As Guernsey completes 50 days of no Covid positive tests, all restrictions are to be lifted except for border control (mandatory 14 day self quarantine on arrival). The Director of Health remarked that the planning "reasonable worst case scenario" was 1,000 deaths. We've had 13. Test track and trace maintained throughout. We were very fortunate to have had an epidemiologist as CMO.
Adam Boulton on Sky very grumpy that the threat level has gone down from 4 to 3
Do these journalists really want the economy to collapse, or is it more their hatred of Brexit and some perverse hope that the worse things get the better for their obession with the EU
Surely the day will come when every human failing isn't blamed on that person's (real or imagined) dislike of Brexit.
I suspect (fear) that the 'war' Remain vs Leave will be as divisive as that between Roundhead and Cavalier almost 400 years ago. Thankfully, nowhere near as much bloodshed, of course. The Roundheads won in the short term, but eventually the Cavaliers came back, although things were never the same again.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
It's a matter of opinion and most people disagree with you.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
I love having my moral choices imposed on me by third parties who voted time and time again against the Iraq inquiry and then transferred allegiance to the most notorious anti semite of the century so far. Priorities innit.
Trump is out to midprice 2.55. It's hard to see how he won't damage himself further tomorrow at the Tulsa rally, even before the news gets out about the infection spreading that unfortunately seems likely. The campaign is advising high-risk groups to stay away - groups which include those who are aged 65+. Has their Leader drunk the elixir of youth or something? Perhaps he has already "transitioned" to greatness? Got to wonder how he will allot 20K tickets to the "one million" people whom he affects to believe, or perhaps really does believe, have requested them.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
Adam Boulton on Sky very grumpy that the threat level has gone down from 4 to 3
Do these journalists really want the economy to collapse, or is it more their hatred of Brexit and some perverse hope that the worse things get the better for their obession with the EU
Surely the day will come when every human failing isn't blamed on that person's (real or imagined) dislike of Brexit.
I suspect (fear) that the 'war' Remain vs Leave will be as divisive as that between Roundhead and Cavalier almost 400 years ago. Thankfully, nowhere near as much bloodshed, of course. The Roundheads won in the short term, but eventually the Cavaliers came back, although things were never the same again.
Due to a slight misunderstanding doing the English Civil War, the contingent from Tetbury and the contingent from Malmesbury ended up fighting a battle on opposite sides.
Exactly how this happened is disputed. Apparently treachery from both sides (to hear it told). Perhaps the historical source for the battle of Koom Valley....
Anyway, on a Friday/Saturday night, there used (as of about 20 years ago) to be some friendly punching after the pubs closed, if men from the two towns mixed.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
It's a matter of opinion and most people disagree with you.
Most people thought the world was flat some time ago and there be dragons.
Meanwhile, in the most comprehensive enquiry done on the subject, it was not found to be cruel.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
I love having my moral choices imposed on me by third parties who voted time and time again against the Iraq inquiry and then transferred allegiance to the most notorious anti semite of the century so far. Priorities innit.
I prefer the moral values of MPs who thought that it was perfectly reasonable that opposition MPs should be arrested for publishing leaked documents.
And then changed their mind when it was pointed out that the leader of their own party was "guilty" of the same thing.
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
That sounds to be very good news, coming down quickly.
At this rate, by start of August looks like covid won't really be a thing in the UK. Big question is does it come back in the winter.
Let's hope so. The way we avoid it coming back in the winter is to get free of it and keep the quarantine rules in place until the spring.
The opinion columnists who miss their winter in Chamonix as well as their summer in Tuscany will be livid, as will their papers who rely so much on travel advertising - but for everyone else there will be a sense of a return to normality.
Trump is out to midprice 2.55. It's hard to see how he won't damage himself further tomorrow at the Tulsa rally, even before the news gets out about the infection spreading that unfortunately seems likely. The campaign is advising high-risk groups to stay away - groups which include those who are aged 65+. Has their Leader drunk the elixir of youth or something? Perhaps he has already "transitioned" to greatness? Got to wonder how he will allot 20K tickets to the "one million" people whom he affects to believe, or perhaps really does believe, have requested them.
Slip sliding away.
Pls remember my prediction from a while back - 3.5 by Sept, 5 on eve of election.
That sounds to be very good news, coming down quickly.
At this rate, by start of August looks like covid won't really be a thing in the UK. Big question is does it come back in the winter.
Let's hope so. The way we avoid it coming back in the winter is to get free of it and keep the quarantine rules in place until the spring.
The opinion columnists who miss their winter in Chamonix as well as their summer in Tuscany will be livid, as will their papers who rely so much on travel advertising - but for everyone else there will be a sense of a return to normality.
Absolutely agreed!
This "whatabouterism" and arguing that other countries have a higher incidence is neither here nor there. If we defeat this virus (and we're close to doing so) then the right thing to do is to make the most of us being an island and quarantine any arrivals.
If you don't want to be quarantined, don't travel abroad. Not difficult.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
All the pain we humans have suffered from Covid-19, Ebola, HIV-Aids, Sars has largely been self inflicted and stemmed from our refusal to treat other species with respect.
Will we learn from the experience? Not a chance, it's only a matter of time before the next pandemic hits us. As the world gets more overcrowded and habitats decrease I suspect they will become increasingly frequent.
Nihil novi sub sole....
Measles virus and rinderpest virus divergence dated to the sixth century BCE https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6497/1367 Many infectious diseases are thought to have emerged in humans after the Neolithic revolution. Although it is broadly accepted that this also applies to measles, the exact date of emergence for this disease is controversial. We sequenced the genome of a 1912 measles virus and used selection-aware molecular clock modeling to determine the divergence date of measles virus and rinderpest virus. This divergence date represents the earliest possible date for the establishment of measles in human populations. Our analyses show that the measles virus potentially arose as early as the sixth century BCE, possibly coinciding with the rise of large cities...
I've been trying to find figures for the proportion of workers testing Covid positive in meat-packing plants. So far I've found a rate of about two-thirds for one German plant and one-third for an Irish plant, but no other figures.
I'm wondering whether they're a useful test of the hypothesis that 20% will catch it and then it's done.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
Edit: and I referred to the "live animals" as a rhetorical flourish because it can be applied everywhere "killing live animals by a bolt to the neck just so we can eat them" etc.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
The real issue for the left on this is that some of the same old characters are involved.
The ones who want to get rid of Prevent for example - and there is that interesting story of how they got the Southern Poverty Law Centre to classify The Quilliam Foundation as Islaamaphobic.
I would also suggest that they need to make their peace with the fact that increasing numbers of BAME people are voting for non-left parties.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
There would have been very little mention of fox hunting in the past three decades, if it were something overseen by the farm manager and carried out by the workers like most other countryside pest control.
It was precisely because of the 'poshos on horseback in red tunics', that it became part of the nascent culture war in the late 1990s. The townies among the New Labour MPs wanted to make sure the country boys knew who was now in charge.
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
Yes. The Woke is almost as big a threat as the Rona according to morons
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
Yes. The Woke is almost as big a threat as the Rona according to morons
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
I am sure your parents felt the same about "darkies."
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
Yes. The Woke is almost as big a threat as the Rona according to morons
Will Wokeness fade away like the Rona?
Wokeness is the future. Tory dinosaurs like Terry Dicks who advocated executing Mandela are slowly dying off.
That sounds to be very good news, coming down quickly.
At this rate, by start of August looks like covid won't really be a thing in the UK. Big question is does it come back in the winter.
Let's hope so. The way we avoid it coming back in the winter is to get free of it and keep the quarantine rules in place until the spring.
The opinion columnists who miss their winter in Chamonix as well as their summer in Tuscany will be livid, as will their papers who rely so much on travel advertising - but for everyone else there will be a sense of a return to normality.
Unfortunately* for us readers, said opinion columnists can probably happily deal with quarantine by 'working' during the quarantine period and still enjoy their holidays (i.e. fly out, work for two weeks in quarantine, enjoy x weeks holiday, fly back, work for two weeks in quarantine).
*Or possibly fortunately if we're spared the whining.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
There would have been very little mention of fox hunting in the past three decades, if it were something overseen by the farm manager and carried out by the workers like most other countryside pest control.
It was precisely because of the 'poshos on horseback in red tunics', that it became part of the nascent culture war in the late 1990s. The townies among the New Labour MPs wanted to make sure the country boys knew who was now in charge.
My tongue was firmly in my cheek!
Culture War? I used to see the late Lady Wachter struggle to mount her enormous horse for the North Ledbury Hunt in the car park of the Crown in Cradley, from my bedroom window. I had no problem with that.
Later, the fox would come bounding through my garden, leaping over the garden fence as it went, half an hour later the hounds would lose the scent in my garden and in their confusion trample the plants. So the fox got away! One nil to the fox! But no the huntsmen would maybe an hour or two later find a fox hole, dig the fox out and feed him/her to the dogs. Some sport!
That sounds to be very good news, coming down quickly.
At this rate, by start of August looks like covid won't really be a thing in the UK. Big question is does it come back in the winter.
Let's hope so. The way we avoid it coming back in the winter is to get free of it and keep the quarantine rules in place until the spring.
The opinion columnists who miss their winter in Chamonix as well as their summer in Tuscany will be livid, as will their papers who rely so much on travel advertising - but for everyone else there will be a sense of a return to normality.
Did we have quarantine in the 1968 'Hong Kong flu' pandemic which killed 2x as many? Of course not. Life went on totally as normal.
Tell everyone to take vitamin D pills in winter and eat healthily. But the Daily Mail says that Belgium, not us, has western Europe's least healthy diet
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
A good test of that is probably whether the poshos on horseback still offend if not chasing a fox - or chasing a fox but not accompanied by hounds.
If we're doing class war, it's the poshos with rifles on the moors who offend me, but that's because they act like they own the moors (to be fair to them, they probably do).
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
There would have been very little mention of fox hunting in the past three decades, if it were something overseen by the farm manager and carried out by the workers like most other countryside pest control.
It was precisely because of the 'poshos on horseback in red tunics', that it became part of the nascent culture war in the late 1990s. The townies among the New Labour MPs wanted to make sure the country boys knew who was now in charge.
My tongue was firmly in my cheek!
Culture War? I used to see the late Lady Wachter struggle to mount her enormous horse for the North Ledbury Hunt in the car park of the Crown in Cradley, from my bedroom window. I had no problem with that.
Later, the fox would come bounding through my garden, leaping over the garden fence as it went, half an hour later the hounds would lose the scent in my garden and in their confusion trample the plants. So the fox got away! One nil to the fox! But no the huntsmen would maybe an hour or two later find a fox hole, dig the fox out and feed him/her to the dogs. Some sport!
If you have to, shoot the bloody fox!
Yes that is disgusting behaviour. Very unsportsmanlike.
That sounds to be very good news, coming down quickly.
At this rate, by start of August looks like covid won't really be a thing in the UK. Big question is does it come back in the winter.
Let's hope so. The way we avoid it coming back in the winter is to get free of it and keep the quarantine rules in place until the spring.
The opinion columnists who miss their winter in Chamonix as well as their summer in Tuscany will be livid, as will their papers who rely so much on travel advertising - but for everyone else there will be a sense of a return to normality.
Did we have quarantine in the 1968 'Hong Kong flu' pandemic which killed 2x as many? Of course not. Life went on totally as normal.
Tell everyone to take vitamin D pills in winter and eat healthily. But the Daily Mail says that Belgium, not us, has western Europe's least healthy diet
Is it a coincidence that Belgium seems to have the highest COVID death rate?
Comparisons with Hong Kong Flu seem unreasonable precisely because we didn't have a lockdown then.
That we've had a lockdown and a death rate half that of Hong Kong Flu leaves a counterfactual of what the death toll would have been if we hadn't locked down. Potentially an order of magnitude more.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
A good test of that is probably whether the poshos on horseback still offend if not chasing a fox - or chasing a fox but not accompanied by hounds.
If we're doing class war, it's the poshos with rifles on the moors who offend me, but that's because they act like they own the moors (to be fair to them, they probably do).
Ha! Good point although there are a lot of corporate shoots these days where the participants wish they owned the place.
That said, this coming shooting season has been (1-decimated) as there is simply not the confidence to buy in the birds.
Were the BLM protests another gigantic mute hound?
Given that these are deaths that will take quite a while to percolate through, especially since the protestors won't die, it'll be those they transmit it on to.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
A good test of that is probably whether the poshos on horseback still offend if not chasing a fox - or chasing a fox but not accompanied by hounds.
If we're doing class war, it's the poshos with rifles on the moors who offend me, but that's because they act like they own the moors (to be fair to them, they probably do).
I have no problem with anyone in fancy dress on horseback, drinking from a stirrup cup, they can even drag hunt to their hearts content, so long as they don't finish the day feeding a live fox to their dogs.
Riding to hounds must be the most expensive and inefficient way of killing foxes ever devised.
Xenophon tackled that issue a couple of millennia back. He found that hunting is justified as the best way of training a horse for war - "the image of war without the guilt." I'm very patriotic: I am prepping myself for the next world war but one, in 18 months time or so.
Were the BLM protests another gigantic mute hound?
In the US looks like they had an impact. But NYC and London, doesn't look like had any impact. Its like you hit 20% of your population having had it and it dies away.
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
The real issue for the left on this is that some of the same old characters are involved.
The ones who want to get rid of Prevent for example - and there is that interesting story of how they got the Southern Poverty Law Centre to classify The Quilliam Foundation as Islaamaphobic.
I would also suggest that they need to make their peace with the fact that increasing numbers of BAME people are voting for non-left parties.
My remedy would be to focus hard on the economics. Develop policies which will make people on low and average incomes better off and hammer at that day in and day out. And do not be afraid of some "bash the rich" populism. Don't pretend there will not be losers. That's bullshit and everyone knows it is. So make a virtue of it. Emphasize the point - #times up for privilege and vested interests.
Then, on the social side, play it cool, calm & collected. Take the heat out of the Right's lurid scaremongering. Change the rules and the presentation. One example, transgender, reduce it to the prosaic practical issues. Get away from "Labour say there's no such thing as biological sex." Move the story to "Tories unclear on the definition and policing of same sex spaces."
Ditto on all aspects of the equality agenda, inc race. Don't get bogged down with "taking the knee" and rhetoric and symbolism. Focus on the bread and butter. On what equality and diversity means in practice. In terms of people's everyday lives. Because when you do this, what you find is that most of it is pretty much a no-brainer.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
A good test of that is probably whether the poshos on horseback still offend if not chasing a fox - or chasing a fox but not accompanied by hounds.
If we're doing class war, it's the poshos with rifles on the moors who offend me, but that's because they act like they own the moors (to be fair to them, they probably do).
I have no problem with anyone in fancy dress on horseback, drinking from a stirrup cup, they can even drag hunt to their hearts content, so long as they don't finish the day feeding a live fox to their dogs.
Which doesn't happen. Like virtually all predators a hound kills a fox straight off by biting through its neck, because that's the safest way to do it. That information is undisputed, intuitively obvious and easily available by searching the internet or watching David bloody Attenborough. You just can't be bothered.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
A good test of that is probably whether the poshos on horseback still offend if not chasing a fox - or chasing a fox but not accompanied by hounds.
If we're doing class war, it's the poshos with rifles on the moors who offend me, but that's because they act like they own the moors (to be fair to them, they probably do).
I have no problem with anyone in fancy dress on horseback, drinking from a stirrup cup, they can even drag hunt to their hearts content, so long as they don't finish the day feeding a live fox to their dogs.
Which doesn't happen. Like virtually all predators a hound kills a fox straight off by biting through its neck, because that's the safest way to do it. That information is undisputed, intuitively obvious and easily available by searching the internet or watching David bloody Attenborough. You just can't be bothered.
First the dog has to catch it.
The reason we stun animals getting slaughtered for meat is so they don't see it coming and don't suffer. They aren't chased for ages and then having their neck bit through.
Were the BLM protests another gigantic mute hound?
In the US looks like they had an impact. But NYC and London, doesn't look like had any impact. Its like you hit 20% of your population having had it and it dies away.
Lots of shouting, but the protestors are nearly all young (for Covid purposes) and outdoors. Not sure you would single out protest marches as likely to generate a spike.
Also, risk goes with time. The second spikes/failures of the first spikes to fall look much more like return to work- after all, that's 5 days a week, not a one-off.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
There would have been very little mention of fox hunting in the past three decades, if it were something overseen by the farm manager and carried out by the workers like most other countryside pest control.
It was precisely because of the 'poshos on horseback in red tunics', that it became part of the nascent culture war in the late 1990s. The townies among the New Labour MPs wanted to make sure the country boys knew who was now in charge.
My tongue was firmly in my cheek!
Culture War? I used to see the late Lady Wachter struggle to mount her enormous horse for the North Ledbury Hunt in the car park of the Crown in Cradley, from my bedroom window. I had no problem with that.
Later, the fox would come bounding through my garden, leaping over the garden fence as it went, half an hour later the hounds would lose the scent in my garden and in their confusion trample the plants. So the fox got away! One nil to the fox! But no the huntsmen would maybe an hour or two later find a fox hole, dig the fox out and feed him/her to the dogs. Some sport!
If you have to, shoot the bloody fox!
Yes that is disgusting behaviour. Very unsportsmanlike.
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
Yes. The Woke is almost as big a threat as the Rona according to morons
Will Wokeness fade away like the Rona?
Wokeness is the future. Tory dinosaurs like Terry Dicks who advocated executing Mandela are slowly dying off.
Thete is a distinction between Terry Dicks' views and wanting to take down statues of Churchill, Drake, Baden Powell, Washington, Columbus and Gandhi
I suppose to be fair to make fox hunting comparable with meat if you can breed a fox, keep it in good conditions then stun it before the hunt so that it doesn't suffer and then the stunned animal is "hunted" that could be the same thing.
Were the BLM protests another gigantic mute hound?
In the US looks like they had an impact. But NYC and London, doesn't look like had any impact. Its like you hit 20% of your population having had it and it dies away.
Lots of shouting, but the protestors are nearly all young (for Covid purposes) and outdoors. Not sure you would single out protest marches as likely to generate a spike.
Also, risk goes with time. The second spikes/failures of the first spikes to fall look much more like return to work- after all, that's 5 days a week, not a one-off.
Well many of the cities that have had big and continuous protests in US (and up to that point had it under control) have seen spikes. LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle....Florida has also taken off like a rocket. And these have been inline with the timeline of the protests.
Of those already hit before hand, there was also a smaller spike in Minneapolis and places like Atlanta seeing it increase again. NYC and Washington DC are the big exceptions.
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
Yes. The Woke is almost as big a threat as the Rona according to morons
Will Wokeness fade away like the Rona?
Wokeness is the future. Tory dinosaurs like Terry Dicks who advocated executing Mandela are slowly dying off.
This is my point. Woke wins eventually - it is written - so let's stop losing elections over it.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
A good test of that is probably whether the poshos on horseback still offend if not chasing a fox - or chasing a fox but not accompanied by hounds.
If we're doing class war, it's the poshos with rifles on the moors who offend me, but that's because they act like they own the moors (to be fair to them, they probably do).
I have no problem with anyone in fancy dress on horseback, drinking from a stirrup cup, they can even drag hunt to their hearts content, so long as they don't finish the day feeding a live fox to their dogs.
Which doesn't happen. Like virtually all predators a hound kills a fox straight off by biting through its neck, because that's the safest way to do it. That information is undisputed, intuitively obvious and easily available by searching the internet or watching David bloody Attenborough. You just can't be bothered.
First the dog has to catch it.
The reason we stun animals getting slaughtered for meat is so they don't see it coming and don't suffer. They aren't chased for ages and then having their neck bit through.
and how do you think it catches it?
This is like your view that mobs tearing down statues is a peaceful process incapable of developing into personal violence. You have a truly heroic quasi-scholastic lack of concern as to whether your theories fit the actual facts.
I suppose to be fair to make fox hunting comparable with meat if you can breed a fox, keep it in good conditions then stun it before the hunt so that it doesn't suffer and then the stunned animal is "hunted" that could be the same thing.
Not sure what sport that would be though.
Do you think the fox looks behind it and thinks "fuck me those posh bastards"?
It is a wild animal. It is fleeing from danger. Of course that compromises its welfare. As does a rat when it sees a Sealyham Terrier bearing down on it. Or a mouse when it sees Tiddles approaching with those nasty sharp claws.
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
I am sure your parents felt the same about "darkies."
I am not quite sure how to respond to that without using unparliamentary language.
Both my parents are no longer with us, and both were liberally educated to the point of enlightenment on that issue.
I am genuinely bewildered how you made the leap from 'poshos on horseback' to racism.
You tried to pick a fight with me a week or two ago and I clearly disappointed then, so you have tried your luck again.
How do they explain the explosion of numbers on the west coast? Portland is running 10x what it was beforehand. All the big west coast ones has seen significant increases, after previously containing it.
I posted a good heatmap graphic the other day that showed progression timeline and the take off in positive cases and basically all the populous states that missed the wave up to the protests have seen it take off since.
That sounds to be very good news, coming down quickly.
At this rate, by start of August looks like covid won't really be a thing in the UK. Big question is does it come back in the winter.
Let's hope so. The way we avoid it coming back in the winter is to get free of it and keep the quarantine rules in place until the spring.
The opinion columnists who miss their winter in Chamonix as well as their summer in Tuscany will be livid, as will their papers who rely so much on travel advertising - but for everyone else there will be a sense of a return to normality.
Did we have quarantine in the 1968 'Hong Kong flu' pandemic which killed 2x as many? Of course not. Life went on totally as normal.
Tell everyone to take vitamin D pills in winter and eat healthily. But the Daily Mail says that Belgium, not us, has western Europe's least healthy diet
Is it a coincidence that Belgium seems to have the highest COVID death rate?
Comparisons with Hong Kong Flu seem unreasonable precisely because we didn't have a lockdown then.
That we've had a lockdown and a death rate half that of Hong Kong Flu leaves a counterfactual of what the death toll would have been if we hadn't locked down. Potentially an order of magnitude more.
Japan had no lockdown. It's illegal under their post-war constitution to limit peoples' freedom in this way. Per capita death rate? 1.2% of the UK.
The Norwegian PM apologised for locking people up. She said that she panicked and had got it wrong.
But over and out from me; it's now dry enough to return to gardening.
Off topic on this post (but I have been out on my bike all morning) - this Labour report. I compare and contrast it to the similar LibDem report and wonder how many vats of fudge Ed Milliband and his team consumed during its creation.
All of the big national parties seem to be at a crossroads. Tories split between northern populists and HYUFD hard liners. Labour between realist and idealist. LibDems between Labour-lite and radical centre. Even the good old Brexit Party Company seems about to resurrect itself because having Secured Brexit apparently they need now to come back to Secure Brexit. And the same every year after that. Why are all the parties at this point - because the political tectonic plates are shifting again.
My instinct politically is increasingly a "whatever works" approach. There is too much classifying and pigeon-holing going on where people want to die in a ditch over their version of Conservatism / Socialism / Liberalism / Farage-disease. Most voters aren't any of these, apply a whatever works approach and vote for whatever and whomever seems to convince the most (or the least worst) at the time. Tories would be fools to think that punters having said "I'll vote Tory to get Brexit done" that they can go hardline neo-right on them. Labour need to tell the union movement that their affiliation and individual membership is appreciated but otherwise they have no formal part to play. LibDems need to accept the coalition happened, was both good and bad, and take the learnings. Fundamentally normals just want a sense that grown-ups are in charge. And this country seems to have sidelined all its political grownups in favour of ideologues.
I think Labour need to uncouple from this culture war stuff. I'm starting to view it as a toxic distraction. IMO the Left will inevitably prevail in that area in due course - since it isn't really a war, it's just social progress - but in the meantime it's costing elections. The Right are whipping up fear and loathing of an imaginary monolithic ultra-radical bogeyman called the Woke, which is threatening the right of every freeborn Englishman to tell a joke or two and slap the wife, and are ruthlessly using this to con people out of their votes. We must find a way to stop this.
Yes. The Woke is almost as big a threat as the Rona according to morons
Will Wokeness fade away like the Rona?
Wokeness is the future. Tory dinosaurs like Terry Dicks who advocated executing Mandela are slowly dying off.
This is my point. Woke wins eventually - it is written - so let's stop losing elections over it.
No it doesn't, Churchill's statue is not coming down
I think there would be an awful lot less controversy over the ban on hunting if it hadn't been implemented as transparent dead cat material by Blair to distract his backbenchers.
I can't be bothered to refight the hunting argument (yes it's cruel, no it's not a class issue and no, I don't expect Boris to re-legalise it), but the above is the reverse of the truth. TB fought us tooth and nail over the issue, using every delaying tactic and distraction, until we finally forced him to give in, in return for something else that I forget.
As he observes in his autobiography, it was inadequately prohibited so it's both illegal and widely still practiced. With luck, that will be fixed in due course.
It's not cruel Nick. You would like to think it is, but it isn't.
I would consider setting a pack of dogs onto another live animal to tear it limb from limb might constitute cruelty. I am no expert though.
I like the "another live animal" rhetorical touch.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
Surely the 'live animal' notion is beyond question.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Yes there's a lot that once you find out about seems, in the rarefied atmosphere of PB, to be quite distasteful.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing if the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
You might be right and I am just offended by poshos on horseback.
There would have been very little mention of fox hunting in the past three decades, if it were something overseen by the farm manager and carried out by the workers like most other countryside pest control.
It was precisely because of the 'poshos on horseback in red tunics', that it became part of the nascent culture war in the late 1990s. The townies among the New Labour MPs wanted to make sure the country boys knew who was now in charge.
My tongue was firmly in my cheek!
Culture War? I used to see the late Lady Wachter struggle to mount her enormous horse for the North Ledbury Hunt in the car park of the Crown in Cradley, from my bedroom window. I had no problem with that.
Later, the fox would come bounding through my garden, leaping over the garden fence as it went, half an hour later the hounds would lose the scent in my garden and in their confusion trample the plants. So the fox got away! One nil to the fox! But no the huntsmen would maybe an hour or two later find a fox hole, dig the fox out and feed him/her to the dogs. Some sport!
If you have to, shoot the bloody fox!
Yes that is disgusting behaviour. Very unsportsmanlike.
Comments
BBC News - PM asks top civil servant to go ahead of merger
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53111095
Not what I expected at all when I thought I'd pop my head around the door.
https://twitter.com/benatipsosmori/status/1273962870120857601?s=20
I guess that comes from being superior to other races.....
Total : 46
Last seven days : 38
Spanish : 2
Exactly how this happened is disputed. Apparently treachery from both sides (to hear it told). Perhaps the historical source for the battle of Koom Valley....
Anyway, on a Friday/Saturday night, there used (as of about 20 years ago) to be some friendly punching after the pubs closed, if men from the two towns mixed.
Meanwhile, in the most comprehensive enquiry done on the subject, it was not found to be cruel.
And then changed their mind when it was pointed out that the leader of their own party was "guilty" of the same thing.
They are at liberty to think it's cruel because it "sounds" cruel. But the enquiry established to confirm whether it was or wasn't said it wasn't.
Foxes get killed because they are vermin. Like rats and mice and so forth. There was a tv programme on not so long ago about some Lucas Terriers which their owner took to go ratting. Very interesting/entertaining it was too. On prime TV could even have been the BBC.
How vermin is killed never usually attracts debate unless the people doing the killing are dressed up like poshos in which case the activity is deemed beyond the pale.
The opinion columnists who miss their winter in Chamonix as well as their summer in Tuscany will be livid, as will their papers who rely so much on travel advertising - but for everyone else there will be a sense of a return to normality.
Pls remember my prediction from a while back - 3.5 by Sept, 5 on eve of election.
This "whatabouterism" and arguing that other countries have a higher incidence is neither here nor there. If we defeat this virus (and we're close to doing so) then the right thing to do is to make the most of us being an island and quarantine any arrivals.
If you don't want to be quarantined, don't travel abroad. Not difficult.
Shoot the fox by all means. Dress up like poshos on horseback, if that floats your boat, but don't couch it as a country sport. Sheep dog trials, it ain't.
I am not sure televised 'ratting' is the way forward either, not quite "One Man and His Dog".
Measles virus and rinderpest virus divergence dated to the sixth century BCE
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6497/1367
Many infectious diseases are thought to have emerged in humans after the Neolithic revolution. Although it is broadly accepted that this also applies to measles, the exact date of emergence for this disease is controversial. We sequenced the genome of a 1912 measles virus and used selection-aware molecular clock modeling to determine the divergence date of measles virus and rinderpest virus. This divergence date represents the earliest possible date for the establishment of measles in human populations. Our analyses show that the measles virus potentially arose as early as the sixth century BCE, possibly coinciding with the rise of large cities...
I'm wondering whether they're a useful test of the hypothesis that 20% will catch it and then it's done.
Shooting foxes? I mean not that it doesn't happen, it does, and it's not 100% foolproof, but by far the more common methods are trapping (and then killing the fox usually with the blunt end of a shovel - ask any gamekeeper) or gassing.
Either of those "the way forward"?
Edit: and I referred to the "live animals" as a rhetorical flourish because it can be applied everywhere "killing live animals by a bolt to the neck just so we can eat them" etc.
Some people aren't as honest, sadly.
The ones who want to get rid of Prevent for example - and there is that interesting story of how they got the Southern Poverty Law Centre to classify The Quilliam Foundation as Islaamaphobic.
I would also suggest that they need to make their peace with the fact that increasing numbers of BAME people are voting for non-left parties.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1273970542203170816?s=20
I still think beer gardens should already be open.
It was precisely because of the 'poshos on horseback in red tunics', that it became part of the nascent culture war in the late 1990s. The townies among the New Labour MPs wanted to make sure the country boys knew who was now in charge.
https://www.wealthypersons.com/john-kerry-net-worth-2020-2021/
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1273975785498566657?s=19
Although given the many famous roles he got because of his height, including Napoleon and Bilbo, he might have enjoyed the comment!
*Or possibly fortunately if we're spared the whining.
Culture War? I used to see the late Lady Wachter struggle to mount her enormous horse for the North Ledbury Hunt in the car park of the Crown in Cradley, from my bedroom window. I had no problem with that.
Later, the fox would come bounding through my garden, leaping over the garden fence as it went, half an hour later the hounds would lose the scent in my garden and in their confusion trample the plants. So the fox got away! One nil to the fox! But no the huntsmen would maybe an hour or two later find a fox hole, dig the fox out and feed him/her to the dogs. Some sport!
If you have to, shoot the bloody fox!
Tell everyone to take vitamin D pills in winter and eat healthily. But the Daily Mail says that Belgium, not us, has western Europe's least healthy diet
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2958970/Which-countries-healthiest-diets-world-Belgium-Hungary-score-worst-Chad-Sierra-Leone-global-table-study-finds.html
Is it a coincidence that Belgium seems to have the highest COVID death rate?
If we're doing class war, it's the poshos with rifles on the moors who offend me, but that's because they act like they own the moors (to be fair to them, they probably do).
That we've had a lockdown and a death rate half that of Hong Kong Flu leaves a counterfactual of what the death toll would have been if we hadn't locked down. Potentially an order of magnitude more.
That said, this coming shooting season has been (1-decimated) as there is simply not the confidence to buy in the birds.
Were the BLM protests another gigantic mute hound?
Just had one from an energy company.
Got very short shrift from me from behind the window.
Then, on the social side, play it cool, calm & collected. Take the heat out of the Right's lurid scaremongering. Change the rules and the presentation. One example, transgender, reduce it to the prosaic practical issues. Get away from "Labour say there's no such thing as biological sex." Move the story to "Tories unclear on the definition and policing of same sex spaces."
Ditto on all aspects of the equality agenda, inc race. Don't get bogged down with "taking the knee" and rhetoric and symbolism. Focus on the bread and butter. On what equality and diversity means in practice. In terms of people's everyday lives. Because when you do this, what you find is that most of it is pretty much a no-brainer.
An acquaintance maintains a beagle pack in Ireland and says he can't remember when the dogs last got one.
He and his family are very enthusiastic in this completely failed activity though. And the Beagles are great fun.
The reason we stun animals getting slaughtered for meat is so they don't see it coming and don't suffer. They aren't chased for ages and then having their neck bit through.
Also, risk goes with time. The second spikes/failures of the first spikes to fall look much more like return to work- after all, that's 5 days a week, not a one-off.
Not sure what sport that would be though.
Of those already hit before hand, there was also a smaller spike in Minneapolis and places like Atlanta seeing it increase again. NYC and Washington DC are the big exceptions.
We are in a neighbour watch scheme banning such calls
And it works to be fair
This is like your view that mobs tearing down statues is a peaceful process incapable of developing into personal violence. You have a truly heroic quasi-scholastic lack of concern as to whether your theories fit the actual facts.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/recent-protests-may-not-be-covid-19-transmission-hotspots-11592498020
It is a wild animal. It is fleeing from danger. Of course that compromises its welfare. As does a rat when it sees a Sealyham Terrier bearing down on it. Or a mouse when it sees Tiddles approaching with those nasty sharp claws.
But foxes, rats and mice are vermin.
Both my parents are no longer with us, and both were liberally educated to the point of enlightenment on that issue.
I am genuinely bewildered how you made the leap from 'poshos on horseback' to racism.
You tried to pick a fight with me a week or two ago and I clearly disappointed then, so you have tried your luck again.
By the way please don't reply.
I posted a good heatmap graphic the other day that showed progression timeline and the take off in positive cases and basically all the populous states that missed the wave up to the protests have seen it take off since.
The Norwegian PM apologised for locking people up. She said that she panicked and had got it wrong.
But over and out from me; it's now dry enough to return to gardening.
No. It was strictly forbidden to dig up foxes.