Is someone born in Japan to two British parents automatically Japanese?
No; their citizenship law has been substantially the same for three quarters of a century. ..Children born to at least one Japanese parent are generally automatically nationals at birth. Birth in Japan does not by itself entitle a child to Japanese nationality, except when a child would otherwise be stateless. Foreign nationals may acquire citizenship by naturalization after living in the country for at least five years and renouncing any previous nationalities...
Our nuclear subs are now also dependent on the Dutch.
URENCO is going to enrich uranium as fuel on behalf of the UK MoD, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister writes to their Parliament.
Although details are scarce, this implies progress in the plans to set up nuclear fuel production (HEU) at Capehurst.
The DiP has a 1.7 billion funding allocation to plans connected with the production of nuclear fuel. Projects to onshore nuclear fuel production have been in the works for a while but the MoD has been deliberately vague about it.
Even the DiP document only says "to explore options for reestablishing a nuclear fuel cycle for defence reactor fuel".
Whoever said that this strategy was counterproductive and would please Putin is a moron. What pleases Putin is dipshits like this who regard their job as timeserving and drawing a salary, not actually ensuring our defences are viable.
HEU cores for submarines last for the life of the submarine.
You can also stockpile* them. They are the size of a large bucket, and last geological time periods.
So if someone decides - “no more HEU for the U.K.”, it would take many years to have any effect.
It’s the least important item on the list of supply chain risks.
*the U.K. has a stockpile of HEU, dating back to when we got all enthusiastic about odd nuclear bomb designs. The actual amount is classified.
Came here 20 years ago from Somalia, did voluntary work, got a degree, worked in the public sector, became a councillor and seems like he’s done a good job.
… in reply to…
Also: the Lord Mayor isn't really 'running' the city, is he? He's a figurehead - he gets to wear the mayoral regalia. He's like a municipal constitutional monarch.
I'm right up the immigration-sceptic end of the spectrum, but I can't get exercised about this at all. He looks to me very much like he's integrating. This is what we want, surely?
Same here
I think it’s nice to see a positive story of Somali migration and integration and actual economic participation for a change
In fact, this post crystallises one of my problems with Reform. I have so many complaints about immigration. The sheer numbers of undesirable immigrants crossing in boats. The criminal elements it introduces. The refusal to deal with the criminal elements robustly. The bending-over-backwards to put the needs and in some cases wants of (some) immigrants before the needs of our own people. The sheer amount of money we’re spending on immigrants (while, simultaneously, and puzzlingly, making it very hard and expensive for immigrants from places like Canada). The sheer squalor of places like Cheetham Hill. The depression of wages. But that very much isn’t to say I have an aversion to all immigrants or all immigration. I recognise the benefits. What I want is for immigrants to buy into Britishness. This is what most of the immigrants I know do. My daughter’s football and cricket clubs are peppered with immigrants and their families. For immigrants – like this guy in Britsol, willing to don silly British clothes – who want to buy into Britishness: this is absolutely brilliant. I love it. It’s not only great for Britain, but great that Britishness is something that people like this want to adopt. I think my views on this are perfectly mainstream.
A perfectly good case could have been made opposing ‘bad’ immigration while welcoming ‘good’. I’d say it would have been popular. Once again, Reform had an electoral open goal which they’ve judiciously aimed a good 45 degrees right of.
I agree, but I think what you miss is that Reform don’t want what we want. We see an integrated immigrant becoming Lord Mayor and think, "great, more of the same please".
For at least part of Reform’s coalition, the objection isn’t just illegal immigration or failed integration. It’s demographic and cultural change itself. From that perspective, Goodwin’s post isn’t a blunder at all. It’s entirely consistent.
To want to nudge the future in a particular direction is politics. To address what has already happened WRT who is lawfully living here by attacking its foundations and opposing assimilation, and wanting to demonise and reverse it is a starting point for the genuine fascist.
Yes, exactly. Opposing future policy is one thing. Looking at someone lawfully here, visibly assimilated, civically engaged, and then objecting anyway is quite another.
At that point the issue clearly isn’t failed integration. It’s that integration has succeeded, and some people still don’t like the result. - If successful assimilation still counts as a problem, then assimilation was never really the test.
But people absolutely can become British. Britishness is a civic nationality that has long encompassed multiple ethnicities and national identities. If Britishness cannot be acquired, then successful integration is impossible by definition.
Now the real question, is he conflating nationality with ethnicity accidentally or deliberately
Nearly no one defines being English, Welsh, Scottish in terms of ethnicity.
The question of whether post-war non-white immigrants can be described as "English" as distinct from "British" crops up rather a lot, especially when the anti-woke right post. I think they can and I advance Rishi Sunak as the prime example. Others do not, including IIRC Suella Braverman, and definitely Goodwin and others of similar stance. We need a word for this group.
My wife has never considered herself to be English. British by naturalisation, yes, but not English.
IIRC John Barnes, star of the England team, has never considered himself to be English.
I consider myself English and British interchangeably, often dependent on what sporting event is on at the time.
Right now I am very English.
But my antipathy to the French confirms my Englishness.
English, British and European for me.
English, British, French, American, Polish, Ukrainian, Irish, Freedonia, Grand Fenwickian & micro state on the Ukraine/Republic of China border, for me.
Yorkshire , English, British and aspirant European.
I appreciate some people here doubt the reality of the Russian threat. And, certainly, I don't think the Red Army is very likely to be rolling over the plains of Central Europe all the way to the channel any time soon. But this is disturbing, no?
"The Kremlin orchestrated a concerted surveillance campaign using drones launched from shadow fleet vessels over an 18-month period which targeted nuclear sites in the UK, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, researchers have said.
"Analysis by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) of 144 incidents in more than a dozen countries beginning in late 2024 concluded Russian intelligence had operated with “substantial impunity”, leaving authorities across Europe flat-footed and confused.
"Drones were repeatedly spotted over airbases and airports, yet none were captured or shot down by western militaries, exposing a strategic failure in Nato air defences that the thinktank said had been quietly acknowledged across Europe."
We shouldn't be able to buy drones on amazon. At a minimum they should be licensed and registered to the same level as cars, personally I'd restrict them much further and treat them like planes.
How?
That just means that the bad actors move to kits - the basic bits and pieces can’t be banned. “Possession if an electric motor”?
Incidentally, the next piece of fun that technology will give us, is the collapse of gun control.
At the moment, 3D printing and CNC milling hasn’t done this - because barrels and ammunition are hard to make.
What is coming is coil guns. Electromagnets firing projectiles.
There are no explosives required - the design at the moment use high end power tool batteries. All the parts can be 3D printed or made from metal rod etc bought from a DIY store. The coils can be hand wound. You’d need a 3D printer, some hand tools and soldering iron.
Fully automatic weapon, silent, no rifling marks on the projectile and no propellant gas residue for forensics.
The current designs are a bit lore powerful than air guns - might well be lethal now, but their power is growing year by year.
My drone is registered and has an operator ID stuck to it.
A few drone operators are a bit concerned about this because anyone wanting to harass them (even if they are operating perfectly legally) will know where they are.
Fortunately I'm usually operating as UK0 which means I can avoid that until 2028, although if I haven't crashed it by then the device to enable remote ID will put it over the class weight.
As for stopping them - I have one from 2013 I made from a few motors and an arduino which can lift a lot more than a tiny DJI. There are no parts that are drone specific. I'm thinking of re-purposing it to bomb habitats with seeds rather than grenades.
That's its current use ??
Lol, no. I'm just not going to repurpose it to do that...
It was built to lift a camera, but there's no need for such shenanigans now.
A convicted terrorist who attended beheadings and public floggings in Iraq came to Britain on small boat after hearing on Tiktok that the UK "accepts everyone", a court has heard
Good, but why are they being spoken to as if they're about 5 years old?
"Carr addresses the three defendants, explaining that the judges have been tasked with reviewing their sentences. She says she will look at X and Y's sentences first. Carr says they have "thought very hard" about their sentences and that "both of you do need to go into detention". She says it's because we think "what you did was so bad" they had no other choice."
A convicted terrorist who attended beheadings and public floggings in Iraq came to Britain on small boat after hearing on Tiktok that the UK "accepts everyone", a court has heard
Has he checked vacancies in Community Leadership Teams in NI?
Sounds like he would fit in - a fresh approach to KPIs and methodology might revitalise the sector.
Just seen some of the reaction to this and… we really are a country of miserable sacks of lethargy. The same people who get triggered by the prospect of cycling a couple of miles, or want to ban nightclubs.
I do wonder if this is just pubs on legacy 11-11 licences, and anyone on a modern flexible licence is going to have to still apply to the council. Hopefully not
Our nuclear subs are now also dependent on the Dutch.
URENCO is going to enrich uranium as fuel on behalf of the UK MoD, Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister writes to their Parliament.
Although details are scarce, this implies progress in the plans to set up nuclear fuel production (HEU) at Capehurst.
The DiP has a 1.7 billion funding allocation to plans connected with the production of nuclear fuel. Projects to onshore nuclear fuel production have been in the works for a while but the MoD has been deliberately vague about it.
Even the DiP document only says "to explore options for reestablishing a nuclear fuel cycle for defence reactor fuel".
Whoever said that this strategy was counterproductive and would please Putin is a moron. What pleases Putin is dipshits like this who regard their job as timeserving and drawing a salary, not actually ensuring our defences are viable.
HEU cores for submarines last for the life of the submarine.
You can also stockpile* them. They are the size of a large bucket, and last geological time periods.
So if someone decides - “no more HEU for the U.K.”, it would take many years to have any effect.
It’s the least important item on the list of supply chain risks.
*the U.K. has a stockpile of HEU, dating back to when we got all enthusiastic about odd nuclear bomb designs. The actual amount is classified.
I know, but I thought it would wind someone up.
MoD procurement is nonetheless highly unreliable.
For example, Meteor is a remarkably good air to air missile. Deciding not to upgrade it to keep it competitive seems like counterproductive penny pinching.
UK defence plan targets @MBDAGroup Storm Shadow, Meteor successor investments, including £1.4 billion for in-development Stratus. Surprising not to support mid-life upgrade for Meteor, as 12-month replacement study with France only started this year? https://x.com/FlightAcesHigh/status/2072595872899121181
"“You cannot have more Milibands than women in the top jobs. That kind of thing matters”.
I am not re-entering this market, but given Labour’s longstanding women problem I think Andy Burnham might end up appointing a woman as Chancellor although I can understand why people might want to lump on Pat McFadden."
When you think about the fact that there are over 400 Labour MPs on the Government benches right now, what does it say about the current state of the Westminster Labour party when it decided it needed a former MP to be parachuted into Parliament via a by-election to make their current leader and PM to resign while they then sit back and allow him to crowned their new party leader and PM without even a contest? And then to even be considering parachuting another former Labour MP into the House of Lords to become the new Foreign Secretary?!
And lets not even get into Labour's long standing woman problem whereby over the last few decades they seem to have become a token equality PR exercise on the back benches and in the Cabinet while heaven forbid that one of them might finally be seen to be talented enough to be not only be considered but then elected as a Labour leader or PM. At this rate we might finally see a female US President before we see the Labour party elect a woman to lead their party.
And while the Labour party continue to go through the motions of performative activisim when it comes to claiming to be a progressive party they continue to be anything but while they keep selecting mediocre place men to the party leadership and token women to the Cabinet and backbenches. Say what you like about the Conservative party, but they designed a leadership frame work that awards achievement while ruthlessly making it far easier to oust failure while the Labour leadership framework achieves the exact opposite.
What ever you think of Margaret Thatcher, she will always remain an icon to me simple because as a teenager I watched her break the biggest political glass ceiling in UK politics to become leader of the Conservative party. But also back then if you had told me that nearly fifty years on the Labour party had still not managed to ever elect a female leader I would have been genuinely surprised, but now not so much....
I have often thought that Labour’s women problem is somehow emblematic of the problems with the left’s approach to solving problems in general - i.e. that it focuses on fixing outcomes rather than causes because doing so is easier than addressing said causes. Because, in turn, those causes often have cultural roots that require answering difficult personal or political questions.
The Conservatives have at this point had /three/ female prime ministers. (Yes, one of them was slightly batshit, but that’s even better evidence for their lack of sexism!) Labour? None.
Power is taken, not given: if you rely on someone else to grant you power then you don’t really have that power at all; it’s on loan & can be taken away from you at any time by the grantor. So it is with politicians & positions of power: they go to those who have the political power to take them. If Labour has been unable to appoint female politicians to high office, you can’t solve that problem by mandating appointments from amongst the few female politicians who do make it - all you are really doing is announcing that these people have no real power within the system & are dependent on others ceding power to them. If you decide to appoint them they will turn out to be toothless & ineffective because they have no actual power base to draw upon.
The interesting question is: why have no female politicians within the Labour party been able to take and hold (OK, 2 out 3) power in the way that Thatcher, May or Truss did? It’s entirely plausible that sexism is the answer, but it’s not the kind of sexism that the Party wants to acknowledge - it’s the sexism of a membership who don’t respect female politicians which in turn means that those female politicians cannot create a power base within the party which allows them to take power for themselves.
You cannot solve this with post-hoc thumb on the scales of political appointments because doing so ignores the real underlying power dynamics which exist whoever gets appointed.
(This analysis would probably make me persona non grata within the Party, which is why I would be a terrible politician.)
We're dealing with a very small sample size. It might be that the Tories and Labour have an equal propensity to having a female PM, but it's just chance that the Tories are on 3 and Labour on 0.
If we take Thatcher as breaking the glass ceiling and consider PMs since her...
Conservative: 4M, 3F Labour: 4M (shortly), 0F
That's not statistically significant (Fisher exact text, p = 0.26).
You can only apply a statistic test if you define the thing you’re testing against? “Party A is not sexist” is different to “Party A is less sexist than Party B”.
Since Thatcher there have been eleven appointed leaders of the Conservative party, of which 3 have been women. Over the same period, if we regard Burnham’s elevation as inevitable, there have been ten appointed leaders of the Labour party, none of whom have been women. (Two women have taken over the post as acting leader when the leader died or stepped down.)
Maybe I should ask my statistician offspring for some statistical tests to apply to these numbers
(It might be interesting to run the same analyses for cabinet post appointees.)
On those numbers, ignoring the acting leaders, you get a Fisher exact p of 0.21, not significant. That's testing are Parties A and B equally sexist.
If we're testing is Party A sexist... well, the numbers are still tiny. For the Conservative Party, 3/11 leaders gives an estimated proportion of female leaders = 27%, with a 95% confidence interval of 6-61%. We would naively expect 50% if the party is not sexist, so there's insufficient evidence here to claim the party is sexist.
Do that for Labour and 0/10 leaders and the estimated proportion of female leaders = 0% obviously, but with a 95% confidence interval of 0-31%. That is different from 50%, so perhaps that is evidence the party is sexist. However, I would argue that we know there was sexism in the past. Labour only got near to equal gender representation in the Parliamentary party in 2015 (and the Tories never have). Since then, we've had 4 Labour leaders (inc. Burnham), so again the estimated proportion of female leaders = 0%, but with a 95% confidence interval now of 0-60%. So there isn't evidence that the party is recently sexist in leader choice.
You can keep moving the statistical goal-posts as often as you like but the Conservatives have elected four female leaders & Labour have elected none. It’s a bad look.
Well, I've now corrected those numbers: see edit above.
I agree the optics are bad, whatever the stats say. The stats can't say much because the numbers are small.
Labour has spent decades championing descriptive representation, quotas, all-women shortlists and equality initiatives, yet has never elected a woman leader.
The Conservatives have traditionally opposed most of those mechanisms, yet have produced multiple female leaders.
That’s undeniably awkward for Labour’s self-image, even if it’s largely a function of contingent political history rather than institutional sexism.
My suspicion is the explanation is much more mundane than either side wants. Conservative leadership contests tend to be brutal Darwinian affairs where the parliamentary party and membership ruthlessly discard yesterday’s favourite. Labour leaderships are much more likely to produce a long period where one dominant faction controls succession. Once the dominant figures happened to be Blair, Brown, Miliband, Corbyn and Starmer, the opportunities for anyone else, male or female, became remarkably scarce.
Though on the other hand the Tory party defenestrated 3 of those 4 female leaders, with 4th on borrowed time...
Is someone born in Japan to two British parents automatically Japanese?
My Engilsh friend moved to Japan and had a kid there with his Japanese wife. That kid has grown up in Japan, but came to the UK for her undergrad degree. Is she Japanese or British or both?
You know what? I think she's a very nice person and I am bored by this exclusionary nonsense.
"“You cannot have more Milibands than women in the top jobs. That kind of thing matters”.
I am not re-entering this market, but given Labour’s longstanding women problem I think Andy Burnham might end up appointing a woman as Chancellor although I can understand why people might want to lump on Pat McFadden."
When you think about the fact that there are over 400 Labour MPs on the Government benches right now, what does it say about the current state of the Westminster Labour party when it decided it needed a former MP to be parachuted into Parliament via a by-election to make their current leader and PM to resign while they then sit back and allow him to crowned their new party leader and PM without even a contest? And then to even be considering parachuting another former Labour MP into the House of Lords to become the new Foreign Secretary?!
And lets not even get into Labour's long standing woman problem whereby over the last few decades they seem to have become a token equality PR exercise on the back benches and in the Cabinet while heaven forbid that one of them might finally be seen to be talented enough to be not only be considered but then elected as a Labour leader or PM. At this rate we might finally see a female US President before we see the Labour party elect a woman to lead their party.
And while the Labour party continue to go through the motions of performative activisim when it comes to claiming to be a progressive party they continue to be anything but while they keep selecting mediocre place men to the party leadership and token women to the Cabinet and backbenches. Say what you like about the Conservative party, but they designed a leadership frame work that awards achievement while ruthlessly making it far easier to oust failure while the Labour leadership framework achieves the exact opposite.
What ever you think of Margaret Thatcher, she will always remain an icon to me simple because as a teenager I watched her break the biggest political glass ceiling in UK politics to become leader of the Conservative party. But also back then if you had told me that nearly fifty years on the Labour party had still not managed to ever elect a female leader I would have been genuinely surprised, but now not so much....
I have often thought that Labour’s women problem is somehow emblematic of the problems with the left’s approach to solving problems in general - i.e. that it focuses on fixing outcomes rather than causes because doing so is easier than addressing said causes. Because, in turn, those causes often have cultural roots that require answering difficult personal or political questions.
The Conservatives have at this point had /three/ female prime ministers. (Yes, one of them was slightly batshit, but that’s even better evidence for their lack of sexism!) Labour? None.
Power is taken, not given: if you rely on someone else to grant you power then you don’t really have that power at all; it’s on loan & can be taken away from you at any time by the grantor. So it is with politicians & positions of power: they go to those who have the political power to take them. If Labour has been unable to appoint female politicians to high office, you can’t solve that problem by mandating appointments from amongst the few female politicians who do make it - all you are really doing is announcing that these people have no real power within the system & are dependent on others ceding power to them. If you decide to appoint them they will turn out to be toothless & ineffective because they have no actual power base to draw upon.
The interesting question is: why have no female politicians within the Labour party been able to take and hold (OK, 2 out 3) power in the way that Thatcher, May or Truss did? It’s entirely plausible that sexism is the answer, but it’s not the kind of sexism that the Party wants to acknowledge - it’s the sexism of a membership who don’t respect female politicians which in turn means that those female politicians cannot create a power base within the party which allows them to take power for themselves.
You cannot solve this with post-hoc thumb on the scales of political appointments because doing so ignores the real underlying power dynamics which exist whoever gets appointed.
(This analysis would probably make me persona non grata within the Party, which is why I would be a terrible politician.)
We're dealing with a very small sample size. It might be that the Tories and Labour have an equal propensity to having a female PM, but it's just chance that the Tories are on 3 and Labour on 0.
If we take Thatcher as breaking the glass ceiling and consider PMs since her...
Conservative: 4M, 3F Labour: 4M (shortly), 0F
That's not statistically significant (Fisher exact text, p = 0.26).
I think this applies to the leadership stats too. I actually think the bigger issue for Labour is the talent doesn't seem to be female. Whatever one might think about Thatcher, May and Badenoch (let's leave the other one to one side...), they were very much decent options for the party. Who has there been for Labour? Beckett and Cooper possibly? But that's about it.
Odd thing is that radical feminist Mrs Thatcher, sfaict from this handy Wikipedia list of her ministers, appointed only two women to her Cabinets in her eleven years as Prime Minister, and both of those in the House of Lords. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ministers_under_Margaret_Thatcher
Number of female Tory MPs:
1979: 8 1983: 13 1987: 17
It really was a different time.
It really was:
Mrs Thatcher was 12% of the entire cohort of female Conservative MPs. Which is staggering, when you think about it. (It also means that a lot larger percentage of fermale Conservative MPs were in the Cabinet than male Conservative MPs.)
I’d chime in, but this thread has already taken too heavy a toll.
I was going to compare the cabinet to a band of bell ringers, but thought it a far too camp analogy.
All bell ringers and all church choirs are like different aspects of the Canterbury tales.
My forever favourite anecdote was with the small professional choir of St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield, in the Rising Sun pub opposite in about 1998 - when I was living near the Barbican for a couple of years.
There was a conversation about "how heavy is a boob", so one of the men asked to try it out, and one of the women let him. So they sat there in the pub with the gent weighing the lady's fairly large left boob in his hand up and down as one would assess the weight of something like a haggis or a ball of dough when preparing to bake a loaf.
An interesting three-bedroom house went up for sale in Salisbury last week. With by all accounts normal interiors, it was a bargain at just £114,000.
And there’s a small note on the listing that reads: “For full disclosure, this property was involved in the Novichok event that took place in 2018”.
So how did they get the house previously lived in by Sergei Skripal ready for some poor fucker sick of renting to actually consider buying it?
DEFRA, in collaboration with specialist military teams, spent 13,000 hours stripping the interior and replacing the roof to guarantee no residue remained.
It’s now become a council shared ownership offering to prevent it becoming a macabre tourist attraction. (Good luck with that.)
Comments
..Children born to at least one Japanese parent are generally automatically nationals at birth. Birth in Japan does not by itself entitle a child to Japanese nationality, except when a child would otherwise be stateless. Foreign nationals may acquire citizenship by naturalization after living in the country for at least five years and renouncing any previous nationalities...
MoD procurement is nonetheless highly unreliable.
#OneManMulticulturalMeltingPot
The pubs to remain open until 5am on Monday.
You told us this.
Boom will be offering a prize—$50k cash and $50k in Boom stock—for the first amateur-built RC airplane to exceed Mach 1.
https://x.com/bscholl/status/2072687775636426934
Never going to happen here - though an independent Scotland might encourage such activities since it has the room ?
He's reminding us all why he lost the by-election with his BNP rhetoric.
Here's how another accountant identitifies...
https://x.com/hemantmehta/status/2072683841555157441
Still chuckling the North Britons held a Bank Holiday just for qualifying for the World Cup.
Sounds like he would fit in - a fresh approach to KPIs and methodology might revitalise the sector.
I hope English PBers have a great night out.
UK defence plan targets @MBDAGroup Storm Shadow, Meteor successor investments, including £1.4 billion for in-development Stratus. Surprising not to support mid-life upgrade for Meteor, as 12-month replacement study with France only started this year?
https://x.com/FlightAcesHigh/status/2072595872899121181
I had the foresight to book holidays for this period, why should slackers be rewarded.
You know what? I think she's a very nice person and I am bored by this exclusionary nonsense.
Mrs Thatcher was 12% of the entire cohort of female Conservative MPs. Which is staggering, when you think about it. (It also means that a lot larger percentage of fermale Conservative MPs were in the Cabinet than male Conservative MPs.)
A: A pool table
And there’s a small note on the listing that reads: “For full disclosure, this property was involved in the Novichok event that took place in 2018”.
So how did they get the house previously lived in by Sergei Skripal ready for some poor fucker sick of renting to actually consider buying it?
DEFRA, in collaboration with specialist military teams, spent 13,000 hours stripping the interior and replacing the roof to guarantee no residue remained.
It’s now become a council shared ownership offering to prevent it becoming a macabre tourist attraction. (Good luck with that.)
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/90003912?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#/?channel=RES_BUY
Decisive leadership is absent
Mary Harrington" (£)
https://unherd.com/2026/07/how-britain-became-zombieland/
That's not a bad slogan for Kemi's new tories.