute heart of the country geographically and logistically.
If they are Kansas perhaps Lincs is Mississippi.
I have a friend from Peterborough. He has a very hard to identify accent - slightly northern, slightly southern, neither Estuary nor RP. He is utterly scathing about the place. I probably don't know anyone as negative about his hometown as he is.
I haven't found many people with a good word to say about Peterborough.
Liz Truss has claimed that Boris Johnson confirmed suspicions about Michael Gove leaking damaging information during the 2019 Tory leadership contest.
Tensions between Truss and Gove were exacerbated after he withdrew his support for Johnson’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party, she said.
Details of the long, fractious relationship between the two leading Tories have been disclosed in her new book, Ten Years to Save the West. Truss has written a memoir about her 49 days as prime minister, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.
She describes her anger at Gove when he withdrew his support at the last minute for Johnson’s first attempt to lead the Tory party in 2016. She wrote that, three years later, during a further leadership contest after Theresa May resigned, Johnson phoned her. He asked Truss whether “I’d leaked something”.
She replied: “I told him it had been Michael Gove — and what did he expect, given that Gove was a serial offender? I pressed him: ‘Did he think Gove had been leaking?’ Mr Johnson replied: ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’”
Has anyone ever actually seen a bear shitting in the woods? I haven’t. I bet no one on here has, either. It’s just one of those things we take as accepted: bears defecate in forested areas. It’s probably not true. Maybe they poo in glades. Maybe they go off and do their business by the sides of rivers, or in dedicated timber latrines constructed by beavers. Maybe they never poo at all, the same way sharks don’t urinate
I’ve also got my doubts about the orthodoxy of the Pontiff, but that’s for another time
The people who left Opus Dei for being too liberal have no doubt - the Pope is a Protestant.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
I lived there for 20 years! You are right - it is a place very few people who don't live there know anything about. It also has Watling Street - the old divide between the Danelaw and Anglo-Saxon England - running through the heart of it. That border does still seem real. It's amazing how the place names and accents change immediately on either side.
I am a fairly frequent driver up the A1 and it is interesting to observe the shift from Anglo Saxon to Norse place names, it occurs fairly abruptly around Grantham and to my mind that marks the border between north and south.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
The accent is another of those we hear frequently yet rarely place. Best epitomised by the sadly recently departed Jonnie Irwin of Escape to the Country - his is a classic Rugby accent. And I suppose Lineker's Leicester accent is fairly typical of the region too, similar to Jonnie's.
Lincolnshire I think is a place apart. Not the same as the driveover states. Economically, historically and politically. More Northern, on the A1 not M1 corridor, on the East Coast not the West Coast mainline, not on HS2, substantially poorer. The driveover counties are at the absolute heart of the country geographically and logistically.
If they are Kansas perhaps Lincs is Mississippi.
I have a friend from Peterborough. He has a very hard to identify accent - slightly northern, slightly southern, neither Estuary nor RP. He is utterly scathing about the place. I probably don't know anyone as negative about his hometown as he is.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
In practice, it's Starmer and Cooper's problem by then.
(My hunch is that the politics of Rwanda work a lot better while it is still hypothetical and that it starts to unravel pretty quickly once it's concrete. Sunak really reminds me of the Colonel in the Bridge on the River Kwai.)
So, he's going to blow up the Rwanda deal himself at the last minute?
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
I was saying this over the weekend. The facts of today's trial are not actually in dispute. The question for Trump is whether he should be held to account for his actions. He believes not for reasons...well, reasons.
Still incredulous that they are going to take 2-3 weeks to select a jury though.
They are presumably scouring other planets for jurors who have never heard of Trump.
Which is a bit of a double edged sword when you think about it. Anyone that disengaged from current affairs is highly likely to be (a) thick as 2 short planks and (b) pretty random in his or her views of life.
In Scotland the jury are selected without any faff. Once selected they are asked 4 questions:
1. Do they directly or indirectly know the accused or anyone else who is mentioned on the indictment? 2. Do they recognise the person in the dock (admittedly that might be a problem in this case). 3.Do they know of anyone who might be a witness in the case? 4. The trial is going to last X days. Is that going to cause them a problem beyond mere inconvenience and make their lives impossible?
We then have an adjournment so anyone saying yes or maybe can be discussed and, if appropriate, replaced with one of the 5 substitutes available for that purpose.
This used to be an obsession of mine but I gave up on it.
There seems to be a presumption that the less the jurors know about the matter before them the more just their verdict is likely to be. It's nonsense, and it used to rankle with me particularly in fraud and similar financial cases where the courts went to great lengths to ensure the jury knew nothing about such matters. A friend once sat on a jury for three months in a city fraud case and when the foreman announced a not guilty verdict the judge said 'Well I'm surprised', to which the foreman replied 'You shouldn't be. We didn't understand a word of what was going on.'
Sounds to me the Scots have a healthier approach than we do down here.
Many years ago I was involved in a solicitor fraud case in Edinburgh. The jury were given a lot of the productions and i noted that they seemed to be cross referencing them. My senior explained that this was an Edinburgh jury and at least a third of them would work in financial services.
One of the challenges in such trials is to pitch things at a level that the jury is likely to understand. I had a trial at the end of last year which involved the theft of Bitcoin. We had to find witnesses who could give the jury a sufficient idea of what bitcoin were and how they were transferred without losing them in the complexities.
Very interesting prog on Ch4 The Jury: Murder Trial where they have two parallel juries examining the same evidence. Although the format and content (despite it being a transcript of an actual case) has drawn much criticism from the legal profession.
On topic - I confess to having no idea who my counsellors are and have no idea who if anyone I will vote for. Perhaps some research is required.
I watched the program and it was interesting. Not sure what the criticism of it was. What it showed, particularly in respect of one jury, is that a very strong willed juror can turn things his own way but, then, anyone who has watched 12 angry men knew that.
There may be a bit of Schrodinger's Cat about it as well. Does the fact that they knew that it was not a real trial and that they were being watched and recorded affect their behaviour? I think that is a more legitimate criticism but both juries did seem to take their role pretty seriously.
And no, I don't know who my local councillor is either.
Mainly about the interaction of the jurors and the lack of direction from the judge.
That's a decent article. A programme can't reasonably say that the jury system is flawed by setting up a situation that departs so substantially from how juries actually work, in particular by excluding the very elements that were introduced over many years to guard against those flaws.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
The accent is another of those we hear frequently yet rarely place. Best epitomised by the sadly recently departed Jonnie Irwin of Escape to the Country - his is a classic Rugby accent. And I suppose Lineker's Leicester accent is fairly typical of the region too, similar to Jonnie's.
Lincolnshire I think is a place apart. Not the same as the driveover states. Economically, historically and politically. More Northern, on the A1 not M1 corridor, on the East Coast not the West Coast mainline, not on HS2, substantially poorer. The driveover counties are at the absolute heart of the country geographically and logistically.
If they are Kansas perhaps Lincs is Mississippi.
I have a friend from Peterborough. He has a very hard to identify accent - slightly northern, slightly southern, neither Estuary nor RP. He is utterly scathing about the place. I probably don't know anyone as negative about his hometown as he is.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
I lived there for 20 years! You are right - it is a place very few people who don't live there know anything about. It also has Watling Street - the old divide between the Danelaw and Anglo-Saxon England - running through the heart of it. That border does still seem real. It's amazing how the place names and accents change immediately on either side.
I am a fairly frequent driver up the A1 and it is interesting to observe the shift from Anglo Saxon to Norse place names, it occurs fairly abruptly around Grantham and to my mind that marks the border between north and south.
Around the time the OK Diners and "Private Shops" start to appear on the roadside.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
Flying someone who's arrived in the UK illegally using people traffickers in a comfortable flight to a hotel in Rwanda isn't most people's idea of cruelty.
The West is going to have to adopt far more of such tough love measures if it wants to avoid fascist governments in the long-term.
Liz Truss has claimed that Boris Johnson confirmed suspicions about Michael Gove leaking damaging information during the 2019 Tory leadership contest.
Tensions between Truss and Gove were exacerbated after he withdrew his support for Johnson’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party, she said.
Details of the long, fractious relationship between the two leading Tories have been disclosed in her new book, Ten Years to Save the West. Truss has written a memoir about her 49 days as prime minister, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.
She describes her anger at Gove when he withdrew his support at the last minute for Johnson’s first attempt to lead the Tory party in 2016. She wrote that, three years later, during a further leadership contest after Theresa May resigned, Johnson phoned her. He asked Truss whether “I’d leaked something”.
She replied: “I told him it had been Michael Gove — and what did he expect, given that Gove was a serial offender? I pressed him: ‘Did he think Gove had been leaking?’ Mr Johnson replied: ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’”
Has anyone ever actually seen a bear shitting in the woods? I haven’t. I bet no one on here has, either. It’s just one of those things we take as accepted: bears defecate in forested areas. It’s probably not true. Maybe they poo in glades. Maybe they go off and do their business by the sides of rivers, or in dedicated timber latrines constructed by beavers. Maybe they never poo at all, the same way sharks don’t urinate
I’ve also got my doubts about the orthodoxy of the Pontiff, but that’s for another time
The people who left Opus Dei for being too liberal have no doubt - the Pope is a Protestant.
But is he a Protestant Protestant, or a Catholic Protestant?
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
Apparently Britain will get US-style political advertising online, with political ads on ITV's streaming service. Couple that with targeted online adverts and astroturf campaigns, and I expect it to be the dirtiest campaign in modern British political history.
I think it will be the most negative campaign ever. The Tories have no clue what they would do with another five years, and so will only have a manifesto that exists as a series of wedge issues to attack Labour with, and will be desperate to create fear around Starmer personally and Labour generally.
Labour are currently terrified of providing a positive vision of the future, because it would give the Tories something to attack, and so only have criticism of the Tories' lamentable record in office to campaign on.
One of these negative punches from either side may land more squarely than any other and swing the election during the campaign. But I couldn't tell you which one, or which way.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Yes, scone pronounced to rhyme with cone will never sit right with me. What next? Jam before clotted cream?
I was saying this over the weekend. The facts of today's trial are not actually in dispute. The question for Trump is whether he should be held to account for his actions. He believes not for reasons...well, reasons.
Still incredulous that they are going to take 2-3 weeks to select a jury though.
They are presumably scouring other planets for jurors who have never heard of Trump.
Which is a bit of a double edged sword when you think about it. Anyone that disengaged from current affairs is highly likely to be (a) thick as 2 short planks and (b) pretty random in his or her views of life.
In Scotland the jury are selected without any faff. Once selected they are asked 4 questions:
1. Do they directly or indirectly know the accused or anyone else who is mentioned on the indictment? 2. Do they recognise the person in the dock (admittedly that might be a problem in this case). 3.Do they know of anyone who might be a witness in the case? 4. The trial is going to last X days. Is that going to cause them a problem beyond mere inconvenience and make their lives impossible?
We then have an adjournment so anyone saying yes or maybe can be discussed and, if appropriate, replaced with one of the 5 substitutes available for that purpose.
This used to be an obsession of mine but I gave up on it.
There seems to be a presumption that the less the jurors know about the matter before them the more just their verdict is likely to be. It's nonsense, and it used to rankle with me particularly in fraud and similar financial cases where the courts went to great lengths to ensure the jury knew nothing about such matters. A friend once sat on a jury for three months in a city fraud case and when the foreman announced a not guilty verdict the judge said 'Well I'm surprised', to which the foreman replied 'You shouldn't be. We didn't understand a word of what was going on.'
Sounds to me the Scots have a healthier approach than we do down here.
Many years ago I was involved in a solicitor fraud case in Edinburgh. The jury were given a lot of the productions and i noted that they seemed to be cross referencing them. My senior explained that this was an Edinburgh jury and at least a third of them would work in financial services.
One of the challenges in such trials is to pitch things at a level that the jury is likely to understand. I had a trial at the end of last year which involved the theft of Bitcoin. We had to find witnesses who could give the jury a sufficient idea of what bitcoin were and how they were transferred without losing them in the complexities.
Very interesting prog on Ch4 The Jury: Murder Trial where they have two parallel juries examining the same evidence. Although the format and content (despite it being a transcript of an actual case) has drawn much criticism from the legal profession.
On topic - I confess to having no idea who my counsellors are and have no idea who if anyone I will vote for. Perhaps some research is required.
I watched the program and it was interesting. Not sure what the criticism of it was. What it showed, particularly in respect of one jury, is that a very strong willed juror can turn things his own way but, then, anyone who has watched 12 angry men knew that.
There may be a bit of Schrodinger's Cat about it as well. Does the fact that they knew that it was not a real trial and that they were being watched and recorded affect their behaviour? I think that is a more legitimate criticism but both juries did seem to take their role pretty seriously.
And no, I don't know who my local councillor is either.
As well as the juries being observed, there is also the point that their verdicts would have no consequence.
I was saying this over the weekend. The facts of today's trial are not actually in dispute. The question for Trump is whether he should be held to account for his actions. He believes not for reasons...well, reasons.
Still incredulous that they are going to take 2-3 weeks to select a jury though.
They are presumably scouring other planets for jurors who have never heard of Trump.
Which is a bit of a double edged sword when you think about it. Anyone that disengaged from current affairs is highly likely to be (a) thick as 2 short planks and (b) pretty random in his or her views of life.
In Scotland the jury are selected without any faff. Once selected they are asked 4 questions:
1. Do they directly or indirectly know the accused or anyone else who is mentioned on the indictment? 2. Do they recognise the person in the dock (admittedly that might be a problem in this case). 3.Do they know of anyone who might be a witness in the case? 4. The trial is going to last X days. Is that going to cause them a problem beyond mere inconvenience and make their lives impossible?
We then have an adjournment so anyone saying yes or maybe can be discussed and, if appropriate, replaced with one of the 5 substitutes available for that purpose.
This used to be an obsession of mine but I gave up on it.
There seems to be a presumption that the less the jurors know about the matter before them the more just their verdict is likely to be. It's nonsense, and it used to rankle with me particularly in fraud and similar financial cases where the courts went to great lengths to ensure the jury knew nothing about such matters. A friend once sat on a jury for three months in a city fraud case and when the foreman announced a not guilty verdict the judge said 'Well I'm surprised', to which the foreman replied 'You shouldn't be. We didn't understand a word of what was going on.'
Sounds to me the Scots have a healthier approach than we do down here.
Many years ago I was involved in a solicitor fraud case in Edinburgh. The jury were given a lot of the productions and i noted that they seemed to be cross referencing them. My senior explained that this was an Edinburgh jury and at least a third of them would work in financial services.
One of the challenges in such trials is to pitch things at a level that the jury is likely to understand. I had a trial at the end of last year which involved the theft of Bitcoin. We had to find witnesses who could give the jury a sufficient idea of what bitcoin were and how they were transferred without losing them in the complexities.
Very interesting prog on Ch4 The Jury: Murder Trial where they have two parallel juries examining the same evidence. Although the format and content (despite it being a transcript of an actual case) has drawn much criticism from the legal profession.
On topic - I confess to having no idea who my counsellors are and have no idea who if anyone I will vote for. Perhaps some research is required.
I watched the program and it was interesting. Not sure what the criticism of it was. What it showed, particularly in respect of one jury, is that a very strong willed juror can turn things his own way but, then, anyone who has watched 12 angry men knew that.
There may be a bit of Schrodinger's Cat about it as well. Does the fact that they knew that it was not a real trial and that they were being watched and recorded affect their behaviour? I think that is a more legitimate criticism but both juries did seem to take their role pretty seriously.
And no, I don't know who my local councillor is either.
Mainly about the interaction of the jurors and the lack of direction from the judge.
That's a decent article. A programme can't reasonably say that the jury system is flawed by setting up a situation that departs so substantially from how juries actually work, in particular by excluding the very elements that were introduced over many years to guard against those flaws.
It does misuse the word "MacGuffin" though.
I suppose it takes an essential truth (people bring their own experiences; people are influenced by forceful personalities) and amplifies them to make great telly (which it was).
The question is whether those truths persist when liberties aren't taken with eg procedure and I imagine the answer is that they do.
Mr. Cookie, my parents pronounce scone in differing ways. I think it's the only such word for which that happens.
Where are they from? My parents pronounce lots of words differently - but one word which they pronounce the same, but differently to everyone else is 'cagoul' - which they pronounce to rhyme the 'gaggle'. Has anyone else come across this anywhere? I've only just thought of it as peculiar.
The thing about widespread political attack ads on online streaming services is that it will have its greatest impact the first time - just as the debates had their greatest impact in 2010, and have been a complete non-event since.
They're a known unknown for the next election that people need to be aware of.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
Apparently Britain will get US-style political advertising online, with political ads on ITV's streaming service. Couple that with targeted online adverts and astroturf campaigns, and I expect it to be the dirtiest campaign in modern British political history.
I think it will be the most negative campaign ever. The Tories have no clue what they would do with another five years, and so will only have a manifesto that exists as a series of wedge issues to attack Labour with, and will be desperate to create fear around Starmer personally and Labour generally.
Labour are currently terrified of providing a positive vision of the future, because it would give the Tories something to attack, and so only have criticism of the Tories' lamentable record in office to campaign on.
One of these negative punches from either side may land more squarely than any other and swing the election during the campaign. But I couldn't tell you which one, or which way.
Evidence so far under Sunak hasn't really borne this out though, surprisingly. His personal attacks on Labour have been weak and unconvincing, nor have the attack ads been particularly nasty. Even those ones attempting to attack Starmer for defending terrorists were rather feeble, featuring a smiling and quite handsome LOTO. The efforts against Rayner are nothing novel and to my eyes a little half hearted too.
Remember we had New Labour New Danger back in 1997. The devil eyes aren't out in the wild yet.
For my ward on the south coast, I notice there are no Labour candidates. I wonder if a deal has been done or, like once before, candidate papers weren't handed in on time. We have Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens and Reform standing. The Greens took a seat from the Conservaties at the last local election. Many keen sailors and wild swimmers here and sewage in the water is a hot topic.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
I lived there for 20 years! You are right - it is a place very few people who don't live there know anything about. It also has Watling Street - the old divide between the Danelaw and Anglo-Saxon England - running through the heart of it. That border does still seem real. It's amazing how the place names and accents change immediately on either side.
I am a fairly frequent driver up the A1 and it is interesting to observe the shift from Anglo Saxon to Norse place names, it occurs fairly abruptly around Grantham and to my mind that marks the border between north and south.
Around the time the OK Diners and "Private Shops" start to appear on the roadside.
Ha ha. The Honeypot Lane Industrial Estate is an important signpost on the journey too. I think it's just past the half way point on a drive from SE14 to Leeds. A psychological milestone if I've got up at 4.30am to do it in one go.
Liz Truss has claimed that Boris Johnson confirmed suspicions about Michael Gove leaking damaging information during the 2019 Tory leadership contest.
Tensions between Truss and Gove were exacerbated after he withdrew his support for Johnson’s campaign to lead the Conservative Party, she said.
Details of the long, fractious relationship between the two leading Tories have been disclosed in her new book, Ten Years to Save the West. Truss has written a memoir about her 49 days as prime minister, which is being serialised in the Daily Mail.
She describes her anger at Gove when he withdrew his support at the last minute for Johnson’s first attempt to lead the Tory party in 2016. She wrote that, three years later, during a further leadership contest after Theresa May resigned, Johnson phoned her. He asked Truss whether “I’d leaked something”.
She replied: “I told him it had been Michael Gove — and what did he expect, given that Gove was a serial offender? I pressed him: ‘Did he think Gove had been leaking?’ Mr Johnson replied: ‘Do bears shit in the woods?’”
Has anyone ever actually seen a bear shitting in the woods? I haven’t. I bet no one on here has, either. It’s just one of those things we take as accepted: bears defecate in forested areas. It’s probably not true. Maybe they poo in glades. Maybe they go off and do their business by the sides of rivers, or in dedicated timber latrines constructed by beavers. Maybe they never poo at all, the same way sharks don’t urinate
I’ve also got my doubts about the orthodoxy of the Pontiff, but that’s for another time
The people who left Opus Dei for being too liberal have no doubt - the Pope is a Protestant.
The what? They sound like liberals themselves if they think there's a pope. Hell, even a supposed non-sedevacantist such as Cardinal Vigano still thinks Francis isn't the Pope.
Meanwhile if anyone was still in doubt as to whether or not Trump is completely batshit, they should refer to his declaration that he was "so honoured by Archbishop Vigano's incredible letter to me".
With no Reform candidates, we can test a couple of polling hypotheses – first, the notion the Reform vote is all disaffected Conservatives who will return to the blue rosette. If we have no Reform candidates, these voters will either stay at home for the locals or support the local Conservative. The second hypothesis is the limited polling evidence showing only a third of Reform voters would support the Conservatives in the absence of a Reform candidate.
There is of course a third option, to vote Labour, Green or even for the lonely LD.
I am of the opinion that while the Tories are nationally deeply unpopular, at a local level people may well support their Councillor. No doubt some will vote on national issues and sympathies, not all will and it may well deliver false hope to Rishi.
Once again we have a dearth of betting markets, apart from the mayoral elections. A market on the NEV for the main parties would be of interest.
How many people know - or care - who their councillors are?
Yesterday I was talking to a neighbour about cutbacks to local library services, and she said "I suppose the orders for it come down from on high." It seemed to come as news to her that we even had elected councillors.
But in effect your neighbour is quite right. This Conservative Government has cut back massively on central financial support for local government, even as it has loaded it with vastly increased responsibilities. You cannot expect local government to do more with less resources.
Here, like most of the country, we suffer from an abundance of potholes. Our Conservative county councillors complain about the lack of money from Central Government. Almost as though the Conservative Government was nothing at all to do with them.
The basic problem is that the Conservatives is not that there is a shortage of money. It is that the Conservatives have the wrong priorities, like providing even more tax breaks for their already unbelievably wealthy chums.
Libraries are a legally required service of a council.
But that legal requirement is to have 1 library - and I suspect the hours it is open can be equally limited
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Given the contrast between some of the awful creations that I've come across, and some of the delicious incarnations of the baked good, I really couldn't give a toss about the pronunciation - does it taste any good is a more relevant concern.
I've nearly completed my initial survey of the different scone options available in West Cork. Although the reputedly high tier scones from Skibb Eurospar have so far eluded me, selling out before I get there.
But if you do ask for one rhyming with cone then I expect people will look at you funny. And you'll deserve it.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone rhyming with cone always sounds a bit Hyacinth Bucket to my ears too.
But interestingly one of the few areas of the map which is clearly one or the other is a blob around Sheffield and Stoke. So Eagles is living up to his heritage.
Nice focussed analysis, @stodge … and good to see @CarlottaVance back On the matter of ursine sylvan defecation I can indeed report having seen evidence of such, though not of the process taking place in real time
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I had a similar experience. Visually stark, though with a remote beauty in places, but culturally fascinating.
One of my most league of gentlemen experiences was in Dilijan. I'd arrived with a friend on the bus in the gloaming of early evening. We set about trying to find accommodation and food by making the sign language for head on pillow and eventually found a peasant family who would take us in on the edge of town. They brought us a pot of tea made with twigs, then their daughter came in and leafed through their photo album. It became clear after a while that the mother was trying to marry her daughter off to us.
In the night I had awful diarrhoea and vomiting. There was only an outside latrine and it had started to snow. One of the coldest most miserable nights of my adult life.
Nice focussed analysis, @stodge … and good to see @CarlottaVance back On the matter of ursine sylvan defecation I can indeed report having seen evidence of such, though not of the process taking place in real time
But it’s equally possible that people who say “do bears shit in woods” are closely following the bears to the tree-less open spaces where the bears poo, then moving the feces hastily into wooded areas to keep up the pretence that “bears shit in woods”.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
Apparently Britain will get US-style political advertising online, with political ads on ITV's streaming service. Couple that with targeted online adverts and astroturf campaigns, and I expect it to be the dirtiest campaign in modern British political history.
I think it will be the most negative campaign ever. The Tories have no clue what they would do with another five years, and so will only have a manifesto that exists as a series of wedge issues to attack Labour with, and will be desperate to create fear around Starmer personally and Labour generally.
Labour are currently terrified of providing a positive vision of the future, because it would give the Tories something to attack, and so only have criticism of the Tories' lamentable record in office to campaign on.
One of these negative punches from either side may land more squarely than any other and swing the election during the campaign. But I couldn't tell you which one, or which way.
Evidence so far under Sunak hasn't really borne this out though, surprisingly. His personal attacks on Labour have been weak and unconvincing, nor have the attack ads been particularly nasty. Even those ones attempting to attack Starmer for defending terrorists were rather feeble, featuring a smiling and quite handsome LOTO. The efforts against Rayner are nothing novel and to my eyes a little half hearted too.
Remember we had New Labour New Danger back in 1997. The devil eyes aren't out in the wild yet.
Yes. I see that. It is surprising because Sunak otherwise appears to be so desperate, but I think they are waiting for the campaign itself. It's what happened with the astroturf groups and their facebook advertising in 2019.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone rhyming with cone always sounds a bit Hyacinth Bucket to my ears too.
But interestingly one of the few areas of the map which is clearly one or the other is a blob around Sheffield and Stoke. So Eagles is living up to his heritage.
Ah, thanks for that. We must, however much (as in this case) it might make us wince when first encountering it, celebrate diversity.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
Scone the food is pronounced scon. Scone the place is pronounced Scoon.
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I had a similar experience. Visually stark, though with a remote beauty in places, but culturally fascinating.
One of my most league of gentlemen experiences was in Dilijan. I'd arrived with a friend on the bus in the gloaming of early evening. We set about trying to find accommodation and food by making the sign language for head on pillow and eventually found a peasant family who would take us in on the edge of town. They brought us a pot of tea made with twigs, then their daughter came in and leafed through their photo album. It became clear after a while that the mother was trying to marry her daughter off to us.
In the night I had awful diarrhoea and vomiting. There was only an outside latrine and it had started to snow. One of the coldest most miserable nights of my adult life.
Armenia is brilliant and terrible at the same time. That’s possibly my favourite mix. It means very very few tourists so you get it all to yourself. When I hired a car at Yerevan airport it took about two hours to do the paperwork because this simple act was so rare; and when I told the Hertz guy I wasn’t just “driving into Yerevan” but actually driving it around the country he practically fainted in astonishment. I think they have some kind of festival now, every year, to celebrate the anniversary of that rental
Mr. Cookie, my parents pronounce scone in differing ways. I think it's the only such word for which that happens.
Where are they from? My parents pronounce lots of words differently - but one word which they pronounce the same, but differently to everyone else is 'cagoul' - which they pronounce to rhyme the 'gaggle'. Has anyone else come across this anywhere? I've only just thought of it as peculiar.
Not encountered that, but my mum always pronounced spoon to have the same 'oo' as book or look. She blamed a Welsh teacher at primary school, but I don't know whether that was fair.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
Scone the food is pronounced scon. Scone the place is pronounced Scoon.
It's a crazy world, right enough.
It can still rhyme with stone (stoon) though, in a broad Scottish accent?
I expect the local election results to be a mixed bag but with the Tories doing better than expected overall and Labour worse.
I then expect the Tories to proceed to draw the wrong conclusions from the elections.
At Westminster level I think people have decided that the Tories have to go after a disastrous 5 years. The only way of getting them out is to vote Labour even though there is no great enthusiasm for Starmer. At a local level this doesn't apply at all and people can vote accordingly without any danger of installing another Tory government.
In the aftermath of the Cass report there has been some lies misinformed reporting by some trans activists - repeated by useful idiots like Owen Jones (“useful”? - ed.).
Here’s where one of the most widely cited claims comes from:
I now understand how activist Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ started the misinformation machine that got so many to believe the false claim that the Cass Review simply discarded non-randomized controlled trials. It's because Caraballo cited the *wrong* systematic lit reviews.🧵⬇️
In the aftermath of the Cass report there has been some lies misinformed reporting by some trans activists - repeated by useful idiots like Owen Jones (“useful”? - ed.).
Here’s where one of the most widely cited claims comes from:
I now understand how activist Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ started the misinformation machine that got so many to believe the false claim that the Cass Review simply discarded non-randomized controlled trials. It's because Caraballo cited the *wrong* systematic lit reviews.🧵⬇️
Mr. Cookie, my parents pronounce scone in differing ways. I think it's the only such word for which that happens.
Where are they from? My parents pronounce lots of words differently - but one word which they pronounce the same, but differently to everyone else is 'cagoul' - which they pronounce to rhyme the 'gaggle'. Has anyone else come across this anywhere? I've only just thought of it as peculiar.
Not encountered that, but my mum always pronounced spoon to have the same 'oo' as book or look. She blamed a Welsh teacher at primary school, but I don't know whether that was fair.
In Newcastle book and spoon have the same 'oo' sound but the other way around.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I had a similar experience. Visually stark, though with a remote beauty in places, but culturally fascinating.
One of my most league of gentlemen experiences was in Dilijan. I'd arrived with a friend on the bus in the gloaming of early evening. We set about trying to find accommodation and food by making the sign language for head on pillow and eventually found a peasant family who would take us in on the edge of town. They brought us a pot of tea made with twigs, then their daughter came in and leafed through their photo album. It became clear after a while that the mother was trying to marry her daughter off to us.
In the night I had awful diarrhoea and vomiting. There was only an outside latrine and it had started to snow. One of the coldest most miserable nights of my adult life.
Armenia is brilliant and terrible at the same time. That’s possibly my favourite mix. It means very very few tourists so you get it all to yourself. When I hired a car at Yerevan airport it took about two hours to do the paperwork because this simple act was so rare; and when I told the Hertz guy I wasn’t just “driving into Yerevan” but actually driving it around the country he practically fainted in astonishment. I think they have some kind of festival now, every year, to celebrate the anniversary of that rental
My brother went to Armenia a few years ago. He said a lot of the people are very bling and the Kardashians are widely admired. Virtually every restaurant and bar he went into had photos of them.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Should Scotland not by rights pronounce it "scoon"?
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Makes you sound like Hyacinth Bucket, rather than the proud, yet modest working class Yorkshireman we all recognise.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
Scone with the short 'o' reminds me of that same way of pronouncing hotel which some people do. It does have a Hyacinth Bouquet ring to it. No crime, far from it, but perhaps not something to aim for.
In the aftermath of the Cass report there has been some lies misinformed reporting by some trans activists - repeated by useful idiots like Owen Jones (“useful”? - ed.).
Here’s where one of the most widely cited claims comes from:
I now understand how activist Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ started the misinformation machine that got so many to believe the false claim that the Cass Review simply discarded non-randomized controlled trials. It's because Caraballo cited the *wrong* systematic lit reviews.🧵⬇️
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I had a similar experience. Visually stark, though with a remote beauty in places, but culturally fascinating.
One of my most league of gentlemen experiences was in Dilijan. I'd arrived with a friend on the bus in the gloaming of early evening. We set about trying to find accommodation and food by making the sign language for head on pillow and eventually found a peasant family who would take us in on the edge of town. They brought us a pot of tea made with twigs, then their daughter came in and leafed through their photo album. It became clear after a while that the mother was trying to marry her daughter off to us.
In the night I had awful diarrhoea and vomiting. There was only an outside latrine and it had started to snow. One of the coldest most miserable nights of my adult life.
Armenia is brilliant and terrible at the same time. That’s possibly my favourite mix. It means very very few tourists so you get it all to yourself. When I hired a car at Yerevan airport it took about two hours to do the paperwork because this simple act was so rare; and when I told the Hertz guy I wasn’t just “driving into Yerevan” but actually driving it around the country he practically fainted in astonishment. I think they have some kind of festival now, every year, to celebrate the anniversary of that rental
My brother went to Armenia a few years ago. He said a lot of the people are very bling and the Kardashians are widely admired. Virtually every restaurant and bar he went into had photos of them.
It’s not surprising. Armenia is dirt poor - it’s mainly windswept desert or tough mountains or grimy Soviet factories falling apart - but it sustains an OK existence because of the Armenian diaspora sending money home. The people are great - the women are exceptionally pretty - I’ve developed a theory that this is one reason they are so persecuted. It’s sexual jealousy. Turkish and Georgian women are much less pretty
If you think that’s mad, it’s not. Sexual jealousy was a primary motivator of the Rwandan genocide and it’s also a factor in pogroms against overseas Chinese in Asia - eg Indonesia
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I always think countries with a lot of turmoil such as invasions and revolutions have the most beautiful women. Its natural selection as women compete for scarce men. Sadly the uk hasnt had an invasion or revolution for a long time.
In the aftermath of the Cass report there has been some lies misinformed reporting by some trans activists - repeated by useful idiots like Owen Jones (“useful”? - ed.).
Here’s where one of the most widely cited claims comes from:
I now understand how activist Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ started the misinformation machine that got so many to believe the false claim that the Cass Review simply discarded non-randomized controlled trials. It's because Caraballo cited the *wrong* systematic lit reviews.🧵⬇️
Another one is “they only used reports in English”. 96% of reports on paediatric gender medicine are in English.
The systematic reviews commissioned to support the Review weren't specific on study type. Had they required non-RCTs they'd have been empty reviews, mostly.
The English language thing is pretty standard depending on the field.
The systematic reviews are still quite limited (as they note in their discussions) as the reviewed papers were, with a very few exceptions, crap.
ETA: to take one (x-sex hormones). Included study types: "Clinical trials, cohort studies, case–control studies, cross-sectional studies, pre–post single-group design studies or service evaluations that provided treatment outcome data. Case studies and case series were excluded."
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I always think countries with a lot of turmoil such as invasions and revolutions have the most beautiful women. Its natural selection as women compete for scarce men. Sadly the uk hasnt had an invasion or revolution for a long time.
Might just be something in that. Colombian women are lovely, Argentinian women are really not (much to my surprise). Colombia has experienced permanent violence and turmoil for many decades. Argentina has been depressed but placid
On topic, I'm not sure there's any seat right now that's safe for the Conservatives.
What I don't know is how things would play out in a GE campign and what pitch Sunak and CCHQ can cry to rally (some) centre-right support around them.
I half expect them to start with we have successfully sent 1 flight of 300 people to Rwanda.
Which would allow the opposition to list the total cost over £1m per person and the fact that’s 1/6th of the people who would be sent there every year
And if HMG is unlucky, more people will arrive on R-Day than leave.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
What happens when the first deportee to Rwanda finds their way back here and is offered asylum as a result of being politically persecuted by the Rwandan government?
They mentioned on the news this morning that the government were in talks with other countries about replicating the Rwanda plan and one of those countries listed was Costa Rica.
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
Funny, I thought similar. I found myself applying the Place in the Sun filter to the destinations mentioned. Armenia was another one. Why would Armenia be interested in Britain's asylum seekers? What if some of them were Azerbaijanis fleeing persecution in Iran? Or Turks?
Armenia might just be the worst country I’ve ever visited. In terms of hideous buildings and depressing architecture and awful weather. Despite its latitude it’s on a high plateau so it’s windy and cold most of the time. The Soviets left behind a ton of dreadful buildings and the Armenians have only added to that. In addition, the women are beautiful, the people are friendly, and the food is surprisingly good apart from the dried fish. I loved it
I always think countries with a lot of turmoil such as invasions and revolutions have the most beautiful women. Its natural selection as women compete for scarce men. Sadly the uk hasnt had an invasion or revolution for a long time.
Might just be something in that. Colombian women are lovely, Argentinian women are really not (much to my surprise). Colombia has experienced permanent violence and turmoil for many decades. Argentina has been depressed but placid
Yeah or look at very stable countries such as new zealand very plain women. Nature balances things out nicely.
In the aftermath of the Cass report there has been some lies misinformed reporting by some trans activists - repeated by useful idiots like Owen Jones (“useful”? - ed.).
Here’s where one of the most widely cited claims comes from:
I now understand how activist Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ started the misinformation machine that got so many to believe the false claim that the Cass Review simply discarded non-randomized controlled trials. It's because Caraballo cited the *wrong* systematic lit reviews.🧵⬇️
Another one is “they only used reports in English”. 96% of reports on paediatric gender medicine are in English.
I haven't looked at it much because I have work to do. Would you like me to go thru it and do a CONSORT flow diagram? It would save you posting many tweets on the subject
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Hmm, my birthplace is well in scone [cone] country; my adopted home on the cusp (~50:50). TSE is indeed in scone [cone] country, I believe. I'm shocked that some in God's Own County don't rhyme 'scone' with 'own'.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
Scone the food is pronounced scon. Scone the place is pronounced Scoon.
It's a crazy world, right enough.
It can still rhyme with stone (stoon) though, in a broad Scottish accent?
Not exactly. "ow" words like down or town are pronounced doon and toon but stone wouldn't be. The vowel sound in stone sits in a kind of no man's land, it's not quite oh, not quite oo, not quite uh, but has a flavour of all of them, at least in the east coast (Fife) Scots pronunciation I'm used to. If you said "I've got to go down the town to get a stone out my shoe" each of those "O"s would be pronounced differently (even down and town are slightly different, too is more oo than town). Something like "Ah've goh tae gooh doon tooon tae ge' ah stuhn oo' ma shoe". It's like music to my ears!
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
It occurs to me that Nuneaton is at the North Western edge of a peculiarly under-known region of England that is our closest equivalent to the flyover states of the US mid-west. If Birmingham is our Chicago, as has often been claimed, then these places are our Kansas and Oklahoma. The drive-over counties.
The region is bounded in the South West by Banbury and the M40, in the North by Nuneaton, Hinckley and the Southern outskirts of Leicester, it contains half of Warwickshire and most of Northants, and nudges the borders of Bedford and Milton Keynes in the South East.
This is where the M1, M6, A14 and national rail freight systems converge, with the Watford Gap or the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal its spiritual centre.
Is there a region more accessible yet less known to the British mind than this little oval of logistics parks on the way to somewhere else? As familiar yet mysterious as Troyes, St Dizier or the Plateau de Langres in France.
Lincolnshire is accessible but remains unknown. As does much of Cumbria outside the National park area, though the M6 runs through the middle of much of it.
Yes the area where the East Midlands meets the South East and East Anglia - Bedford, Northampton, Lincoln, Peterborough - seems the most anonymous and unknown to me. What's the accent? What are the regional food items? What do they call a bread roll or a small pedestrian alley? How do they pronounce scone? No idea.
Lincolnshire is north of Leicester so 'scon'. The rest scone.
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Anyway, Devon seems ambivalent/in places scone (cone) favouring and Cornwall goes for scone (cone). So surely that seals it. Plus parts of God's Own County, plus much of Essex.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
The late Queen pronounce it 'scon'. And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..
Comments
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-68809947.amp
There's a whole industry out there devoted to making immigration to the UK as easy as possible.
In 2022, very much against the national trend, Conservatives made a couple of gains in Nuneaton & Bedworth. If they did so again, I'd not read into that a story about absence of RefUK candidates or anything like that - the 2022 results simply indicate the district council was, at that time, considered by residents to be reasonably well run. Equally, if Labour bounce back then at least some of it will be regaining ground after a poor run of results at council level there.
There are always local factors at play in local elections that make individual results very hard to draw conclusions from. You can only really draw conclusions stepping back and looking at results as a whole, where the local quirks and variations even out on the averages.
The government are also going to have to be very careful about the tone of the announcement. The temptation will be to celebrate a significant success, but that could easily fall into revelling in cruelty. It's not as if Rishi has shown mastery of political tone.
(See also the tension between Rwanda has to be a deterrent but not too much because the UK aren't heartless bastards. It's possible to walk the tightrope, but it's easy to get it wrong.)
An interesting header, thank-you. I haven't really got a handle on where local elections are, except that they are not here in Notts. Looking, they seem to be mainly in the South.
It's interesting that there are 7 TUSC candidates - Nellist Country !
I think the results of PCC elections, which have Tories in place in 30 out of 39 positions in England and Wales (Lab 8, PC 1), will give an interesting take on the Lab/Con balance. It's worth remembering that the Govt have also changed these to First Past the Post.
Equally Mayoral Elections are mainly in the North (except London, which is probably the slow political suicide of Susan Hall).
IMHO for quite a few complex frauds there should be a judge and expert assessor system in place of the jury.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/14/cyprus-suspends-asylum-applications-for-syrians-as-arrivals-rise
If I ran a major country's intelligence organisation I would be paying special attention to Cyprus at the moment, because I suspect it may be receiving large numbers of refugees from somewhere else quite soon, and that preparations are being made.
Mainly about the interaction of the jurors and the lack of direction from the judge.
states such as Michigan, Ohio and
Wisconsin and the Congressional districts they contain normally
decide US presidential and Congressional elections
It made me think, if Costa Rica became the destination it would make sense for anyone from the UK who is on their uppers to get over to France, lose their passport and pretend they can’t speak English and get on a small boat. You get moved to Costa Rica free of charge for a new start in the sun.
(My hunch is that the politics of Rwanda work a lot better while it is still hypothetical and that it starts to unravel pretty quickly once it's concrete. Sunak really reminds me of the Colonel in the Bridge on the River Kwai.)
However this is balanced off by the LibDems' local efforts being more attractive to older, settled voters - there are a lot of "LibDem local, Tory national" types (most LibDem wards having been won from the Tories in the first place), and there's also a small bias toward Labour at local elections as well, I believe, explained by people wanting prudent financial management nationally (remembering times when the Tories could actually deliver it) and relative largesse locally.
Here, like most of the country, we suffer from an abundance of potholes. Our Conservative county councillors complain about the lack of money from Central Government. Almost as though the Conservative Government was nothing at all to do with them.
The basic problem is that the Conservatives is not that there is a shortage of money. It is that the Conservatives have the wrong priorities, like providing even more tax breaks for their already unbelievably wealthy chums.
Southam Observer gets it, he's lived in the driveover lands. Or could we call them the Lake Harrison lands? That's another element of the borderland - the glacial lake that covered much of the same area, draining through the Fenny Compton gap closer to Observer's hometown. The end moraine of the last glaciation forms the gravel ridges close to the Watford gap which will in due course be excellent viticultural land.
And of course Fenny Compton, in the deep Mezzogiorno of the driveover counties, its Midi, was the place chosen for its centrality by Alan Bates when he started convening subpostmasters meetings to discuss Horizon.
Personally, I found the cathedral rather nice.
https://brilliantmaps.com/scone-map/
suggests that while the scone/scone pronunciation divide is geographical, it's not THAT geographical - most locations contain a far wedge of both 'scone' and 'scone'.
Scotland appears far more 'scone' however - I suppose that is where my pronunciation comes from, as my Scottish grandmother was by far the most influential scone-maker in the family.
Mr. Cookie, my parents pronounce scone in differing ways. I think it's the only such word for which that happens.
It does misuse the word "MacGuffin" though.
The West is going to have to adopt far more of such tough love measures if it wants to avoid fascist governments in the long-term.
Delighted to launch
@thetimes
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https://x.com/TomHCalver/status/1779790311411060774
I think it will be the most negative campaign ever. The Tories have no clue what they would do with another five years, and so will only have a manifesto that exists as a series of wedge issues to attack Labour with, and will be desperate to create fear around Starmer personally and Labour generally.
Labour are currently terrified of providing a positive vision of the future, because it would give the Tories something to attack, and so only have criticism of the Tories' lamentable record in office to campaign on.
One of these negative punches from either side may land more squarely than any other and swing the election during the campaign. But I couldn't tell you which one, or which way.
The question is whether those truths persist when liberties aren't taken with eg procedure and I imagine the answer is that they do.
Lab -1
Con +3
Ref -4
Lib Dem +2
Green flat
My parents pronounce lots of words differently - but one word which they pronounce the same, but differently to everyone else is 'cagoul' - which they pronounce to rhyme the 'gaggle'. Has anyone else come across this anywhere? I've only just thought of it as peculiar.
They're a known unknown for the next election that people need to be aware of.
I will entertain no further discussions on this topic with plebs who think it rhymes with gone.
Remember we had New Labour New Danger back in 1997. The devil eyes aren't out in the wild yet.
Hell, even a supposed non-sedevacantist such as Cardinal Vigano still thinks Francis isn't the Pope.
Meanwhile if anyone was still in doubt as to whether or not Trump is completely batshit, they should refer to his declaration that he was "so honoured by Archbishop Vigano's incredible letter to me".
But that legal requirement is to have 1 library - and I suspect the hours it is open can be equally limited
I've nearly completed my initial survey of the different scone options available in West Cork. Although the reputedly high tier scones from Skibb Eurospar have so far eluded me, selling out before I get there.
But if you do ask for one rhyming with cone then I expect people will look at you funny. And you'll deserve it.
At least no one is rhyming it with 'done'.
But interestingly one of the few areas of the map which is clearly one or the other is a blob around Sheffield and Stoke. So Eagles is living up to his heritage.
On the matter of ursine sylvan defecation I can indeed report having seen evidence of such, though not of the process taking place in real time
One of my most league of gentlemen experiences was in Dilijan. I'd arrived with a friend on the bus in the gloaming of early evening. We set about trying to find accommodation and food by making the sign language for head on pillow and eventually found a peasant family who would take us in on the edge of town. They brought us a pot of tea made with twigs, then their daughter came in and leafed through their photo album. It became clear after a while that the mother was trying to marry her daughter off to us.
In the night I had awful diarrhoea and vomiting. There was only an outside latrine and it had started to snow. One of the coldest most miserable nights of my adult life.
We must, however much (as in this case) it might make us wince when first encountering it, celebrate diversity.
The big head scratcher though is the Scots - does the Scone in Stone of Scone not rhyme with Stone? And if it does rhyme with stone then what are they like saying the baked good all wrong? Scotch experts please explain
And do they include egg ?
It can still rhyme with stone (stoon) though, in a broad Scottish accent?
I then expect the Tories to proceed to draw the wrong conclusions from the elections.
At Westminster level I think people have decided that the Tories have to go after a disastrous 5 years. The only way of getting them out is to vote Labour even though there is no great enthusiasm for Starmer. At a local level this doesn't apply at all and people can vote accordingly without any danger of installing another Tory government.
Here’s where one of the most widely cited claims comes from:
I now understand how activist Alejandra Caraballo @Esqueer_ started the misinformation machine that got so many to believe the false claim that the Cass Review simply discarded non-randomized controlled trials. It's because Caraballo cited the *wrong* systematic lit reviews.🧵⬇️
https://x.com/benryanwriter/status/1779671152148857212
Another one is “they only used reports in English”. 96% of reports on paediatric gender medicine are in English.
The debate is over, my friends.
ETA: And the great seat of learning that is Kingston Upon Hull
If you think that’s mad, it’s not. Sexual jealousy was a primary motivator of the Rwandan genocide and it’s also a factor in pogroms against overseas Chinese in Asia - eg Indonesia
The English language thing is pretty standard depending on the field.
The systematic reviews are still quite limited (as they note in their discussions) as the reviewed papers were, with a very few exceptions, crap.
ETA: to take one (x-sex hormones). Included study types: "Clinical trials, cohort studies, case–control studies, cross-sectional studies, pre–post single-group design studies or service evaluations that provided treatment outcome data. Case studies and case series were excluded."
(I know that you know this)
Out of interest, do all the above rhyme with moon?
And TSE is, of course, a republican.
But let us not stoop to the misplaced pedantry of Professor Higgins.
...An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other
Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
Disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!..