Sir Useless would be patrolling the French beaches himself with a nail on a stick if he had any pride and sense of honour.
'Smash the gangs'.
Also, remember that every extra 10-20% in boat arrivals adds one BILLION to our annual bill for housing these people in the Dorchester with their private manicurists
It is fucking ridiculous. If one thing will ever make the torpid British stand up and revolt, it will be this. We are spending five tines the savings from the WFA cut to make sure illegal migrants who hate us are nicely housed in hotels
We are letting our own pensioners die from cold so that illegally arrived Syrian jihadis plotting to kill us can live in workless luxury, in Britain
That is literally the case. Reform are gonna win by eight trillion votes in '28
They certainly won in St Helens last night but not maybe by trillions
Tories won the Stock county council by election yesterday in rural Essex though. Reform were second and Labour collapsed to fifth behind the LDs and an Independent https://x.com/BritainElects/status/1867605608838426951
UKIP scored heavily across East Anglia and the Thames Estuary, in 2013 in County Council elections.
I expect Reform will do similarly, but in addition, pick up seats in places like Durham, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Cumbria.
I think Labour will be reduced to a similar score to 2009, and lose seats to everyone. The Tories will gain from Labour, but lose ground to Reform and Lib Dem’s.
Yes Reform likely win ex industrial and seaside towns, the Tories win market towns and villages and rural shires, the LDs win cathedral cities and posh commuter towns.
With London and most big cities not having local elections next year Labour could be near wiped out in the county council elections
There's very little for Labour to lose in this year of the cycle.
The starting scores on the doors are Con 1448 Lab 365 LibDem 293. Partly becuase of the lack of elections in London, the mets and most small city unitaries, but also becuase the baseline was May 2021, which was when the Boris Blimp was at maximum inflation.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
Someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was indeed British and considered themselves to be so too.
He didn’t consider himself “French”, the French didn’t consider him”French”, France had no involvement in the invasion - Norman’s, Bretons (another independent duchy) and Flemish lords and soldiers did the invasion.
The only connection to France was fealty to the French crown and a bastardised (pun intended) version of French spoken.
Brexit won't last. It is a zombie. It is already dead It just doesn't know it yet. Labour's efforts to hold on to red lines look totally outdated... the electorate know it. Even the brexit voters don't want brexit anymore 🤷♂️
Also I suspect labour will get it's voters back when labour leadership understands there is zero taste for red lines anymore.... that is old hat
Brexit won't last. It is a zombie. It is already dead It just doesn't know it yet. Labour's efforts to hold on to red lines look totally outdated... the electorate know it. Even the brexit voters don't want brexit anymore 🤷♂️
Brexit won't last. It is a zombie. It is already dead It just doesn't know it yet. Labour's efforts to hold on to red lines look totally outdated... the electorate know it. Even the brexit voters don't want brexit anymore 🤷♂️
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
Someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was indeed British and considered themselves to be so too.
He didn’t consider himself “French”, the French didn’t consider him”French”, France had no involvement in the invasion - Norman’s, Bretons (another independent duchy) and Flemish lords and soldiers did the invasion.
The only connection to France was fealty to the French crown and a bastardised (pun intended) version of French spoken.
You can argue that he wasn't French, but the analogy you used doesn't help you. In fact you should turn it around and say that he was a Norman (i.e. Viking) in the same way that Australians and Canadians were British.
Brexit won't last. It is a zombie. It is already dead It just doesn't know it yet. Labour's efforts to hold on to red lines look totally outdated... the electorate know it. Even the brexit voters don't want brexit anymore 🤷♂️
GBeebies is the Propaganda arm of ReFUK. Marketing yourself is legal..
And besides. Can you imagine the flap if namby-pamby fuddy-duddy Keith Donkey and his team of prudes tried to gag the people's princess from saying his piece?
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
Someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was indeed British and considered themselves to be so too.
He didn’t consider himself “French”, the French didn’t consider him”French”, France had no involvement in the invasion - Norman’s, Bretons (another independent duchy) and Flemish lords and soldiers did the invasion.
The only connection to France was fealty to the French crown and a bastardised (pun intended) version of French spoken.
You can argue that he wasn't French, but the analogy you used doesn't help you. In fact you should turn it around and say that he was a Norman (i.e. Viking) in the same way that Australians and Canadians were British.
Honestly, I really am not that bothered about the accuracy of my analogy, at 6.30 this morning I was on my way to a cab rank after a Christmas drinks party the night before so excuse my inaccuracies but I had to counter the bollocks about William’s invasion being anything to do with the French. You aren’t stupid so clearly you would know the difference between Normandy and France of the time compared to later France as the Hexagon.
So, in a nice way, I really can’t be arsed parsing this argument further. The Norman’s weren’t French and the French weren’t remotely important in the conquest.
Pah. It's not like they're selling anything that anyone would buy.
I don't know. I think there's a growing chance we end up with a Ref / Farage government in 2029.
All the momentum seems to be in that direction at the moment...
People have to actually vote for the clown show though. Will they really do so?
Farage is great in many ways - he made himself an expert on the EU and argued a case that swayed the voters. (I don't think anyone suggests that there was no case). I'm sure he makes the odd point of merit now and again nowdays, but he seems wrong-headed to me.
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Spot on:
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Pah. It's not like they're selling anything that anyone would buy.
I don't know. I think there's a growing chance we end up with a Ref / Farage government in 2029.
All the momentum seems to be in that direction at the moment...
People have to actually vote for the clown show though. Will they really do so?
Well, it depends how bad the alternatives are. Keir and Rachel already look done for, to me.
Kemi is making one stupid mistake after another.
These are worrying times...
Worrying yes, but these people are appointed by us.
The ghastly villains of the current situation are the press. They've stopped bothering employing sensible journalists.
So dial down the rhetoric to a whisper, and then we see what is really going on. It's really poor, but Labour are doing slight less 'really poor' than the Tories - and I say that as an ex Tory member.
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Our covid response happened under EU terms
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
"Under EU terms" is disingenuous. We opted out of the joint procurement plan and that allowed us to cut our own deals that turned out to put us at the front of the queue, contrary to what was predicted at the beginning.
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Spot on:
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Chairman of @marksandspencer Archie Norman @therealarchie tells me on @TimesRadio that Brexit means they've had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to the Republic of Ireland….
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Spot on:
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Chairman of @marksandspencer Archie Norman @therealarchie tells me on @TimesRadio that Brexit means they've had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to the Republic of Ireland….
+/- 1 warehouse then. Jeez! I think @rcs1000 is right.
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Spot on:
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Chairman of @marksandspencer Archie Norman @therealarchie tells me on @TimesRadio that Brexit means they've had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to the Republic of Ireland….
Sounds like the EU need a modern electronic customs regime like ours. They can get to work on it after they finally get the electronic passports records done.
Pah. It's not like they're selling anything that anyone would buy.
I don't know. I think there's a growing chance we end up with a Ref / Farage government in 2029.
All the momentum seems to be in that direction at the moment...
People have to actually vote for the clown show though. Will they really do so?
Well, it depends how bad the alternatives are. Keir and Rachel already look done for, to me.
Kemi is making one stupid mistake after another.
These are worrying times...
Worrying yes, but these people are appointed by us.
The ghastly villains of the current situation are the press. They've stopped bothering employing sensible journalists.
So dial down the rhetoric to a whisper, and then we see what is really going on. It's really poor, but Labour are doing slight less 'really poor' than the Tories - and I say that as an ex Tory member.
Trouble is that, in a free market, we get the press that we're collectively willing to pay for at the newsagents. And that's increasingly hysterical dreck.
Pah. It's not like they're selling anything that anyone would buy.
I don't know. I think there's a growing chance we end up with a Ref / Farage government in 2029.
All the momentum seems to be in that direction at the moment...
People have to actually vote for the clown show though. Will they really do so?
Well, it depends how bad the alternatives are. Keir and Rachel already look done for, to me.
Kemi is making one stupid mistake after another.
These are worrying times...
Worrying yes, but these people are appointed by us.
The ghastly villains of the current situation are the press. They've stopped bothering employing sensible journalists.
So dial down the rhetoric to a whisper, and then we see what is really going on. It's really poor, but Labour are doing slight less 'really poor' than the Tories - and I say that as an ex Tory member.
Trouble is that, in a free market, we get the press that we're collectively willing to pay for at the newsagents. And that's increasingly hysterical dreck.
The advertisers used to pay a decent chunk - especially with local news.
Pah. It's not like they're selling anything that anyone would buy.
I don't know. I think there's a growing chance we end up with a Ref / Farage government in 2029.
All the momentum seems to be in that direction at the moment...
People have to actually vote for the clown show though. Will they really do so?
Well, it depends how bad the alternatives are. Keir and Rachel already look done for, to me.
Kemi is making one stupid mistake after another.
These are worrying times...
Worrying yes, but these people are appointed by us.
The ghastly villains of the current situation are the press. They've stopped bothering employing sensible journalists.
So dial down the rhetoric to a whisper, and then we see what is really going on. It's really poor, but Labour are doing slight less 'really poor' than the Tories - and I say that as an ex Tory member.
Trouble is that, in a free market, we get the press that we're collectively willing to pay for at the newsagents. And that's increasingly hysterical dreck.
Perhaps the BBC should publish a daily newspaper as a public service?
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Our covid response happened under EU terms
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
"Under EU terms" is disingenuous. We opted out of the joint procurement plan and that allowed us to cut our own deals that turned out to put us at the front of the queue, contrary to what was predicted at the beginning.
Stretching the dose interval worked as well, and there were a lot of eminent people in the EU saying we were wrong to do that. My back of an envelope guestimate, just from looking at case rates across European countries as vaccination rolled out, was that that alone might have saved as many as 50,000 lives in the UK by getting more vunerable people some protection sooner than they would have got it otherwise.
I'm not remotely convinced that a UK voting to Remain would have been willing to take the same approach of going it alone on vaccination, even if theoretically we could have done so. Thank God that we did.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Pah. It's not like they're selling anything that anyone would buy.
I don't know. I think there's a growing chance we end up with a Ref / Farage government in 2029.
All the momentum seems to be in that direction at the moment...
People have to actually vote for the clown show though. Will they really do so?
Well, it depends how bad the alternatives are. Keir and Rachel already look done for, to me.
Kemi is making one stupid mistake after another.
These are worrying times...
Worrying yes, but these people are appointed by us.
The ghastly villains of the current situation are the press. They've stopped bothering employing sensible journalists.
So dial down the rhetoric to a whisper, and then we see what is really going on. It's really poor, but Labour are doing slight less 'really poor' than the Tories - and I say that as an ex Tory member.
Trouble is that, in a free market, we get the press that we're collectively willing to pay for at the newsagents. And that's increasingly hysterical dreck.
Sure. Since time immemorial most newspaper articles have been poorly written. Take the FT for example - I think that they are the most guilty. Just steamrollering out some vague 'we saw this, and said we saw it, and that's that' view. The popular press similar in many ways.
Good newspaper coverage is different - actual real breaking news (reportage), insightful news reporting (James Cameron?), and then good editorial overviews (I can't really recommend anyone here, but one day)
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Yes, already accepted I used a poor analogy but I’ve had a couple of hours sleep so even more slapdash than usual.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Don't tell the Irish that the right to join the British army makes them British...
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Yes, already accepted I used a poor analogy but I’ve had a couple of hours sleep so even more slapdash than usual.
Of course, Brittany was a separate duchy still ...
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Don't tell the Irish that the right to join the British army makes them British...
The Gurkhas seem to have discovered that things have changed since 1900, vide Ms Lumley's campaign.
Edit: not my view one way or another re today, but what prevailed in 1900 ...
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Spot on:
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Chairman of @marksandspencer Archie Norman @therealarchie tells me on @TimesRadio that Brexit means they've had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to the Republic of Ireland….
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Spot on:
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Chairman of @marksandspencer Archie Norman @therealarchie tells me on @TimesRadio that Brexit means they've had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to the Republic of Ireland….
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Our covid response happened under EU terms
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
"Under EU terms" is disingenuous. We opted out of the joint procurement plan and that allowed us to cut our own deals that turned out to put us at the front of the queue, contrary to what was predicted at the beginning.
Stretching the dose interval worked as well, and there were a lot of eminent people in the EU saying we were wrong to do that. My back of an envelope guestimate, just from looking at case rates across European countries as vaccination rolled out, was that that alone might have saved as many as 50,000 lives in the UK by getting more vunerable people some protection sooner than they would have got it otherwise.
I'm not remotely convinced that a UK voting to Remain would have been willing to take the same approach of going it alone on vaccination, even if theoretically we could have done so. Thank God that we did.
We were better with (the ordering of) vaccines than the EU.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Doesn't it depend on the place? In 1900, South African was a series of colonies, such as the Cape Colony and Natal.
By contrast, Canada was a Dominion (and New Zealand and Australia were on that path too). Canada became de facto an independent country sharing a head of State with the UK with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867.
We were better with (the ordering of) vaccines than the EU.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
I agree with that we got a lot of people protected quickly, but didn't gain much in terms of going back to normal schooling, opening up venues, and so on. So we saved a lot of lives, but didn't have the confidence to bet on that gained protection as much as we might have. Probably because we had been so badly hit in the first wave and delta wave so nobody was quite willing to say we could take a calculated risk of restoring most normal social behaviour. We still saved a hell of a lot of lives though, and nobody should doubt that.
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Our covid response happened under EU terms
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
"Under EU terms" is disingenuous. We opted out of the joint procurement plan and that allowed us to cut our own deals that turned out to put us at the front of the queue, contrary to what was predicted at the beginning.
Stretching the dose interval worked as well, and there were a lot of eminent people in the EU saying we were wrong to do that. My back of an envelope guestimate, just from looking at case rates across European countries as vaccination rolled out, was that that alone might have saved as many as 50,000 lives in the UK by getting more vunerable people some protection sooner than they would have got it otherwise.
I'm not remotely convinced that a UK voting to Remain would have been willing to take the same approach of going it alone on vaccination, even if theoretically we could have done so. Thank God that we did.
We were better with (the ordering of) vaccines than the EU.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
The totally embattled PM thing didn't work. No real surprise. Boris was seriously ill and then was simply trying to muddy his own waters. Brexit and any happy advantage we got from getting vaccines right were lost in the Boris swamp.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
Our "leader" was a buffoon, and his key advisor was a numpty
We were better with (the ordering of) vaccines than the EU.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
I agree with that we got a lot of people protected quickly, but didn't gain much in terms of going back to normal schooling, opening up venues, and so on. So we saved a lot of lives, but didn't have the confidence to bet on that gained protection as much as we might have. Probably because we had been so badly hit in the first wave and delta wave so nobody was quite willing to say we could take a calculated risk of restoring most normal social behaviour. We still saved a hell of a lot of lives though.
Some EU countries - like Denmark (which I think is the poster child for Covid response worldwide) - did do a good job of restoring most normal social behaviour.
So, while I'd give the Boris government 9/10 for vaccine procurement, I think he'd only get a 4/10 for the rest of Covid response.
The EU was behind on vaccines - albeit only by a month or two in the end - so I'd give them a 6.5/10 for that. As far as normalisation of social behaviour, it differed on a country by country basis, but I think most of them ended up opening up faster than we did.
Mrs P and I have decided were are going away for every Christmas from now on. Madeira this year, but fancy the Highlands or Lake District next, then maybe the Alps, then somewhere warm again... etc.
But for next year, anyone recommend a great hotel in the Lake District or Highlands to hole away for and be pampered for Christmas 2025?
It's a personal opinion only, but I'd recommend Highland Perthshire rather than the far away Highlands (Fort William and points North) you still get the mountains, lochs and Douglas firs but the travel is a lot less arduous.
Gleneagles is obviously the big one if you want chichi luxury, but I think it's a bit impersonal (and obviously eye-wateringly expensive).
On a far more intimate scale is Meikelour Arms (pronounced Mclure) which is a lovely country pub (which there are suprisingly few of in Scotland, sorry Scotland but it's true) with a well regarded french restaurant. I've never stayed so I can't vouch for any rooms or facilities. But it strikes me as a lovely place to hole up at Christmas.
Grandtully Hotel is probably in between the two, very nice tasteful hotel with a really good restaurant, puts you in the middle of a very pretty Highland village (pronounced Grantly) with the Highland Chocolatier next door and another nice pub/restaurant over the road.
No idea what the openings/Christmas packages or anything at these places looks like.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Doesn't it depend on the place? In 1900, South African was a series of colonies, such as the Cape Colony and Natal.
By contrast, Canada was a Dominion (and New Zealand and Australia were on that path too). Canada became de facto an independent country sharing a head of State with the UK with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867.
Read the poetry of the Boer War era.
From the Arctic shores of the Yukon to the depth of the Torrid zone, Wherever we are, however far, we are British! Fibre and bone.
Prince Andrew has said he "ceased all contact" with a businessman accused of being a Chinese spy after receiving advice from the government. In a statement, his office said Prince Andrew had met the man "through official channels" and there was "nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed".
Mrs P and I have decided were are going away for every Christmas from now on. Madeira this year, but fancy the Highlands or Lake District next, then maybe the Alps, then somewhere warm again... etc.
But for next year, anyone recommend a great hotel in the Lake District or Highlands to hole away for and be pampered for Christmas 2025?
It's a personal opinion only, but I'd recommend Highland Perthshire rather than the far away Highlands (Fort William and points North) you still get the mountains, lochs and Douglas firs but the travel is a lot less arduous.
Gleneagles is obviously the big one if you want chichi luxury, but I think it's a bit impersonal (and obviously eye-wateringly expensive).
On a far more intimate scale is Meikelour Arms (pronounced Mclure) which is a lovely country pub (which there are suprisingly few of in Scotland, sorry Scotland but it's true) with a well regarded french restaurant. I've never stayed so I can't vouch for any rooms or facilities. But it strikes me as a lovely place to hole up at Christmas.
Grandtully Hotel is probably in between the two, very nice tasteful hotel with a really good restaurant, puts you in the middle of a very pretty Highland village (pronounced Grantly) with the Highland Chocolatier next door and another nice pub/restaurant over the road.
No idea what the openings/Christmas packages or anything at these places looks like.
Many years ago, Inverlochy Castle near Fort William was all you would want from a Scottish castle experience. However, last time we went, the management was headed by a Polish guy. Pleasant chap, but no idea of Scottish heritage. It was a very plastic place. Won't go back.
They also had a pianist in the lounge who had apparently trained under the great Eric Morecombe.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Doesn't it depend on the place? In 1900, South African was a series of colonies, such as the Cape Colony and Natal.
By contrast, Canada was a Dominion (and New Zealand and Australia were on that path too). Canada became de facto an independent country sharing a head of State with the UK with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867.
Read the poetry of the Boer War era.
From the Arctic shores of the Yukon to the depth of the Torrid zone, Wherever we are, however far, we are British! Fibre and bone.
Well yes, that's what I said - South Africa was definitely not a Dominion which its own national identity, while Canada very definitely was.
Australia and New Zealand were somewhere in between.
When will the RFU stop with the nonsense of not picking players who play in France,
'Street-fight rugby' - Kpoku on Top 14 and Test future
Kpoku, 6ft 8in tall and more than 18st, is thriving amid those hard knocks and high standards. "I want to represent my own country where I was born and raised and where my family was born and raised."
His twin elder brothers Joel and Jonathan already play in France, for Pau and second-tier Albi respectively. One of the motivations for Junior's own move from Exeter to Racing was to be nearer his unwell father.
I am still not sure how this is actually legal. Isn't it a form of a restriction of trade. Which is basically what Bosman argued all of years ago in football.
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Our covid response happened under EU terms
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
"Under EU terms" is disingenuous. We opted out of the joint procurement plan and that allowed us to cut our own deals that turned out to put us at the front of the queue, contrary to what was predicted at the beginning.
Stretching the dose interval worked as well, and there were a lot of eminent people in the EU saying we were wrong to do that. My back of an envelope guestimate, just from looking at case rates across European countries as vaccination rolled out, was that that alone might have saved as many as 50,000 lives in the UK by getting more vunerable people some protection sooner than they would have got it otherwise.
I'm not remotely convinced that a UK voting to Remain would have been willing to take the same approach of going it alone on vaccination, even if theoretically we could have done so. Thank God that we did.
We were better with (the ordering of) vaccines than the EU.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
Too many people preferred to be on furlough or work from home.
Whereas everyone at my employer was working on site from May 2020 onwards - nobody had more than six weeks on furlough.
There were also plenty of people, including on PB, who were demanding another lockdown as late as December 2021.
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Exports to EU and world are at an all time high. GDP growth was highest in G7 before the punishment budget.
I am still amazed at how Reeves thought that by taxing business it would help to grow the economy which then provides the means for good public services
Reeves actually put public services before growth and is 'disappointed ' with today's numbers
That said, it is a very silly video with Matt Goodwin still sort of pretending to be a neutral commentator. But still. It's a Youtube video, so I don't see why the law would be involved.
Prince Andrew has said he "ceased all contact" with a businessman accused of being a Chinese spy after receiving advice from the government. In a statement, his office said Prince Andrew had met the man "through official channels" and there was "nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed".
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Doesn't it depend on the place? In 1900, South African was a series of colonies, such as the Cape Colony and Natal.
By contrast, Canada was a Dominion (and New Zealand and Australia were on that path too). Canada became de facto an independent country sharing a head of State with the UK with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867.
Read the poetry of the Boer War era.
From the Arctic shores of the Yukon to the depth of the Torrid zone, Wherever we are, however far, we are British! Fibre and bone.
Well yes, that's what I said - South Africa was definitely not a Dominion which its own national identity, while Canada very definitely was.
Australia and New Zealand were somewhere in between.
That's written by a Canadian, hence the reference to the Yukon. The Imperial Federation movement was quite strong in Canada around that time too.
Prince Andrew has said he "ceased all contact" with a businessman accused of being a Chinese spy after receiving advice from the government. In a statement, his office said Prince Andrew had met the man "through official channels" and there was "nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed".
Prince Andrew has said he "ceased all contact" with a businessman accused of being a Chinese spy after receiving advice from the government. In a statement, his office said Prince Andrew had met the man "through official channels" and there was "nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed".
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
There was an interesting couple of minutes in a David Mitchell book-plugging interview. Do kings really matter? If Harold had won the Battle of Hastings, we'd have kept our Scandi-leaning royals but would economics and geography have Wmeant England realigning itself towards France anyway?
William and his people were essentially Scandinavian in any case.
It's fascinating to see how you have one bunch of Scandinavians overrunning what became England in the Fifth and Sixth centuries (but largely intermarrying with the Roman-British population); then another in the ninth and tenth centuries; and then a final group of Frenchified Scandinavians in the 11th century.
The European Union has set the price for a post-Brexit trade deal in leaked negotiating papers that reveal an expectation of concessions from Sir Keir Starmer.
According to a classified document seen by The Telegraph, the EU will demand Britain surrenders to free movement for students and commits to unchanged fishing rights for its trawlers.
An EU official with knowledge of the document said: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu … and Keir’s turkey is stuffed.”
Sir Useless would be patrolling the French beaches himself with a nail on a stick if he had any pride and sense of honour.
'Smash the gangs'.
Also, remember that every extra 10-20% in boat arrivals adds one BILLION to our annual bill for housing these people in the Dorchester with their private manicurists
It is fucking ridiculous. If one thing will ever make the torpid British stand up and revolt, it will be this. We are spending five tines the savings from the WFA cut to make sure illegal migrants who hate us are nicely housed in hotels
We are letting our own pensioners die from cold so that illegally arrived Syrian jihadis plotting to kill us can live in workless luxury, in Britain
That is literally the case. Reform are gonna win by eight trillion votes in '28
They certainly won in St Helens last night but not maybe by trillions
Tories won the Stock county council by election yesterday in rural Essex though. Reform were second and Labour collapsed to fifth behind the LDs and an Independent https://x.com/BritainElects/status/1867605608838426951
UKIP scored heavily across East Anglia and the Thames Estuary, in 2013 in County Council elections.
I expect Reform will do similarly, but in addition, pick up seats in places like Durham, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Cumbria.
I think Labour will be reduced to a similar score to 2009, and lose seats to everyone. The Tories will gain from Labour, but lose ground to Reform and Lib Dem’s.
Yes Reform likely win ex industrial and seaside towns, the Tories win market towns and villages and rural shires, the LDs win cathedral cities and posh commuter towns.
With London and most big cities not having local elections next year Labour could be near wiped out in the county council elections
There's very little for Labour to lose in this year of the cycle.
The starting scores on the doors are Con 1448 Lab 365 LibDem 293. Partly becuase of the lack of elections in London, the mets and most small city unitaries, but also becuase the baseline was May 2021, which was when the Boris Blimp was at maximum inflation.
Labour won 178 in the same cycle in 2009, which is where I'd expect them to be next year.
Mrs P and I have decided were are going away for every Christmas from now on. Madeira this year, but fancy the Highlands or Lake District next, then maybe the Alps, then somewhere warm again... etc.
But for next year, anyone recommend a great hotel in the Lake District or Highlands to hole away for and be pampered for Christmas 2025?
It's a personal opinion only, but I'd recommend Highland Perthshire rather than the far away Highlands (Fort William and points North) you still get the mountains, lochs and Douglas firs but the travel is a lot less arduous.
Gleneagles is obviously the big one if you want chichi luxury, but I think it's a bit impersonal (and obviously eye-wateringly expensive).
On a far more intimate scale is Meikelour Arms (pronounced Mclure) which is a lovely country pub (which there are suprisingly few of in Scotland, sorry Scotland but it's true) with a well regarded french restaurant. I've never stayed so I can't vouch for any rooms or facilities. But it strikes me as a lovely place to hole up at Christmas.
Grandtully Hotel is probably in between the two, very nice tasteful hotel with a really good restaurant, puts you in the middle of a very pretty Highland village (pronounced Grantly) with the Highland Chocolatier next door and another nice pub/restaurant over the road.
No idea what the openings/Christmas packages or anything at these places looks like.
Many years ago, Inverlochy Castle near Fort William was all you would want from a Scottish castle experience. However, last time we went, the management was headed by a Polish guy. Pleasant chap, but no idea of Scottish heritage. It was a very plastic place. Won't go back.
They also had a pianist in the lounge who had apparently trained under the great Eric Morecombe.
@BenPointer - The Swan at Newby Bridge, at the bottom end of Windermere. Just lovely.
Brexit could have been the right decision, if it hadn’t been negotiated and implemented by our incompetent MPs and Civil Servants.
Nope
There is no version of Brexit that isn't shit.
You can argue about the colour, texture or fragrance. but the substance remains.
It was a shit idea, promoted by shysters and voted for by the gullible.
The reality is shit.
People who voted for it know it's shit.
The diehards on here will continue to wail against the dying of the light, but they know it's shit, they know they voted for the swivel eyed loons and closet racists.
All they have left is bravado.
The only right version of Brexit would have been the one where it didn't happen. Being in the EU had some negatives but nothing like the negatives of being outside it.
And you complain that Leavers won’t argue a case which you feel is axiomatically wrong? It’s like arguing the case for the Reformation with a Jesuit in about 1650
Brexit has made no difference to our economic performance which has been following the same (disappointing) trend ever since 2008.
This is simply a values argument. Which also explains why it never goes anywhere.
Spot on:
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Chairman of @marksandspencer Archie Norman @therealarchie tells me on @TimesRadio that Brexit means they've had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to the Republic of Ireland….
Maybe M & S should start using this new "computer" technology to store data.
When will the RFU stop with the nonsense of not picking players who play in France,
'Street-fight rugby' - Kpoku on Top 14 and Test future
Kpoku, 6ft 8in tall and more than 18st, is thriving amid those hard knocks and high standards. "I want to represent my own country where I was born and raised and where my family was born and raised."
His twin elder brothers Joel and Jonathan already play in France, for Pau and second-tier Albi respectively. One of the motivations for Junior's own move from Exeter to Racing was to be nearer his unwell father.
I am still not sure how this is actually legal. Isn't it a form of a restriction of trade. Which is basically what Bosman argued all of years ago in football.
Not really. International unions can pick whom they like.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Doesn't it depend on the place? In 1900, South African was a series of colonies, such as the Cape Colony and Natal.
By contrast, Canada was a Dominion (and New Zealand and Australia were on that path too). Canada became de facto an independent country sharing a head of State with the UK with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867.
Read the poetry of the Boer War era.
From the Arctic shores of the Yukon to the depth of the Torrid zone, Wherever we are, however far, we are British! Fibre and bone.
Well yes, that's what I said - South Africa was definitely not a Dominion which its own national identity, while Canada very definitely was.
Australia and New Zealand were somewhere in between.
It's a pity that Canada, New Zealand, and Australia were not just federated with the UK.
When will the RFU stop with the nonsense of not picking players who play in France,
'Street-fight rugby' - Kpoku on Top 14 and Test future
Kpoku, 6ft 8in tall and more than 18st, is thriving amid those hard knocks and high standards. "I want to represent my own country where I was born and raised and where my family was born and raised."
His twin elder brothers Joel and Jonathan already play in France, for Pau and second-tier Albi respectively. One of the motivations for Junior's own move from Exeter to Racing was to be nearer his unwell father.
I am still not sure how this is actually legal. Isn't it a form of a restriction of trade. Which is basically what Bosman argued all of years ago in football.
Not really. International unions can pick whom they like.
Playing for England brings with it massive uplift in your earning ability with both how much you get per game but also big sponsorships. They are being excluded and it is not based on the ability to do the job. I am surprised a lawyer hasn't tried some sort of discrimination / restriction of trade angle.
But more than anything, its incredibly dumb from RFU. Success brings more money, excluding at least 15-20 players who would get in your squad, and probably over half would be starting is just incredibly shortsighted.
Nobody thought Bosman would win as the perceived wisdom was well he is in a contract that he willingly signed.
The European Union has set the price for a post-Brexit trade deal in leaked negotiating papers that reveal an expectation of concessions from Sir Keir Starmer.
According to a classified document seen by The Telegraph, the EU will demand Britain surrenders to free movement for students and commits to unchanged fishing rights for its trawlers.
An EU official with knowledge of the document said: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu … and Keir’s turkey is stuffed.”
Do people generally object to foreign students coming and paying into Uni bank accounts then? And the deal is unchanged for fishing? Sounds fine to me.
When will the RFU stop with the nonsense of not picking players who play in France,
'Street-fight rugby' - Kpoku on Top 14 and Test future
Kpoku, 6ft 8in tall and more than 18st, is thriving amid those hard knocks and high standards. "I want to represent my own country where I was born and raised and where my family was born and raised."
His twin elder brothers Joel and Jonathan already play in France, for Pau and second-tier Albi respectively. One of the motivations for Junior's own move from Exeter to Racing was to be nearer his unwell father.
I am still not sure how this is actually legal. Isn't it a form of a restriction of trade. Which is basically what Bosman argued all of years ago in football.
Not really. International unions can pick whom they like.
Playing for England brings with it massive uplift in your earning ability with both how much you get per game but also big sponsorships. They are being excluded and it is not based on the ability to do the job. I am surprised a lawyer hasn't tried some sort of discrimination / restriction of trade angle.
But more than anything, its incredibly dumb from RFU. Success brings more money, excluding at least 15-20 players who would get in your squad, and probably over half would be starting is just incredibly shortsighted.
Nobody thought Bosman would win as the perceived wisdom was well he is in a contract that he willingly signed.
It is stupid. I want our best players playing in France and learning from their coaches and players. Our premiership is open to the reverse.
The European Union has set the price for a post-Brexit trade deal in leaked negotiating papers that reveal an expectation of concessions from Sir Keir Starmer.
According to a classified document seen by The Telegraph, the EU will demand Britain surrenders to free movement for students and commits to unchanged fishing rights for its trawlers.
An EU official with knowledge of the document said: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu … and Keir’s turkey is stuffed.”
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Our covid response happened under EU terms
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
"Under EU terms" is disingenuous. We opted out of the joint procurement plan and that allowed us to cut our own deals that turned out to put us at the front of the queue, contrary to what was predicted at the beginning.
Stretching the dose interval worked as well, and there were a lot of eminent people in the EU saying we were wrong to do that. My back of an envelope guestimate, just from looking at case rates across European countries as vaccination rolled out, was that that alone might have saved as many as 50,000 lives in the UK by getting more vunerable people some protection sooner than they would have got it otherwise.
I'm not remotely convinced that a UK voting to Remain would have been willing to take the same approach of going it alone on vaccination, even if theoretically we could have done so. Thank God that we did.
We were better with (the ordering of) vaccines than the EU.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
Too many people preferred to be on furlough or work from home.
Whereas everyone at my employer was working on site from May 2020 onwards - nobody had more than six weeks on furlough.
There were also plenty of people, including on PB, who were demanding another lockdown as late as December 2021.
For the record, I wanted to lock @Leon up, not lock everyone else down.
The man is a walking PR disaster for the Royal family......
Chinese money given to the Duke of York is being investigated by the security services, The Telegraph can disclose. Prince Andrew’s business venture is understood to have received money from Chinese donors with links to an alleged Communist party spy.
The European Union has set the price for a post-Brexit trade deal in leaked negotiating papers that reveal an expectation of concessions from Sir Keir Starmer.
According to a classified document seen by The Telegraph, the EU will demand Britain surrenders to free movement for students and commits to unchanged fishing rights for its trawlers.
An EU official with knowledge of the document said: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu … and Keir’s turkey is stuffed.”
Do people generally object to foreign students coming and paying into Uni bank accounts then? And the deal is unchanged for fishing? Sounds fine to me.
Home fees we could give them. Access to the Student Loans Company we could not. It is only due to a absurd ECJ judgement that we ever did.
On fishing, we are currently in the 5 year initial period where we regained some volume, but not our due. Freezing that in perpetuity would be a big EU win.
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Our covid response happened under EU terms
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
"Under EU terms" is disingenuous. We opted out of the joint procurement plan and that allowed us to cut our own deals that turned out to put us at the front of the queue, contrary to what was predicted at the beginning.
Stretching the dose interval worked as well, and there were a lot of eminent people in the EU saying we were wrong to do that. My back of an envelope guestimate, just from looking at case rates across European countries as vaccination rolled out, was that that alone might have saved as many as 50,000 lives in the UK by getting more vunerable people some protection sooner than they would have got it otherwise.
I'm not remotely convinced that a UK voting to Remain would have been willing to take the same approach of going it alone on vaccination, even if theoretically we could have done so. Thank God that we did.
We were better with (the ordering of) vaccines than the EU.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
Too many people preferred to be on furlough or work from home.
Whereas everyone at my employer was working on site from May 2020 onwards - nobody had more than six weeks on furlough.
There were also plenty of people, including on PB, who were demanding another lockdown as late as December 2021.
For the record, I wanted to lock @Leon up, not lock everyone else down.
There was at least one poster who whined ‘lockdown now’ endlessly who now thinks we shouldnt have locked down at all. Hindsight is amazing.
The European Union has set the price for a post-Brexit trade deal in leaked negotiating papers that reveal an expectation of concessions from Sir Keir Starmer.
According to a classified document seen by The Telegraph, the EU will demand Britain surrenders to free movement for students and commits to unchanged fishing rights for its trawlers.
An EU official with knowledge of the document said: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu … and Keir’s turkey is stuffed.”
Do people generally object to foreign students coming and paying into Uni bank accounts then? And the deal is unchanged for fishing? Sounds fine to me.
Home fees we could give them. Access to the Student Loans Company we could not. It is only due to a absurd ECJ judgement that we ever did.
On fishing, we are currently in the 5 year initial period where we regained some volume, but not our due. Freezing that in perpetuity would be a big EU win.
The enforcement of repayment of student loans for those not in the UK PAYE system is an absolute scandal.
The European Union has set the price for a post-Brexit trade deal in leaked negotiating papers that reveal an expectation of concessions from Sir Keir Starmer.
According to a classified document seen by The Telegraph, the EU will demand Britain surrenders to free movement for students and commits to unchanged fishing rights for its trawlers.
An EU official with knowledge of the document said: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu … and Keir’s turkey is stuffed.”
Do people generally object to foreign students coming and paying into Uni bank accounts then? And the deal is unchanged for fishing? Sounds fine to me.
Home fees we could give them. Access to the Student Loans Company we could not. It is only due to a absurd ECJ judgement that we ever did.
On fishing, we are currently in the 5 year initial period where we regained some volume, but not our due. Freezing that in perpetuity would be a big EU win.
The enforcement of repayment of student loans for those not in the UK PAYE system is an absolute scandal.
We use HMRC to effectively garnish wages because no other system could work. We could never garnish wages abroad, even when we were in the EU. We probably don't enforce it because it would cost more to do than the money retrieved.
LOL and this "knowledge" of Europe is based on what ?
Brexit.
See the poll, it’s no coincidence that things have become shitter in the NHS since we Brexited.
The voters can see things with their own eyes.
You'll have to troll better than that.
Brexit happened because Cameron was outplayed by Farage, Osborne outwitted by a bus and Anna Soubry outcharmed by Lee Anderson.
Why don't people who wanted and got Brexit ever say it happened because the case for it was compelling and it deservedly prevailed in an intensely fought, free and fair public vote?
Always this "beaten by a bus" and "the Remain campaign was shite" type snark. It's like they deep down know it was a mistake and done for all the wrong reasons.
Where is your patience man? It was clearly explained that the Brexit dividends will start to flow in about 2085. Have faith.
Like somebody famous (Mao?) said when asked what he thought about the French revolution ... too early to tell.
He might turn out to be right on that.
Yes, Macron looks to be between la rock and la hard place. He needs to find a way to placate the sans culottes.
Got a weird feeling Macron might enjoy being between The Rock and a Hard Place
Macron was arguably the original populist with his centrist papa En Marche.
Perhaps the original of this wave. I'm sure he saw his programme as something unique. Perhaps it was slightly. France would do well to not throw him off a cliff. (I know windows are all the rage in Putin-ville, but I'm a traditionalist).
Macron can't run for a third term anymore than Trump can now
They don't have history like we do old boy. They tore it up - thank god we kept ours - Alfred and the cakes.
That was English history. Torn up by William the Bastard.
Who was French, like most of the English [sic] ruling class he put into place.
He wasn't French, he was a Norman.
Born in France, spoke French, but not French because of his ancestry?
Normandy wasn’t part of France at the time, a separate Duchy, spoke Norman French, a dialect. So like saying someone Australian or Canadian in 1900 was British.
But that was exactly the case in 1900. They *were* British. They could go straight into the British Army, for instance, if they turned up in the UK. Just been reading the biography of a Sopwith Camel pilot who was from South Africa. Signed up down south and was put on the steamer to basic flying training in the UK.
Doesn't it depend on the place? In 1900, South African was a series of colonies, such as the Cape Colony and Natal.
By contrast, Canada was a Dominion (and New Zealand and Australia were on that path too). Canada became de facto an independent country sharing a head of State with the UK with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867.
Read the poetry of the Boer War era.
From the Arctic shores of the Yukon to the depth of the Torrid zone, Wherever we are, however far, we are British! Fibre and bone.
Well yes, that's what I said - South Africa was definitely not a Dominion which its own national identity, while Canada very definitely was.
Australia and New Zealand were somewhere in between.
That's written by a Canadian, hence the reference to the Yukon. The Imperial Federation movement was quite strong in Canada around that time too.
Ah, I missed that.
Nevertheless: while I'm sure there were many people in Canada who considered themselves subjects of the British Crown above all else (the Imperial Federation Movement), it also had its own Parliament, and sent athletes to the 1900 Paris Olympics independent from Britain.
Comments
The starting scores on the doors are Con 1448 Lab 365 LibDem 293. Partly becuase of the lack of elections in London, the mets and most small city unitaries, but also becuase the baseline was May 2021, which was when the Boris Blimp was at maximum inflation.
The only connection to France was fealty to the French crown and a bastardised (pun intended) version of French spoken.
Also I suspect labour will get it's voters back when labour leadership understands there is zero taste for red lines anymore.... that is old hat
https://www.politico.eu/article/poll-brexit-voter-accept-free-movement-eu-single-market-access/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5WyACa2JLE
Since we Brexited, we had the best response to Covid vaccines, their creation and delivery - the biggest health event of the past 100 years.
Europe by contrast was miles behind the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65975154
All the momentum seems to be in that direction at the moment...
And besides. Can you imagine the flap if namby-pamby fuddy-duddy Keith Donkey and his team of prudes tried to gag the people's princess from saying his piece?
So, in a nice way, I really can’t be arsed parsing this argument further. The Norman’s weren’t French and the French weren’t remotely important in the conquest.
Have a lovely evening.
Farage is great in many ways - he made himself an expert on the EU and argued a case that swayed the voters. (I don't think anyone suggests that there was no case). I'm sure he makes the odd point of merit now and again nowdays, but he seems wrong-headed to me.
Kemi is making one stupid mistake after another.
These are worrying times...
How many Bangladeshis in Germany? Black Caribbeans? Pakistanis?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/whyhaveblackandsouthasianpeoplebeenhithardestbycovid19/2020-12-14
"Will opine on opinion polls for food"
That we didn't fuck it up had nothing to do with Brexit.
Even you know that
The economic impact of membership of the EU - either positive or negative - is drowned out by other factors.
Better than pissing it away on farm subsidies.
The ghastly villains of the current situation are the press. They've stopped bothering employing sensible journalists.
So dial down the rhetoric to a whisper, and then we see what is really going on. It's really poor, but Labour are doing slight less 'really poor' than the Tories - and I say that as an ex Tory member.
1 Undershaft will be the same height as the Shard across the Thames"
https://www.ft.com/content/f3609d63-3bfd-4924-b0c4-fc36c421a605
https://archive.is/a8Slb#selection-1747.0-1751.67
@cathynewman
Chairman of @marksandspencer Archie Norman @therealarchie tells me on @TimesRadio that Brexit means they've had to hire a warehouse just to store the paperwork needed to export to the Republic of Ireland….
I'm not remotely convinced that a UK voting to Remain would have been willing to take the same approach of going it alone on vaccination, even if theoretically we could have done so. Thank God that we did.
You can have wind and solar.
I'll take
tidalwildlife....Good newspaper coverage is different - actual real breaking news (reportage), insightful news reporting (James Cameron?), and then good editorial overviews (I can't really recommend anyone here, but one day)
Edit: not my view one way or another re today, but what prevailed in 1900 ...
https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/companies/arid-41400715.html#:~:text=M&S has a total of,fell 1%, M&S said.
Some EU countries did some things better with vaccines: Germany, for example, did mix and match of vaccine types which was pretty effective.
However, we totally failed to take that vaccine advantage and turn it into an economy that opened up faster. And we did an incredibly poor job with risk stratification and testing compared to (say) Denmark.
By contrast, Canada was a Dominion (and New Zealand and Australia were on that path too). Canada became de facto an independent country sharing a head of State with the UK with the passing of the British North America Act in 1867.
So, while I'd give the Boris government 9/10 for vaccine procurement, I think he'd only get a 4/10 for the rest of Covid response.
The EU was behind on vaccines - albeit only by a month or two in the end - so I'd give them a 6.5/10 for that. As far as normalisation of social behaviour, it differed on a country by country basis, but I think most of them ended up opening up faster than we did.
Been nice knowing you all...
Gleneagles is obviously the big one if you want chichi luxury, but I think it's a bit impersonal (and obviously eye-wateringly expensive).
Fonab Castle adjoins Pitlochry (so lots to see and do) and is lovely, or was the last time I was there. Spa. Own little loch. https://www.crerarhotels.com/collection/fonab-castle/
On a far more intimate scale is Meikelour Arms (pronounced Mclure) which is a lovely country pub (which there are suprisingly few of in Scotland, sorry Scotland but it's true) with a well regarded french restaurant. I've never stayed so I can't vouch for any rooms or facilities. But it strikes me as a lovely place to hole up at Christmas.
Grandtully Hotel is probably in between the two, very nice tasteful hotel with a really good restaurant, puts you in the middle of a very pretty Highland village (pronounced Grantly) with the Highland Chocolatier next door and another nice pub/restaurant over the road.
No idea what the openings/Christmas packages or anything at these places looks like.
AI Regulation EU 2024.....
https://x.com/KaiLentit/status/1867000042801787307
From the Arctic shores of the Yukon to the depth of the Torrid zone,
Wherever we are, however far, we are British! Fibre and bone.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg6n6yq6nyo
Not via a birthday party at Pizza Express in Windsor?
- I am not authorised to answer that question.
They also had a pianist in the lounge who had apparently trained under the great Eric Morecombe.
Australia and New Zealand were somewhere in between.
'Street-fight rugby' - Kpoku on Top 14 and Test future
Kpoku, 6ft 8in tall and more than 18st, is thriving amid those hard knocks and high standards. "I want to represent my own country where I was born and raised and where my family was born and raised."
His twin elder brothers Joel and Jonathan already play in France, for Pau and second-tier Albi respectively. One of the motivations for Junior's own move from Exeter to Racing was to be nearer his unwell father.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/articles/c623xk537zro
I am still not sure how this is actually legal. Isn't it a form of a restriction of trade. Which is basically what Bosman argued all of years ago in football.
Whereas everyone at my employer was working on site from May 2020 onwards - nobody had more than six weeks on furlough.
There were also plenty of people, including on PB, who were demanding another lockdown as late as December 2021.
Phil Vickery: ‘I’m not angry, I’m not bitter … but I will need help’
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/dec/13/phil-vickery-im-not-angry-im-not-bitter-but-i-will-need-help
It's fascinating to see how you have one bunch of Scandinavians overrunning what became England in the Fifth and Sixth centuries (but largely intermarrying with the Roman-British population); then another in the ninth and tenth centuries; and then a final group of Frenchified Scandinavians in the 11th century.
According to a classified document seen by The Telegraph, the EU will demand Britain surrenders to free movement for students and commits to unchanged fishing rights for its trawlers.
An EU official with knowledge of the document said: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu … and Keir’s turkey is stuffed.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/13/leaked-negotiating-papers-reveal-eu-post-brexit-price/
CON: 81.3% (+7.8)
GRN: 7.3% (+7.3)
LDEM: 6.8% (-9.5)
LAB: 4.7% (-5.6)
+/- 2023
Estimated turnout: ~23% (-7)
Wonder what it would have been with Reform?
https://x.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1867558160825036962?t=eoNdtJ56B7es9K_i2Vtidw&s=19
But more than anything, its incredibly dumb from RFU. Success brings more money, excluding at least 15-20 players who would get in your squad, and probably over half would be starting is just incredibly shortsighted.
Nobody thought Bosman would win as the perceived wisdom was well he is in a contract that he willingly signed.
Chinese money given to the Duke of York is being investigated by the security services, The Telegraph can disclose. Prince Andrew’s business venture is understood to have received money from Chinese donors with links to an alleged Communist party spy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2024/12/13/prince-andrew-pictured-meeting-chinese-spy-banned-uk/
On fishing, we are currently in the 5 year initial period where we regained some volume, but not our due. Freezing that in perpetuity would be a big EU win.
Beautiful old place, magnificent setting on the loch itself with Schiehallion towering behind. Sensational food, beautiful rooms.
Mrs RP and I had a Good Time.
Nevertheless: while I'm sure there were many people in Canada who considered themselves subjects of the British Crown above all else (the Imperial Federation Movement), it also had its own Parliament, and sent athletes to the 1900 Paris Olympics independent from Britain.