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  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 33,391

    Today is the somethingth anniversary of the 1966 World Cup Final between West Ham and West Germany.

    I watched it recently. Sadly with the ITV rather than the Wolstenholme commentary.

    It remains a wonderful spectacle, but man, were they slow. In no parallel universe was Nobby Styles ever an athlete.
    England played all their games at Wembley which was a real disadvantage as its pitch was very tiring. As for athleticism, look at the 1970 squad singing Back Home, and count the chins!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ-EutNDgZQ

    ETA that reminds me that of course Gordon Banks' tummy bug led to Labour's defeat at the general election, but also that in 1976 Brendan Foster's almost certain gold medal was lost to a similar illness. These were before the days of careful food preparation and a gastroenterologist on call.
    Training was I believe focused around beer and fags.

    The Newky Browns provided the calories for the 90 minutes whilst those Park Drives kept the weight off the international sportsman.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 33,391

    Not quite sure what I have done to make 17% of the country blame me for it all. Jeez.

    A good friend of mine has the surname "Leaver"

    Imagine how he feels...

    Much happier than Mr Remainer?
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,994
    kjh said:

    @taz, can I thank you for your nice comment on the last thread. I hope you enjoy your cruise. I am avoiding cruises like the plague as I enjoy my food and booze too much They would be rolling me off the gang plank. I guess I will eventually succumb. I used to enjoy activity holidays (skiing, sailing, etc), but I am past that at 70, although I do cycle every year in France. This year was sight seeing in Spain and Italy in June and May, cycling in September down the Canal du Midi then for a regular birthday celebration of my cousin in Portugal. Might pop over to France in October house hunting.

    Our cruise is also the start of our new life as my wife is retiring and returning to the NHS and accessing her pension. Retiring really is the best thing I’ve ever done. You’ll succumb to a cruise eventually, I’m sure 😀
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,719
    Battle of Hastings was where it all started to go Pete Tong.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,788

    Labour has settled claims brought by 20 people, mainly former staffers, who featured in a leaked internal document about antisemitism in the party, with the costs estimated to be close to £2m.

    The settlements include a payout to Labour’s former elections chief Patrick Heneghan, who was falsely accused in the dossier of having tried to sabotage Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of winning the 2017 general election.

    It is understood the payouts will total just under £1m, but with Labour paying both sides’ legal fees the cost to the party will be near to £2m. This puts the total legal costs for Labour connected to the dossier at more than £4m, with court documents released last year showing the party spent £2.4m on its own eventually abandoned lawsuit pursuing five separate staffers it accused of being behind the leak.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/30/labour-settles-claims-leaked-antisemitism-dossier

    Sorry, is this good for Starmerites or the Corbynites?
    Neither. Zack Polanski's the one to fear. I'm sure his broadcast has been seen here by now but a great example of 'reading the room'. Until yesterday something Starmer wasn't good at.

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0MDzMvLYeNg
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 27,018
    It's absolutely outrageous that the BBC held this interview:

    https://x.com/ArchRose90/status/1950578162741411852
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 13,102

    Battle of Hastings was where it all started to go Pete Tong.

    The loss of the White Ship and the Anarchy that followed.
    But it did give us the Cadfael stories
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,991
    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    If only we could have had a Conservative dictatorship since 1906 we'd all be infinitely happier, wealthier and wiser, perhaps?

    Seriously....
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,663
    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 66,277
    Roger said:

    Labour has settled claims brought by 20 people, mainly former staffers, who featured in a leaked internal document about antisemitism in the party, with the costs estimated to be close to £2m.

    The settlements include a payout to Labour’s former elections chief Patrick Heneghan, who was falsely accused in the dossier of having tried to sabotage Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of winning the 2017 general election.

    It is understood the payouts will total just under £1m, but with Labour paying both sides’ legal fees the cost to the party will be near to £2m. This puts the total legal costs for Labour connected to the dossier at more than £4m, with court documents released last year showing the party spent £2.4m on its own eventually abandoned lawsuit pursuing five separate staffers it accused of being behind the leak.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/30/labour-settles-claims-leaked-antisemitism-dossier

    Sorry, is this good for Starmerites or the Corbynites?
    Neither. Zack Polanski's the one to fear. I'm sure his broadcast has been seen here by now but a great example of 'reading the room'. Until yesterday something Starmer wasn't good at.

    https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0MDzMvLYeNg
    Which room is he reading, because last time I looked Farage is way ahead in the polls

    Simply, unless the boats are stopped this issue will damage whatever party is in government
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 25,387

    Taz said:

    kjh said:

    @taz, can I thank you for your nice comment on the last thread. I hope you enjoy your cruise. I am avoiding cruises like the plague as I enjoy my food and booze too much They would be rolling me off the gang plank. I guess I will eventually succumb. I used to enjoy activity holidays (skiing, sailing, etc), but I am past that at 70, although I do cycle every year in France. This year was sight seeing in Spain and Italy in June and May, cycling in September down the Canal du Midi then for a regular birthday celebration of my cousin in Portugal. Might pop over to France in October house hunting.

    Our cruise is also the start of our new life as my wife is retiring and returning to the NHS and accessing her pension. Retiring really is the best thing I’ve ever done. You’ll succumb to a cruise eventually, I’m sure 😀
    Good evening

    Many congratulations on your news and enjoy your cruise

    We have been on many cruises including Southampton - Canada - New York and back, Vancouver to Beijing via Alaska, Japan, Russia and South Korea, and for our retiremernt we joined an expedition ship to Antartica, South Georgia and the Falklands with the most amazing majestic scenery and wildlife

    We only went on cruises for the destinations, and did not join the social life or shows, but did enjoy lectures on our destinations and the culture of the places we visited

    We are unable to travel now due to our age and health, but we did it when we could and we always advise those in advancing years to do their buckets lists as soon as they can
    Would you have attended lecture(s) on political betting on your cruises? I have a relative that does cruises and she mentioned the lectures. I think I could run up a set of lectures on the subject and I'd like to spend some time honing my craft when I retire.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,991
    Evening all :)

    To be slightly controversial, I'm not entirely convinced the country is on the "wrong track". I think we are treading water to an extent but the sense of doom and disaster is somewhat overplayed (often for political points scoring).

    What has disappointed me has been our failure over my adult lifetime to make any headway on some social issues such as housing. We should have eradicated homelessness by now but we haven't. Our roads and railways should be better than they are but they aren't.

    My mother always believed things went wrong when the park keepers were let go - she was right only inasmuch as the basis of business seemed to be to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. That pervades the economy like a shadow and if we could break that ethos and get back to the notion of good service provision across both public and private sectors, we might move forward.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,379
    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    There are many problems with that view. If WW1 had not started in 1914, it may well have started later - and potentially at a more disadvantageous time for us.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,852
    edited July 30
    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,980
    edited July 30
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    To be slightly controversial, I'm not entirely convinced the country is on the "wrong track". I think we are treading water to an extent but the sense of doom and disaster is somewhat overplayed (often for political points scoring).

    What has disappointed me has been our failure over my adult lifetime to make any headway on some social issues such as housing. We should have eradicated homelessness by now but we haven't. Our roads and railways should be better than they are but they aren't.

    My mother always believed things went wrong when the park keepers were let go - she was right only inasmuch as the basis of business seemed to be to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. That pervades the economy like a shadow and if we could break that ethos and get back to the notion of good service provision across both public and private sectors, we might move forward.

    I agree with your mother. Today's equivalent of park keepers could well be shop cashiers and public transport ticket checkers, among others. The automation of self-service checkouts, and turnstiles at stations, in order to reduce business costs, may have something to do with the inexorable rise of shoplifting and fare-dodging, I rather suspect.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,852
    Sandpit said:

    nunu2 said:

    Leon said:

    And yet there are planes landing? I guess they have to let them land….

    The alternative is a bit mangly
    How long can the average passenger plane stay on the air for before running out of fuel?
    At least a couple of hours, even on a very short flight.

    Unsurprisingly there’s a lot of rules about this, and pilots are required to declare a “Mayday” emergency if they will land with less than 30 minutes’ duration fuel left, which will clear the skies around them for a priority landing (and a fair amount of paperwork afterwards!).

    There’s a lot of airports within flying distance of the disruption, and no risk whatsoever to passengers.
    In 1998, a Singapore Airlines flight landed at Heathrow, having not declared a fuel emergency, and barely had enough fuel to make it onto the stand. It caused a lot of consternation, because the pilots should have declared Mayday ahead of time.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 13,102

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    There are many problems with that view. If WW1 had not started in 1914, it may well have started later - and potentially at a more disadvantageous time for us.
    We were already in decline by 1914 so delay would have been worse i think.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 66,277
    viewcode said:

    Taz said:

    kjh said:

    @taz, can I thank you for your nice comment on the last thread. I hope you enjoy your cruise. I am avoiding cruises like the plague as I enjoy my food and booze too much They would be rolling me off the gang plank. I guess I will eventually succumb. I used to enjoy activity holidays (skiing, sailing, etc), but I am past that at 70, although I do cycle every year in France. This year was sight seeing in Spain and Italy in June and May, cycling in September down the Canal du Midi then for a regular birthday celebration of my cousin in Portugal. Might pop over to France in October house hunting.

    Our cruise is also the start of our new life as my wife is retiring and returning to the NHS and accessing her pension. Retiring really is the best thing I’ve ever done. You’ll succumb to a cruise eventually, I’m sure 😀
    Good evening

    Many congratulations on your news and enjoy your cruise

    We have been on many cruises including Southampton - Canada - New York and back, Vancouver to Beijing via Alaska, Japan, Russia and South Korea, and for our retiremernt we joined an expedition ship to Antartica, South Georgia and the Falklands with the most amazing majestic scenery and wildlife

    We only went on cruises for the destinations, and did not join the social life or shows, but did enjoy lectures on our destinations and the culture of the places we visited

    We are unable to travel now due to our age and health, but we did it when we could and we always advise those in advancing years to do their buckets lists as soon as they can
    Would you have attended lecture(s) on political betting on your cruises? I have a relative that does cruises and she mentioned the lectures. I think I could run up a set of lectures on the subject and I'd like to spend some time honing my craft when I retire.
    No - I have no desire to bet and never have

    The lectures were all about our locations, history and culture and no politics

    Indeed most cruise lectures relate to the ships destinations
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 52,554
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 5,166
    edited July 30
    Well, commercial aircraft might be stuck but I've just been buzzed by a Douglas A-26 in Korean War colours flying low over the Flatlands. Flew from Wick, but got there via Goose Bay, Greenland, and Iceland over several days.

    Quite a trip for someone!

    Must be for an airshow?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    29% isn't anything close to a majority.

    The true answer is that aspects of what Thatcher did and particularly Blair have had the biggest impact.

    But, strangely, I'd trust both more than anyone else to put it right today - they were both skilled and impactful politicians.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 55,538

    Well, commercial aircraft might be stuck but I've just been buzzed by a Douglas A-26 in Korean War colours flying low over the Flatlands. Flew from Wick, but got there via Goose Bay, Greenland, and Iceland over several days.

    Quite a trip for someone!

    Must be for an airshow?

    Or cover for Trump's recce of the invasion of Greenland?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 33,391
    edited July 30
    ..

    29% isn't anything close to a majority.

    The true answer is that aspects of what Thatcher did and particularly Blair have had the biggest impact.

    But, strangely, I'd trust both more than anyone else to put it right today - they were both skilled and impactful politicians.

    Getting one's nation embroiled in an American President's vanity war is not the mark of a statesman.

    What we need is the ghost of Harold Wilson.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    We had no choice.

    France and Russia would have both been defeated (Russia was as it is, and France came close in 1917) and we'd have faced a totally German dominated Europe. They could have united the fleets of up to 4 navies against us, and would have occupied the low countries and the Channel coast, which would have meant the UK's safety and its links to the Empire would have been utterly at its mercy. The Royal Navy wouldn't have been able to protect our independence.

    We want to believe it was avoidable due to the terrible cost. But, whilst a catastrophe, the alternative for this country would have been worse.

    We had to fight.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 44,517

    29% isn't anything close to a majority.

    The true answer is that aspects of what Thatcher did and particularly Blair have had the biggest impact.

    But, strangely, I'd trust both more than anyone else to put it right today - they were both skilled and impactful politicians.

    Old Tone could certainly get righties to believe anything.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    Sean_F said:

    Barnesian said:

    Leon said:

    Personally I think the shift to farming from hunter-gathering was the real error

    You've been reading Sapiens. Brilliant book.
    One might see it as an error, but once one society did it, it became a matter of survival for other societies to follow suit. From the dawn of States, until very recently, the principal function of the State was to wage war. A State with a burgeoning population, supported by agriculture, can simply overwhelm any non-State society without agriculture (other than steppe cultures).

    It was internal order and external disorder.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    There's a better argument that we'd have done well to have supported France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and prevent full German unification.

    But, at the time, France was seen as the threat and Prussia was seen as a good Wellingtonian era ally.

    And we didn't need allies anyway.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 60,852

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    That's the Massie book? I read it 30 years ago, and it is seared into my memory.

    With the said, I think you are being harsh to some of commenters. It is hard to think of anyone who has been more resolute in his views that we need to stand up to Russian expansionism and aggression than @Cicero.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    Sean_F said:

    CatMan said:

    Its obviously the sinking of the Titanic. That's the actual moment the Empire began to die

    Nah, the Second Boer War IMHO
    The failure of 250,000 troops to defeat some farmers was a bleak moment, as was not getting all the gold
    The UK was fortunate that some other European power did not intervene on the Boers' side. But, the lessons we learned about the deadliness of defensive rifle fire served us well in WWI. Germany and France learned the wrong lessons (that if you attacked hard enough, and were willing to sustain terrible casualties, you would break the enemy).
    A pyrrhic victory, anyway.

    It just led to a Boer reverse takeover of the whole of South Africa inside 10 years.

    It was fought 20 years too late, and the Union would only have worked properly with a plurality of British settlers over theirs.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 44,517
    Ok lads, get your credit cards out (as long as that’s all you get out).

    https://x.com/dailymailceleb/status/1950577706057293927?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    That's the Massie book? I read it 30 years ago, and it is seared into my memory.

    With the said, I think you are being harsh to some of commenters. It is hard to think of anyone who has been more resolute in his views that we need to stand up to Russian expansionism and aggression than @Cicero.
    Yes. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

    I can just picture myself in that room.

    They all would have felt deeply the failure of Statesmanship, and couldn't believe this was happening to them and us, and full known the horror of what would come next.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,721
    How plea bargaining can (sort of) work in the UK.

    https://youtu.be/X35uwWv1Z9s?t=355
    (Art of Law)
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,202

    Eabhal said:

    Heroic stuff from the RNLI social media team this evening. £20 headed their way.

    I've sailed a little and I think people don't appreciate how keenly felt the duty is to look after people at sea. That's why you get cargo ships circling paddleboarders until the helicopter turns up, despite the enormous cost of doing so.

    Eabhal said:

    Heroic stuff from the RNLI social media team this evening. £20 headed their way.

    I've sailed a little and I think people don't appreciate how keenly felt the duty is to look after people at sea. That's why you get cargo ships circling paddleboarders until the helicopter turns up, despite the enormous cost of doing so.

    In the last week our son and his colleagues [RNLI] have attended a paddleboarder with a broken leg, a young women with a broken ankle, a yacht in distress having lost it engines in quite stormy seas, and been on routine exercises

    And all as a volunteer so all donations are very gratefully received

    Thank you
    A bit silly to go paddleboarding when you have a broken leg.


    But seriously, the RNLI do a grand job.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,693
    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    Wasn't Dreadnought and her near-sisters and subsequent designs built BY the Liberals?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,693

    29% isn't anything close to a majority.

    The true answer is that aspects of what Thatcher did and particularly Blair have had the biggest impact.

    But, strangely, I'd trust both more than anyone else to put it right today - they were both skilled and impactful politicians.

    I’m a fair way into ‘Who dares, wins’ about the years 1979 to 1982. What is interesting me so far is just how many things that are strongly associated with Thatcher were either happening already (council houses being sold off, coal mines closing etc) or she was very unsure about (squeezing inflation out of the system by restricting the money supply). She is a totemic demon to so many but much of it is unfair.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,993
    https://x.com/benedictspence/status/1950230921778737541?s=46

    The British public: “Could you please not censor the internet like a third world dictator?”

    The UK government: “Best I can do is call you a nonce”.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,663
    "Bingham’s failed revolution
    Why the supposed “rule of law” now protects the offender rather than the law-abiding citizen
    David Starkey"

    https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/march-2025/binghams-failed-revolution
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893

    29% isn't anything close to a majority.

    The true answer is that aspects of what Thatcher did and particularly Blair have had the biggest impact.

    But, strangely, I'd trust both more than anyone else to put it right today - they were both skilled and impactful politicians.

    I’m a fair way into ‘Who dares, wins’ about the years 1979 to 1982. What is interesting me so far is just how many things that are strongly associated with Thatcher were either happening already (council houses being sold off, coal mines closing etc) or she was very unsure about (squeezing inflation out of the system by restricting the money supply). She is a totemic demon to so many but much of it is unfair.
    Ask yourself this: would she have got the same level of criticism had she been a bloke?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,703

    Well, commercial aircraft might be stuck but I've just been buzzed by a Douglas A-26 in Korean War colours flying low over the Flatlands. Flew from Wick, but got there via Goose Bay, Greenland, and Iceland over several days.

    Quite a trip for someone!

    Must be for an airshow?

    New owner, it would seem. Jammy sod - and you too for seeing it.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/1mdepj8/n4313_miss_michelle_a26_invader_flying_over_the/
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,703
    edited July 30

    29% isn't anything close to a majority.

    The true answer is that aspects of what Thatcher did and particularly Blair have had the biggest impact.

    But, strangely, I'd trust both more than anyone else to put it right today - they were both skilled and impactful politicians.

    I’m a fair way into ‘Who dares, wins’ about the years 1979 to 1982. What is interesting me so far is just how many things that are strongly associated with Thatcher were either happening already (council houses being sold off, coal mines closing etc) or she was very unsure about (squeezing inflation out of the system by restricting the money supply). She is a totemic demon to so many but much of it is unfair.
    Ask yourself this: would she have got the same level of criticism had she been a bloke?
    The treatment she got from her own party at the time [edit] of her leadership election - and after that for a while? - does rather suggest you have a hypothesis worth considering.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,663
    Almost nobody thinks a re-design of banknotes is a priority. So why are they doing it?

    "What will the new banknotes look like"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgy7j02xzro
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,703
    Andy_JS said:

    Almost nobody thinks a re-design of banknotes is a priority. So why are they doing it?

    "What will the new banknotes look like"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgy7j02xzro

    Would you talk about it loudly if you found your notes were too easily photocopied these days?

    Other obvious explanations are available, depending on how paranoid one is feeling.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 32,035

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,391

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    Wasn't Dreadnought and her near-sisters and subsequent designs built BY the Liberals?
    And weren't they right to do everything possible to stop the cataclysm that a generalised European war would be?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,721
    isam said:
    I'd never heard of him, but they seem quite well matched.

    Skinner:
    "I love Trump I think he is brilliant, that's my opinion. I think it's good he is back in charge, it will be good for the UK economy".

    Our answer to the My Pillow guy?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 33,391
    edited July 30

    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.

    It is beyond doubt that this government have lost control of the small boats, but Rwanda was an appalling stunt by Johnson, Braverman and Patel. Even sensible Cabinet Ministers like Cleverly and Sunak confirmed it was utter nonsense until they fell into line and U turned.

    It was absolute immoral and profligate lunacy.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 63,629
    Tavira!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 63,629
    Portugal!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 63,629
    SCORCHIO!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,391

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
    Didn't France declare war the same day as us in 1939?

    In any case WW2 was 2 years old in China by then.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 5,168
    Andy_JS said:

    Almost nobody thinks a re-design of banknotes is a priority. So why are they doing it?

    "What will the new banknotes look like"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgy7j02xzro

    The Beeb have posted a puff piece about deciding to use the Met Office again - endlessly messing about with things that didn't need messed about with is how you get promoted.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm4z8mple3o

  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340
    Andy_JS said:

    Almost nobody thinks a re-design of banknotes is a priority. So why are they doing it?

    "What will the new banknotes look like"

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgy7j02xzro

    C A S H
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 46,379
    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    Wasn't Dreadnought and her near-sisters and subsequent designs built BY the Liberals?
    And weren't they right to do everything possible to stop the cataclysm that a generalised European war would be?
    Not really my era of interest, but did people generally think it would be a 'cataclysm' ? "Over by Christmas" was apparently a common thought.

    The Franco-Prussian war, just forty years earlier, lasted just six months and led to a conclusive Prussian victory. Many thought that would be the pattern in 1914.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,391

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    There's a better argument that we'd have done well to have supported France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and prevent full German unification.

    But, at the time, France was seen as the threat and Prussia was seen as a good Wellingtonian era ally.

    And we didn't need allies anyway.
    Going back further, if we had backed Denmark against Prussia in 1846* then both the Austro Prussian war and the Franco Prussian war may never have happened.

    * the infamous Schwelsig-Holstein question.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,692
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
    Didn't France declare war the same day as us in 1939?

    In any case WW2 was 2 years old in China by then.
    Doesn’t it have to be a war involving most of the world to be a World War? Until the British Empire, Germany, French Empire, Russia, other European countries with their global territories and the Pacific countries involved then it wasn’t a World War.

    Just the Sino-Japanese war at that point I would think.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 15,399

    Taz said:

    nunu2 said:

    Whoever wrote this is about to get cancelled!

    https://www.lbc.co.uk/opinion/views/we-need-to-be-honest-about-londons-crime-wave/

    We are afraid to talk about Black violent crime in the way we do about Grooming gangs which is dominated by Muslims because race is even more sensitive a subject than religion. But needs to change.

    Get outside London and look at Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle where it is mainly White gang members stabbing or shooting each other. It's not really a race thing.
    I'd recommend an a day at either of Manchester's Crown Courts to disabuse you of this notion. Drug and county lines gangs with high levels of violence are on trial daily, and Pakistani/Bangaldeshi heritage defendants are over-represented. Albanians are massively over-represented in OCGs, depends whether they fall into your definition of 'white', they're certainly not White British.
    Albanians have recently taken over drugs, yes. But by and large they were never the ‘youth’ stabbing each other.
    My holiday reading a couple of years ago was ‘The Real Top Boy’.

    Quite an eye opener as to what some communities are living with and it touches on not only the Albanians but the Somali gangs now running drugs. Hellbanianz was one such group.

    One has to admire the entrepreneurial skills these people have and they know if they’re caught they won’t be deported.

    The road men are the mugs who take the fall for them.
    Apparently if you call the Albanians for drugs theses days, you pretty much go through a professional call centre.
    But those are the sorts of jobs most at risk of being replaced by AI.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,721
    edited July 30

    Ok lads, get your credit cards out (as long as that’s all you get out).

    https://x.com/dailymailceleb/status/1950577706057293927?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    @NickAnt12345

    Only pans!
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 123,064
    MattW said:

    Ok lads, get your credit cards out (as long as that’s all you get out).

    https://x.com/dailymailceleb/status/1950577706057293927?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    Onlypans?
    OnlyFlans surely.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,391

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    Wasn't Dreadnought and her near-sisters and subsequent designs built BY the Liberals?
    And weren't they right to do everything possible to stop the cataclysm that a generalised European war would be?
    Not really my era of interest, but did people generally think it would be a 'cataclysm' ? "Over by Christmas" was apparently a common thought.

    The Franco-Prussian war, just forty years earlier, lasted just six months and led to a conclusive Prussian victory. Many thought that would be the pattern in 1914.
    If it had been all over by Christmas (a definite possibility at the battle of the Marne) then it would still have been a cataclysm. Ditto if the Germans and aausto-Hungarians had collapsed in months.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,721

    MattW said:

    Ok lads, get your credit cards out (as long as that’s all you get out).

    https://x.com/dailymailceleb/status/1950577706057293927?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    Onlypans?
    OnlyFlans surely.
    Onlypuns.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 5,166
    Carnyx said:

    Well, commercial aircraft might be stuck but I've just been buzzed by a Douglas A-26 in Korean War colours flying low over the Flatlands. Flew from Wick, but got there via Goose Bay, Greenland, and Iceland over several days.

    Quite a trip for someone!

    Must be for an airshow?

    New owner, it would seem. Jammy sod - and you too for seeing it.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/1mdepj8/n4313_miss_michelle_a26_invader_flying_over_the/
    Well spotted! That got me looking and I found this:
    https://www.europeanairshows.co.uk/news/second-a26-invader-coming-to-europe

    Quite a history.

    I hope the new owner looks after it and doesn't attract any more flak.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,678
    It may or may not have betting implications, but in a tour de force of political dexterity Donald Trump has discovered the only possible way to boost Nicola Sturgeon's popularity.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg7jge5r8exo
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 44,517

    MattW said:

    Ok lads, get your credit cards out (as long as that’s all you get out).

    https://x.com/dailymailceleb/status/1950577706057293927?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    Onlypans?
    OnlyFlans surely.
    Lonelyfans
    Ggrinder

    Is what I‘ve seen so far.
  • Frank_BoothFrank_Booth Posts: 449
    One of the reasons I loathed the 2010-15 coalition was their brushing over of the impact of the financial crisis. Instead it was all Gordon Brown and spending. But then why had borrowing got so much worse? And pinstripe Farage isn't the type to emphasise it either.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,272
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    Wasn't Dreadnought and her near-sisters and subsequent designs built BY the Liberals?
    And weren't they right to do everything possible to stop the cataclysm that a generalised European war would be?
    Not really my era of interest, but did people generally think it would be a 'cataclysm' ? "Over by Christmas" was apparently a common thought.

    The Franco-Prussian war, just forty years earlier, lasted just six months and led to a conclusive Prussian victory. Many thought that would be the pattern in 1914.
    If it had been all over by Christmas (a definite possibility at the battle of the Marne) then it would still have been a cataclysm. Ditto if the Germans and aausto-Hungarians had collapsed in months.
    Austria-Hungary came close to collapse in 1914. They were no match for the Russians, without German leadership and assistance.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,991

    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.

    Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.

    In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.

    If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.

    You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 7,104
    Given that Starmer is almost universally disliked. Is it possible to have a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister as opposed to the Govt.. or are they one and the same thing.?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340
    edited July 30

    MattW said:

    Ok lads, get your credit cards out (as long as that’s all you get out).

    https://x.com/dailymailceleb/status/1950577706057293927?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    Onlypans?
    OnlyFlans surely.
    I Want To Bake Free
    Radio Rum Baba
    It's a Hard Loaf
    Under Pressure Cooker
    It's a Rind of Magic
    We are the Champignons
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340
    Foxy said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    There's a better argument that we'd have done well to have supported France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and prevent full German unification.

    But, at the time, France was seen as the threat and Prussia was seen as a good Wellingtonian era ally.

    And we didn't need allies anyway.
    Going back further, if we had backed Denmark against Prussia in 1846* then both the Austro Prussian war and the Franco Prussian war may never have happened.

    * the infamous Schwelsig-Holstein question.
    A question solved in 1920 by plebiscite.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,693
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
    Didn't France declare war the same day as us in 1939?

    In any case WW2 was 2 years old in China by then.
    You can argue that it only became a world war when Germany invaded Poland, Japan in China may have been the first conflict, but it was a skirmish in the scheme of things.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
    Didn't France declare war the same day as us in 1939?

    In any case WW2 was 2 years old in China by then.
    You can argue that it only became a world war when Germany invaded Poland, Japan in China may have been the first conflict, but it was a skirmish in the scheme of things.
    A skirmish with 10 million dead?
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 25,501
    stodge said:

    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.

    Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.

    In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.

    If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.

    You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
    It would, and it has in those nations its done, as people won't pay smugglers to cross them over if they're not going to get to stay. Not when there's alternative nations they could go to instead.

    The question is whether we are willing to change the law to do it. Any suggestion its against the law is weird as we are sovereign and can determine what the law is.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,391
    stodge said:

    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.

    Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.

    In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.

    If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.

    You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
    There are a few things possible. The Dutch process nearly all asylum claims in under six months. If successful they only get leave to remain for 3 years, no path to citizenship and no right to bring over family.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,991

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    The book I read recently, Dreadnought and the path to WW1, tells very lucidly how a Liberal government which absolutely didn't want war in any way (made up of people like @stodge @Foxy and @Cicero ) tried incredibly hard to keep Germany from escalating it, and were stonewalled, and how they fell silent and went white as a sheet around the Cabinet table when Germany invaded Belgium and they knew they'd have to fight.
    Wasn't Dreadnought and her near-sisters and subsequent designs built BY the Liberals?
    I'm not sure all Conservatives wanted war but our treaty obligation to Belgium made war inevitable in 1914 as it would have done in 1870 had the Prussians attacked the French the same way.

    By 1914, the rigidity of the two superpower blocs (sound familiar?) and the Schlieffen Plan which was all the Germans had meant they would be facing a two-front war IF thety failed to knock out the French (and by extension the British) quickly.

    I don't imagine the Liberals knew what kind of war it would be - they knew what kind of war it could be and don't forget the casualty numbers up to the point the front stabilised were appalling. At the Battle of the Marne, 250,000 French and 260,000 German troops were killed or wounded along with nearly 13,000 British. That rate of loss would have ended the war in weeks.

    Machine guns massacred infantry and cavalry alike before trenches were dug and the line stabilised.

    The failure of a century of keeping Britain out of Continental conflicts (Crimea doesn't really count), the failure of generations of diplomacy and deterrence - the likely economic and political consequences of a Central Powers victory.

    Imagine how a British PM and Cabinet in the 1980s would have felt on hearing Warsaw Pact forces had crossed into West Germany - it's comparable.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 25,501

    MattW said:

    Ok lads, get your credit cards out (as long as that’s all you get out).

    https://x.com/dailymailceleb/status/1950577706057293927?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q

    Onlypans?
    OnlyFlans surely.
    I Want To Bake Free
    Radio Rum Baba
    It's a Hard Loaf
    Under Pressure Cooker
    It's a Rind of Magic
    We are the Champignons
    Another one bites the crust.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 67,095
    Harris decides not to run for CA governor.

  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,693

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
    Didn't France declare war the same day as us in 1939?

    In any case WW2 was 2 years old in China by then.
    You can argue that it only became a world war when Germany invaded Poland, Japan in China may have been the first conflict, but it was a skirmish in the scheme of things.
    A skirmish with 10 million dead?
    When was that for?
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,678

    Foxy said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    There's a better argument that we'd have done well to have supported France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and prevent full German unification.

    But, at the time, France was seen as the threat and Prussia was seen as a good Wellingtonian era ally.

    And we didn't need allies anyway.
    Going back further, if we had backed Denmark against Prussia in 1846* then both the Austro Prussian war and the Franco Prussian war may never have happened.

    * the infamous Schwelsig-Holstein question.
    A question solved in 1920 by plebiscite.
    Schleswig 52% - 48% Holstein, one assumes, without bothering to look it up.
  • Frank_BoothFrank_Booth Posts: 449
    Could Palestine do to Labour what Europe did to the Tories?
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 4,082

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
    Didn't France declare war the same day as us in 1939?

    In any case WW2 was 2 years old in China by then.
    You can argue that it only became a world war when Germany invaded Poland, Japan in China may have been the first conflict, but it was a skirmish in the scheme of things.
    A skirmish with 10 million dead?
    The first and second Minor Disagreements, as Autoshenanigans refers to them as.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 11,345
    edited July 30
    stodge said:

    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.

    Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.

    In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.

    If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.

    You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
    I feel like maybe we should give the Greek response a go. Starmer could get away with that if we committed to maintaining or increasing the number of people we grant asylum via direct entry from UK Embassies in Turkey, Pakistan etc.

    It's the queue-jumping that is really toxic here. Brits are typically exceptionally tolerant, and welcoming of refugees and even economic migrants, but a sense of of fair play is keenly felt. It's why there is a such a deep loathing of travellers in rural areas - when someone leaves litter all over the place and trespasses on someone's field for weeks...

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 25,387

    Harris decides not to run for CA governor.

    Damn, I thought she'd win. What does she intend doing with her time now she's resting between jobs? Gardening?
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 25,501
    viewcode said:

    Harris decides not to run for CA governor.

    Damn, I thought she'd win. What does she intend doing with her time now she's resting between jobs? Gardening?
    Feeling sorry for herself?

    Must be difficult to know people would rather have taco small dick be back in charge than you.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340

    Foxy said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    There's a better argument that we'd have done well to have supported France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and prevent full German unification.

    But, at the time, France was seen as the threat and Prussia was seen as a good Wellingtonian era ally.

    And we didn't need allies anyway.
    Going back further, if we had backed Denmark against Prussia in 1846* then both the Austro Prussian war and the Franco Prussian war may never have happened.

    * the infamous Schwelsig-Holstein question.
    A question solved in 1920 by plebiscite.
    Schleswig 52% - 48% Holstein, one assumes, without bothering to look it up.
    Zone I, the northern most bit, was 75% for Denmark, 25% for Germany
    Zone II, the middle section, was 80% for Germany, 20% for Denmark
    Zone III, the southern-most bit, was seen as overwhelmingly German, so no vote was held there

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Schleswig_plebiscites
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    The stronger argument, based purely on national self-interest and putting all morality aside, is for sitting out the second war and allowing the two totalitarian dictatorships to slug it out, intervening at the end to finish off whoever was left.
    Thus speaks hindsight. Recall that in 1939 and 1940 Germany and Russia had signed a pact. This only broke down when Britain refused to stop fighting and Hitler then gambled on defeating Russia (USSR for purists) as a way to remove Britains last hope. We know that defeating Russia to gain lebensraum was his ultimate aim, but that was not necessarily certain in 1939.
    There are some murky chapters of British history but one thing we can be proud of is that we fought the second world war from the start (asterisk) to the end, and for a noble principle, to defeat Nazism. The other major powers joined only after being themselves attacked.
    Didn't France declare war the same day as us in 1939?

    In any case WW2 was 2 years old in China by then.
    You can argue that it only became a world war when Germany invaded Poland, Japan in China may have been the first conflict, but it was a skirmish in the scheme of things.
    A skirmish with 10 million dead?
    When was that for?
    The Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 32,211

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    We had no choice.

    France and Russia would have both been defeated (Russia was as it is, and France came close in 1917) and we'd have faced a totally German dominated Europe. They could have united the fleets of up to 4 navies against us, and would have occupied the low countries and the Channel coast, which would have meant the UK's safety and its links to the Empire would have been utterly at its mercy. The Royal Navy wouldn't have been able to protect our independence.

    We want to believe it was avoidable due to the terrible cost. But, whilst a catastrophe, the alternative for this country would have been worse.

    We had to fight.
    No, I don't really think that holds water. Even with whatever survived of France and Russia's Navies that had not been scuttled or come to us, Germany would not have been a serious naval threat. And where is the solid evidence that the Kaiser would have been more successful in conquering Russia than Napoleon before him?

    A Germany that had only recently united itself acting as the overlord of an annoyed Europe would have had far more pressing problems than attacking Britain at sea.

    It was just a catastrophical error. We have to accept it, forgive, and move on.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 55,340

    Could Palestine do to Labour what Europe did to the Tories?

    Actually, Starmer is in a bit of a difficult position. He's seen on the Left as a Jew-lover for being married to Victoria, and now he's seen on the Right as an appeaser of Hamas.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,893
    stodge said:

    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.

    Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.

    In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.

    If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.

    You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
    And, small boat crossings have increased 50% since it was cancellled.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 25,501

    Could Palestine do to Labour what Europe did to the Tories?

    Actually, Starmer is in a bit of a difficult position. He's seen on the Left as a Jew-lover for being married to Victoria, and now he's seen on the Right as an appeaser of Hamas.
    So one side criticises him for antisemitic racism, the other side for appeasing terrorists, and he's in a difficult position?

    No difficulty there, screw the racists and screw the terrorists.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 63,629
    Incredible thread on the ways HMG tried to censor entirely legitimate but “concerning” opinions online last year. They even tried to censor the fact some freedom of information requests were refused

    They will use the disgusting Online Safety Act to push this further

    https://x.com/jim_jordan/status/1950368307372020086?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    What choice do we have? How do we get rid of a government that loathes us, like this, and openly lies to us?
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 25,501

    stodge said:

    Starmer is adept at U-Turns so he should just admit cancelling Rwanda was a bad idea, sent totally the wrong message, and bring it make with a tweak and call it the Labour version.

    Simply because Labour knows it wouldn't work just as the Conservatives probably did.

    In truth, no one has come up with a coherent, legal, practical, workable and above all inexpensive solution to the problem of "the boats". If such a solution existed, it would have been implemented by either this Government or the last Government.

    If withdrawing from the ECHR is the panacea some seem to think it would have been done by this Government or the last Government.

    You could try the Greek response and immediately arrest and deport all those who come over illegally but that wouldn't stop them coming.
    And, small boat crossings have increased 50% since it was cancellled.
    Only 50% is survivable.

    It has to reach 52% to hit the news.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 52,391

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Fishing said:

    Personally I'd say our decision to go to war with France and Russia against Germany in 1914 was where it all started to go wrong.

    It killed almost a million men over some inconsequential tracts of Flanders, beggared the Empire, strengthened the United States, led to the Russian Revolution and Labour Governments and eventually to the Second World War.

    Honourable mentions to Lloyd George's 1909 Budget that set us on the disastrous road to the current welfare junkie tax and spend doom loop, and the Attlee government that pushed us further in that direction and passed the current disastrous planning system.

    This is Peter Hitchens' view IIRC.
    It is - of course - worth remembering that British foreign policy for the last 500 years has been to avoid a European continental hegemon emerging. It led to us fighting in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701–1714; the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815, and then both the World Wars in the 20th Century.

    The view - rightly or wrongly - was that Britain was strongest when Europe was fractured. (And I would argue that the fracturing of the European continent was -mostly- good for citizens too. It meant countries were competing and innovating.)

    So... you can argue that Britain should have avoided the First World War, but you do have to remember that would have had consequences too.
    We had no choice.

    France and Russia would have both been defeated (Russia was as it is, and France came close in 1917) and we'd have faced a totally German dominated Europe. They could have united the fleets of up to 4 navies against us, and would have occupied the low countries and the Channel coast, which would have meant the UK's safety and its links to the Empire would have been utterly at its mercy. The Royal Navy wouldn't have been able to protect our independence.

    We want to believe it was avoidable due to the terrible cost. But, whilst a catastrophe, the alternative for this country would have been worse.

    We had to fight.
    No, I don't really think that holds water. Even with whatever survived of France and Russia's Navies that had not been scuttled or come to us, Germany would not have been a serious naval threat. And where is the solid evidence that the Kaiser would have been more successful in conquering Russia than Napoleon before him?

    A Germany that had only recently united itself acting as the overlord of an annoyed Europe would have had far more pressing problems than attacking Britain at sea.

    It was just a catastrophical error. We have to accept it, forgive, and move on.
    I suppose the evidence is that in 1918 Germany had successfully conquered Russia.
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