Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
Are we sure Wales will still be part of the UK post-Brexit?
I suspect if Scotland and N . Ireland both left, then Wales would.
Wales can't afford to leave. Northern Ireland would presumably combine with Ireland, and Scotland could be economically independent. Wales is too far from the continent, and its coal and steel industries have largely died. As Salmond said back in the 80s, Welsh independence is a cultural movement: Scottish independence an economic one.
Which is a problem for Scotland now that the oil tax boom there is over.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Another pointer towards Trump not contesting the 2020 election...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/independents-trust-mueller-which-could-be-bad-news-for-trump/ The poll also suggests that independents may be the deciding factor in whether the public supports Trump’s impeachment, if it comes to that. Per the Post poll, if Mueller’s report finds that Trump obstructed justice by trying to undermine the Russia investigation, Americans believe — 65 percent to 29 percent — that Congress should impeach Trump and try to remove him from office.1 And if the report concludes that Trump authorized his campaign staff to collude with Russia, Americans support impeachment and attempted removal by a similar margin: 61 percent to 33 percent...
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Not so good for me, but then I have influences from the South and the North.
What about the midlands, me duck?
When I said North, I should have said Midlands. I don't use the word duck, but it's a word I heard a lot when growing up.
Duck was used a lot at my school, but where I actually lived — which was only 10 miles away — it wasn't used at all and people would think you were a bit weird if you did use it.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
What's it got to do with Merkel. The SM/CU is an EU-wide thing. Even if she didn't want a border in Ireland, she can't stop one surely?
And a border in Ireland completely smashes the Good Friday Agreement. Let us pray that there's no return to the troubles that so plagued us from the late 60s till 1998.
That this needs saying is of course tragic, in its literal sense.
And Leadsom on the radio seemed to be threatening the EU with a return to those troubles if they don't cave in on the backstop.
The European Union's negotiating stance is that Britain must choose between having its trade policy dictated from Brussels, or alternatively only part of it having regulations and trade policy dictated from Brussels, plus the UK introducing an internal border. That's not a very reasonable stance.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Needs to be repeated and spread around so that as many voters who pay little attention to this stuff know what the Corbynites say about history and what they plan to do in government.
I see Owen Jones is determined to join in the 'let's look at Churchill's record' bandwagon.
Why?
What on earth has it to do with anything that is happening politically at the moment? What has Labour to gain by trying to educate the public about Churchill's pre-war record (and I'm trying to be kind to them here when I say 'educate')?
Average voter in the Duck and Dog (if they even notice): Oh look, it seems Churchill may have sent the army in to quell a strike in 1900. You know what that is terrible. Just terrible. I'll be voting Labour now.
Is this Brexit displacement activity or are these people so stuck in their own bubble that they have gone bonkers?
The past is of course a different place. A hundred years ago, strikes could be far more violent and revolutionary in nature to the sort of thing we see today, and police had far less means of breaking unrest.
On the flip side, employers could be much more brutal bastards as well, so I'm not saying this was all one-sided or that grievances weren't deep and justified, but we do need to understand the whole context of industrial and social relations before passing judgement.
And we also need to remember that those who lived through the war and Churchills later premiership had a much more nuanced view of him than today's hero-worshippers would have us believe. Certainly he provided leadership in a critical moment, but his earlier career included the disastrous Dardenelles campaign in World War I, the return to the gold standard, widely regarded as the worst economic decision in the interwar period, and his role in the Bengal famine during the Second World War is usually seen as rather less than glorious.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Needs to be repeated and spread around so that as many voters who pay little attention to this stuff know what the Corbynites say about history and what they plan to do in government.
I see Owen Jones is determined to join in the 'let's look at Churchill's record' bandwagon.
Why?
What on earth has it to do with anything that is happening politically at the moment? What has Labour to gain by trying to educate the public about Churchill's pre-war record (and I'm trying to be kind to them here when I say 'educate')?
Average voter in the Duck and Dog (if they even notice): Oh look, it seems Churchill may have sent the army in to quell a strike in 1900. You know what that is terrible. Just terrible. I'll be voting Labour now.
Is this Brexit displacement activity or are these people so stuck in their own bubble that they have gone bonkers?
The latter, I think. Social media is driving some people mad.
Do we not think examining our imperial past, the bits we glorify and the bits we ignore, may be useful to the way modern Britain is acting? Especially as it seems to be directly affecting the way other nations still view us? Perfidious Albion is in rogue again and not just because of the idiots in charge now. As @Cyclefree mentioned earlier in the week, Iraq has many similarities to Suez, and I cannot imagine any other country leaving the EU in this way with such a sure sense of their own moral righteousness and self importance sans that history.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Needs to be repeated and spread around so that as many voters who pay little attention to this stuff know what the Corbynites say about history and what they plan to do in government.
I see Owen Jones is determined to join in the 'let's look at Churchill's record' bandwagon.
Why?
What on earth has it to do with anything that is happening politically at the moment? What has Labour to gain by trying to educate the public about Churchill's pre-war record (and I'm trying to be kind to them here when I say 'educate')?
Average voter in the Duck and Dog (if they even notice): Oh look, it seems Churchill may have sent the army in to quell a strike in 1900. You know what that is terrible. Just terrible. I'll be voting Labour now.
Is this Brexit displacement activity or are these people so stuck in their own bubble that they have gone bonkers?
The latter, I think. Social media is driving some people mad.
Do we not think examining our imperial past, the bits we glorify and the bits we ignore, may be useful to the way modern Britain is acting? Especially as it seems to be directly affecting the way other nations still view us? Perfidious Albion is in rogue again and not just because of the idiots in charge now. As @Cyclefree mentioned earlier in the week, Iraq has many similarities to Suez, and I cannot imagine any other country leaving the EU in this way with such a sure sense of their own moral righteousness and self importance sans that history.
History should always be studied and revised. But, placing Churchill on a par with Mao or Stalin is just cretinous.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Needs to be repeated and spread around so that as many voters who pay little attention to this stuff know what the Corbynites say about history and what they plan to do in government.
I see Owen Jones is determined to join in the 'let's look at Churchill's record' bandwagon.
Why?
What on earth has it to do with anything that is happening politically at the moment? What has Labour to gain by trying to educate the public about Churchill's pre-war record (and I'm trying to be kind to them here when I say 'educate')?
Average voter in the Duck and Dog (if they even notice): Oh look, it seems Churchill may have sent the army in to quell a strike in 1900. You know what that is terrible. Just terrible. I'll be voting Labour now.
Is this Brexit displacement activity or are these people so stuck in their own bubble that they have gone bonkers?
The past is of course a different place. A hundred years ago, strikes could be far more violent and revolutionary in nature to the sort of thing we see today, and police had far less means of breaking unrest.
On the flip side, employers could be much more brutal bastards as well, so I'm not saying this was all one-sided or that grievances weren't deep and justified, but we do need to understand the whole context of industrial and social relations before passing judgement.
And we also need to remember that those who lived through the war and Churchills later premiership had a much more nuanced view of him than today's hero-worshippers would have us believe. Certainly he provided leadership in a critical moment, but his earlier career included the disastrous Dardenelles campaign in World War I, the return to the gold standard, widely regarded as the worst economic decision in the interwar period, and his role in the Bengal famine during the Second World War is usually seen as rather less than glorious.
Certainly his was a career largely of misjudgement and failure redeemed by becoming the right man for extraordinary times.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
Maybe the Greek Communists were nice, fluffy, Communists, unlike the nasty Communists in the rest of the Balkans, but I doubt it.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
What's it got to do with Merkel. The SM/CU is an EU-wide thing. Even if she didn't want a border in Ireland, she can't stop one surely?
And a border in Ireland completely smashes the Good Friday Agreement. Let us pray that there's no return to the troubles that so plagued us from the late 60s till 1998.
That this needs saying is of course tragic, in its literal sense.
And Leadsom on the radio seemed to be threatening the EU with a return to those troubles if they don't cave in on the backstop.
The European Union's negotiating stance is that Britain must choose between having its trade policy dictated from Brussels, or alternatively only part of it having regulations and trade policy dictated from Brussels, plus the UK introducing an internal border. That's not a very reasonable stance.
I don't disagree.
But we went into the referendum with the Irish issue a very live one. That this would mean the compromises of which you speak was probably not built into either the Leaver or Remainer deliberation process. But it was ever going to be thus. In fact, people were voting for a compromise leave all on account of the Irish border, or UK border rather.
It has been clear for many months, years now, and some of us have pointed it out, that the whole of Brexit turns on NI/RoI.
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
Are we sure Wales will still be part of the UK post-Brexit?
I suspect if Scotland and N . Ireland both left, then Wales would.
Wales can't afford to leave. Northern Ireland would presumably combine with Ireland, and Scotland could be economically independent. Wales is too far from the continent, and its coal and steel industries have largely died. As Salmond said back in the 80s, Welsh independence is a cultural movement: Scottish independence an economic one.
Scottish independence was an economic one but by the time they actually leave the North Sea won't be the money tree they think it will be. Already a lot of companies are moving into the decommissioning phase.
One of the biggest wind and tidal resources in the world per capita.
The growth in renewable delivery in the last ten years in Scotland is breathtaking. I can’t be bothered to google the exact numbers but about 21% of its needs were supplied by renewables in 2009. A decade later, it’s about 80%.
"Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed but in every case it is someone else's blood . That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything." - Albert Camus.
Or this by the late marvelous Tony Judt:
"Totalitarianism of the Left, much like an earlier totalitarianism of the Right, was about violence and power and control, and it appealed because of these features, not in spite of them."
Beautifully sums up Corbyn, McDonnell, Milne, Andrew Murray and all their useful (and ignorant) idiots on Twitter.
Another pointer towards Trump not contesting the 2020 election...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/independents-trust-mueller-which-could-be-bad-news-for-trump/ The poll also suggests that independents may be the deciding factor in whether the public supports Trump’s impeachment, if it comes to that. Per the Post poll, if Mueller’s report finds that Trump obstructed justice by trying to undermine the Russia investigation, Americans believe — 65 percent to 29 percent — that Congress should impeach Trump and try to remove him from office.1 And if the report concludes that Trump authorized his campaign staff to collude with Russia, Americans support impeachment and attempted removal by a similar margin: 61 percent to 33 percent...
No. Pointers to him losing it, not not contesting it.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
Churchill was undoubtedly a flawed politician. He was not an unblemished hero - very far from it. And if WW2 had not happened he would be remembered as an interesting politician but not as some great man.
But on Hitler and appeasement and WW2 he was right. On the biggest moral and political question this country faced, at a time when its very existence was in doubt, he was right. And that is why he is a great man. Not because he was always right. But because he was right when it really mattered. Even if he was also wrong on other important questions.
[snip].
That's all true, but Churchill's greatness lay not just in correctly assessing the Nazi (and post-war Soviet) threats correctly - he wasn't alone there - but in his leadership during WW2. Again, Churchill wasn't without flaws in his leadership but he recognised that what Britain needed was not just effective leadership but inspirational leadership to keep going in a fight which was - unless something turned up - unwinnable. And of course he did his best to ensure that something - the USA specifically - did turn up (gaining American agreement to give such priority to the war in Germany, despite having been attacked by Japan, is a much underrated achievement of Churchill's; FDR might have been inclined in that direction anyway but the same can't be said of Congress).
There were of course many secondary questions on which Churchill was proved right, or wrong, or was prevented from doing something stupid (though his capacity to both think outside the box and to listen to advice is another key component of his great leadership), but sometimes, great leadership matter, and in the UK, in WW2, and particularly in 1940-42, it did.
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
Are we sure Wales will still be part of the UK post-Brexit?
I suspect if Scotland and N . Ireland both left, then Wales would.
Wales can't afford to leave. Northern Ireland would presumably combine with Ireland, and Scotland could be economically independent. Wales is too far from the continent, and its coal and steel industries have largely died. As Salmond said back in the 80s, Welsh independence is a cultural movement: Scottish independence an economic one.
Scottish independence was an economic one but by the time they actually leave the North Sea won't be the money tree they think it will be. Already a lot of companies are moving into the decommissioning phase.
I'm not sure what the North Sea will be, but thanks for clearing that up for me. What it definitely wasn't was the basis of a sovereign wealth fund that could have provided fiscal security for centuries for both Scotland and the UK.
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
I am surprised she ever wants to see the place again. Wasn't Snowdonia where she came up with the 2017 GE brainwave?
Once you have seen Snowdonia it remains in your heart for evermore
The first time I ever saw Snowdonia it was on a gin-clear spring day like today, I was on my way to Anglesey. Wales must be one of the world’s most beautiful countries, per square mile. Many of its parts - Snowdonia, the Beacons, Pembrokeshire Coast, are simply breathtaking.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
What's it got to do with Merkel. The SM/CU is an EU-wide thing. Even if she didn't want a border in Ireland, she can't stop one surely?
And a border in Ireland completely smashes the Good Friday Agreement. Let us pray that there's no return to the troubles that so plagued us from the late 60s till 1998.
Then maybe they should reach an acceptable compromise that all parties could accept. Like the GFA itself. Not this one sided hard bargain that's been driving moderates like Nobel Peace Prize winner and GFA architect Lord Trimble to despair.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
Churchill was undoubtedly a flawed politician. He was not an unblemished hero - very far from it. And if WW2 had not happened he would be remembered as an interesting politician but not as some great man.
But on Hitler and appeasement and WW2 he was right. On the biggest moral and political question this country faced, at a time when its very existence was in doubt, he was right. And that is why he is a great man. Not because he was always right. But because he was right when it really mattered. Even if he was also wrong on other important questions.
...
I can agree that the evils of fascism needed to be stopped, and he was right about that. But I don't think he did it for the right reasons. He didn't seem to be against mass murder or Empire, 4 million Bengalis died under British rule so he could store rice for potential need. He wasn't against expansionism, racism or (British) nationalism. He wasn't against cracking down on freedoms of citizens in his own country, or those ruled by it. He was against something that threatened British / US global hegemony.
He got the right answer when many others didn't, and we can credit him for that. But, like a child sitting their maths exam getting to the end by illogical means, his working out was lacking. And we should be willing to accept that and discuss it.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
Are we sure Wales will still be part of the UK post-Brexit?
I suspect if Scotland and N . Ireland both left, then Wales would.
Wales can't afford to leave. Northern Ireland would presumably combine with Ireland, and Scotland could be economically independent. Wales is too far from the continent, and its coal and steel industries have largely died. As Salmond said back in the 80s, Welsh independence is a cultural movement: Scottish independence an economic one.
Scottish independence was an economic one but by the time they actually leave the North Sea won't be the money tree they think it will be. Already a lot of companies are moving into the decommissioning phase.
I'm not sure what the North Sea will be, but thanks for clearing that up for me. What it definitely wasn't was the basis of a sovereign wealth fund that could have provided fiscal security for centuries for both Scotland and the UK.
Scotland would make a perfectly viable, wealthy, independent nation. It already has many of the vestiges of statehood. To pretend otherwise is risible.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
At what point is it going to dawn on Varadkar that he is a mere pawn to the EU and is being used?
A compromise would have been a rational option from the start. It is what his predecessor was working on.
I am officially a citizen of nowhere. Hotpots are Northumberland and Scottish borders (grew up in Fife and Newcastle so that is reasonable), a broad swathe around Lincolnshire, North Norfolk and Peterborough but extending towards Leicester (spent three years at university not far away but can't believe I picked up much of a fenland dialect - perhaps it's picking up the East Midlands influence from my wife) and somewhere on the M4 or M3 corridor, where I have no connection at all. Not a surprise since nobody can figure out where I am from and I don't really know myself.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
What we're saying is that the UK has decided to take a course of action that puts peace in Northern Ireland at risk, by upsetting the ambiguity of the GFA. That the UK is refusing to agree to a compromise reached between the EU and HMG to guarantee peace in NI by preserving that ambiguity. That the EU/Ireland are prepared to take action against their will in order to clear up a mess created by the UK that the UK refuses to deal with.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Needs to be repeated and spread around so that as many voters who pay little attention to this stuff know what the Corbynites say about history and what they plan to do in government.
I see Owen Jones is determined to join in the 'let's look at Churchill's record' bandwagon.
Why?
What on earth has it to do with anything that is happening politically at the moment? What has Labour to gain by trying to educate the public about Churchill's pre-war record (and I'm trying to be kind to them here when I say 'educate')?
Average voter in the Duck and Dog (if they even notice): Oh look, it seems Churchill may have sent the army in to quell a strike in 1900. You know what that is terrible. Just terrible. I'll be voting Labour now.
Is this Brexit displacement activity or are these people so stuck in their own bubble that they have gone bonkers?
The past is of course a different place. A hundred years ago, strikes could be far more violent and revolutionary in nature to the sort of thing we see today, and police had far less means of breaking unrest.
On the flip side, employers could be much more brutal bastards as well, so I'm not saying this was all one-sided or that grievances weren't deep and justified, but we do need to understand the whole context of industrial and social relations before passing judgement.
And we also need to remember that those who lived through the war and Churchills later premiership had a much more nuanced view of him than today's hero-worshippers would have us believe. Certainly he provided leadership in a critical moment, but his earlier career included the disastrous Dardenelles campaign in World War I, the return to the gold standard, widely regarded as the worst economic decision in the interwar period, and his role in the Bengal famine during the Second World War is usually seen as rather less than glorious.</blockquote In 1945 the British voters did not want him as their peacetime leader. Churchills comment regarding Atlee on hearing that it was said he as a modest man "he has much to be modest about " Gives an insight into how he rated his deputy PM through out the war and the lack of understanding of how Britain was going to be rebuilt.
That's all true, but Churchill's greatness lay not just in correctly assessing the Nazi (and post-war Soviet) threats correctly - he wasn't alone there - but in his leadership during WW2. Again, Churchill wasn't without flaws in his leadership but he recognised that what Britain needed was not just effective leadership but inspirational leadership to keep going in a fight which was - unless something turned up - unwinnable. And of course he did his best to ensure that something - the USA specifically - did turn up (gaining American agreement to give such priority to the war in Germany, despite having been attacked by Japan, is a much underrated achievement of Churchill's; FDR might have been inclined in that direction anyway but the same can't be said of Congress).
There were of course many secondary questions on which Churchill was proved right, or wrong, or was prevented from doing something stupid (though his capacity to both think outside the box and to listen to advice is another key component of his great leadership), but sometimes, great leadership matter, and in the UK, in WW2, and particularly in 1940-42, it did.
What's mildly irritating about the current stushie (with plenty of arseholism on all sides) is the construction that Churchill's flaws (racism, Imperialism, anti semitism, eugenicism, white supremacism, anti trade unionism) all have to be seen in the context of their/his times, while heroic Churchill is an hero for all the ages, especially this one. Both can't be right.
Maybe the Lab political strategy is take the focus away from spilts over Brexit, to an argument about Churchill's record.
I think it's quite fitting in a way - if of course also completely bonkers. The vote for Brexit was fuelled, in part, by nostalgia for the myths of Britain's Churchillian past, so what better way to fritter away some of the last days before we exit without a deal to our glorious isolation, unfettered by compromise, but to argue about the high point of our Imperial past.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
At what point is it going to dawn on Varadkar that he is a mere pawn to the EU and is being used?
A compromise would have been a rational option from the start. It is what his predecessor was working on.
The proposals being worked on by the previous Irish administration, in a co-operative rather than adversarial spirit, would have course have been preferable to everyone - except the EU, who saw the border as a negotiating lever.
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
Are we sure Wales will still be part of the UK post-Brexit?
I suspect if Scotland and N . Ireland both left, then Wales would.
Wales can't afford to leave. Northern Ireland would presumably combine with Ireland, and Scotland could be economically independent. Wales is too far from the continent, and its coal and steel industries have largely died. As Salmond said back in the 80s, Welsh independence is a cultural movement: Scottish independence an economic one.
Scottish independence was an economic one but by the time they actually leave the North Sea won't be the money tree they think it will be. Already a lot of companies are moving into the decommissioning phase.
I'm not sure what the North Sea will be, but thanks for clearing that up for me. What it definitely wasn't was the basis of a sovereign wealth fund that could have provided fiscal security for centuries for both Scotland and the UK.
Scotland would make a perfectly viable, wealthy, independent nation. It already has many of the vestiges of statehood. To pretend otherwise is risible.
So - Britain would be donald ducked leaving the EU - But Scotland would prosper leaving the UK..........
Is it just me or is there something rather sickening about the juxtaposition of those who have been both wildly antisemitic and completely tolerating of antisemitism/calling it a conspiracy ... now organising to attack the memory of the leader of our nation that helped stop fascism and the Holocaust.
Another pointer towards Trump not contesting the 2020 election...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/independents-trust-mueller-which-could-be-bad-news-for-trump/ The poll also suggests that independents may be the deciding factor in whether the public supports Trump’s impeachment, if it comes to that. Per the Post poll, if Mueller’s report finds that Trump obstructed justice by trying to undermine the Russia investigation, Americans believe — 65 percent to 29 percent — that Congress should impeach Trump and try to remove him from office.1 And if the report concludes that Trump authorized his campaign staff to collude with Russia, Americans support impeachment and attempted removal by a similar margin: 61 percent to 33 percent...
No. Pointers to him losing it, not not contesting it.
In 1945 the British voters did not want him as their peacetime leader. Churchills comment regarding Atlee on hearing that it was said he as a modest man "he has much to be modest about " Gives an insight into how he rated his deputy PM through out the war and the lack of understanding of how Britain was going to be rebuilt.
That jibe does not reflect Churchill's view of Attlee:
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
Churchill was undoubtedly a flawed politician. He was not an unblemished hero - very far from it. And if WW2 had not happened he would be remembered as an interesting politician but not as some great man.
But on Hitler and appeasement and WW2 he was right. On the biggest moral and political question this country faced, at a time when its very existence was in doubt, he was right. And that is why he is a great man. Not because he was always right. But because he was right when it really mattered. Even if he was also wrong on other important questions.
...
I can agree that the evils of fascism needed to be stopped, and he was right about that. But I don't think he did it for the right reasons. He didn't seem to be against mass murder or Empire, 4 million Bengalis died under British rule so he could store rice for potential need. He wasn't against expansionism, racism or (British) nationalism. He wasn't against cracking down on freedoms of citizens in his own country, or those ruled by it. He was against something that threatened British / US global hegemony.
He got the right answer when many others didn't, and we can credit him for that. But, like a child sitting their maths exam getting to the end by illogical means, his working out was lacking. And we should be willing to accept that and discuss it.
BiB - How terrible that a politician should put his country's interests first.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
So looking at this whole gruesome shitshow from the EU/Ireland end, I find it really hard to believe they wouldn't agree to an Article 50 extension if asked, even if the British weren't putting forward a clear way out of the treacle.
Looking it from the UK end, I find it hard to believe they'll just crash out when they could instead ask for an extension. And I also don't see anyone having a workable plan to avoid needing to do that.
Once you've had one extension, I don't see much standing in the way of the next one.
Churchill was undoubtedly a flawed politician. He was not an unblemished hero - very far from it. And if WW2 had not happened he would be remembered as an interesting politician but not as some great man.
But on Hitler and appeasement and WW2 he was right. On the biggest moral and political question this country faced, at a time when its very existence was in doubt, he was right. And that is why he is a great man. Not because he was always right. But because he was right when it really mattered. Even if he was also wrong on other important questions.
...
I can agree that the evils of fascism needed to be stopped, and he was right about that. But I don't think he did it for the right reasons. He didn't seem to be against mass murder or Empire, 4 million Bengalis died under British rule so he could store rice for potential need. He wasn't against expansionism, racism or (British) nationalism. He wasn't against cracking down on freedoms of citizens in his own country, or those ruled by it. He was against something that threatened British / US global hegemony.
He got the right answer when many others didn't, and we can credit him for that. But, like a child sitting their maths exam getting to the end by illogical means, his working out was lacking. And we should be willing to accept that and discuss it.
There have been (and no doubt will continue to be) plenty of studies of Churchill, which will discuss what he did and why. That is not what McDonnell is about. He is seeking to cast Churchill as a villain for one act 109 years ago when it is not even clear what Churchill's actual responsibility/involvement was and where 1 person died.
He is not willing to allow the same level of scrutiny to his heroes who have very little good to be said for them, ruined their countries, were responsible for the mass murder of millions and untold cruelty to many others and did not even pay lip service to the ideas of freedom and liberty and democracy.
There is a huge difference between someone who believes in ideals such as these and falls short (Churchill) and someone who does not and chooses a path of evil and destruction (Stalin, Mao etc). McDonnell prefers the latter to the former. He is not someone interested in the nuances of historical interpretation. He is someone choosing sides. And to my mind he has consistently chosen the wrong side when it comes to the big questions of history. His support for Mao is no different, morally, to a David Irving supporting Hitler.
That's all true, but Churchill's greatness lay not just in correctly assessing the Nazi (and post-war Soviet) threats correctly - he wasn't alone there - but in his leadership during WW2. Again, Churchill wasn't without flaws in his leadership but he recognised that what Britain needed was not just effective leadership but inspirational leadership to keep going in a fight which was - unless something turned up - unwinnable. And of course he did his best to ensure that something - the USA specifically - did turn up (gaining American agreement to give such priority to the war in Germany, despite having been attacked by Japan, is a much underrated achievement of Churchill's; FDR might have been inclined in that direction anyway but the same can't be said of Congress).
There were of course many secondary questions on which Churchill was proved right, or wrong, or was prevented from doing something stupid (though his capacity to both think outside the box and to listen to advice is another key component of his great leadership), but sometimes, great leadership matter, and in the UK, in WW2, and particularly in 1940-42, it did.
What's mildly irritating about the current stushie (with plenty of arseholism on all sides) is the construction that Churchill's flaws (racism, Imperialism, anti semitism, eugenicism, white supremacism, anti trade unionism) all have to be seen in the context of their/his times, while heroic Churchill is an hero for all the ages, especially this one. Both can't be right.
Both can be.
His heroism was heroic for both then and now.
His flaws are flaws now but were not seen as flaws then.
I am officially a citizen of nowhere. Hotpots are Northumberland and Scottish borders (grew up in Fife and Newcastle so that is reasonable), a broad swathe around Lincolnshire, North Norfolk and Peterborough but extending towards Leicester (spent three years at university not far away but can't believe I picked up much of a fenland dialect - perhaps it's picking up the East Midlands influence from my wife) and somewhere on the M4 or M3 corridor, where I have no connection at all. Not a surprise since nobody can figure out where I am from and I don't really know myself.
East Midlands has its own accent beginning somewhere between King's Lynn and Long Sutton and extending west and north from there ending goodness knows where. No-one notices it because it's part of the country that isn't known. Don't share this information because this magnificent area is the best kept secret of all.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Needs to be repeated and spread around so that as many voters who pay little attention to this stuff know what the Corbynites say about history and what they plan to do in government.
I see Owen Jones is determined to join in the 'let's look at Churchill's record' bandwagon.
Why?
What on earth has it to do with anything that is happening politically at the moment? What has Labour to gain by trying to educate the public about Churchill's pre-war record (and I'm trying to be kind to them here when I say 'educate')?
Average voter in the Duck and Dog (if they even notice): Oh look, it seems Churchill may have sent the army in to quell a strike in 1900. You know what that is terrible. Just terrible. I'll be voting Labour now.
Is this Brexit displacement activity or are these people so stuck in their own bubble that they have gone bonkers?
The latter, I think. Social media is driving some people mad.
I think it’s more that some people crave attention and see being extremely controversial or outlandish as a way of getting it.
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
I am surprised she ever wants to see the place again. Wasn't Snowdonia where she came up with the 2017 GE brainwave?
Once you have seen Snowdonia it remains in your heart for evermore
The first time I ever saw Snowdonia it was on a gin-clear spring day like today, I was on my way to Anglesey. Wales must be one of the world’s most beautiful countries, per square mile. Many of its parts - Snowdonia, the Beacons, Pembrokeshire Coast, are simply breathtaking.
And it is all so accessible. You can be on the beach in Llandudno/ Colwyn Bay and be in Snowdonia in half an hour or so
In 1945 the British voters did not want him as their peacetime leader. Churchills comment regarding Atlee on hearing that it was said he as a modest man "he has much to be modest about " Gives an insight into how he rated his deputy PM through out the war and the lack of understanding of how Britain was going to be rebuilt.
That jibe does not reflect Churchill's view of Attlee:
I think what this shows is that Churchill said and wrote a great many things and to take single quotes out of context has a greater than usual chance of leading one astray.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
And whatever the rights and wrongs, it was a national government at the time so Labour was just as culpable or praiseworthy.
I am hearing strong rumours that Theresa May has just bought a property in Southern Snowdonia.
It made me wonder if she is now thinking of life after Brexit.
I think, one way or another, she will get her deal through, and then resign (or perhaps even her resignation will be part of the price of the deal).
Are we sure Wales will still be part of the UK post-Brexit?
I suspect if Scotland and N . Ireland both left, then Wales would.
Wales can't afford to leave. Northern Ireland would presumably combine with Ireland, and Scotland could be economically independent. Wales is too far from the continent, and its coal and steel industries have largely died. As Salmond said back in the 80s, Welsh independence is a cultural movement: Scottish independence an economic one.
Scottish independence was an economic one but by the time they actually leave the North Sea won't be the money tree they think it will be. Already a lot of companies are moving into the decommissioning phase.
I'm not sure what the North Sea will be, but thanks for clearing that up for me. What it definitely wasn't was the basis of a sovereign wealth fund that could have provided fiscal security for centuries for both Scotland and the UK.
Scotland would make a perfectly viable, wealthy, independent nation. It already has many of the vestiges of statehood. To pretend otherwise is risible.
So - Britain would be donald ducked leaving the EU - But Scotland would prosper leaving the UK..........
riiiiight
Independence in Europe seems to me to be a perfectly sensible goal.
That's all true, but Churchill's greatness lay not just in correctly assessing the Nazi (and post-war Soviet) threats correctly - he wasn't alone there - but in his leadership during WW2. Again, Churchill wasn't without flaws in his leadership but he recognised that what Britain needed was not just effective leadership but inspirational leadership to keep going in a fight which was - unless something turned up - unwinnable. And of course he did his best to ensure that something - the USA specifically - did turn up (gaining American agreement to give such priority to the war in Germany, despite having been attacked by Japan, is a much underrated achievement of Churchill's; FDR might have been inclined in that direction anyway but the same can't be said of Congress).
There were of course many secondary questions on which Churchill was proved right, or wrong, or was prevented from doing something stupid (though his capacity to both think outside the box and to listen to advice is another key component of his great leadership), but sometimes, great leadership matter, and in the UK, in WW2, and particularly in 1940-42, it did.
What's mildly irritating about the current stushie (with plenty of arseholism on all sides) is the construction that Churchill's flaws (racism, Imperialism, anti semitism, eugenicism, white supremacism, anti trade unionism) all have to be seen in the context of their/his times, while heroic Churchill is an hero for all the ages, especially this one. Both can't be right.
Both can be.
His heroism was heroic for both then and now.
His flaws are flaws now but were not seen as flaws then.
Some of his flaws would have been seen as flaws in his time (eg opposition to India becoming a Dominion).
But, it doesn't alter the fact that we owe our present freedom to his record in wartime.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
Churchill certainly viewed communism as an evil in its own right and was contradictory in his views on the benefits of democracy, particularly when it clashed with British interests.
However, I'd have thought that his prime interest in keeping the Soviets out of Greece was in preventing them a naval and military presence in the Mediterranean.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Aww how sweet and naive. Is this your first visit to this planet?
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
And whatever the rights and wrongs, it was a national government at the time so Labour was just as culpable or praiseworthy.
And Attlee was just as much an opponent of Communism as Churchill was.
That's all true, but Churchill's greatness lay not just in correctly assessing the Nazi (and post-war Soviet) threats correctly - he wasn't alone there - but in his leadership during WW2. Again, Churchill wasn't without flaws in his leadership but he recognised that what Britain needed was not just effective leadership but inspirational leadership to keep going in a fight which was - unless something turned up - unwinnable. And of course he did his best to ensure that something - the USA specifically - did turn up (gaining American agreement to give such priority to the war in Germany, despite having been attacked by Japan, is a much underrated achievement of Churchill's; FDR might have been inclined in that direction anyway but the same can't be said of Congress).
There were of course many secondary questions on which Churchill was proved right, or wrong, or was prevented from doing something stupid (though his capacity to both think outside the box and to listen to advice is another key component of his great leadership), but sometimes, great leadership matter, and in the UK, in WW2, and particularly in 1940-42, it did.
What's mildly irritating about the current stushie (with plenty of arseholism on all sides) is the construction that Churchill's flaws (racism, Imperialism, anti semitism, eugenicism, white supremacism, anti trade unionism) all have to be seen in the context of their/his times, while heroic Churchill is an hero for all the ages, especially this one. Both can't be right.
Both can be.
His heroism was heroic for both then and now.
His flaws are flaws now but were not seen as flaws then.
No one would have had a problem with the slogan "Keep England White" in 1955? If you say so.
So looking at this whole gruesome shitshow from the EU/Ireland end, I find it really hard to believe they wouldn't agree to an Article 50 extension if asked, even if the British weren't putting forward a clear way out of the treacle.
Looking it from the UK end, I find it hard to believe they'll just crash out when they could instead ask for an extension. And I also don't see anyone having a workable plan to avoid needing to do that.
Once you've had one extension, I don't see much standing in the way of the next one.
Depends what your priorities are. If it's keeping the Tory Party together, then maybe we crash out.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
The author also said he’d never heard of Gallipoli until someone pointed it out.
Gallipoli was a good concept badly designed and badly implemented, which still very nearly came off. It was, of course, idiocy not to pull the plug once the initial attempt had failed but you can hardly isolate that campaign within WWI as uniquely guilty of throwing good resources into an already-failed initiative.
What's mildly irritating about the current stushie (with plenty of arseholism on all sides) is the construction that Churchill's flaws (racism, Imperialism, anti semitism, eugenicism, white supremacism, anti trade unionism) all have to be seen in the context of their/his times, while heroic Churchill is an hero for all the ages, especially this one. Both can't be right.
Is he? I think he's only being recognised for being a hero when he was. I haven't seen many sane people wishing he was in charge now and managing the current negotiations or bringing down the deficit (not least as it seems to me his subsequent spell in government dealing with business-as-usual wasn't deemed an untrammelled success).
But both sides bore me a bit. FFS, *all* leaders have highs and lows. His highs were probably higher than most, and they've pushed the significant lows out of the spotlight somewhat. And I'm not sure we need to come up with a single score out of ten (or "hero or villain") for every leader which combines the two.
Since both McDonnell and Corbyn have regularly spoken at marches and rallies in front of banners of Stalin and Mao and Marx and one of Corbyn’s advisers is someone who was a Communist party member for over 40 years until 2016 and Corbyn even praised Mao’s approach to reducing poverty on an interview with Andrew Marr, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
I mean, this thread did the rounds last year, but it does kinda point out the whole "Churchill good" thing is pretty much only because he wrote history and claimed a lot of WW2 victory personally (and it is easy to look good when your contemporaries are Hitler and Stalin)
It's instructive that the author considers that preventing a communist takeover in Greece is evidence of villainy.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
And whatever the rights and wrongs, it was a national government at the time so Labour was just as culpable or praiseworthy.
And Attlee was just as much an opponent of Communism as Churchill was.
Suspect he would be horrified to learn a communist, who only left a couple of years ago, was one of the key aides to LOTO.
I do wonder if those castigating Churchill for the Bengal Famine - ignoring the fact that this was a decision by a coalition government of both Tory and Labour Ministers - will be equally quick to take to Twitter to castigate Attlee for the Labour government's decisions in relation to Indian independence which led to at least a million deaths.
And say that it is time to stop airbrushing the real history of the Labour government 1945-51?
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
Churchill certainly viewed communism as an evil in its own right and was contradictory in his views on the benefits of democracy, particularly when it clashed with British interests.
However, I'd have thought that his prime interest in keeping the Soviets out of Greece was in preventing them a naval and military presence in the Mediterranean.
It occurs to me that Churchill's perceived greatness is in many respects an accident of timing and circumstance. It is easy to see a continuity between Churchill's motives and actions and those of Eden, but the difference of 15 years or so makes one the greatest Briton of all time, and the other a yardstick against which to judge the awfulness of all British Prime Ministers.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Aww how sweet and naive. Is this your first visit to this planet?
You didn't realise that there were treaties governing what the EU could do?
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
The question is, could the EU do that legally?
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
Maybe the Greek Communists were nice, fluffy, Communists, unlike the nasty Communists in the rest of the Balkans, but I doubt it.
I used to know one who was involved after the war - I was telling him about my tolerant background (my Tory parents accepting my teenage communism as a legitimate view), and he said sadly that he wished Greece had been like that, but there was so much bad blood and so many atrocities on both sides that nobody could forgive, or even tolerate, anyone on the other side. He was under no illusions that a Communist Greek government would have been amiable and cuddly, and I believed him when he said that the opposite was just as bad.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have weighed in and Stalin wouldn't have betrayed them in the interest of a free hand for an equally oppressive regime in Poland. Conversely we led down the Poles in return for a free hand in Greece. After 6 years of global war, everyone was up for harsh realpolitik to get it all settled.
As for Churchill, he had backbone when it was crucial, and that makes up for a lot. We don't really need to classify past figures, or indeed present figures, as entirely good or entirely bad. I'm sure Nigel Farage is nice to cats.
I am officially a citizen of nowhere. Hotpots are Northumberland and Scottish borders (grew up in Fife and Newcastle so that is reasonable), a broad swathe around Lincolnshire, North Norfolk and Peterborough but extending towards Leicester (spent three years at university not far away but can't believe I picked up much of a fenland dialect - perhaps it's picking up the East Midlands influence from my wife) and somewhere on the M4 or M3 corridor, where I have no connection at all. Not a surprise since nobody can figure out where I am from and I don't really know myself.
East Midlands has its own accent beginning somewhere between King's Lynn and Long Sutton and extending west and north from there ending goodness knows where. No-one notices it because it's part of the country that isn't known. Don't share this information because this magnificent area is the best kept secret of all.
Yes it feels like one of the most anonymous parts of the country for most of us. As you know, the Honey Pot Lane Industrial Estate is one of my favourite spots on earth, but I've never lingered long enough to pick up the lingo. I suspect it is having a wife from Derby that has located me there, or perhaps the Scottish element to my vocabulary has placed me in Corby?
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Aww how sweet and naive. Is this your first visit to this planet?
You didn't realise that there were treaties governing what the EU could do?
That explains a lot. ;-)
No I realise that the EU ignores those treaties when it suits itself to do so.
See for instance the bailout of Greece which we were repeatedly told couldn't happen as it violated the treaties right up to the point it did happen.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
Churchill certainly viewed communism as an evil in its own right and was contradictory in his views on the benefits of democracy, particularly when it clashed with British interests.
However, I'd have thought that his prime interest in keeping the Soviets out of Greece was in preventing them a naval and military presence in the Mediterranean.
It occurs to me that Churchill's perceived greatness is in many respects an accident of timing and circumstance. It is easy to see a continuity between Churchill's motives and actions and those of Eden, but the difference of 15 years or so makes one the greatest Briton of all time, and the other a yardstick against which to judge the awfulness of all British Prime Ministers.
That's true. And we tend to judge the morality of past actions by their success. Had Suez succeeded, it would now be seen as the right thing to have done.
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
Churchill certainly viewed communism as an evil in its own right and was contradictory in his views on the benefits of democracy, particularly when it clashed with British interests.
However, I'd have thought that his prime interest in keeping the Soviets out of Greece was in preventing them a naval and military presence in the Mediterranean.
It occurs to me that Churchill's perceived greatness is in many respects an accident of timing and circumstance. It is easy to see a continuity between Churchill's motives and actions and those of Eden, but the difference of 15 years or so makes one the greatest Briton of all time, and the other a yardstick against which to judge the awfulness of all British Prime Ministers.
It was more than circumstance. Eden lacked judgment when it mattered. He made decisions in 1956 as if it were still 1936.
Or - to quote myself (apologies):
"Learning the wrong lessons from history. We shouldn’t have appeased that ranting leader. Here is another ranting leader. Let’s overthrow him.
No long-term plan or strategy. What would Britain have done with the canal?
The personal may have intruded more than was wise. Eden’s wish to prove himself a war leader, in the manner of his mentor, to relive his honourable actions against appeasement in the 1930’s played a part."
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
The question is, could the EU do that legally?
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
No but it would do it illegally. And would find some after the fact justification to excuse it.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
The question is, could the EU do that legally?
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
No but it would do it illegally. And would find some after the fact justification to excuse it.
Do you mean the EU would claim it was acting legally? Or that it would acknowledge it was acting illegally but do it anyway?
I thought my years travelling with the army as a kid might throw it off. I got most of the east of Scotland but Dundee was in the darkest bit. Quite impressed.
There are only three possibilities. Befair implies these probabilities:
Leave by 29 Mar (either with a deal or No Deal) 30% (No Deal is 23% so deal is 7%) Extend A50 71% Revoke A50 14%
These are last prices struck. They add up to 115%. I think the Revoke is too high, the Leave by 29 mar too high, and the extend is too low.
EDIT: I heavily laid "Leave by 29 Mar" at 1.6 some time back so I'm well in the green.
What happens if May writes:
“I have been instructed by Parliament to seek an extension. They haven’t made up their mind to date and I see no prospect of that changing. Please can I have an extension”
I presume the Italia one is similar, in that it is expensive, advertised as free choice of what toppings, but despite what you choose you get told what you are having?
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
The question is, could the EU do that legally?
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
No but it would do it illegally. And would find some after the fact justification to excuse it.
Do you mean the EU would claim it was acting legally? Or that it would acknowledge it was acting illegally but do it anyway?
They would claim they were acting legally, just as they have done whenever it suited themselves to do (again examples being borders within Schengen, bailout of Greece, etc, etc)
So stopping the potential democratic rise of communists, who had just helped you beat the Nazis, with the aid of Nazi sympathisers because you want to restore the monarchy is okay?
Yes. Greece was a much better place to live in post war than the average Balkan Communist dictatorship.
Maybe a communist Greece would have benefited their communist neighbours, improving everyone's standard of living? Alternate history is a fun game to play that we can all try.
I'm pretty confident that what passed for "Communism" at that time - a series of nightmarish totalitarian dictatorships run in the interests of Stalin's Russia - would have lead to many more deaths than the brutal British actions used to prevent it.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
Churchill certainly viewed communism as an evil in its own right and was contradictory in his views on the benefits of democracy, particularly when it clashed with British interests.
However, I'd have thought that his prime interest in keeping the Soviets out of Greece was in preventing them a naval and military presence in the Mediterranean.
It occurs to me that Churchill's perceived greatness is in many respects an accident of timing and circumstance. It is easy to see a continuity between Churchill's motives and actions and those of Eden, but the difference of 15 years or so makes one the greatest Briton of all time, and the other a yardstick against which to judge the awfulness of all British Prime Ministers.
That's true. And we tend to judge the morality of past actions by their success. Had Suez succeeded, it would now be seen as the right thing to have done.
It seems to me that we often do the opposite. Judge past actions by today's morality without taking any regard for the circumstances of the time or the fact that the choices may not have been between a right and a wrong course but between two equally bad courses. Realpolitik, as @NickPalmer points out.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
The question is, could the EU do that legally?
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
The correct answer is whatever the ECJ says it is.
Varadkar beginning to panic - Merkel and the EU will have no choice to put in a hard border in no deal, either in Ireland or on continental europe
What is he going to do. Join the UK and leave the EU.
Chickens coming home to roost
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
The question is, could the EU do that legally?
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
The correct answer is whatever the ECJ says it is.
What's mildly irritating about the current stushie (with plenty of arseholism on all sides) is the construction that Churchill's flaws (racism, Imperialism, anti semitism, eugenicism, white supremacism, anti trade unionism) all have to be seen in the context of their/his times, while heroic Churchill is an hero for all the ages, especially this one. Both can't be right.
Is he? I think he's only being recognised for being a hero when he was. I haven't seen many sane people wishing he was in charge now and managing the current negotiations or bringing down the deficit (not least as it seems to me his subsequent spell in government dealing with business-as-usual wasn't deemed an untrammelled success).
But both sides bore me a bit. FFS, *all* leaders have highs and lows. His highs were probably higher than most, and they've pushed the significant lows out of the spotlight somewhat. And I'm not sure we need to come up with a single score out of ten (or "hero or villain") for every leader which combines the two.
Winny seems pretty current in our foreign sec's consciousness. Welcome to hyperbolic denial central.
I am officially a citizen of nowhere. Hotpots are Northumberland and Scottish borders (grew up in Fife and Newcastle so that is reasonable), a broad swathe around Lincolnshire, North Norfolk and Peterborough but extending towards Leicester (spent three years at university not far away but can't believe I picked up much of a fenland dialect - perhaps it's picking up the East Midlands influence from my wife) and somewhere on the M4 or M3 corridor, where I have no connection at all. Not a surprise since nobody can figure out where I am from and I don't really know myself.
East Midlands has its own accent beginning somewhere between King's Lynn and Long Sutton and extending west and north from there ending goodness knows where. No-one notices it because it's part of the country that isn't known. Don't share this information because this magnificent area is the best kept secret of all.
Yes it feels like one of the most anonymous parts of the country for most of us. As you know, the Honey Pot Lane Industrial Estate is one of my favourite spots on earth, but I've never lingered long enough to pick up the lingo. I suspect it is having a wife from Derby that has located me there, or perhaps the Scottish element to my vocabulary has placed me in Corby?
It does sound like the EU are actually contemplating a hard border between RoI and the rest of the EU in the event of no deal, basically kicking Ireland out of the CU as the best option to ensure U.K. goods don’t get into the mainland EU without checks and tariffs.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
How would that be legal?
I don’t see how it could be, as anything other than a temporary measure.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Surely what the EU can do is governed by treaty, though. They can't just make it up as they go along.
Their internal rules appear to be able to be ‘flexible’ when it suits them, even if they appear fixed to an outsider. Note the passport checks in between Schengen countries over the last few years, to curb illegal immigration.
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
The question is, could the EU do that legally?
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
No but it would do it illegally. And would find some after the fact justification to excuse it.
Do you mean the EU would claim it was acting legally? Or that it would acknowledge it was acting illegally but do it anyway?
They would claim they were acting legally, just as they have done whenever it suited themselves to do (again examples being borders within Schengen, bailout of Greece, etc, etc)
Thanks for clarifying your view. The EU would act illegally, but would claim they were acting legally.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/athens-1944-britains-dirty-secret
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/independents-trust-mueller-which-could-be-bad-news-for-trump/
The poll also suggests that independents may be the deciding factor in whether the public supports Trump’s impeachment, if it comes to that. Per the Post poll, if Mueller’s report finds that Trump obstructed justice by trying to undermine the Russia investigation, Americans believe — 65 percent to 29 percent — that Congress should impeach Trump and try to remove him from office.1 And if the report concludes that Trump authorized his campaign staff to collude with Russia, Americans support impeachment and attempted removal by a similar margin: 61 percent to 33 percent...
But we went into the referendum with the Irish issue a very live one. That this would mean the compromises of which you speak was probably not built into either the Leaver or Remainer deliberation process. But it was ever going to be thus. In fact, people were voting for a compromise leave all on account of the Irish border, or UK border rather.
It has been clear for many months, years now, and some of us have pointed it out, that the whole of Brexit turns on NI/RoI.
"Sweet potato is good. I like it." @RealChairmanMao
The growth in renewable delivery in the last ten years in Scotland is breathtaking. I can’t be bothered to google the exact numbers but about 21% of its needs were supplied by renewables in 2009. A decade later, it’s about 80%.
Who knew?
"Mistaken ideas always end in bloodshed but in every case it is someone else's blood . That is why some of our thinkers feel free to say just about anything." - Albert Camus.
Or this by the late marvelous Tony Judt:
"Totalitarianism of the Left, much like an earlier totalitarianism of the Right, was about violence and power and control, and it appealed because of these features, not in spite of them."
Beautifully sums up Corbyn, McDonnell, Milne, Andrew Murray and all their useful (and ignorant) idiots on Twitter.
But, do the ends justify the means?
Might it sometimes be better to allow people to make their own mistakes, and then help them to recover from them, than to impose your judgement on what is right from the outset?
I don't know if Churchill thought about it in those terms.
https://torrentfreak.com/eu-commission-portrays-article-13-opponents-as-a-misled-and-misinformed-mob-190215/
There were of course many secondary questions on which Churchill was proved right, or wrong, or was prevented from doing something stupid (though his capacity to both think outside the box and to listen to advice is another key component of his great leadership), but sometimes, great leadership matter, and in the UK, in WW2, and particularly in 1940-42, it did.
What it definitely wasn't was the basis of a sovereign wealth fund that could have provided fiscal security for centuries for both Scotland and the UK.
'As every housewife know' (©Margaret Thatcher), pissing away a windfall for a quick fix of current financial problems is short-termist bollocks.
The first time I ever saw Snowdonia it was on a gin-clear spring day like today, I was on my way to Anglesey. Wales must be one of the world’s most beautiful countries, per square mile. Many of its parts - Snowdonia, the Beacons, Pembrokeshire Coast, are simply breathtaking.
I'd have thought Winston Churchill was the opposite of Major Tom. He did good things. He did bad things. He did things out of the blue.
He got the right answer when many others didn't, and we can credit him for that. But, like a child sitting their maths exam getting to the end by illogical means, his working out was lacking. And we should be willing to accept that and discuss it.
It’s slowly dawning on them that there’s no way Varadkar can put up a border across Ireland, nor can the EU enforce a border between GB and NI against the will of the U.K.
We all agreed this idea was bonkers when it first surfaced a few weeks ago, but it’s now the only sensible option the EU have left in the event of no deal.
A compromise would have been a rational option from the start. It is what his predecessor was working on.
I'm sure it will make us very popular.
Why?
Why on earth is this crucial?
http://www.epicenternetwork.eu/briefings/commission-consulting-on-move-to-qualified-majority-voting-qmv-on-taxation/
The proposals being worked on by the previous Irish administration, in a co-operative rather than adversarial spirit, would have course have been preferable to everyone - except the EU, who saw the border as a negotiating lever.
riiiiight
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Winston-Churchill-and-Clement-Attlee-get-on
The one I admire most on the Left is Clement Attlee, but I could certainly criticise his policies and record.
The EU logic would be that the RoI’s “refusal” to implement a hard border with a non-EU State means that one must be implemented around the RoI too. It’s their thank-you card to Varadkar for his help in the Brexit negotiations.
Looking it from the UK end, I find it hard to believe they'll just crash out when they could instead ask for an extension. And I also don't see anyone having a workable plan to avoid needing to do that.
Once you've had one extension, I don't see much standing in the way of the next one.
He is not willing to allow the same level of scrutiny to his heroes who have very little good to be said for them, ruined their countries, were responsible for the mass murder of millions and untold cruelty to many others and did not even pay lip service to the ideas of freedom and liberty and democracy.
There is a huge difference between someone who believes in ideals such as these and falls short (Churchill) and someone who does not and chooses a path of evil and destruction (Stalin, Mao etc). McDonnell prefers the latter to the former. He is not someone interested in the nuances of historical interpretation. He is someone choosing sides. And to my mind he has consistently chosen the wrong side when it comes to the big questions of history. His support for Mao is no different, morally, to a David Irving supporting Hitler.
His heroism was heroic for both then and now.
His flaws are flaws now but were not seen as flaws then.
But, it doesn't alter the fact that we owe our present freedom to his record in wartime.
However, I'd have thought that his prime interest in keeping the Soviets out of Greece was in preventing them a naval and military presence in the Mediterranean.
We'd have been founder members of the European Community instead of late-comers, and there wouldn't have been an NHS to give the money to instead.
But both sides bore me a bit. FFS, *all* leaders have highs and lows. His highs were probably higher than most, and they've pushed the significant lows out of the spotlight somewhat. And I'm not sure we need to come up with a single score out of ten (or "hero or villain") for every leader which combines the two.
And say that it is time to stop airbrushing the real history of the Labour government 1945-51?
Or is that one of those QTWTAIN?
It does seem like the EU are giving Ireland the choice to either put up a ‘proper’ border with the U.K. or have one imposed on them in Calais and Rotterdam. I wonder when Varadkar realises they’ve been using him all along?
That explains a lot. ;-)
Is your answer yes? Or is your answer no, but you think the EU would do it illegally? Or is your answer that you don't know?
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have weighed in and Stalin wouldn't have betrayed them in the interest of a free hand for an equally oppressive regime in Poland. Conversely we led down the Poles in return for a free hand in Greece. After 6 years of global war, everyone was up for harsh realpolitik to get it all settled.
As for Churchill, he had backbone when it was crucial, and that makes up for a lot. We don't really need to classify past figures, or indeed present figures, as entirely good or entirely bad. I'm sure Nigel Farage is nice to cats.
See for instance the bailout of Greece which we were repeatedly told couldn't happen as it violated the treaties right up to the point it did happen.
Or - to quote myself (apologies):
"Learning the wrong lessons from history. We shouldn’t have appeased that ranting leader. Here is another ranting leader. Let’s overthrow him.
No long-term plan or strategy. What would Britain have done with the canal?
The personal may have intruded more than was wise. Eden’s wish to prove himself a war leader, in the manner of his mentor, to relive his honourable actions against appeasement in the 1930’s played a part."
(http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/02/10/learning-from-history/)
“I have been instructed by Parliament to seek an extension. They haven’t made up their mind to date and I see no prospect of that changing. Please can I have an extension”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/feb/15/how-brexit-revealed-four-new-political-factions
https://twitter.com/Jeremy_Hunt/status/1090277565607170050