Just wait and see what's in store once programmable money is a thing.
It will start with people on benefits. Not allowed to buy alcohol and so on. And people will acquiesce to it because they think why should my hard earned tax money be going to bunch of jobless alkies.
But then it will come for the rest of us. Drinking too much? You'll have a choice - go on the 'no buying alcohol plan' or lose the right to NHS treatment. Not a drinker, but a bit of a fatty? Cards blocked from fast food shops and takeaways.
Indeed. Neither the tories or labour have tried to hide their desire for micro-control over our lives. Benefits claimants will be first because, as mentioned, nobody cares about them. The mechanisms were already designed by the tories, DWP gives banks a list of patterns to scan people's accounts for and anything 'suspicious' leads to a court order to access the account statements.
Of course, labour are now going to do away with the court. They'll just be able to look at your account and, if they feel like it, take your money. How long before HMRC also starts using this capability routinely? After the next GE I expect.
(I was going to make a gag about selling your granny's old china tea set collection on ebay and having HMRC coming after you for tax, but ebay already collects sales data for HMRC and only permits sellers to withdraw funds to a small selection of UK banks so their account balances can be monitored)
Absolutely purchase information will be used to deny NHS treatment in future, the powers that be won't be able to help themselves. There will be plenty of other intrusions. When road tax is replaced by a per-mile charge that will be used for behaviour modification, too, with the tax scaling to punish too much driving. 1p/mile if you do less than 5000 miles/year, 2.5p if you do 10,000, 5p above that, for example.
Surely we could get air superiority over Ukraine in concert with others?
Early in the war Dura would regularly say that only the US has the capability to take apart Russian air defences to establish air supremacy.
Without the US acting as a keystone the rest of NATO lacks key warfighting capabilities.
So we are done for. The end is not far off.
Yes I think Ukraine will have to sacrifice the industrial east and likely Odessa and Krarkiv. They will remain as a rump state in the west and kyiv will stay capital.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Hitler up, along with swastikas as 'art', which is seen by all visitors?
Is that in any way, shape or form like what has happened? No.
I was just seeing what your breaking point of "Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?" lies.
Well you did it wrong then because going straight in with Hitler is going to get a No from everyone. You need to start with something less extreme and then slide it until you hit that break point.
So, like this for your opening salvo ...
"I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Prince up, along with his Purple Rain lyrics as 'art', to be seen by all visitors?"
And see where that leads.
Starmer clearly has hangups about 'the pictures of the jockeys that were there before me'.
I have made a spiffing new American friend, Jesse, who is a Japanese language/cultural expert from Brooklyn, a soon-to-be famous writer, the son of a VERY well known US intelligence person
Here we are having shabu shabu duck together
Turned out we have equally obsessive interests in ancient archeology, geopolitics, the future of literature, gin, birdwatching, potentially travelling to Taiwan, sex, and AI
He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met
And he’s convinced Trump is going to win
My head is now telling me Trump is going to win. My heart still hopes otherwise.
I agree, David. But I may have been overly swayed by the Tipp tracker.
Differential turnout , misleading right wing polls, Trump’s bat shit insanity, margins of error, there are still several straws to cling to. But it’s not looking great.
I have made a spiffing new American friend, Jesse, who is a Japanese language/cultural expert from Brooklyn, a soon-to-be famous writer, the son of a VERY well known US intelligence person
Here we are having shabu shabu duck together
Turned out we have equally obsessive interests in ancient archeology, geopolitics, the future of literature, gin, birdwatching, potentially travelling to Taiwan, sex, and AI
He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met
And he’s convinced Trump is going to win
My head is now telling me Trump is going to win. My heart still hopes otherwise.
I agree, David. But I may have been overly swayed by the Tipp tracker.
Hey don't go all pessimistic just because of that. America is preparing a nice surprise for us, mark my words.
I have made a spiffing new American friend, Jesse, who is a Japanese language/cultural expert from Brooklyn, a soon-to-be famous writer, the son of a VERY well known US intelligence person
Here we are having shabu shabu duck together
Turned out we have equally obsessive interests in ancient archeology, geopolitics, the future of literature, gin, birdwatching, potentially travelling to Taiwan, sex, and AI
He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met
And he’s convinced Trump is going to win
Let's face it. You want The Don to win. As long as it makes you happy then fine.
I don’t. I want the best possible information from good sources
And he seems like one of those. Extremely well travelled but also highly American. New York Jewish
He was politically fascinating because he was neither Dem nor Rep but deeply analytical
We had a specific conversation which went like this:
Him: “Analysts have shown that the most soothing colour is pale green, in fact they’ve shown it is specifically the pale green of sunlight filtered through leaves. In evolutionary terms this is because it means we are sheltered, the weather is good, we are surrounded by fertile land, the trees around us will afford wood for building..”
Me: “wow. That’s wild because about a year ago I went to the last ICBM silo in America. The one that hosts the Titan city buster nuke missile in Arizona. And they take you down to the depths and they show you the launch room. The place where men would have to press the buttons dooming humanity. And it is painted pale green because they did research to find the most soothing colour and it was that. The didn’t want the nuke launchers freaking out”
Him: “wow! That’s amazing coz…”
Etc etc. Then we went back to joking about sex
It did feel a bit like falling in love, the beginnings of a bromance, unfortunately neither of us is gay
However we did come up with a cool title for his forthcoming short story collection
THE PALE GREEN NUCLEAR ROOM
He's right. Trump is going to win. Can he help on the reliability of this thread from Seth Abramson? Huge if true.
The Trump is edging it view that we've seen over the last two weeks suits both sides. Harris because in an election in which turnout will be crucial it gives an extra push to their GTTVO operation, and Trump in preparing the ground for his stolen election narrative.
Although if Trump does lose, a 'stolen election' narrative might suit his ego and his supporters it may be contrary to his own interests.
Frankly, if he loses he's going down anyway. Unless Harris decrees a federal pardon, which is not inconceivable.
Which is the deal Trump should make - publicly accept the result in return for federal and state pardons.
Just wait and see what's in store once programmable money is a thing.
It will start with people on benefits. Not allowed to buy alcohol and so on. And people will acquiesce to it because they think why should my hard earned tax money be going to bunch of jobless alkies.
But then it will come for the rest of us. Drinking too much? You'll have a choice - go on the 'no buying alcohol plan' or lose the right to NHS treatment. Not a drinker, but a bit of a fatty? Cards blocked from fast food shops and takeaways.
Indeed. Neither the tories or labour have tried to hide their desire for micro-control over our lives. Benefits claimants will be first because, as mentioned, nobody cares about them. The mechanisms were already designed by the tories, DWP gives banks a list of patterns to scan people's accounts for and anything 'suspicious' leads to a court order to access the account statements.
Of course, labour are now going to do away with the court. They'll just be able to look at your account and, if they feel like it, take your money. How long before HMRC also starts using this capability routinely? After the next GE I expect.
(I was going to make a gag about selling your granny's old china tea set collection on ebay and having HMRC coming after you for tax, but ebay already collects sales data for HMRC and only permits sellers to withdraw funds to a small selection of UK banks so their account balances can be monitored)
Absolutely purchase information will be used to deny NHS treatment in future, the powers that be won't be able to help themselves. There will be plenty of other intrusions. When road tax is replaced by a per-mile charge that will be used for behaviour modification, too, with the tax scaling to punish too much driving. 1p/mile if you do less than 5000 miles/year, 2.5p if you do 10,000, 5p above that, for example.
Excellent! George Orwell was right all along. Lots to look forward to. Onwards and upwards! Yee haa!
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
It's not greatness, it's fashionable among the North London Labour types to feel embarrassed by Britain and it's history, both Maggie and Bill are part of that history. It's why I'm so surprised that they've stood firm on the slavery apology, though I guess that's driven by realpolitik of the UK not being in any kind of position to open the door to reparations, even of the token variety.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
It's not a great painting tbf. Ersatz copy of the Chandos portrait.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
The Trump is edging it view that we've seen over the last two weeks suits both sides. Harris because in an election in which turnout will be crucial it gives an extra push to their GTTVO operation, and Trump in preparing the ground for his stolen election narrative.
Although if Trump does lose, a 'stolen election' narrative might suit his ego and his supporters it may be contrary to his own interests.
Frankly, if he loses he's going down anyway. Unless Harris decrees a federal pardon, which is not inconceivable.
Which is the deal Trump should make - publicly accept the result in return for federal and state pardons.
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Hitler up, along with swastikas as 'art', which is seen by all visitors?
Is that in any way, shape or form like what has happened? No.
I was just seeing what your breaking point of "Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?" lies.
Well you did it wrong then because going straight in with Hitler is going to get a No from everyone. You need to start with something less extreme and then slide it until you hit that break point.
So, like this for your opening salvo ...
"I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Prince up, along with his Purple Rain lyrics as 'art', to be seen by all visitors?"
And see where that leads.
Starmer clearly has hangups about 'the pictures of the jockeys that were there before me'.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
What utter and total bollocks, polish your sandals and put another lentil burger on the BBQ. It should be stopped immediately and the halfwits gibbering about it told to F*** right off
The Trump is edging it view that we've seen over the last two weeks suits both sides. Harris because in an election in which turnout will be crucial it gives an extra push to their GTTVO operation, and Trump in preparing the ground for his stolen election narrative.
Although if Trump does lose, a 'stolen election' narrative might suit his ego and his supporters it may be contrary to his own interests.
Frankly, if he loses he's going down anyway. Unless Harris decrees a federal pardon, which is not inconceivable.
Which is the deal Trump should make - publicly accept the result in return for federal and state pardons.
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Hitler up, along with swastikas as 'art', which is seen by all visitors?
Is that in any way, shape or form like what has happened? No.
I was just seeing what your breaking point of "Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?" lies.
Well you did it wrong then because going straight in with Hitler is going to get a No from everyone. You need to start with something less extreme and then slide it until you hit that break point.
So, like this for your opening salvo ...
"I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Prince up, along with his Purple Rain lyrics as 'art', to be seen by all visitors?"
And see where that leads.
No, because some people like Prince. I went with Hitler because it's obvious that the answer that people *would* care.
I mean, if I wanted to piss you off, I ought to have suggested that he nail cash to the wall...
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
What utter and total bollocks, polish your sandals and put another lentil burger on the BBQ. It should be stopped immediately and the halfwits gibbering about it told to F*** right off
Yes, the awkward truth is much of Scotland was built on the back of slavery.
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Hitler up, along with swastikas as 'art', which is seen by all visitors?
Is that in any way, shape or form like what has happened? No.
I was just seeing what your breaking point of "Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?" lies.
Well you did it wrong then because going straight in with Hitler is going to get a No from everyone. You need to start with something less extreme and then slide it until you hit that break point.
So, like this for your opening salvo ...
"I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Prince up, along with his Purple Rain lyrics as 'art', to be seen by all visitors?"
And see where that leads.
Starmer clearly has hangups about 'the pictures of the jockeys that were there before me'.
I have made a spiffing new American friend, Jesse, who is a Japanese language/cultural expert from Brooklyn, a soon-to-be famous writer, the son of a VERY well known US intelligence person
Here we are having shabu shabu duck together
Turned out we have equally obsessive interests in ancient archeology, geopolitics, the future of literature, gin, birdwatching, potentially travelling to Taiwan, sex, and AI
He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met
And he’s convinced Trump is going to win
My head is now telling me Trump is going to win. My heart still hopes otherwise.
I agree, David. But I may have been overly swayed by the Tipp tracker.
Differential turnout , misleading right wing polls, Trump’s bat shit insanity, margins of error, there are still several straws to cling to. But it’s not looking great.
I think it is still on a knife edge. American state polls have a historic reliability issue. All the swing state polls are well within that margin of error. And keep bouncing between Harris Wins Everything! to Donald! Wins! Everything! And back again…
The outcome will, indeed, come down to putting
1) differential turnout 2) candidate flaws 3) election counting interference (MAGA in the system)
In a blender and seeing what the smoothie looks like.
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
But it is really odd behaviour, quite bizarre. Replacing it with some right on modern artist does make him look like Dave Spart's loser younger brother.
I have made a spiffing new American friend, Jesse, who is a Japanese language/cultural expert from Brooklyn, a soon-to-be famous writer, the son of a VERY well known US intelligence person
Here we are having shabu shabu duck together
Turned out we have equally obsessive interests in ancient archeology, geopolitics, the future of literature, gin, birdwatching, potentially travelling to Taiwan, sex, and AI
He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met
And he’s convinced Trump is going to win
My head is now telling me Trump is going to win. My heart still hopes otherwise.
Nice to see someone sensible in amongst the rampant heart leading head driving so many takes on this election here.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
I have made a spiffing new American friend, Jesse, who is a Japanese language/cultural expert from Brooklyn, a soon-to-be famous writer, the son of a VERY well known US intelligence person
Here we are having shabu shabu duck together
Turned out we have equally obsessive interests in ancient archeology, geopolitics, the future of literature, gin, birdwatching, potentially travelling to Taiwan, sex, and AI
He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met
And he’s convinced Trump is going to win
My head is now telling me Trump is going to win. My heart still hopes otherwise.
I agree, David. But I may have been overly swayed by the Tipp tracker.
Differential turnout , misleading right wing polls, Trump’s bat shit insanity, margins of error, there are still several straws to cling to. But it’s not looking great.
I think it is still on a knife edge. American state polls have a historic reliability issue. All the swing state polls are well within that margin of error. And keep bouncing between Harris Wins Everything! to Donald! Wins! Everything! And back again…
The outcome will, indeed, come down to putting
1) differential turnout 2) candidate flaws 3) election counting interference (MAGA in the system)
In a blender and seeing what the smoothie looks like.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
What utter and total bollocks, polish your sandals and put another lentil burger on the BBQ. It should be stopped immediately and the halfwits gibbering about it told to F*** right off
Yes, the awkward truth is much of Scotland was built on the back of slavery.
More of Scotland was in slavery , plenty sent to pick cotton etc and plenty replaced by sheep etc. You not get that in your history lessons. Only a few nabbery made teh cash. Also who sold the slaves to the English , their own people, why do they not ask them to pay the reparation.
I have made a spiffing new American friend, Jesse, who is a Japanese language/cultural expert from Brooklyn, a soon-to-be famous writer, the son of a VERY well known US intelligence person
Here we are having shabu shabu duck together
Turned out we have equally obsessive interests in ancient archeology, geopolitics, the future of literature, gin, birdwatching, potentially travelling to Taiwan, sex, and AI
He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met
And he’s convinced Trump is going to win
My head is now telling me Trump is going to win. My heart still hopes otherwise.
Nice to see someone sensible in amongst the rampant heart leading head driving so many takes on this election here.
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Hitler up, along with swastikas as 'art', which is seen by all visitors?
Is that in any way, shape or form like what has happened? No.
I was just seeing what your breaking point of "Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?" lies.
How many portraits of the bard do you have up in your house?
None. I do have some paintings, though. Including one of Caleb Plummer and His Blind Daughter, and a nude painted by my M-i-L (not of my M-i-L, I hasten to add..)
But my 'house' is not deeply connected to the country (aside from a couple of feet for the footings...), and neither do I have many visitors daily, including frequent foreign dignitaries.
Comparing someone's house to No. 10 is a bit silly. No. 10 is not just a home; it is a workplace, a historic building, and a totem of Britain.
Ah, Sir Keir, with wit as blunt as thine, thou removest my visage, as if to eclipse the sun with a candle's flicker. Dost thou think thy hand can unmake what time hath crowned?
Nay, 'tis but a fool's errand. Thou art fit for naught but bites o' sound in the Commons, for to purge my likeness is to wrestle the wind itself. Forsooth, I see thine ambition, but wherefore? Wouldst thou pluck the very stars from heaven to cast thy shadow taller?
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
It's not a great painting tbf. Ersatz copy of the Chandos portrait.
Otoh Rego was a child of Anglophile Portuguese anti fascists who lived most of her life in the UK and most importantly was a great painter. Hopefully that says more about the UK than a dodgy knock off by a jobbing French artist. I’d like to think SKS is a fan but suspect he may have been told what was suitable.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
I just...do? Without doing so, I don't think I can celebrate some of the good and great things Scotland and the UK have achieved over the past (including the abolishment for slavery itself). I was personally responsible for neither the good nor the bad.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
Ah, Sir Keir, with wit as blunt as thine, thou removest my visage, as if to eclipse the sun with a candle's flicker. Dost thou think thy hand can unmake what time hath crowned?
Nay, 'tis but a fool's errand. Thou art fit for naught but bites o' sound in the Commons, for to purge my likeness is to wrestle the wind itself. Forsooth, I see thine ambition, but wherefore? Wouldst thou pluck the very stars from heaven to cast thy shadow taller?
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
But it is really odd behaviour, quite bizarre. Replacing it with some right on modern artist does make him look like Dave Spart's loser younger brother.
Er, Paula Rego is - was - not “right on”
She’s been accused of sexualising children in her work
Personally I think she’s a world class painter, I’ve no problems with Starmer putting up her stuff. Actually shows some taste. However it does feel like someone in Number 10 is deftly leaking all this to damage him
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
Just wait and see what's in store once programmable money is a thing.
It will start with people on benefits. Not allowed to buy alcohol and so on. And people will acquiesce to it because they think why should my hard earned tax money be going to bunch of jobless alkies.
But then it will come for the rest of us. Drinking too much? You'll have a choice - go on the 'no buying alcohol plan' or lose the right to NHS treatment. Not a drinker, but a bit of a fatty? Cards blocked from fast food shops and takeaways.
Indeed. Neither the tories or labour have tried to hide their desire for micro-control over our lives. Benefits claimants will be first because, as mentioned, nobody cares about them. The mechanisms were already designed by the tories, DWP gives banks a list of patterns to scan people's accounts for and anything 'suspicious' leads to a court order to access the account statements.
Of course, labour are now going to do away with the court. They'll just be able to look at your account and, if they feel like it, take your money. How long before HMRC also starts using this capability routinely? After the next GE I expect.
(I was going to make a gag about selling your granny's old china tea set collection on ebay and having HMRC coming after you for tax, but ebay already collects sales data for HMRC and only permits sellers to withdraw funds to a small selection of UK banks so their account balances can be monitored)
Absolutely purchase information will be used to deny NHS treatment in future, the powers that be won't be able to help themselves. There will be plenty of other intrusions. When road tax is replaced by a per-mile charge that will be used for behaviour modification, too, with the tax scaling to punish too much driving. 1p/mile if you do less than 5000 miles/year, 2.5p if you do 10,000, 5p above that, for example.
I rather doubt this dystopia will materialise. I recall during the pandemic much talk on here about how 'they' would hang on to all the lockdown powers afterwards because that's just how 'they' are. I said I didn't think so and people said I was being complacent. I said back to people that no I wasn't being complacent it was them being paranoid. I was right (as per).
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
We weren't the first country in Europe to ban the slave trade, nor the first to abolish slavery.
Outside Europe even more so. Japan abolished slavery in 1590, and Mexico beat us in the new world by abolishing slavery in 1829 (a major reason for the Mexican war with seccessionist Texas).
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
I just...do? Without doing so, I don't think I can celebrate some of the good and great things Scotland and the UK have achieved over the past (including the abolishment for slavery itself). I was personally responsible for neither the good nor the bad.
And this is why Asians see liberal western white people as both stupid and naïve. You had no part in slavery yet you feel sorry for it? Would you apologise to me if we ever met in person? My ancestors were taken to Africa to work as indentured labourers on the railways. The idea is ridiculous, you had no part in their fate as much as I've had no part in their misfortune.
You're all reading too much in to the Telegraph bullshit.
Every time we have a change of PM/government the Downing Street pictures get changed, it is down to personal preference, Starmer isn't the first PM to do this.
Just wait and see what's in store once programmable money is a thing.
It will start with people on benefits. Not allowed to buy alcohol and so on. And people will acquiesce to it because they think why should my hard earned tax money be going to bunch of jobless alkies.
But then it will come for the rest of us. Drinking too much? You'll have a choice - go on the 'no buying alcohol plan' or lose the right to NHS treatment. Not a drinker, but a bit of a fatty? Cards blocked from fast food shops and takeaways.
Indeed. Neither the tories or labour have tried to hide their desire for micro-control over our lives. Benefits claimants will be first because, as mentioned, nobody cares about them. The mechanisms were already designed by the tories, DWP gives banks a list of patterns to scan people's accounts for and anything 'suspicious' leads to a court order to access the account statements.
Of course, labour are now going to do away with the court. They'll just be able to look at your account and, if they feel like it, take your money. How long before HMRC also starts using this capability routinely? After the next GE I expect.
(I was going to make a gag about selling your granny's old china tea set collection on ebay and having HMRC coming after you for tax, but ebay already collects sales data for HMRC and only permits sellers to withdraw funds to a small selection of UK banks so their account balances can be monitored)
Absolutely purchase information will be used to deny NHS treatment in future, the powers that be won't be able to help themselves. There will be plenty of other intrusions. When road tax is replaced by a per-mile charge that will be used for behaviour modification, too, with the tax scaling to punish too much driving. 1p/mile if you do less than 5000 miles/year, 2.5p if you do 10,000, 5p above that, for example.
Yep, that is very much the future I can see happening. A great deal less privacy and control over our own lives, all of it done "for our own good" via an ever encroaching state with a great deal more surveillance, power and data at its fingertips. Assuming we're going to net zero, taxing people at the pumps is a very crude instrument compared to, say, cutting them off from buying petrol once they reach a certain allowance. Ditto taxing junk food and alcohol consumption vs simply cutting people off.
And for anyone thinking this is a far-fetched dystopia, remember it was only a few years ago everyone had to download an NHS tracking app on their phones to access most public spaces, and were kept under isolation for arbitrary 'pings' for passing the wrong people in the street.
So no, I will not be wearing my state-sponsored NHS smartwatch when it is issued...
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
It would keep him on his toes, which is necessary with these slippery legal devils.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
We weren't the first country in Europe to ban the slave trade, nor the first to abolish slavery.
Outside Europe even more so. Japan abolished slavery in 1590, and Mexico beat us in the new world by abolishing slavery in 1829 (a major reason for the Mexican war with seccessionist Texas).
Slavery had been largely abolished in Western Europe by 1200. Resuming slaving in later centuries was justified by virtue of Africans being pagans. For many abolitionists, it was conversion to Christianity that made the practice unacceptable. Which is why for a long time, slave owners did not want their slaves to be introduced to Christianity.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
You're all reading too much in to the Telegraph bullshit.
Every time we have a change of PM/government the Downing Street pictures get changed, it is down to personal preference, Starmer isn't the first PM to do this.
IIRC Thatcher took down a portrait of Attlee.
If I were PM and won a GE I'd put up a portrait of my predecessor. I could say I was honouring them whilst really having it there to constantly remind of my own awesome victory over them.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
It was because she is one, trying to apologise for herself.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
Warlocks she had a bit more of an issue with.
I used to love the fact that we had an Archbishop Warlock. Along with Cardinal Sin of the Phillippines.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
It was because she is one, trying to apologise for herself.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
I just...do? Without doing so, I don't think I can celebrate some of the good and great things Scotland and the UK have achieved over the past (including the abolishment for slavery itself). I was personally responsible for neither the good nor the bad.
And this is why Asians see liberal western white people as both stupid and naïve. You had no part in slavery yet you feel sorry for it? Would you apologise to me if we ever met in person? My ancestors were taken to Africa to work as indentured labourers on the railways. The idea is ridiculous, you had no part in their fate as much as I've had no part in their misfortune.
Exactly and the halfwit if he has Scottish ancestry has almost certainly been a victim in the past. It is pathetic liberal snowflake tossers who do all this handwringing.
You're all reading too much in to the Telegraph bullshit.
Every time we have a change of PM/government the Downing Street pictures get changed, it is down to personal preference, Starmer isn't the first PM to do this.
IIRC Thatcher took down a portrait of Attlee.
If I were PM and won a GE I'd put up a portrait of my predecessor. I could say I was honouring them whilst really having it there to constantly remind of my own awesome victory over them.
I'd treat my predecessor the way Shapur I treated Emperor Valerian.
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Hitler up, along with swastikas as 'art', which is seen by all visitors?
Is that in any way, shape or form like what has happened? No.
I was just seeing what your breaking point of "Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?" lies.
Well you did it wrong then because going straight in with Hitler is going to get a No from everyone. You need to start with something less extreme and then slide it until you hit that break point.
So, like this for your opening salvo ...
"I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Prince up, along with his Purple Rain lyrics as 'art', to be seen by all visitors?"
And see where that leads.
No, because some people like Prince. I went with Hitler because it's obvious that the answer that people *would* care.
I mean, if I wanted to piss you off, I ought to have suggested that he nail cash to the wall...
You are mixing me up with anabobazina. I tend to keep a tenner in the sock drawer.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
How many museums of and monuments to the victims of the slave trade are there, just to compliment us celebrating ‘our abolition of the slave trade’?
As an inhabitant of Edinburgh I imagine you’re aware of the stushie in St Andrew Square re attempts to put up a plaque referencing Lord Dundas’s less than glorious part in the end of slavery. It keeps getting knocked back & removed by his descendants who hate nasty things being said about their ancestor, not exactly lacking in entitled whitewashing.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
I just...do? Without doing so, I don't think I can celebrate some of the good and great things Scotland and the UK have achieved over the past (including the abolishment for slavery itself). I was personally responsible for neither the good nor the bad.
And this is why Asians see liberal western white people as both stupid and naïve. You had no part in slavery yet you feel sorry for it? Would you apologise to me if we ever met in person? My ancestors were taken to Africa to work as indentured labourers on the railways. The idea is ridiculous, you had no part in their fate as much as I've had no part in their misfortune.
Exactly and the halfwit if he has Scottish ancestry has almost certainly been a victim in the past. It is pathetic liberal snowflake tossers who do all this handwringing.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
What utter and total bollocks, polish your sandals and put another lentil burger on the BBQ. It should be stopped immediately and the halfwits gibbering about it told to F*** right off
Hey Malc, hope you’re well.
Well said. I get apologising for stuff like Bloody Sunday and the Post Office scandal that happened in our lifetime. But slavery. Eff off. These fuckers are only after us for our money. Plenty of Other nations were involved but they don’t go after them as they’ve not got the cash. It’s all about the money. Grifters.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
Warlocks she had a bit more of an issue with.
I used to love the fact that we had an Archbishop Warlock. Along with Cardinal Sin of the Phillippines.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
What utter and total bollocks, polish your sandals and put another lentil burger on the BBQ. It should be stopped immediately and the halfwits gibbering about it told to F*** right off
Yes, the awkward truth is much of Scotland was built on the back of slavery.
More of Scotland was in slavery , plenty sent to pick cotton etc and plenty replaced by sheep etc. You not get that in your history lessons. Only a few nabbery made teh cash. Also who sold the slaves to the English , their own people, why do they not ask them to pay the reparation.
As a matter of interest, is there a movement to pay reparations to the miners enslaved until, 1799?? in Scotland?
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
Just wait and see what's in store once programmable money is a thing.
It will start with people on benefits. Not allowed to buy alcohol and so on. And people will acquiesce to it because they think why should my hard earned tax money be going to bunch of jobless alkies.
But then it will come for the rest of us. Drinking too much? You'll have a choice - go on the 'no buying alcohol plan' or lose the right to NHS treatment. Not a drinker, but a bit of a fatty? Cards blocked from fast food shops and takeaways.
Indeed. Neither the tories or labour have tried to hide their desire for micro-control over our lives. Benefits claimants will be first because, as mentioned, nobody cares about them. The mechanisms were already designed by the tories, DWP gives banks a list of patterns to scan people's accounts for and anything 'suspicious' leads to a court order to access the account statements.
Of course, labour are now going to do away with the court. They'll just be able to look at your account and, if they feel like it, take your money. How long before HMRC also starts using this capability routinely? After the next GE I expect.
(I was going to make a gag about selling your granny's old china tea set collection on ebay and having HMRC coming after you for tax, but ebay already collects sales data for HMRC and only permits sellers to withdraw funds to a small selection of UK banks so their account balances can be monitored)
Absolutely purchase information will be used to deny NHS treatment in future, the powers that be won't be able to help themselves. There will be plenty of other intrusions. When road tax is replaced by a per-mile charge that will be used for behaviour modification, too, with the tax scaling to punish too much driving. 1p/mile if you do less than 5000 miles/year, 2.5p if you do 10,000, 5p above that, for example.
Yep, that is very much the future I can see happening. A great deal less privacy and control over our own lives, all of it done "for our own good" via an ever encroaching state with a great deal more surveillance, power and data at its fingertips. Assuming we're going to net zero, taxing people at the pumps is a very crude instrument compared to, say, cutting them off from buying petrol once they reach a certain allowance. Ditto taxing junk food and alcohol consumption vs simply cutting people off.
And for anyone thinking this is a far-fetched dystopia, remember it was only a few years ago everyone had to download an NHS tracking app on their phones to access most public spaces, and were kept under isolation for arbitrary 'pings' for passing the wrong people in the street.
So no, I will not be wearing my state-sponsored NHS smartwatch when it is issued...
‘If you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear’ is the usual platitude trotted out.
I think the Tories are making themselves look a bit silly over this Shakespeare picture. Is their contention that this particular artefact must remain in place for ever, or is it just that Sir Keir isn't allowed to move it (at least not until he's proved himself)?
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
We can be sorry slavery happened and this country played a big role in it (notwithstanding a great many others did too) without thinking reparations or long delayed 'apologies' are appropriate responses two centuries later.
You apologise for poor actions with good actions, and not slipping back into the same behaviour later. It won't necessarily balance any scales, but you cannot really make such things right. Mere words saying we're sorry for our ancestors (presumed ancestors, I have no idea if any of my ancestors were in the UK at that time, probably a few were though at least one set we think might have come over in the early 20th century) is meaningless, and reparations just an idea with a lot of flaws when you start getting into the details.
To me both look like distractions from actually addressing any lingering negative societal effects, in a similar way as how co-opted american narratives on racial issues distracts from the particulars of any racial issues still present in the UK.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
Warlocks she had a bit more of an issue with.
I used to love the fact that we had an Archbishop Warlock. Along with Cardinal Sin of the Phillippines.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
It was because she is one, trying to apologise for herself.
I gather time is not making you reflect on her period in office more generously then?
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
Portia is pretty awesome in The Merchant of Venice, getting Antonio off the hook on a technicality.
Just wait and see what's in store once programmable money is a thing.
It will start with people on benefits. Not allowed to buy alcohol and so on. And people will acquiesce to it because they think why should my hard earned tax money be going to bunch of jobless alkies.
But then it will come for the rest of us. Drinking too much? You'll have a choice - go on the 'no buying alcohol plan' or lose the right to NHS treatment. Not a drinker, but a bit of a fatty? Cards blocked from fast food shops and takeaways.
Indeed. Neither the tories or labour have tried to hide their desire for micro-control over our lives. Benefits claimants will be first because, as mentioned, nobody cares about them. The mechanisms were already designed by the tories, DWP gives banks a list of patterns to scan people's accounts for and anything 'suspicious' leads to a court order to access the account statements.
Of course, labour are now going to do away with the court. They'll just be able to look at your account and, if they feel like it, take your money. How long before HMRC also starts using this capability routinely? After the next GE I expect.
(I was going to make a gag about selling your granny's old china tea set collection on ebay and having HMRC coming after you for tax, but ebay already collects sales data for HMRC and only permits sellers to withdraw funds to a small selection of UK banks so their account balances can be monitored)
Absolutely purchase information will be used to deny NHS treatment in future, the powers that be won't be able to help themselves. There will be plenty of other intrusions. When road tax is replaced by a per-mile charge that will be used for behaviour modification, too, with the tax scaling to punish too much driving. 1p/mile if you do less than 5000 miles/year, 2.5p if you do 10,000, 5p above that, for example.
Yep, that is very much the future I can see happening. A great deal less privacy and control over our own lives, all of it done "for our own good" via an ever encroaching state with a great deal more surveillance, power and data at its fingertips. Assuming we're going to net zero, taxing people at the pumps is a very crude instrument compared to, say, cutting them off from buying petrol once they reach a certain allowance. Ditto taxing junk food and alcohol consumption vs simply cutting people off.
And for anyone thinking this is a far-fetched dystopia, remember it was only a few years ago everyone had to download an NHS tracking app on their phones to access most public spaces, and were kept under isolation for arbitrary 'pings' for passing the wrong people in the street.
So no, I will not be wearing my state-sponsored NHS smartwatch when it is issued...
‘If you’ve nothing to hide you’ve nothing to fear’ is the usual platitude trotted out.
Apologies are not pointless. When the Japanese Emperor apologised to the UK over WW2 people seemed to appreciate it. However it's a matter of timing. Once you've gone several generations beyond anyone who was alive at the time it's not relevant. When I read history I do get a slightly irrational when Britain seems to come out of something well and a little uncomfortable when we're shown in a less good light. Apologising for it is just silly.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
It was because she is one, trying to apologise for herself.
That’s disgusting.
All the witches I’ve met are, if somewhat eccentric, rather happy characters. Who wouldn’t dream of trying to run other people’s lives in an annoyingly bossy kind of way, while exuding infinite self righteousness.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
It was because she is one, trying to apologise for herself.
That’s disgusting.
All the witches I’ve met are, if somewhat eccentric, rather happy characters. Who wouldn’t dream of trying to run other people’s lives in an annoyingly bossy kind of way, while exuding infinite self righteousness.
Stone vessels, bowls and plates, in a kitchen very recently unearthed at Karahan Tepe. Remember, this is 11,000 years ago and these people are meant to be “cavemen”
I think the Tories are making themselves look a bit silly over this Shakespeare picture. Is their contention that this particular artefact must remain in place for ever, or is it just that Sir Keir isn't allowed to move it (at least not until he's proved himself)?
In the minds of PB Tories the fundamental sin of Starmer is occupying Number 10 in the first place. His mere presence soils that shrine to Churchill, Thatcher and Truss.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
Though Twelfth Night was quite possibly first performed to law students at the Inner Temple. It contains quite a few lawyerly in-jokes.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
But there was no movement anywhere in the world promoting "reparations for witches" was there. The situations are completely different. The UK didn't benefit from burning witches but it definitely benefited from slavery despite being the first nation to abolish it.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
I just...do? Without doing so, I don't think I can celebrate some of the good and great things Scotland and the UK have achieved over the past (including the abolishment for slavery itself). I was personally responsible for neither the good nor the bad.
And this is why Asians see liberal western white people as both stupid and naïve. You had no part in slavery yet you feel sorry for it? Would you apologise to me if we ever met in person? My ancestors were taken to Africa to work as indentured labourers on the railways. The idea is ridiculous, you had no part in their fate as much as I've had no part in their misfortune.
Exactly and the halfwit if he has Scottish ancestry has almost certainly been a victim in the past. It is pathetic liberal snowflake tossers who do all this handwringing.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
True. But Portia assumes the role of lawyer, and uses the most lawyerly terminological exactness to ensure justice.
I think the Tories are making themselves look a bit silly over this Shakespeare picture. Is their contention that this particular artefact must remain in place for ever, or is it just that Sir Keir isn't allowed to move it (at least not until he's proved himself)?
In the minds of PB Tories the fundamental sin of Starmer is occupying Number 10 in the first place. His mere presence soils that shrine to Churchill, Thatcher and Truss.
You're all reading too much in to the Telegraph bullshit.
Every time we have a change of PM/government the Downing Street pictures get changed, it is down to personal preference, Starmer isn't the first PM to do this.
IIRC Thatcher took down a portrait of Attlee.
One portrait might be regarded as a misfortune, two looks like carelessness, three or four?
Looks like the man has a real problem with our history.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
Portia is pretty awesome in The Merchant of Venice, getting Antonio off the hook on a technicality.
I was hoping for plays entitled
'The awesomeness of lawyers and why humanity cannot live without them' Parts I to V.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
Aren't some things self evident?
My favourite lawyer is John Cook, lead prosecutor of Charles I. Talk about a high profile case to take on.
Sounded a bit like a Remainiac/Brexiteer fanatic in some respects though.
We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not more delighted in servitude than in freedom
It's a bit of an extrapolated hagiography, but I do recommend The Tyrannicide Brief by Geoffrey Robertson.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
How many museums of and monuments to the victims of the slave trade are there, just to compliment us celebrating ‘our abolition of the slave trade’?
As an inhabitant of Edinburgh I imagine you’re aware of the stushie in St Andrew Square re attempts to put up a plaque referencing Lord Dundas’s less than glorious part in the end of slavery. It keeps getting knocked back & removed by his descendants who hate nasty things being said about their ancestor, not exactly lacking in entitled whitewashing.
Hang on. I though tearing down/removing historic statues that offend people in the present day is AOK?
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
I naturally raise my eyebrow whenever I see someone in authority do this.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
How many museums of and monuments to the victims of the slave trade are there, just to compliment us celebrating ‘our abolition of the slave trade’?
As an inhabitant of Edinburgh I imagine you’re aware of the stushie in St Andrew Square re attempts to put up a plaque referencing Lord Dundas’s less than glorious part in the end of slavery. It keeps getting knocked back & removed by his descendants who hate nasty things being said about their ancestor, not exactly lacking in entitled whitewashing.
Hang on. I though tearing down/removing historic statues that offend people in the present day is AOK?
Bristol. The city of cool. Broadmead is heaven and I love the suspension bridge!
Stone vessels, bowls and plates, in a kitchen very recently unearthed at Karahan Tepe. Remember, this is 11,000 years ago and these people are meant to be “cavemen”
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
Sturgeon's apology to witches was widely seen as ridiculous at the time.
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
I naturally raise my eyebrow whenever I see someone in authority do this.
“The more he mentioned his honour, the faster we counted the spoons*”
*A schoolmate claimed that his family had some teaspoons, pinched from the Whitehouse, during 1812…
You're all reading too much in to the Telegraph bullshit.
Every time we have a change of PM/government the Downing Street pictures get changed, it is down to personal preference, Starmer isn't the first PM to do this.
IIRC Thatcher took down a portrait of Attlee.
One portrait might be regarded as a misfortune, two looks like carelessness, three or four?
Looks like the man has a real problem with our history.
After thirteen years of a Labour government Dave removed more, this is just that.
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
Portia is pretty awesome in The Merchant of Venice, getting Antonio off the hook on a technicality.
I was hoping for plays entitled
'The awesomeness of lawyers and why humanity cannot live without them' Parts I to V.
Glad to see that Labour are shutting down the whole slavery apology business. It will irk a lot of their support base but fundamentally we shouldn't be sorry for it, no one who is alive today perpetrated slavery and I think apologising for it opens the door to reparations which is obviously a non-starter. If that means more Caribbean countries leave the commonwealth then so be it, let them throw their lot in with China and suffer the fate of Sri Lanka.
Apologising for slavery is quite good for the UK because it highlights just how much better we were at abolishing it. If Labour put up a statue of Wilberforce on the 4th plinth at the same time it would be quite the PR coup. Or even a HMS Wilberforce given the role the RN played .
Could even link it to other historical "wins" like Magna Carta to really wind up people on facebook.
No it isn't because the logical course is "well you say you're sorry but words are empty" to which the government will either have to say "words aren't empty" and struggle to justify not having a reparations programme for the Caribbean and some African countries or they'll have to go into a reparations programme willingly.
We have nothing to apologise for, all great nations and empires were built on the back of slavery of some kind. Subjugation of the "lesser" still occurs today, where is the outcry about indentured servitude and slavery across the middle east of South Asians and black Africans?
Fundamentally we don't open the door to these conversations and for once Labour seem to have a bit of a backbone on it. Next stop let's cut the aid budget to 0.2% of GDP and reserve it for disaster relief, it's time for us to look after our own.
One of the strengths of the UK is that we can look back at the past and reflect that some of the things we did as a nation was pretty awful. It helps us avoid the sense of entitlement that pervades Putin's Russia, for example, while allowing us to celebrate our abolition of slave the trade. You can't pick and choose.
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
How many museums of and monuments to the victims of the slave trade are there, just to compliment us celebrating ‘our abolition of the slave trade’?
As an inhabitant of Edinburgh I imagine you’re aware of the stushie in St Andrew Square re attempts to put up a plaque referencing Lord Dundas’s less than glorious part in the end of slavery. It keeps getting knocked back & removed by his descendants who hate nasty things being said about their ancestor, not exactly lacking in entitled whitewashing.
Hang on. I though tearing down/removing historic statues that offend people in the present day is AOK?
Bristol. The city of cool. Broadmead is heaven and I love the suspension bridge!
As reparations for slavery, I’ve suggested that the captives of the Libyan Coastguard be bought (brought?) to this country, via Bristol, to fill the gaps in agricultural labour.
I think the Tories are making themselves look a bit silly over this Shakespeare picture. Is their contention that this particular artefact must remain in place for ever, or is it just that Sir Keir isn't allowed to move it (at least not until he's proved himself)?
StarkBASIC:
10 PRINT "HAVE THE TORIES SAID OR DONE SOMETHING?" 20 IF TORIES$ = "YES" THEN GOTO 50 30 PRINT "TORIES REMAIN SILENT, MUST BE A NEW STRATEGY." 40 GOTO 100 50 PRINT "I THINK THE TORIES ARE MAKING THEMSELVES LOOK A BIT SILLY AGAIN." 60 PRINT "IS THEIR POSITION REALLY THAT THIS SHAKESPEARE PICTURE MUST STAY FOREVER?" 70 PRINT "OR IS IT JUST THAT SIR KEIR CAN'T TOUCH IT UNTIL HE EARNS HIS PLACE?" 80 PRINT "CLASSIC TORIES – ALWAYS KNOWING BEST, EVEN ABOUT ART!" 100 END
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
But wasn't that the Bard showing how essential lawyers are? He put the phrase in the mouth of an insurrectionist.
He was but he never wrote a play on the awesomeness of lawyers.
Portia is pretty awesome in The Merchant of Venice, getting Antonio off the hook on a technicality.
I was hoping for plays entitled
'The awesomeness of lawyers and why humanity cannot live with them' Parts I to V.
Stone vessels, bowls and plates, in a kitchen very recently unearthed at Karahan Tepe. Remember, this is 11,000 years ago and these people are meant to be “cavemen”
My, they even had Tupperware.
It's the mundane things that truly amaze. I remember viewing a viking sock in York and it blew my mind - their boots and the like we have loads of, but socks?
It's why people love the Vindolanda tablets too of course
Stone vessels, bowls and plates, in a kitchen very recently unearthed at Karahan Tepe. Remember, this is 11,000 years ago and these people are meant to be “cavemen”
I don't really mind Thatcher but Shakespeare seems odd. Shouldn't he be the kind of figure a PM would find inspirational? Is Sir Keir intimidated by greatness?
It's not greatness, it's fashionable among the North London Labour types to feel embarrassed by Britain and it's history, both Maggie and Bill are part of that history. It's why I'm so surprised that they've stood firm on the slavery apology, though I guess that's driven by realpolitik of the UK not being in any kind of position to open the door to reparations, even of the token variety.
It's money that's driving it, not values.
If the UK was doing well they'd be writing an open cheque.
Stone vessels, bowls and plates, in a kitchen very recently unearthed at Karahan Tepe. Remember, this is 11,000 years ago and these people are meant to be “cavemen”
My, they even had Tupperware.
Ah, explains what happened to them
Robert Kennedy : By the way, China invaded India today. Kenny O'Donnell : You're kidding, aren't you? Robert Kennedy : Yeah, I wish I were. Galbraith is handling it in New Delhi. Makes you wonder what's coming next. Kenny O'Donnell : Geez. What is it about the free world that pisses the rest of the world off? Robert Kennedy : I don't know. We have Tupperware parties?
Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?
I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Hitler up, along with swastikas as 'art', which is seen by all visitors?
Is that in any way, shape or form like what has happened? No.
I was just seeing what your breaking point of "Why do you care about the decor of a building you’ve never been in and aren’t allowed in?" lies.
Well you did it wrong then because going straight in with Hitler is going to get a No from everyone. You need to start with something less extreme and then slide it until you hit that break point.
So, like this for your opening salvo ...
"I guess you would not complain if a PM put portraits of Prince up, along with his Purple Rain lyrics as 'art', to be seen by all visitors?"
And see where that leads.
Starmer clearly has hangups about 'the pictures of the jockeys that were there before me'.
Doesn't Downing St have pictures of all previous PMs (including Thatcher) on the staircase?
Starmer is haunted by them daily, constantly wondering if he has enough class.
We've learned Starmer has imposter syndrome, doesn't like any challenge and is rather insecure. He's quite ambitious but, now he's got there, wants to feather his nest to make himself feel as comfortable as possible.
That means removing anyone that he feels threatens him, either present or historic, and ensuring he makes the most he can of the fruits of office and cares not a jot for the feelings of others or the country.
You're all reading too much in to the Telegraph bullshit.
Every time we have a change of PM/government the Downing Street pictures get changed, it is down to personal preference, Starmer isn't the first PM to do this.
IIRC Thatcher took down a portrait of Attlee.
One portrait might be regarded as a misfortune, two looks like carelessness, three or four?
Looks like the man has a real problem with our history.
After thirteen years of a Labour government Dave removed more, this is just that.
Shakespeare is a weird one to get rid of though, he's consistently ranked as one of the truly great Britons alongside Newton, Churchill etc... and he hasn't exactly got anything political about him. Starmer just seems to be intimidated by greatness, whether that's Churchill, Maggie or now Bill.
It speaks to a personality type that is inherently insecure and unable to stand being questioned or compared negatively with people who achieved stuff other than letting Mohammed Al Fayed off the hook. It also aligns very closely with what Rosie Duffield said about his personality and being unable to stand anyone who disagreed with him. Here are three Britons who will be held in the pantheon of greatness and that clearly makes him feel small so removing them and replacing them with nonsense modern art does show lack of character.
Comments
Of course, labour are now going to do away with the court. They'll just be able to look at your account and, if they feel like it, take your money. How long before HMRC also starts using this capability routinely? After the next GE I expect.
(I was going to make a gag about selling your granny's old china tea set collection on ebay and having HMRC coming after you for tax, but ebay already collects sales data for HMRC and only permits sellers to withdraw funds to a small selection of UK banks so their account balances can be monitored)
Absolutely purchase information will be used to deny NHS treatment in future, the powers that be won't be able to help themselves. There will be plenty of other intrusions. When road tax is replaced by a per-mile charge that will be used for behaviour modification, too, with the tax scaling to punish too much driving. 1p/mile if you do less than 5000 miles/year, 2.5p if you do 10,000, 5p above that, for example.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjrdxewx70zo
https://x.com/SethAbramson/status/1847705710206857270
Indeed, that same reflection is why we can look at the what is happening to people in Africa and South Asia now and say - "hey, that's shitty behaviour!" without looking like a bunch of hypocrites.
This link you keep making to reperations is baseless. Sturgeon issues an apology to witches a few years ago, and it brought out attention to some of the awful things that happen to women now and in the past, for zero cost.
I mean, if I wanted to piss you off, I ought to have suggested that he nail cash to the wall...
The outcome will, indeed, come down to putting
1) differential turnout
2) candidate flaws
3) election counting interference (MAGA in the system)
In a blender and seeing what the smoothie looks like.
At this point, Fuck Knows.
We shouldn't feel sorry for slavery, it happened in an era where no one today was alive and it was a fact of life, subjugation of the "lesser" was how the world worked and to not do it would have been an aberration, that the UK had the first real abolitionist movement across the then civilised world is something the nation can be proud of but to apologise for what was then seen as normal? It would be an act of great harm to the nation.
But my 'house' is not deeply connected to the country (aside from a couple of feet for the footings...), and neither do I have many visitors daily, including frequent foreign dignitaries.
Comparing someone's house to No. 10 is a bit silly. No. 10 is not just a home; it is a workplace, a historic building, and a totem of Britain.
Nay, 'tis but a fool's errand. Thou art fit for naught but bites o' sound in the Commons, for to purge my likeness is to wrestle the wind itself. Forsooth, I see thine ambition, but wherefore? Wouldst thou pluck the very stars from heaven to cast thy shadow taller?
I’d like to think SKS is a fan but suspect he may have been told what was suitable.
DC vs the nation presumably - quite amusing.
Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2.
Would you want to see a portrait of somebody who wanted to kill you?
She’s been accused of sexualising children in her work
Personally I think she’s a world class painter, I’ve no problems with Starmer putting up her stuff. Actually shows some taste. However it does feel like someone in Number 10 is deftly leaking all this to damage him
Outside Europe even more so. Japan abolished slavery in 1590, and Mexico beat us in the new world by abolishing slavery in 1829 (a major reason for the Mexican war with seccessionist Texas).
It's more a way of people saying "look how good I am. I'd never do that."
Every time we have a change of PM/government the Downing Street pictures get changed, it is down to personal preference, Starmer isn't the first PM to do this.
IIRC Thatcher took down a portrait of Attlee.
And for anyone thinking this is a far-fetched dystopia, remember it was only a few years ago everyone had to download an NHS tracking app on their phones to access most public spaces, and were kept under isolation for arbitrary 'pings' for passing the wrong people in the street.
So no, I will not be wearing my state-sponsored NHS smartwatch when it is issued...
No offence.
As an inhabitant of Edinburgh I imagine you’re aware of the stushie in St Andrew Square re attempts to put up a plaque referencing Lord Dundas’s less than glorious part in the end of slavery. It keeps getting knocked back & removed by his descendants who hate nasty things being said about their ancestor, not exactly lacking in entitled whitewashing.
Well said. I get apologising for stuff like Bloody Sunday and the Post Office scandal that happened in our lifetime. But slavery. Eff off. These fuckers are only after us for our money. Plenty of Other nations were involved but they don’t go after them as they’ve not got the cash. It’s all about the money. Grifters.
You apologise for poor actions with good actions, and not slipping back into the same behaviour later. It won't necessarily balance any scales, but you cannot really make such things right. Mere words saying we're sorry for our ancestors (presumed ancestors, I have no idea if any of my ancestors were in the UK at that time, probably a few were though at least one set we think might have come over in the early 20th century) is meaningless, and reparations just an idea with a lot of flaws when you start getting into the details.
To me both look like distractions from actually addressing any lingering negative societal effects, in a similar way as how co-opted american narratives on racial issues distracts from the particulars of any racial issues still present in the UK.
All the witches I’ve met are, if somewhat eccentric, rather happy characters. Who wouldn’t dream of trying to run other people’s lives in an annoyingly bossy kind of way, while exuding infinite self righteousness.
Stone vessels, bowls and plates, in a kitchen very recently unearthed at Karahan Tepe. Remember, this is 11,000 years ago and these people are meant to be “cavemen”
Looks like the man has a real problem with our history.
'The awesomeness of lawyers and why humanity cannot live without them' Parts I to V.
My favourite lawyer is John Cook, lead prosecutor of Charles I. Talk about a high profile case to take on.
Sounded a bit like a Remainiac/Brexiteer fanatic in some respects though.
We fought for the public good and would have enfranchised the people and secured the welfare of the whole groaning creation, if the nation had not more delighted in servitude than in freedom
It's a bit of an extrapolated hagiography, but I do recommend The Tyrannicide Brief by Geoffrey Robertson.
*A schoolmate claimed that his family had some teaspoons, pinched from the Whitehouse, during 1812…
I think I should get a statue for this idea….
10 PRINT "HAVE THE TORIES SAID OR DONE SOMETHING?"
20 IF TORIES$ = "YES" THEN GOTO 50
30 PRINT "TORIES REMAIN SILENT, MUST BE A NEW STRATEGY."
40 GOTO 100
50 PRINT "I THINK THE TORIES ARE MAKING THEMSELVES LOOK A BIT SILLY AGAIN."
60 PRINT "IS THEIR POSITION REALLY THAT THIS SHAKESPEARE PICTURE MUST STAY FOREVER?"
70 PRINT "OR IS IT JUST THAT SIR KEIR CAN'T TOUCH IT UNTIL HE EARNS HIS PLACE?"
80 PRINT "CLASSIC TORIES – ALWAYS KNOWING BEST, EVEN ABOUT ART!"
100 END
It's why people love the Vindolanda tablets too of course
If the UK was doing well they'd be writing an open cheque.
Robert Kennedy : By the way, China invaded India today.
Kenny O'Donnell : You're kidding, aren't you?
Robert Kennedy : Yeah, I wish I were. Galbraith is handling it in New Delhi. Makes you wonder what's coming next.
Kenny O'Donnell : Geez. What is it about the free world that pisses the rest of the world off?
Robert Kennedy : I don't know. We have Tupperware parties?
That means removing anyone that he feels threatens him, either present or historic, and ensuring he makes the most he can of the fruits of office and cares not a jot for the feelings of others or the country.
Says an awful lot about the man.
It speaks to a personality type that is inherently insecure and unable to stand being questioned or compared negatively with people who achieved stuff other than letting Mohammed Al Fayed off the hook. It also aligns very closely with what Rosie Duffield said about his personality and being unable to stand anyone who disagreed with him. Here are three Britons who will be held in the pantheon of greatness and that clearly makes him feel small so removing them and replacing them with nonsense modern art does show lack of character.