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  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,798
    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The Guardian says:

    Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover
    The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/air-force-one-for-boris-raf-plane-for-vips-gets-a-union-jack-makeover

    Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Bear in mind

    (a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners
    (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications

    It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
    I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
    I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).

    I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
    It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.

    That was a pretty sad moment, it was clear she was losing it at that point.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    Away from football... I asked earlier who @Casino_Royale and @MrEd wanted to win the US election.

    I also asked why @rcs1000 had seemingly changed his view that the riots almost guarantee a Trumpton victory.

    I don’t think anyone answered me!
  • AndrewAndrew Posts: 2,900
    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935

    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The Guardian says:

    Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover
    The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/air-force-one-for-boris-raf-plane-for-vips-gets-a-union-jack-makeover

    Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Bear in mind

    (a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners
    (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications

    It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
    I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
    I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).

    I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
    It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.

    That was a pretty sad moment, it was clear she was losing it at that point.
    It shows she doesn't like the tail fin. What better way to show that?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Gotta be a woman, apparently.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,798

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "The myth of white privilege
    British capitalism was built on the ruthless exploitation of wage slaves, not black slaves.
    MOSES DUBE"

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/17/the-myth-of-white-privilege/

    I sense a blank space where a venn diagram could usefully be.
    According to Edwin Chadwick in 1840, 57% of the working-class children of Manchester died before their fifth birthday, compared with 32% in rural districts. Whereas a farm labourer in Rutland had a life-expectancy of 38, a factory worker in Liverpool had an average age of death of 15.

    It was slavery in all but name.
    It wasn't. It was one form of early capitalist exploitation. Slavery was another. But they were different in many ways, and I don't think it's helpful to conflate the two.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    BREAKING: The mobile phone contact-tracing app to tell people they have been exposed to Covid-19 that was once a central part of the government’s response to the epidemic will not be ready before the winter, a health minister has said.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    edited June 2020
    O/T
    Laurence Fox is being interviewed on the Triggernometry channel atm.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgyYluoDhAs
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    RobD said:

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Gotta be a woman, apparently.
    John Bolton can self identify as a woman.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    IanB2 said:

    BREAKING: The mobile phone contact-tracing app to tell people they have been exposed to Covid-19 that was once a central part of the government’s response to the epidemic will not be ready before the winter, a health minister has said.

    World beating? I suppose it is after a fashion.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,798
    RobD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The Guardian says:

    Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover
    The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/air-force-one-for-boris-raf-plane-for-vips-gets-a-union-jack-makeover

    Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Bear in mind

    (a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners
    (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications

    It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
    I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
    I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).

    I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
    It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.

    That was a pretty sad moment, it was clear she was losing it at that point.
    It shows she doesn't like the tail fin. What better way to show that?
    I hold no great affection for her but I felt sorry for her at that point, it was an embarrassing end for a towering political figure.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,798

    RobD said:

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Gotta be a woman, apparently.
    John Bolton can self identify as a woman.
    Please nobody show a picture of Bolton as a woman, I think it would break my sexual identity.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Biden is planning on winning ; he wants a VP he can happily work with and whom he can happily see succeed him.
    A couple of septuagenarian Republicans aren’t really either of those things.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,486
    RobD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The Guardian says:

    Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover
    The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/air-force-one-for-boris-raf-plane-for-vips-gets-a-union-jack-makeover

    Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Bear in mind

    (a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners
    (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications

    It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
    I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
    I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).

    I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
    It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.

    That was a pretty sad moment, it was clear she was losing it at that point.
    It shows she doesn't like the tail fin. What better way to show that?
    That was the turning point. Everyone knew she’d gone by that stage.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,176

    RobD said:

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Gotta be a woman, apparently.
    John Bolton can self identify as a woman.
    Please nobody show a picture of Bolton as a
    woman, I think it would break my sexual identity.
    Worried you might like what you see?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    How to Avoid the Shutdown 'Kill Switch'

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/16/coronavirus-shutdown-kill-switch-320497
    ... Another idea to avoid hitting the kill switch again has been developed by an Israeli group at the Weizmann Institute in Tel Aviv: People would work in two-week cycles of four-day workweeks, followed by 10 days of voluntary quarantine. Schools would follow a similar pattern. This would allow people to “platoon” at work. The logic is that even if people contracted the disease in that two-week period, the subsequent 10-day quarantine would reduce the infection rate in the larger society to below 1, which would in turn prevent wide-scale outbreaks. So would the reduced number of people commuting at any given time. Already, Austrian schools are adopting a modified version of this strategy. This plan does not require massive testing, and would allow for substantial resumption of economic activity.

    Most of these plans work best for countries that have a high degree of centralized control and guarantee income for idled workers. That just isn’t the case for the United States...
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,798
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    Yours is the optimistic version (and it's one I share on my more upbeat days).
    But sometimes I think the story of the Indian and Chinese soldiers bludgeoning each other to death in the dark on an uninhabitable glacier offers a more realistic glimpse of our nature as a species.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    Nigelb said:

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Biden is planning on winning ; he wants a VP he can happily work with and whom he can happily see succeed him.
    A couple of septuagenarian Republicans aren’t really either of those things.
    I think both of those, Mattis especially, would push Trump's buttons during the campaign and bring out the electoral unappealing Trump.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,434

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Mitt Romney!

    It would be quite the turnaround from being part of the ticket that defeated Romney in 2012 to picking him to become VP, and a decent actuarial chance of becoming President.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599
    IanB2 said:

    BREAKING: The mobile phone contact-tracing app to tell people they have been exposed to Covid-19 that was once a central part of the government’s response to the epidemic will not be ready before the winter, a health minister has said.

    Sadly no surprises there. It simply couldn't work as designed, as was pointed out at the time!

    Apps are really not the way forward unless you make them compulsory, every Western country is abandoning them as take-up has been so poor.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226

    RobD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The Guardian says:

    Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover
    The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/air-force-one-for-boris-raf-plane-for-vips-gets-a-union-jack-makeover

    Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Bear in mind

    (a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners
    (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications

    It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
    I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
    I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).

    I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
    It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.

    That was a pretty sad moment, it was clear she was losing it at that point.
    It shows she doesn't like the tail fin. What better way to show that?
    I hold no great affection for her but I felt sorry for her at that point, it was an embarrassing end for a towering political figure.
    ☺ - Nice one. I come out with that sometimes too.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599
    Andy_JS said:

    O/T
    Laurence Fox is being interviewed on the Triggernometry channel atm.

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgyYluoDhAs

    Thanks for that - will put on tomorrow's playlist.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,680
    edited June 2020

    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The Guardian says:

    Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover
    The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/air-force-one-for-boris-raf-plane-for-vips-gets-a-union-jack-makeover

    Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Bear in mind

    (a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners
    (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications

    It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
    I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
    I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).

    I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
    It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.

    That was a pretty sad moment, it was clear she was losing it at that point.
    Hague was desperately trying to rebrand the Tories to compete with Blair at the time. So there was a funny cartoon of a furious Maggie covering up the gaudy tail fin of an aircraft labelled 'New Conservatives' as Hague leapt back in horror.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited June 2020

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    Yours is the optimistic version (and it's one I share on my more upbeat days).
    But sometimes I think the story of the Indian and Chinese soldiers bludgeoning each other to death in the dark on an uninhabitable glacier offers a more realistic glimpse of our nature as a species.
    That was pretty eye-opening, wasn't it?

    'The Guardian understands that fighting broke out at dusk on Monday when an Indian patrol unexpectedly encountered Chinese forces on a narrow ridge while on a patrol.'

    'An Indian commanding officer was pushed and fell into the river gorge, sources said, leading to reinforcements being called and up to 600 troops from both armies fighting hand-to-hand, with stones and iron rods as weapons, until late in the night, with several men from both sides falling to their deaths. No shots were fired.'

    As often, Star Trek is at its best when it deconstructs its own utopianism:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtXtZmbjG_c
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599
    ydoethur said:

    Willie Thorne has died.

    Willie Thorne: Snooker favourite dies aged 66
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/53076861

    That's sad to hear, although he'd been ill for some time. 66 is far too young though, but he had a good life. RIP
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    edited June 2020
    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.
    You are inventing and projecting.

    Why invent and project?
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited June 2020
    There's a tweet that Oriel is taking Rhodes down after all - just a few days after Johnson promised to fight back against the left!!

    The Telegraph reports that conservative MPs are getting very, very restive with the PM.

    Some MP has quit his government position in protest at what he sees as the government's tepid response to BLM, apparently, but it was behind the paywall, I couldn;t get the name.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    kinabalu said:

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.
    You are inventing and projecting.

    Why invent and project?
    Well, he is a writer. It’s his job to invent.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Why didn't he tell testify then? What a wanker.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    kinabalu said:

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.
    You are inventing and projecting.

    Why invent and project?
    You just got owned, treacle.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675

    There's a tweet that Oriel is taking Rhodes down after all - just a few days after Johnson promised to fight back against the left!!

    The Telegraph reports that conservative MPs are getting very, very restive with the PM.

    Some MP has quit his government position in protest at what he sees as the government's tepid response to BLM, apparently, but it was behind the paywall, I couldn;t get the name.

    Ben Bradley.

    Officially he's resigned to spend more time with his family.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720
    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    BREAKING: The mobile phone contact-tracing app to tell people they have been exposed to Covid-19 that was once a central part of the government’s response to the epidemic will not be ready before the winter, a health minister has said.

    Sadly no surprises there. It simply couldn't work as designed, as was pointed out at the time!

    Apps are really not the way forward unless you make them compulsory, every Western country is abandoning them as take-up has been so poor.
    Our system is ridiculously poor.

    On average each week it identifies only 3 contacts per case per week. Either our cases are mostly hermits, or the system isn't working. Perhaps handing it over to a private company to meet an arbitrary deadline caused by BJ falling in a heffalump trap wasn't a great idea.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556

    There's a tweet that Oriel is taking Rhodes down after all - just a few days after Johnson promised to fight back against the left!!

    The Telegraph reports that conservative MPs are getting very, very restive with the PM.

    Some MP has quit his government position in protest at what he sees as the government's tepid response to BLM, apparently, but it was behind the paywall, I couldn;t get the name.

    They're setting up an 'independent inquiry' that will report by the end of the year - presumably to kick the issue into the long grass.

    I do expect the alumni of 'Toriel', as it's sometimes known, will have a word in the meantime.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    There's a tweet that Oriel is taking Rhodes down after all - just a few days after Johnson promised to fight back against the left!!

    The Telegraph reports that conservative MPs are getting very, very restive with the PM.

    Some MP has quit his government position in protest at what he sees as the government's tepid response to BLM, apparently, but it was behind the paywall, I couldn;t get the name.

    "On Wednesday Ben Bradley, the Tory MP for Mansfield, quit as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government."
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,060
    edited June 2020
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    IshmaelZ said:

    There's a tweet that Oriel is taking Rhodes down after all - just a few days after Johnson promised to fight back against the left!!

    The Telegraph reports that conservative MPs are getting very, very restive with the PM.

    Some MP has quit his government position in protest at what he sees as the government's tepid response to BLM, apparently, but it was behind the paywall, I couldn;t get the name.

    "On Wednesday Ben Bradley, the Tory MP for Mansfield, quit as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government."
    Hmmm.

    Did he quit for BLM, or because the entire department is about to get roasted?

    Not that he is much loss from all I know of him.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    I don't think the Democrats will get their base out if John bloody Bolton is running for them.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,488

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Didn't they try this a few years ago, until their donors and benefactors threatened to pull the plug?

    Hope Chris Patten squashes it.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,208
    Penny Mordaunt, who I had down, wrongly it seems, as one of the saner Brexiteers, wants the aid budget to be diverted to a new Royal Yacht, so the UK can negotiate trade deals,

    Which allows me to retweet this baffled comment from a real trade negotiator:

    https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1268624665020334083
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    The University Board.

    They will of course require listed building consent...

    https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1046662

    But I don’t think Historic England will object if the Board have decided to make the decision.

    I wonder though if they plan to rename the building.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,482

    RobD said:

    Sandpit said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Scott_xP said:
    The Guardian says:

    Air Force One for Boris? RAF plane for VIPs gets a union jack makeover
    The prime minister’s plane, also used by royalty, is getting a new paint job costing £100,000 plus


    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/16/air-force-one-for-boris-raf-plane-for-vips-gets-a-union-jack-makeover

    Which is bang in the middle for the quoted 777 repaint (not forgetting that there may be more bits n'pieces on the RAF Voyager than a regular airliner.

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Bear in mind

    (a) scheme is more complex than most (not all) airliners
    (b) it's a PFI job - with the implications

    It costs 60 times what any sane person would pay for it and is still shit?
    I have found it wise to steer clear of the occupants of any vehicle bearing a Union Flag or the flag of St George. Perhaps Boris is channelling his inner chav.
    I was myself thinking more of those pop culture Minis or Mini Mokes of the 1960s (I am a bit too young for that era really).

    I'd be interested to see how the designers achieve the result on the Johnson-Mobile. It seems to be hard to get a UJ which is recogniseable without it looking like a hippymobile at one extreme or so undertstated at the other that it's not recogniseable as a UJ - like the later British Airways scheme on Concorde for instance. Didn't the latter upset Mrs T so much she draped a hanky over the GRP model showing it at a Farnborough Air Show? Or am I misremembering?
    It was the new funky tail designs that Mrs T didn’t like, that had replaced the union flag ones.

    That was a pretty sad moment, it was clear she was losing it at that point.
    It shows she doesn't like the tail fin. What better way to show that?
    That was the turning point. Everyone knew she’d gone by that stage.
    Bollocks. She was fine. She was at the Tory conference, and enjoyed coming on and doing her turn as Maggie, and everybody else liked it too. I think even the tailfins subsequently changed, though probably not as an immediate response.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,601
    No surprise that most people didn't want to take part in track and tracing.

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/17/nhs-covid-19-contact-tracing-app-no-longer-a-priority-says-minister
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,317

    This is interesting (the whole thread is worth a look):

    https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1273293116301357057
    https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1273293120453607429

    This one looks like a case of the EU doing exactly what it accuses the UK of doing: wanting to reproduce aspects of EU/EEA membership without us being EU/EEA members.

    Edit: I see @CarlottaVance has already posted some of the thread.

    I hope the UK sticks to its guns on this one. And we should be applying it to all extradition treaties, particularly those with the US.

    There is one current Extradition Treaty with the US, signed in 2003 and coming into force in April 2007. The chances of the US agreeing to change it in order to make it fairer to British citizens are about the same as me becoming a Tory MP ie nil.
    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    So why did he not he speak up at the time when it could have made a difference? Or was his conscience overridden by his book agent?

    IanB2 said:

    BREAKING: The mobile phone contact-tracing app to tell people they have been exposed to Covid-19 that was once a central part of the government’s response to the epidemic will not be ready before the winter, a health minister has said.

    World beating? I suppose it is after a fashion.
    What was it I was saying yesterday about mediocrity and incompetence?

  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited June 2020

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body should have the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    tlg86 said:

    RobD said:

    Andrew said:

    Bolton doesn't seem to be pulling many punches:

    https://twitter.com/peterbakernyt/status/1273320193373229059

    Given how bizarre the world is these days, I wonder what odds you could get on Bolton being Biden's running mate.

    (If he had any sense he'd go for Mitt Romney or James Mattis.)
    Gotta be a woman, apparently.
    John Bolton can self identify as a woman.
    Please nobody show a picture of Bolton as a
    woman, I think it would break my sexual identity.
    Worried you might like what you see?
    I think just as Republicans and Democrats are, for various reasons, united in their dislike of him, men and women, gay straight or otherwise find those kind of thoughts... disturbing.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    edited June 2020
    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    Yours is the optimistic version (and it's one I share on my more upbeat days).
    But sometimes I think the story of the Indian and Chinese soldiers bludgeoning each other to death in the dark on an uninhabitable glacier offers a more realistic glimpse of our nature as a species.
    Both aspects, though in wildly different proportion, exist in all of us.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Didn't they try this a few years ago, until their donors and benefactors threatened to pull the plug?

    Hope Chris Patten squashes it.
    Macron seems to have cancelled all statue removals in France at a stroke

    Why can't Johnson do the same?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    edited June 2020

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    Right. Thank you.

    Difficult to imagine that the inquiry will find the statue should remain in light of that statement, if I’m honest.

    But at least it is being done properly and legally.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,488

    Away from football... I asked earlier who @Casino_Royale and @MrEd wanted to win the US election.

    I also asked why @rcs1000 had seemingly changed his view that the riots almost guarantee a Trumpton victory.

    I don’t think anyone answered me!

    I don't want Trump to be re-elected. That isn't going to change.

    However, I do try to divorce my personal views from my betting analysis of what I think may happen. That view may change (more than once) before November.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,378
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Was backing our membership of the EU placing oneself on "the wrong side of history?"

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,225
    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.

    We’re not looking for any thousand year reichs.
    That’s the guys you fanboi.

  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,482



    If the problem is a lack of patriotism among the British elite, how does Brexit help?

    Because we didn't get a patriotism among the British elite vote, we got a Brexit vote.

    Structures are less important than people. I didn't like being in the EU, but had we the same will (not necessarily the methods) to pursue our own national interest within the EU as France, I don't think we'd ever have got a Brexit vote. Sadly, successive Governments, even Tory ones, liked to grandstand a bit in The Sun and then capitulate anyway because there was nothing to stop them.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226

    kinabalu said:

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.
    You are inventing and projecting.

    Why invent and project?
    You just got owned, treacle.
    Oh dear.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,898
    Evening all :)

    I imagine some on here will get fairly worked up over Oriel College's decision to recommend the removal the statue of Cecil Rhodes and I imagine the word "Woke" will get a fair airing.

    I wish I cared - I don't.

    On to more substantial matters - the whole issue of social distancing and the impacts on both schools and the leisure industry continue to bubble away.

    The truth is probably social distancing needs to be ended completely if we are to countenance a full return to schools and a full re-opening of the leisure industry and those who have spent considerable sums on signage and the rest might feel aggrieved if the restrictions were suddenly ended.

    My personal aims were >100 deaths a day and >1000 new cases a day for two weeks. We aren't there yet on either count but there has been noteworthy progress - the problem is people need time to prepare rather than be told on Friday evening the world has to change by the following Monday.

    I'll be fascinated to see how the Government responds to the call for help from the County Councils Network. CCN is an overwhelmingly Conservative body and it's quite clear many authorities and especially those with adult social care responsibilities are spending money like water and facing some very hard financial decisions.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Didn't they try this a few years ago, until their donors and benefactors threatened to pull the plug?

    Hope Chris Patten squashes it.
    Macron seems to have cancelled all statue removals in France at a stroke

    Why can't Johnson do the same?
    Does either have that power? Surely statues belong to hundreds of different public and private bodies, all free to make their own decisions in both UK and France?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,488
    Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Was backing our membership of the EU placing oneself on "the wrong side of history?"

    And, is using racism as a tool of anti-racism placing oneself on "the wrong side of history?"
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,378

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    They really are rather lacking in guts.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,482

    Sandpit said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Siri, give me the definition of irony.
    Some people, like you with your gloating and sneering, will no doubt love every single job loss in deprived communities and put it down to brexit.

    The fact is De La Rue are in trouble and have been for a long time and closures are part of,the solution. We are fast becoming a cashless society.

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2020/01/30/why-is-a-company-that-prints-money-running-out-of-cash/
    You don't think it's ironic that the nasty EU passports were made in the UK while the nice British blue passports are made in the EU? It just sums up the stupidity of the whole exercise and how it was always about prioritising things that don't matter (what colour your passport is) over things that do (jobs).
    I have nothing but sympathy for the people who lost their jobs, btw. No gloating or sneering from me, I grew up on Tyneside so i can imagine the impact on Gateshead.
    It's the kind of thing that sends Twitter into a frenzy, but the bottom line is that the May Government awarded the contract to the company that put in the best bid. Obviously the management of De La Rue also felt the prospect of the job going overseas was preposterous, and therefore didn't feel they needed to make their bid competitive. Personally, I would like jobs in the UK to be considered as a factor in public procurement (I don't believe it has up until this point, unlike with almost all other world governments), but equally, companies need to know they can't gouge the taxpayer.
    Under EU gov procurement laws, anyone in the EU could submit a bid of course.
    No reason why the UK can’t now demand that jobs stay in the UK for this sort of thing, although public sector contracts do usually feature in major trade deals.
    It could be just a perception, but my feeling is that most EU states pretty much ignore EU competition laws when it comes to public procurement. If there are hundreds of German police cars that are Renaults and Italian police cars that are BMWs, I've missed them. I've never got that with the British Government/civil service, and I've never really known why.
    image

    image

    image
    :lol:

    Thanks - very interesting, but an actual look at the marques and models within world police car fleets is more helpful, and I think backs my point to a great extent. France, Germany, and Italy have a very big preponderance of their home-grown models.

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Police_cars_by_country#F


  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,036

    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
    Not Mugabe then?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,868
    Sandpit said:

    IanB2 said:

    BREAKING: The mobile phone contact-tracing app to tell people they have been exposed to Covid-19 that was once a central part of the government’s response to the epidemic will not be ready before the winter, a health minister has said.

    Sadly no surprises there. It simply couldn't work as designed, as was pointed out at the time!

    Apps are really not the way forward unless you make them compulsory, every Western country is abandoning them as take-up has been so poor.
    The real problem seems to be that if it stays awake it drains your battery, and if it goes to sleep it doesn’t record your contacts.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,563
    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    They really are rather lacking in guts.
    My hope is that, as a result, sponsorship and funding collapse. Bloody ridiculous.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    edited June 2020
    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    They really are rather lacking in guts.
    Who can blame them when the Johnson government allows them to twist in the wind, as opposed to providing a firm lead?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,378

    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
    Not Mugabe then?
    Or Jean-Claude Duvalier?
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    They really are rather lacking in guts.
    As my old tutor used to tell students if they got a bit anxious about the competition in the run-up to university examinations, 'Remember, there's a lot of dead wood in Oriel'...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,720

    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
    Yes, or Biko, after Steve Biko, killed in police custody.

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 36,002

    Where did Faisal Islam get his £900,000 from?

    Downing Street spokesperson
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,421
    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
    Not Mugabe then?
    Or Jean-Claude Duvalier?
    A reasonable compromise might be Breyten Breytenbach.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
    Her enthusiastic advocacy of and actual involvement in the torture and murder of poor black men and women might strike the fastidious as a slight negative. Why not Goebbels College?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,205
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
    Yes, or Biko, after Steve Biko, killed in police custody.

    Can't have Steve Biko, everyone knows that's Manchester Uni student union lol
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,226
    edited June 2020
    ydoethur said:

    kinabalu said:

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.
    You are inventing and projecting.

    Why invent and project?
    Well, he is a writer. It’s his job to invent.
    Mmm. Of course. Aren't we all.

    But I wonder if one can invent and project without being supremely relaxed about the evils of racism and misogyny.

    Do we think this ought to be possible?

    Maybe not. Dunno.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Rename them.
    Mandela College/Mandela statue/Mandela Scholarships works for me.
    Her enthusiastic advocacy of and actual involvement in the torture and murder of poor black men and women might strike the fastidious as a slight negative. Why not Goebbels College?
    Nelson, not Winnie.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,488
    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    Let's hope it doesn't go anywhere, although I fear this time it might.

    I'd have thought the most powerful way to permanently challenge his vision of his legacy would be to have men and women of all races walking underneath his statue, with smiles on their faces, funded by him.
  • Congratulations for getting the ball rolling again!

    In German football news, we received another sound 0:4 drubbing, this time in Hannover. But Karlsruhe lost too, still five points clear.

    "Vorwärts!"
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,482
    FF43 said:

    Penny Mordaunt, who I had down, wrongly it seems, as one of the saner Brexiteers, wants the aid budget to be diverted to a new Royal Yacht, so the UK can negotiate trade deals,

    Which allows me to retweet this baffled comment from a real trade negotiator:

    https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1268624665020334083

    I think if you investigated what the grossly inflated aid budget has been spent on over the years, it won't be the worst thing it's been spent on. It probably won't even be the first yacht it's been spent on.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,240

    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    They really are rather lacking in guts.
    Who can blame them when the Johnson government allows them to twist in the wind, as opposed to providing a firm lead.
    Getting views from lots of interested bodies, having an impartial expert evaluate the decision the Governing Body have made... sounds like due process to me.

    And the problem with removing statues was a lack of due process, wasn't it?

    (Was at the Better Place, myself)
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,378

    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    They really are rather lacking in guts.
    My hope is that, as a result, sponsorship and funding collapse. Bloody ridiculous.
    You have to hit these people where it hurts - in their wallets.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Didn't they try this a few years ago, until their donors and benefactors threatened to pull the plug?

    Hope Chris Patten squashes it.
    Yep, 4 years ago https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-35435805
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,798
    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.



    I was listening again to Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech today. What struck me was how King situated the Civil Rights movement within the American and hence the broader Western Entitlement tradition, with rhetorical references to the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence (the founding documents of the American Republic, whose names are given to the avenues running on either side of the National Mall in Washington, DC) as well as to Lincoln's Gettysburg address, Shakespeare and the Bible.
    To us it is obvious that King's aim was simply for the US Republic, and liberal democracy, to be true to its own founding principles - that all men are created equal. Yet at the time the FBI considered him the most dangerous man in America and a threat to the American way of life.
    What some people here like to call wokeism to me is simply a continuation of King's struggle, which is really the continuation of a much longer struggle for justice, freedom and equality. As we address the injustices of the past and of the present, we are strengthening and making true the promises of liberal democracy. That system of government remains the best hope for mankind. I think you all should have more faith in its ability to renew itself, and recognise that we are strongest when we are truest to ourselves, not when we are trying to ration the freedom that should be all of our birthright.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,488
    I've been told by the Head of HR at my company tonight that I can't become a "development reviewer" for other senior consultants in my firm - I've been asking for two years, and heard nothing back - because they are 'pleased' they have a 50:50 gender balance in reviewers at present. They won't look at it again until Autumn.

    What sparked my email to her was that I got wind a new consultant who only joined the firm two years ago has just been made one (she was phoned up and directly asked) because two other female reviewers went on maternity leave, thus creating an imbalance.

    I've been thanked for "my continuing support" (I don't support this dogmatic view) and I'm not very happy about it.

    Considering my response.. Which needs to be very tactful.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675

    I've been told by the Head of HR at my company tonight that I can't become a "development reviewer" for other senior consultants in my firm - I've been asking for two years, and heard nothing back - because they are 'pleased' they have a 50:50 gender balance in reviewers at present. They won't look at it again until Autumn.

    What sparked my email to her was that I got wind a new consultant who only joined the firm two years ago has just been made one (she was phoned up and directly asked) because two other female reviewers went on maternity leave, thus creating an imbalance.

    I've been thanked for "my continuing support" (I don't support this dogmatic view) and I'm not very happy about it.

    Considering my response.. Which needs to be very tactful.

    Self identify as a woman?
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,482

    I've been told by the Head of HR at my company tonight that I can't become a "development reviewer" for other senior consultants in my firm - I've been asking for two years, and heard nothing back - because they are 'pleased' they have a 50:50 gender balance in reviewers at present. They won't look at it again until Autumn.

    What sparked my email to her was that I got wind a new consultant who only joined the firm two years ago has just been made one (she was phoned up and directly asked) because two other female reviewers went on maternity leave, thus creating an imbalance.

    I've been thanked for "my continuing support" (I don't support this dogmatic view) and I'm not very happy about it.

    Considering my response.. Which needs to be very tactful.

    Tell them you now identify as a woman and threaten a tribunal?
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,935

    I've been told by the Head of HR at my company tonight that I can't become a "development reviewer" for other senior consultants in my firm - I've been asking for two years, and heard nothing back - because they are 'pleased' they have a 50:50 gender balance in reviewers at present. They won't look at it again until Autumn.

    What sparked my email to her was that I got wind a new consultant who only joined the firm two years ago has just been made one (she was phoned up and directly asked) because two other female reviewers went on maternity leave, thus creating an imbalance.

    I've been thanked for "my continuing support" (I don't support this dogmatic view) and I'm not very happy about it.

    Considering my response.. Which needs to be very tactful.

    Following TSE: "Did you just assume my gender?"
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,488

    eadric said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Munira Mirza is the bigoted Left's worst nightmare

    The No 10 adviser tasked with a new racial equality commission refuses to bend to identity politics
    RAKIB EHSAN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/16/munira-mirza-bigoted-lefts-worst-nightmare/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    Extremely refreshing and important. The identitarian left is about to discover that genuine diversity comes in thought as well as in immutable characteristics...
    As refreshing as appointing a homeopath to spearhead a review into cancer treatments.
    More like appointing Galileo to research astronomy rather than leaving it in the hands of the Catholic Inquisition...
    If Galileo was a "solar system skeptic", yes.
    I think you'll find that almost all scientists are sceptics by nature - it's what distinguishes science from religion. And my goodness it's time for the religion of woke to experience its Enlightenment...

    p.s. If you don't like 'Wokeists', then how about 'Egregorotes', as ἐγρηγορότες? Though Omnium's probably hit upon the correct vernacular already.
    But you know what I mean.

    Your problem is that you're on the wrong side of history. Really don't envy you that. It's a place littered with bitterness and disappointment.
    Do you honestly believe that a 'right side of history' even exists? You're kind of illustrating my point by putting your faith - and faith it is - in the distant teleological vindication of a peculiar set of beliefs that happened to gain minor currency in the early 21st century West. There's no such thing as being proved right 'in the end', because history has no end.

    Still, your idea has a mirror image in that of conservative pessimism, which dictates that one day the forces of chaos and entropy will indeed inevitably win and drag us all down into their soggy mire.

    But what do we say to the God of Woke? Not today!
    Well we all know how everything ends. That is written. The laws of physics brook no dissent.

    But in the meantime - and there's plenty of it - people will seek to come together not silo off into mardy groupings.

    This is the history you are on the wrong side of. Which you are.
    What a pile of shite.

    Until ten years ago it was clear the "right side of history" was the endless march to liberal democracy. This now looks like complete foolish nonsense, as Asian autocracies rise, Islam spreads, and the West weakens. It turns out we were on the wrong side of history

    Wokeism is just a peculiar, florid symptom of the West's decline, which may soon move from relative to absolute. How does Woke work in China, the world's biggest nation and arguably, now, it's most powerful? Maybe ask the Uighurs.

    History is never inevitable, there is no endless and relentless march, there won't be a thousand year Reich of identity politics. That much we know from history.



    I was listening again to Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech today. What struck me was how King situated the Civil Rights movement within the American and hence the broader Western Entitlement tradition, with rhetorical references to the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence (the founding documents of the American Republic, whose names are given to the avenues running on either side of the National Mall in Washington, DC) as well as to Lincoln's Gettysburg address, Shakespeare and the Bible.
    To us it is obvious that King's aim was simply for the US Republic, and liberal democracy, to be true to its own founding principles - that all men are created equal. Yet at the time the FBI considered him the most dangerous man in America and a threat to the American way of life.
    What some people here like to call wokeism to me is simply a continuation of King's struggle, which is really the continuation of a much longer struggle for justice, freedom and equality. As we address the injustices of the past and of the present, we are strengthening and making true the promises of liberal democracy. That system of government remains the best hope for mankind. I think you all should have more faith in its ability to renew itself, and recognise that we are strongest when we are truest to ourselves, not when we are trying to ration the freedom that should be all of our birthright.
    And that's what they think too.

    In reality, they're acting much more like the FBI of that time, not Martin Luther King.

    That's the tragedy.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,675
    This is quite amusing, my firm did an informal ethnic pay audit as part of the gender pay audit, and in lots of departments, including my own, us ethnics were massively paid more than white people.

    https://twitter.com/EleniCourea/status/1273172851353419779
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,139

    Sean_F said:

    ydoethur said:

    So are they also getting rid of the Rhodes scholars?

    https://twitter.com/CamillaTominey/status/1273330482550276098

    Whose decision is it, exactly?
    Well, it's their college so the Governing Body has the final say, especially as Oxford Council has no objection. But if they really wanted to take it down, they'd do so immediately without waiting for the outcome of the inquiry, so I imagine they're hoping that something will come up that will, on balance, cause the inquiry to recommend retention.

    Arse-covering on an epic scale, in other words.
    My understanding is that they are taking it down, and the enquiry is into the scholarship.

    Am I wrong in that?
    That doesn't seem to be what their letter indicates. Although the whole thing is vague and weaselly:

    https://twitter.com/ewansomerville/status/1273329722580238343
    They really are rather lacking in guts.
    My hope is that, as a result, sponsorship and funding collapse. Bloody ridiculous.
    Yes a lot of donors will withhold funds from Oriel if they bow to woke pressure to erase their history.

    Rhodes was no saint but he is part of the college's heritage and has funded thousands of scholars from across the world
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,599
    Surely they have a human who could have watched a reply of the along-the-line camera, and judged a goal within a few seconds?
This discussion has been closed.