Can you link to that 'clear and forceful' condemnation please?
A quick google produces mealy mouthed equivocation and assertions that Catalan politicians deceived & manipulated voters with their 'fixed' referendum while failing to try and find genuine dialogue and compromise with those lovely PP fellows.
Farage was not peripheral. 20-25% of the voters agreed with him. If we had PR, he'd be a major player.
But, he could not have won the EU Referendum unless people who disagree with him on many things, agreed with him about the EU.
No one would deny that Farage was instrumental in getting a Referendum. But long before we actually got to campaign or vote he had become a complete irrelevance and was far more likely to turn people against Brexit than draw them in. Everyone who was serious about Leave winning knew he was a liability and did everything they could to make sure he was marginalised.
The most important decision in the whole campaign was the one that awarded official Status to Vote Leave rather than Leave.eu. If that decision had gone the other way Remain would have won. I am not sure how easily, but they would have won.
Of course the Remoaners want Farage to have been important, just like the TV stations did because he is such a divisive figure. It just shows how desperate they have become.
Gove was the decisive figure. He brought Cummings, and brought out Johnson, and, together, allowed a liberal case to be made for Leave.
Without him the middle-class Leavers and moderates centrists who plumped for Leave wouldn't have been won over, and Leave would have been left with the usual suspects.
On the other hand, I still think Leave would have won by a bigger margin (perhaps 56/57% to 43/44%) had the two campaigns not been fighting each other until almost the final week, and if Vote Leave itself had been better organised.
Having two campaigns was actually positive, it allowed farage to dog whistle while giving liberal leavers cover that he wasn't the official campaign. For me Jo Cox was a big turning point, without that 57/43 nailed on. The polls were all moving to leave until that event.
ITV. Well and trully thumped in the anthems - GSTQ really is an utter dirge.
Agreed.
The only time I really enjoy singing GSTQ is when we play Australia and we rework the lyrics to
'God Save Your Queen'
GSTQ should not be the English anthem, as you say it is absurd that the English anthem is GSTQ when England plays Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales or NI at rugby, cricket or football as it is also their opponents anthem too.
GSTQ should only be played in the presence of the Queen or a member of the royal family and the more stirring Jerusalem should be the England anthem as it is at the Commonwealth Games. We should also get someone to compose a UK anthem too for Team GB and NI at the Olympics.
GSTQ is the UK Anthem. It isn’t the Welsh, nor the Scots, and Australia and New Zealand have their own now too. Advance Australia Fair is pretty good, as is God defend New Zealand, although there’s too much about God. Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau makes the hair on my neck rise!
Well if it is the UK anthem it certainly should not be the English anthem, though given Australia and New Zealand have the Queen as their monarch too it should not really be the UK anthem either.
As you say every country where the Queen is monarch has its own anthem and so should England. GSTQ should revert to being a royal anthem played in the presence of the monarch, rsther like 'Heil to the Chief' in the US when the President is present
I believe GSTQ is the Royal Anthem in at least some of the Commonwealth realms, and is played at the arrival of the local Governor-General.
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He appeared in a live TV debate with the PM, yet some here still claim he was "only peripheral"
How's Guy's bleat for de-escalation and a negotiated solution going?
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Downing Street loved it, of course.
This is a classic case where 'lessons should be learnt' needs to be true. Thank goodness the paramedics were not restricted to 500 metres.
Then again, I'm glad I'm not the one on the ground having to manage the response to such an event ...