Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
Part of our Head of State's coronation oath as Head of the Church of England as well as Head of State is to 'maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospell and the Protestant reformed religion established by law', the monarch is also crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury
But she doesn't maintain the laws of God.
Otherwise she would have punished her fornicating and adulterous eldest son, the son that is likely to succeed her.
Absolutely which is yet another reason its long past time to get rid of these religious fripperies.
If LadyG and HYUFD want to believe in religious babble then I have no qualms with them going to whatever Temple, Church, Mosque or whatever else floats their boat any day they want to. Just don't expect everyone else to share your fantasies.
Well, tough shit, because the chances of changing the national anthem are about 0.3%, or less, and if we did it would likely be replaced by Jerusalem, which is even more religious. And, of course, the chances of us becoming a republic are significantly lower
The chances of becoming a republic in HMQs liftetime is 0% The chances of becoming a republic in my lifetime is much higher than that.
But the post you replied to spoke about religion not the monarchy, though I can see why you'd mix up those two medieval absurdities. Disestablishment of the Church in my lifetime, removing the Bishops from Parliament etc in my lifetime I expect to be well, well over 50%.
Your religion is medieval bollocks and not shared by everyone in this country. Get over it. Pray in your Churches but leave the rest of us out of it.
A religion is like a penis, it is fine to have one, it is fine to be proud of it, but please don't wave it about in public and please don't shove it uninvited down the throat of others.
Indeed most people in the country are atheists.
Which rather proves that @bobajob was right and @seant was wrong when those two golden greats had a very long argument about whether secularism would grow or decline.
If only they were both here now!
I would suggest most people in this country are agnostics.
I think actual atheists are still in a minority.
Yes. The assertion that atheists are a majority is imply wrong. One in four Brits are atheist, inasmuch as they say "they don't believe in God" (but might they believe in "something"?).
What is in swift and definite decline is allegiance to any particular organised religion.
Philip strikes me as a bit of a banter finder, I am not sure he's ever serious in what he posts
I am serious and act from consistent principles. I consistently believe in the merit of individuals doing what they want and taking responsibility for their decisions.
If I wasn't serious, if I was just being a contrarian, then I should be flip-flopping all over the place and being inconsistent. Have you ever seen that?
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
Part of our Head of State's coronation oath as Head of the Church of England as well as Head of State is to 'maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospell and the Protestant reformed religion established by law', the monarch is also crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury
But she doesn't maintain the laws of God.
Otherwise she would have punished her fornicating and adulterous eldest son, the son that is likely to succeed her.
Absolutely which is yet another reason its long past time to get rid of these religious fripperies.
If LadyG and HYUFD want to believe in religious babble then I have no qualms with them going to whatever Temple, Church, Mosque or whatever else floats their boat any day they want to. Just don't expect everyone else to share your fantasies.
Well, tough shit, because the chances of changing the national anthem are about 0.3%, or less, and if we did it would likely be replaced by Jerusalem, which is even more religious. And, of course, the chances of us becoming a republic are significantly lower
The chances of becoming a republic in HMQs liftetime is 0% The chances of becoming a republic in my lifetime is much higher than that.
But the post you replied to spoke about religion not the monarchy, though I can see why you'd mix up those two medieval absurdities. Disestablishment of the Church in my lifetime, removing the Bishops from Parliament etc in my lifetime I expect to be well, well over 50%.
Your religion is medieval bollocks and not shared by everyone in this country. Get over it. Pray in your Churches but leave the rest of us out of it.
A religion is like a penis, it is fine to have one, it is fine to be proud of it, but please don't wave it about in public and please don't shove it uninvited down the throat of others.
I am sorry you forced to fellate the reality of monarchy, but this oral rape is not going to stop until you are dead. England tried being a republic once in 1500 years, we didn't like it, so we went back to kings and queens. It is vanishingly unlikely we will try it again for centuries
It is also worth noting that of the top 20 richest societies, a majority are monarchies. This is not coincidence. They tend to be more stable.
Strange how Philip Thompson, so insightful and distinctive on many issues goes for simplistic cliche on the subjects of monarchy, the mediaeval period and religion.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
Part of our Head of State's coronation oath as Head of the Church of England as well as Head of State is to 'maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospell and the Protestant reformed religion established by law', the monarch is also crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury
But she doesn't maintain the laws of God.
Otherwise she would have punished her fornicating and adulterous eldest son, the son that is likely to succeed her.
Absolutely which is yet another reason its long past time to get rid of these religious fripperies.
If LadyG and HYUFD want to believe in religious babble then I have no qualms with them going to whatever Temple, Church, Mosque or whatever else floats their boat any day they want to. Just don't expect everyone else to share your fantasies.
Well, tough shit, because the chances of changing the national anthem are about 0.3%, or less, and if we did it would likely be replaced by Jerusalem, which is even more religious. And, of course, the chances of us becoming a republic are significantly lower
The chances of becoming a republic in HMQs liftetime is 0% The chances of becoming a republic in my lifetime is much higher than that.
But the post you replied to spoke about religion not the monarchy, though I can see why you'd mix up those two medieval absurdities. Disestablishment of the Church in my lifetime, removing the Bishops from Parliament etc in my lifetime I expect to be well, well over 50%.
Your religion is medieval bollocks and not shared by everyone in this country. Get over it. Pray in your Churches but leave the rest of us out of it.
A religion is like a penis, it is fine to have one, it is fine to be proud of it, but please don't wave it about in public and please don't shove it uninvited down the throat of others.
Indeed most people in the country are atheists.
Which rather proves that @bobajob was right and @seant was wrong when those two golden greats had a very long argument about whether secularism would grow or decline.
If only they were both here now!
I would suggest most people in this country are agnostics.
I think actual atheists are still in a minority.
Yes. The assertion that atheists are a majority is imply wrong. One in four Brits are atheist, inasmuch as they say "they don't believe in God" (but might they believe in "something"?).
What is in swift and definite decline is allegiance to any particular organised religion.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
Yes it's odd. Trump should be 6 or 7 and he's 3. Something irrational is supporting the price. Could it be the fear amongst many that he and he alone stands between us and domination by an elite cabal of wealthy liberal child molesters? Because that might not show up in the polls. Not even Rasmussen.
The biggest mistake I have ever made betting wise was with believing Theresa May would win a thumping majority in 2017 because of what the polls were saying. Not all of them, we have debated this before, but a lot of them. What I should have been paying more attention is the mood around me which suggested people were getting tired of May and especially her refusal to turn up for the debate.
I think this is what it feels like here. The polls are saying Biden should be a shoo-in but it doesn't feel like that on the ground. There does not feel like a popular uprising for Biden / Harris and, quite frankly, outside the Coasts and on Twitter, not much up of an uprising against DT
Could you expand on your assertion that despite all the national polling telling pretty much the same story right now, including the GOP leaners like Rasmussen, you are telling us that "it doesn't feel like that on the ground".
Perhaps you could point me to some credible sources where I could read about that. I would like to try to understand it.
I referenced them in an earlier post but here's the main ones Iwas refernecing
Just also to correct @Alistair from earlier - I didn't say I was on the ground: I said journalists covering the vox pop were making these points.
I'm struggling to understand why the impressions of a few journos "on the ground" would be be more accurate than all the national pollsters. Perhaps you could explain
If you want to very selectively cherry pick you can make a case for just about anything
They might not be. But what gives you such certainty the polls are absolutely right? It's a serious question.
I got back to a point I made before. Trump was 6/1 on the day in 2016. How did that happen if the national polls were so supposedly accurate?
Anyway, interesting article - don't worry, it's not a journo interviewing a voter, it's a media industry trade publication but it has relevance to the current debate
I am not certain that the polls are absolutely right I am saying that if you look at the national polling dispassionately it is almost all pointing in the same direction right now ie a clear Biden win even within MOE.
In the absence of anything else the polls are our best guide to what is happening. Rasmussen's 12 point lead for Biden was a bit of a clincher for me.
I am quite happy to listen to reasons why a particular poll might be wrong because it has the wrong weighting of registered voters or it is under-sampling of HS only educated voters. What I cannot accept is that they are all wrong for the anecdotal or seemingly spurious reasons you keep coming up with.
Just give me the bullet points of why you believe all the national polling companies are getting it so wrong. We will then have a basis for discussion
Fair enough - here are my concerns:
1. The quality of market research and polling firms since 2016 has generally declined - margins have declined, structural pressures have increased and polling is not a top priority for them. Staff have been juniorised. In the US, you also do not have accepted national standards;
2. Typically only 1%-2% (and usually closer to 1%) of respondents pick up. Pick up rates of calls from unknown numbers has continued to decline (for phone polls). It is a major problem for the market research companies on the customised side (i.e. ad hoc research, which is what polling effectively is);
3. Sample calls are relatively small (2000 across the US seems to be a large survey). A number on here have said that doesn't matter as long as the methodology is followed correctly. But given (1) and (2), the temptation will be to cut corners to meet deadlines;
4. Registration numbers in swing states (PA, FL, NC) have been trending towards the Republicans. I posted the regression analysis on here the other day for Pennsylvania showing the strong correlation between shift in votes at a county level and changes in registration. Yet the polling data would suggest that historic correlation would be broken;
5. Smaller weighting to this but there seems to be a fair degree of evidence that the "who do you think your neighbour will vote for" is a more accurate predictor of result;
6. The national polls have convinced themselves they got 2016 essentially right whilst the state polls were seen as out. That suggests there is maybe a chance the state polls are more accurate in 2020 because of the realisation they were wrong and needed to correct themselves, than national polls, which have essentially convinced themselves they have done no wrong
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
This piece by several scientists alleges that anyone who goes into hospital who tests positive is now being counted as hospitalised with covid!!!
So, the numbers showing an uptick in hospitalisation which are being waved around as proof that it is not a massive false positive case load we are seeing (thanks to 100,000s of tests) but genuine covid are basically wrong.
It might be shocking to find that research on lab grown ‘live’ cultures of the virus, taken from patients, had not been published until early August – eight months after the virus outbreak. These have been used to assess the accuracy of PCR and the results are not good. It has been shown it is possible to return a positive PCR test where a sample taken from the same patient never grows a viral culture – meaning the patient does not have an active COVID-19 infection despite the positive PCR test . The implications of this for the false positive rate of PCR tests are obvious and significant.
This cannot be correct. I believe it is quite common to be unable to grow a culture from a patient who has an infection (it happened to me for a bacterial infection). Sometimes the culture just won't take.
The PCR tests conducted over the summer were returning something like 0.8% positives. It follows that the false positive rate *cannot* be higher than that (and is likely very much lower). Anyone who claims otherwise is willfully disregarding basic evidence, I'm afraid.
PS: lockdownsceptics is not a reliable source.
--AS
The PCR rate could be getting worse because of the pressure the labs are under and the huge number of tests. More mistakes will be being made under the workload, it's only human.
There are no tanks in Baghdad!
I wish you were right, but you aren’t. This wave is not an artefact of measurement, neither are the increasing number of admissions. You can only ignore facts for so long.
I am not a lockdown advocate, but denying the truth helps no one.
I'm not trying to deny the truth but I think we need to be absolutely sure we know what the numbers are really telling us.
We are days away from depth charging our economy a second time and the results are going to be horrendous. We better be sure that this isn't largely chasing a phantom.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
Which not even Queen ever tried to perform live.
God Save The Queen is fine. Just the Sex Pistols one.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
That would be an awesome anthem to be played while our athletes walked in at the Olympics.
Jerusalem is a great secular anthem in my opinion because “Jerusalem” is essentially a metaphor for the perfect society. We are therefore singing about striving to build the perfect society on this “green and pleasant land”. A much better subject matter than singing about battles of the past and other such irrelevant nonsense.
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
Certainly would fire up Trump's base. But I guess they are all going to vote already if they can stop screaming and waving guns around long enough to get to the poll station.
That's my big concern namely I'm the idiot and completely wrong. Maybe I should stop be a recusant and embrace the faith
First, you are not an idiot. There is a counter-view to the prevailing notion Biden will win and straws which may suggest it's not going to be the cakewalk for the challenger some think.
My view remains there is a solid bloc in the US electorate which supports Trump - unfortunately there is a slightly larger bloc which is determined to vote him out. It's a polarised electorate in extremis.
I did note last evening the 19% Undecided among Hispanics in the YouGov poll for the Economist so your contention Trump has a chance among Hispanics isn't invalid. My point is while that may matter in some counties, the big move has been among white voters who still form 2/3 or more of the electorate.
I've moved Texas from TCTC back to Red tonight - I just can't see Biden winning it though he could to within 5 points of Trump.
Thank you Stodge, that is very kind. I agree on Texas although I don't think Biden will be that close.
Big risks for me for Biden
(1) Hispanic vote doesn't come out with a good chunk moving to Trump; (2) Black vote stays at home, even lower than 2016 and with a small but meaningful chunk to Trump; (3) As @Topping said previously, voters deciding to keep the Devil they know and decide that Trump / Pence is the best way to ensure they are kept fed.
There's a very fine line between being an idiot and being a visionary.
Maybe I should stay off this site on Election Night
I won't be gloating or emoting. It will be something quiet and profound. Like your baby being born healthy. That sort of feeling.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
Good idea! (We might have to tweak the lyrics a bit though)
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
She’s just trolling Trump . I think it’s quite funny .
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
Which not even Queen ever tried to perform live.
God Save The Queen is fine. Just the Sex Pistols one.
Didn't Queen perform Bohemian Rhapsody at Live Aid?
This piece by several scientists alleges that anyone who goes into hospital who tests positive is now being counted as hospitalised with covid!!!
So, the numbers showing an uptick in hospitalisation which are being waved around as proof that it is not a massive false positive case load we are seeing (thanks to 100,000s of tests) but genuine covid are basically wrong.
It might be shocking to find that research on lab grown ‘live’ cultures of the virus, taken from patients, had not been published until early August – eight months after the virus outbreak. These have been used to assess the accuracy of PCR and the results are not good. It has been shown it is possible to return a positive PCR test where a sample taken from the same patient never grows a viral culture – meaning the patient does not have an active COVID-19 infection despite the positive PCR test . The implications of this for the false positive rate of PCR tests are obvious and significant.
This cannot be correct. I believe it is quite common to be unable to grow a culture from a patient who has an infection (it happened to me for a bacterial infection). Sometimes the culture just won't take.
The PCR tests conducted over the summer were returning something like 0.8% positives. It follows that the false positive rate *cannot* be higher than that (and is likely very much lower). Anyone who claims otherwise is willfully disregarding basic evidence, I'm afraid.
PS: lockdownsceptics is not a reliable source.
--AS
The PCR rate could be getting worse because of the pressure the labs are under and the huge number of tests. More mistakes will be being made under the workload, it's only human.
There are no tanks in Baghdad!
I wish you were right, but you aren’t. This wave is not an artefact of measurement, neither are the increasing number of admissions. You can only ignore facts for so long.
I am not a lockdown advocate, but denying the truth helps no one.
Don't you realise that if you pour white sauce over your head and mutter pseudo Swedish phrases that all will be well?
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
Certainly would fire up Trump's base. But I guess they are all going to vote already if they can stop screaming and waving guns around long enough to get to the poll station.
I can't think of any good political reason to do that, it seems bonkers.
Jerusalem is a great secular anthem in my opinion because “Jerusalem” is essentially a metaphor for the perfect society. We are therefore singing about striving to build the perfect society on this “green and pleasant land”. A much better subject matter than singing about battles of the past and other such irrelevant nonsense.
I don’t think you’ve really grasped the essential features of the genre.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
Part of our Head of State's coronation oath as Head of the Church of England as well as Head of State is to 'maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospell and the Protestant reformed religion established by law', the monarch is also crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury
But she doesn't maintain the laws of God.
Otherwise she would have punished her fornicating and adulterous eldest son, the son that is likely to succeed her.
She would be spanking Boris almost every week if she had to do that, as far as I know Charles only committed adultery with Camilla and has not cheated on her now he is married to her.
Now cheating on one of the most glamorous women in the world was clearly not a good example but Charles has learned his lesson and stayed faithful to his much plainer second wife (which also goes to show that personality more than looks is the key to a successful marriage)
So she's a hypocrite, how do we vote this hypocrite out of office, you're all about taking back control from our unelected rulers.
If the Queen is as popular as you say she should put herself up regular re-election, she'll walk it right, what's she afraid of?
I'm sure her Nazi past won't be brought up.
The monarch by definition should not be elected, as I said they are anointed for life by God, we have elections for her chief ministers when we elect the House of Commons which is more than enough.
Plenty of Monarchs were elected, either as founders of a dynasty, like Michael Romanov or the elected Kings of Poland after 1573, or- for long periods- the Holy Roman Empire.
To be honest, after the passing of the Queen, the question of the Monarchy is bound to rise up the political agenda. The fact that the Queen has not been able for reasons of age, tradition and inclination to be an effective player in the consitution has been noted by many: there will be many demands to reform both the House of Lords and ther Monarchy to provide effective brakes on untrammelled Prime Ministerial power.
For too long, we simply said that the monarchy brought in tourists, but we did not modernise it in time. Now, in addition to the political disaster of Brexit, the gathering economic disaster of Covid will in short order be joined by a consitutional crisis when those who are anti Monarchists are joined by those who do not care fo the new new Monarch personally.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
I Vow To Thee My Country. A very singable hymn.
A fine tune, but a tad depressing. An anthem should be rousing?
Whatever the merits of demerits of God Save the Queen or its alternatives, we should be happy that anything we choose to sing will always be infinitely better than, Lord help us, "Flower of Scotland"
OMFG lol
As sung by upper class rugger buggers at Murrayfield ...
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
It certainly doesn't look like a move from a Party that's confident their man is going to be President in under one month's time.
Are the Democrats sniffing yet another polling disaster incoming...
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
Which not even Queen ever tried to perform live.
God Save The Queen is fine. Just the Sex Pistols one.
Never performed it live? They performed it live many times.
Including a shortened version in probably the most famous rock performance of all time. But the full version was played elsewhere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbvyNnw8Qjg
(You got a like for the Sex Pistols comment though)
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
She’s just trolling Trump . I think it’s quite funny .
It's to provide a mechanism for getting rid of him after the election i think? Even the GOP establishment will probably want to avoid a scorched earth strategy if he loses.
This piece by several scientists alleges that anyone who goes into hospital who tests positive is now being counted as hospitalised with covid!!!
So, the numbers showing an uptick in hospitalisation which are being waved around as proof that it is not a massive false positive case load we are seeing (thanks to 100,000s of tests) but genuine covid are basically wrong.
It might be shocking to find that research on lab grown ‘live’ cultures of the virus, taken from patients, had not been published until early August – eight months after the virus outbreak. These have been used to assess the accuracy of PCR and the results are not good. It has been shown it is possible to return a positive PCR test where a sample taken from the same patient never grows a viral culture – meaning the patient does not have an active COVID-19 infection despite the positive PCR test . The implications of this for the false positive rate of PCR tests are obvious and significant.
This cannot be correct. I believe it is quite common to be unable to grow a culture from a patient who has an infection (it happened to me for a bacterial infection). Sometimes the culture just won't take.
The PCR tests conducted over the summer were returning something like 0.8% positives. It follows that the false positive rate *cannot* be higher than that (and is likely very much lower). Anyone who claims otherwise is willfully disregarding basic evidence, I'm afraid.
PS: lockdownsceptics is not a reliable source.
--AS
The PCR rate could be getting worse because of the pressure the labs are under and the huge number of tests. More mistakes will be being made under the workload, it's only human.
There are no tanks in Baghdad!
I wish you were right, but you aren’t. This wave is not an artefact of measurement, neither are the increasing number of admissions. You can only ignore facts for so long.
I am not a lockdown advocate, but denying the truth helps no one.
I'm not trying to deny the truth but I think we need to be absolutely sure we know what the numbers are really telling us.
We are days away from depth charging our economy a second time and the results are going to be horrendous. We better be sure that this isn't largely chasing a phantom.
I am not advocating depth charging the economy, but there is a second wave underway. Sensible discussion on how to control it will only be delayed by denialism.
I've been thinking about the whole thing around the second debate and what happens now. At first, I was with @Peter_the_Punter's view that it was a daft move by Donald but I gradually moved into the camp that it actually made sense, especially if he is still sick but even if he is not - Trump is a physical presence, he relies on physical gestures and - if memory serves me right, the taller of every Presidential candidate has always won at least in the modern era - he's an inch plus taller than Biden. I think it is this rather than whether he is cut off or not (that would be a massive editorial call on the night) that drives his decision.
What I find more interesting though is Biden calling for the second debate to be delayed to accommodate Trump. Now, challengers favour debates because they see it as a way to see as being seen equal and get over the incumbency gap. But not always and particularly if you think you hold the advantage. This is what Sara Gideon has done in Maine - Susan Collins has been calling for more debates with her but Gideon has refused, seemingly viewing that she has the advantage and so why put it at risk from another debate?
In which case, if Joe Biden has such the lead the polls say he has and he knows it, why is he asking for the debate to be delayed? It makes no sense. The easy win would have been to say Trump is chicken and, while Trump would have disputed it, no one on the Democratic side would have taken issue with Biden's description. Logically, Biden's calls to delay the debate rather than allow it to slip and blame Trump make no sense.
So why has he done it?
Has he done it? Sky News just reported that Trump's campaign requested a delay and Biden's campaign rejected that out of hand.
Just looking at Politico, I think it's changed constantly. The headlines I saw earlier said Trump had said no to a virtual debate and Biden then said reschedule it to Oct 22nd, which was meant to be the final debate. Looking now, I see the Republicans came back later and said yes we will take that but on condition we still have a third debate that the final debate be shifted a week back to the 29th. The Democrats have apparently said no to that. So, maybe Biden isn't willing to put himself at risk of a third debate after all.
The second one is supposed to be a "town hall" format which is thought to be dangerous for Trump because he's liable to get in an argument with the undecided voter asking the question, so I guess Team Biden like the idea of keeping that one but squishing the third one.
Roger Stone in the Spectator said Trump should skip the third one.
Thought he was banged up. Are you allowed to pen a Speccy column from jail?
Pardoned by the Godfather of the United States.
I know the Spectator’s standards are pretty poor these days, but publishing self declared ratfuckers is a new low.
I notice that we're now running at tests >250k per day and a gap has re-opened between tests processed and capacity.
Haven't noticed anyone complaining recently that they can't get a test. Have the capacity issues been resolved for now or still ongoing?
I can't imagine the Roche issues will be helping.
Have been thinking the same myself.
FWIW I know half a dozen people who have had tests in the past few weeks, none had problems getting them and all received results within a day or so (all negative).
I wonder how much the testing problems were from parents wanting tests for their kids after they came back from school with a start of term cough.
The reason for the problems in getting a test were quite simple. Demand suddenly rose to around 100% of capacity. In fact on 19th Sept and 26th September tests processed *exceeded* theoretical capacity.
Test capacity then increased to over 300k and the gap between capacity and demand opened up again. It is entirely unsurprising that with excess capacity in the system again, that problems getting a test have apparently subsided.
Jerusalem is a great secular anthem in my opinion because “Jerusalem” is essentially a metaphor for the perfect society. We are therefore singing about striving to build the perfect society on this “green and pleasant land”. A much better subject matter than singing about battles of the past and other such irrelevant nonsense.
'Jerusalem' is secular is much the same way that Richard Dawkins is religious.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
I Vow To Thee My Country. A very singable hymn.
A fine tune, but a tad depressing. An anthem should be rousing?
Whatever the merits of demerits of God Save the Queen or its alternatives, we should be happy that anything we choose to sing will always be infinitely better than, Lord help us, "Flower of Scotland"
OMFG lol
As sung by upper class rugger buggers at Murrayfield ...
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
It is possibly the worst anthem in the world. No offence.
Scotland has so many good tunes, and you ended up with THAT
The Proclaimers 500 miles would make a good modern anthem! Call and response, very stirring, excellent melody
The commission looking into the 25th amendment doesn’t name Trump . Pelosi’s argument is basically given recent events there needs to be more clarity on this for the future .
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
For an England-only anthem how about "Swords Of A Thousand Men" ?
It'd be funny to see how Scots would react if he flagged an English goal off for offside.
Despite the shitey BBC feeling that we Jocks should enjoy the privilege of watching an England friendly rather than a Scottish qualifying match, I doubt many outside the ultra Yoons will be watching.
If anyone reminds me of this I'll say I was hacked.
It pains me to say this but the most rousing anthem out there is La Marseillaise.
It's indeed a lively tune, but - as I have been told by many patriotic French people - it is really really hard to sing, and the lyrics make it even more awkward. Maybe French as a language is not suited to the kind of belting-out anthems you want at sporting events. Cf Italian
For rousing, stirring, and beautiful anthems look to Wales. Or Russia
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
That's fucking insane. What are they doing?
I think the strategy is two fold
1) To legitimise talk of Trump being mentally/physically unfit to be POTUS
2) Put out there that Trump will not go quietly if he loses
3) Push GOPers to either say they'll help kick out a sore loser who tries to squat (which will damage them with Trump's base) or damn for saying they won't oust a sore loser who is squatting in the White House.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
I Vow To Thee My Country. A very singable hymn.
A fine tune, but a tad depressing. An anthem should be rousing?
Whatever the merits of demerits of God Save the Queen or its alternatives, we should be happy that anything we choose to sing will always be infinitely better than, Lord help us, "Flower of Scotland"
OMFG lol
As sung by upper class rugger buggers at Murrayfield ...
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
It is possibly the worst anthem in the world. No offence.
Scotland has so many good tunes, and you ended up with THAT
The Proclaimers 500 miles would make a good modern anthem! Call and response, very stirring, excellent melody
That's an interesting suggestion!
Scots wha hae is much better than FoS, if you want a stirring battle hymn, and if you want a Flodden lament there's The flooers o the forest are a wede awa, though that's more likely to be encountered at a funeral actually.
I notice that we're now running at tests >250k per day and a gap has re-opened between tests processed and capacity.
Haven't noticed anyone complaining recently that they can't get a test. Have the capacity issues been resolved for now or still ongoing?
I can't imagine the Roche issues will be helping.
Have been thinking the same myself.
FWIW I know half a dozen people who have had tests in the past few weeks, none had problems getting them and all received results within a day or so (all negative).
I wonder how much the testing problems were from parents wanting tests for their kids after they came back from school with a start of term cough.
The reason for the problems in getting a test were quite simple. Demand suddenly rose to around 100% of capacity. In fact on 19th Sept and 26th September tests processed *exceeded* theoretical capacity.
Test capacity then increased to over 300k and the gap between capacity and demand opened up again. It is entirely unsurprising that with excess capacity in the system again, that problems getting a test have apparently subsided.
Certainly supply and demand are the two determinants.
But I wonder if the demand for tests on school pupils was higher in September than it is now.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
Part of our Head of State's coronation oath as Head of the Church of England as well as Head of State is to 'maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospell and the Protestant reformed religion established by law', the monarch is also crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury
But she doesn't maintain the laws of God.
Otherwise she would have punished her fornicating and adulterous eldest son, the son that is likely to succeed her.
She would be spanking Boris almost every week if she had to do that, as far as I know Charles only committed adultery with Camilla and has not cheated on her now he is married to her.
Now cheating on one of the most glamorous women in the world was clearly not a good example but Charles has learned his lesson and stayed faithful to his much plainer second wife (which also goes to show that personality more than looks is the key to a successful marriage)
So she's a hypocrite, how do we vote this hypocrite out of office, you're all about taking back control from our unelected rulers.
If the Queen is as popular as you say she should put herself up regular re-election, she'll walk it right, what's she afraid of?
I'm sure her Nazi past won't be brought up.
The monarch by definition should not be elected, as I said they are anointed for life by God, we have elections for her chief ministers when we elect the House of Commons which is more than enough.
Plenty of Monarchs were elected, either as founders of a dynasty, like Michael Romanov or the elected Kings of Poland after 1573, or- for long periods- the Holy Roman Empire.
To be honest, after the passing of the Queen, the question of the Monarchy is bound to rise up the political agenda. The fact that the Queen has not been able for reasons of age, tradition and inclination to be an effective player in the consitution has been noted by many: there will be many demands to reform both the House of Lords and ther Monarchy to provide effective brakes on untrammelled Prime Ministerial power.
For too long, we simply said that the monarchy brought in tourists, but we did not modernise it in time. Now, in addition to the political disaster of Brexit, the gathering economic disaster of Covid will in short order be joined by a consitutional crisis when those who are anti Monarchists are joined by those who do not care fo the new new Monarch personally.
Much change and sad times are coming
The current US election shows how brutally divisive having an elected Head of State can be and of course as LadyG correctly stated of the top 20 wealthiest nations per capita in the world, from Luxembourg to Norway to Sweden, to the Netherlands and Qatar, most are monarchies.
Constitutional monarchy ensures the Head of State is apolitical, if the PM has a lot of power it is only because the electorate have made it so as they did in 2019, they can equally give them virtually no power at all as they did in 2017 when they voted for a hung parliament.
There may be a bit more opposition to a King Charles, given the Prince of Wales has an approval rating of 47% with 20% disapproving of him compared to the Queen's 78% approval and 11% disapproval rating but that is enough still to keep the monarchy until we get to William who has a 73% approval rating and only 9% disapproval rating.
I notice that we're now running at tests >250k per day and a gap has re-opened between tests processed and capacity.
Haven't noticed anyone complaining recently that they can't get a test. Have the capacity issues been resolved for now or still ongoing?
I can't imagine the Roche issues will be helping.
Have been thinking the same myself.
FWIW I know half a dozen people who have had tests in the past few weeks, none had problems getting them and all received results within a day or so (all negative).
I wonder how much the testing problems were from parents wanting tests for their kids after they came back from school with a start of term cough.
The reason for the problems in getting a test were quite simple. Demand suddenly rose to around 100% of capacity. In fact on 19th Sept and 26th September tests processed *exceeded* theoretical capacity.
Test capacity then increased to over 300k and the gap between capacity and demand opened up again. It is entirely unsurprising that with excess capacity in the system again, that problems getting a test have apparently subsided.
Certainly supply and demand are the two determinants.
But I wonder if the demand for tests on school pupils was higher in September than it is now.
Like for many things the data isn't available.
Stories about schools sending whole years home do seem to have gone quiet. Whether that just means the media have lost interest or not can't tell.
I wouldn't be surprised if we look back on the last couple of weeks in a month and realise that everyone's got massively spooked by universities and the numbers drop dramatically again.
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
That's fucking insane. What are they doing?
I think the strategy is two fold
1) To legitimise talk of Trump being mentally/physically unfit to be POTUS
2) Put out there that Trump will not go quietly if he loses
3) Push GOPers to either say they'll help kick out a sore loser who tries to squat (which will damage them with Trump's base) or damn for saying they won't oust a sore loser who is squatting in the White House.
Feels like a mistake to me. Why rock the boat at this stage with Biden well ahead?
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
That's fucking insane. What are they doing?
I think the strategy is two fold
1) To legitimise talk of Trump being mentally/physically unfit to be POTUS
2) Put out there that Trump will not go quietly if he loses
3) Push GOPers to either say they'll help kick out a sore loser who tries to squat (which will damage them with Trump's base) or damn for saying they won't oust a sore loser who is squatting in the White House.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
Which not even Queen ever tried to perform live.
God Save The Queen is fine. Just the Sex Pistols one.
Yes it's odd. Trump should be 6 or 7 and he's 3. Something irrational is supporting the price. Could it be the fear amongst many that he and he alone stands between us and domination by an elite cabal of wealthy liberal child molesters? Because that might not show up in the polls. Not even Rasmussen.
The biggest mistake I have ever made betting wise was with believing Theresa May would win a thumping majority in 2017 because of what the polls were saying. Not all of them, we have debated this before, but a lot of them. What I should have been paying more attention is the mood around me which suggested people were getting tired of May and especially her refusal to turn up for the debate.
I think this is what it feels like here. The polls are saying Biden should be a shoo-in but it doesn't feel like that on the ground. There does not feel like a popular uprising for Biden / Harris and, quite frankly, outside the Coasts and on Twitter, not much up of an uprising against DT
Could you expand on your assertion that despite all the national polling telling pretty much the same story right now, including the GOP leaners like Rasmussen, you are telling us that "it doesn't feel like that on the ground".
Perhaps you could point me to some credible sources where I could read about that. I would like to try to understand it.
I referenced them in an earlier post but here's the main ones Iwas refernecing
Just also to correct @Alistair from earlier - I didn't say I was on the ground: I said journalists covering the vox pop were making these points.
I'm struggling to understand why the impressions of a few journos "on the ground" would be be more accurate than all the national pollsters. Perhaps you could explain
If you want to very selectively cherry pick you can make a case for just about anything
They might not be. But what gives you such certainty the polls are absolutely right? It's a serious question.
I got back to a point I made before. Trump was 6/1 on the day in 2016. How did that happen if the national polls were so supposedly accurate?
Anyway, interesting article - don't worry, it's not a journo interviewing a voter, it's a media industry trade publication but it has relevance to the current debate
I am not certain that the polls are absolutely right I am saying that if you look at the national polling dispassionately it is almost all pointing in the same direction right now ie a clear Biden win even within MOE.
In the absence of anything else the polls are our best guide to what is happening. Rasmussen's 12 point lead for Biden was a bit of a clincher for me.
I am quite happy to listen to reasons why a particular poll might be wrong because it has the wrong weighting of registered voters or it is under-sampling of HS only educated voters. What I cannot accept is that they are all wrong for the anecdotal or seemingly spurious reasons you keep coming up with.
Just give me the bullet points of why you believe all the national polling companies are getting it so wrong. We will then have a basis for discussion
Fair enough - here are my concerns:
3. Sample calls are relatively small (2000 across the US seems to be a large survey). A number on here have said that doesn't matter as long as the methodology is followed correctly. But given (1) and (2), the temptation will be to cut corners to meet deadlines;
You've had the mathematics of sample size vs population size explained to you multiple times.
A 1000 person poll of 253768092 people has a lower margin of error than a 100 person poll of 1000 people.
It is not intuitive but that is how the mathematics shakes out.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
But she is literally anointed "by God". There is a special anointing oil used during the Coronation of an English Sovereign, a sacred and holy recipe dating back to Moses and Mesopotamia
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
You can't get outraged about Trump calling Harris a monster and then in the same breath claim Trump is insane.
Why do this. Let Trump so his mad man act and let the American people vote him out.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
I Vow To Thee My Country. A very singable hymn.
A fine tune, but a tad depressing. An anthem should be rousing?
Whatever the merits of demerits of God Save the Queen or its alternatives, we should be happy that anything we choose to sing will always be infinitely better than, Lord help us, "Flower of Scotland"
OMFG lol
As sung by upper class rugger buggers at Murrayfield ...
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
It is possibly the worst anthem in the world. No offence.
Scotland has so many good tunes, and you ended up with THAT
The Proclaimers 500 miles would make a good modern anthem! Call and response, very stirring, excellent melody
That's an interesting suggestion!
Scots wha hae is much better than FoS, if you want a stirring battle hymn, and if you want a Flodden lament there's The flooers o the forest are a wede awa, though that's more likely to be encountered at a funeral actually.
It's quite common for nations to pick terrible dirgey anthems when they have brilliant tunes everyone knows
Advance Australia Fair is awful, yet Waltzing Mathilda, sung by 100,000 lusty Aussies can bring a stern man close to tears
That Irish anthem is shite, and yet when they sing Molly Malone, or the Fields of Athenry....
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
For an England-only anthem how about "Swords Of A Thousand Men" ?
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
Which not even Queen ever tried to perform live.
God Save The Queen is fine. Just the Sex Pistols one.
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
That's fucking insane. What are they doing?
I think the strategy is two fold
1) To legitimise talk of Trump being mentally/physically unfit to be POTUS
2) Put out there that Trump will not go quietly if he loses
3) Push GOPers to either say they'll help kick out a sore loser who tries to squat (which will damage them with Trump's base) or damn for saying they won't oust a sore loser who is squatting in the White House.
Feels like a mistake to me. Why rock the boat at this stage with Biden well ahead?
Maybe they sense bigger prizes than just the Presidency. I've speculated before if the split ticket voting that often happens in Presidential elections might not happen this time if Trump has motivated a lot of usual non voters to the polls. Who are far more likely to vote Democrat down the line.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
But she is literally anointed "by God". There is a special anointing oil used during the Coronation of an English Sovereign, a sacred and holy recipe dating back to Moses and Mesopotamia
I believe royal babies are also baptised with Jordan water. So take yer boring, colourless republican atheism and shove it
So, the Anglican God is *the* God, is it? Have you told the Catholics, Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Jews, the Muslims and the Sikhs yet?
There is only 1 God if you belong to an Abrahamic religion, which includes all Christians, Muslims and Jews, just different methods of worshipping him. It is still the same God who revealed himself to Abraham that you worship.
56% of the global population belong to an Abrahamic religion
It'd be funny to see how Scots would react if he flagged an English goal off for offside.
Despite the shitey BBC feeling that we Jocks should enjoy the privilege of watching an England friendly rather than a Scottish qualifying match, I doubt many outside the ultra Yoons will be watching.
Aren't you impressed with the offerings of BBC Scotland this evening ?
19:00 Island Medics 19:30 Beechgrove 20:00 Landward 20:30 The Scandals That Shocked Scotland 21:00 The Nine 22:00 The Karen Dubar Show
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
The American national anthem is hard enough to sing, Bohemian Rhapsody would defeat all but a tiny minority.
How about repurposing the Imperial March from Star Wars? I’m sure someone could produce some suitable words.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
I Vow To Thee My Country. A very singable hymn.
A fine tune, but a tad depressing. An anthem should be rousing?
Whatever the merits of demerits of God Save the Queen or its alternatives, we should be happy that anything we choose to sing will always be infinitely better than, Lord help us, "Flower of Scotland"
OMFG lol
As sung by upper class rugger buggers at Murrayfield ...
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
It is possibly the worst anthem in the world. No offence.
Scotland has so many good tunes, and you ended up with THAT
The Proclaimers 500 miles would make a good modern anthem! Call and response, very stirring, excellent melody
That's an interesting suggestion!
Scots wha hae is much better than FoS, if you want a stirring battle hymn, and if you want a Flodden lament there's The flooers o the forest are a wede awa, though that's more likely to be encountered at a funeral actually.
It's quite common for nations to pick terrible dirgey anthems when they have brilliant tunes everyone knows
Advance Australia Fair is awful, yet Waltzing Mathilda, sung by 100,000 lusty Aussies can bring a stern man close to tears
That Irish anthem is shite, and yet when they sing Molly Malone, or the Fields of Athenry....
The Londonderry Air is sublime. Is it tarnished by being unacceptable on one side of the religious divide? (And if so, which side; I really don't know.)
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
Part of our Head of State's coronation oath as Head of the Church of England as well as Head of State is to 'maintaine the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospell and the Protestant reformed religion established by law', the monarch is also crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury
But she doesn't maintain the laws of God.
Otherwise she would have punished her fornicating and adulterous eldest son, the son that is likely to succeed her.
She would be spanking Boris almost every week if she had to do that, as far as I know Charles only committed adultery with Camilla and has not cheated on her now he is married to her.
Now cheating on one of the most glamorous women in the world was clearly not a good example but Charles has learned his lesson and stayed faithful to his much plainer second wife (which also goes to show that personality more than looks is the key to a successful marriage)
So she's a hypocrite, how do we vote this hypocrite out of office, you're all about taking back control from our unelected rulers.
If the Queen is as popular as you say she should put herself up regular re-election, she'll walk it right, what's she afraid of?
I'm sure her Nazi past won't be brought up.
The monarch by definition should not be elected, as I said they are anointed for life by God, we have elections for her chief ministers when we elect the House of Commons which is more than enough.
Plenty of Monarchs were elected, either as founders of a dynasty, like Michael Romanov or the elected Kings of Poland after 1573, or- for long periods- the Holy Roman Empire.
To be honest, after the passing of the Queen, the question of the Monarchy is bound to rise up the political agenda. The fact that the Queen has not been able for reasons of age, tradition and inclination to be an effective player in the consitution has been noted by many: there will be many demands to reform both the House of Lords and ther Monarchy to provide effective brakes on untrammelled Prime Ministerial power.
For too long, we simply said that the monarchy brought in tourists, but we did not modernise it in time. Now, in addition to the political disaster of Brexit, the gathering economic disaster of Covid will in short order be joined by a consitutional crisis when those who are anti Monarchists are joined by those who do not care fo the new new Monarch personally.
Much change and sad times are coming
The current US election shows how brutally divisive having an elected Head of State can be and of course as LadyG correctly stated of the top 20 wealthiest nations per capita in the world, from Luxembourg to Norway to Sweden, to the Netherlands and Qatar, most are monarchies.
Constitutional monarchy ensures the Head of State is apolitical, if the PM has a lot of power it is only because the electorate have made it so as they did in 2019, they can equally give them virtually no power at all as they did in 2017 when they voted for a hung parliament.
There may be a bit more opposition to a King Charles, given the Prince of Wales has an approval rating of 47% with 20% disapproving of him compared to the Queen's 78% approval and 11% disapproval rating but that is enough still to keep the monarchy until we get to William who has a 73% approval rating and only 9% disapproval rating.
I rather suspect that Charles, if he gets to be King, will be alot less controversial in reality than some people... hope.
His long standing environmentalism was once presented as him being out of touch.
As was his suggestion of Being a Defender of Faith, rather than *The* Faith....
I recall that when the Guardian breathlessly reported on the constitutional horror of his letters to ministers, that the letters turned out to be a set of polite questions on quite anodyne topics.
I notice that we're now running at tests >250k per day and a gap has re-opened between tests processed and capacity.
Haven't noticed anyone complaining recently that they can't get a test. Have the capacity issues been resolved for now or still ongoing?
I can't imagine the Roche issues will be helping.
Have been thinking the same myself.
FWIW I know half a dozen people who have had tests in the past few weeks, none had problems getting them and all received results within a day or so (all negative).
I wonder how much the testing problems were from parents wanting tests for their kids after they came back from school with a start of term cough.
The reason for the problems in getting a test were quite simple. Demand suddenly rose to around 100% of capacity. In fact on 19th Sept and 26th September tests processed *exceeded* theoretical capacity.
Test capacity then increased to over 300k and the gap between capacity and demand opened up again. It is entirely unsurprising that with excess capacity in the system again, that problems getting a test have apparently subsided.
Certainly supply and demand are the two determinants.
But I wonder if the demand for tests on school pupils was higher in September than it is now.
Like for many things the data isn't available.
Stories about schools sending whole years home do seem to have gone quiet. Whether that just means the media have lost interest or not can't tell.
I wouldn't be surprised if we look back on the last couple of weeks in a month and realise that everyone's got massively spooked by universities and the numbers drop dramatically again.
Lost interest I suspect. The fact is that people thought it was a case of get a test or stay off school when in fact the correct answer if you're isolating is you still need to isolate even with a negative test.
I'm homeschooling my youngest until Tuesday next week. Whether she gets a test or not won't change that, the school won't have her or any of her classmates back until Tuesday (a full fortnight after they texted me at 8:41am not to bring her in).
The fact that getting a test doesn't change whether you have to isolate or not means people who want a test just to get back to normal rather than for epidemiological reasons aren't seeking to do so anymore.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
But she is literally anointed "by God". There is a special anointing oil used during the Coronation of an English Sovereign, a sacred and holy recipe dating back to Moses and Mesopotamia
I believe royal babies are also baptised with Jordan water. So take yer boring, colourless republican atheism and shove it
So, the Anglican God is *the* God, is it? Have you told the Catholics, Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Jews, the Muslims and the Sikhs yet?
There is only 1 God if you belong to an Abrahamic religion, which includes all Christians, Muslims and Jews, just different methods of worshipping him. It is still the same God who revealed himself to Abraham that you worship
My final call forvthis, before it is too late to enact.
The UK should remain at BST this winter.
We should stick on BST every year.
Shame the UK left the EU then, as they're abolishing the clock change.
They are?
In California, in 2018 there was a referendum on joining Arizona in getting rid of the time change. Sadly, the Federal government has refused to allow it.
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
You can't get outraged about Trump calling Harris a monster and then in the same breath claim Trump is insane.
Why do this. Let Trump so his mad man act and let the American people vote him out.
In any event, my reading of the 25th is that the declaration that the President is unfit has to come either from the Vice President (or from the President himself).
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Jerusalem is, of course, a poem about the fabled landing of Jesus Christ, as a boy, in a Cornish cove, with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea.
I've actually been to the cove in question. In Place, on the Roseland Peninsula, in Cornwall. It is a genuinely haunted and spectral location.
Go there for a walk around the headland, check out the Jesus beach, and then have Helford oysters afterwards on the terrace of the Idle Rocks Hotel in nearby St Mawes. A perfect day
Jerusalem is a dirge, only people with teeny weeny penises like singing it.
Given that Muslims are forbidden to enjoy music, and therefore have no understanding of it, I don't see the relevance of your opinion in this case. You may as well ask me about celibacy
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
I Vow To Thee My Country. A very singable hymn.
A fine tune, but a tad depressing. An anthem should be rousing?
Whatever the merits of demerits of God Save the Queen or its alternatives, we should be happy that anything we choose to sing will always be infinitely better than, Lord help us, "Flower of Scotland"
OMFG lol
As sung by upper class rugger buggers at Murrayfield ...
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
It is possibly the worst anthem in the world. No offence.
Scotland has so many good tunes, and you ended up with THAT
The Proclaimers 500 miles would make a good modern anthem! Call and response, very stirring, excellent melody
That's an interesting suggestion!
Scots wha hae is much better than FoS, if you want a stirring battle hymn, and if you want a Flodden lament there's The flooers o the forest are a wede awa, though that's more likely to be encountered at a funeral actually.
It's quite common for nations to pick terrible dirgey anthems when they have brilliant tunes everyone knows
Advance Australia Fair is awful, yet Waltzing Mathilda, sung by 100,000 lusty Aussies can bring a stern man close to tears
That Irish anthem is shite, and yet when they sing Molly Malone, or the Fields of Athenry....
The Londonderry Air is sublime. Is it tarnished by being unacceptable on one side of the religious divide? (And if so, which side; I really don't know.)
One of the greatest tunes ever written. But too sad and yearning for an anthem?
It is possibly Gaelic in origin (no one knows for sure), but it comes from Ulster traditions, and the words are "Protestant" so it is quite unifying. Both sides can claim it
It'd be funny to see how Scots would react if he flagged an English goal off for offside.
Despite the shitey BBC feeling that we Jocks should enjoy the privilege of watching an England friendly rather than a Scottish qualifying match, I doubt many outside the ultra Yoons will be watching.
Aren't you impressed with the offerings of BBC Scotland this evening ?
19:00 Island Medics 19:30 Beechgrove 20:00 Landward 20:30 The Scandals That Shocked Scotland 21:00 The Nine 22:00 The Karen Dubar Show
BBC Scotland : too wee, too poor, too stupid - but easily directed
Actually I’ve had a better idea on a new national anthem. Not Bohemian Rapsody (too long, no one normal can sing it) but anothe Queen staple: We Are The Champions.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
But she is literally anointed "by God". There is a special anointing oil used during the Coronation of an English Sovereign, a sacred and holy recipe dating back to Moses and Mesopotamia
I believe royal babies are also baptised with Jordan water. So take yer boring, colourless republican atheism and shove it
So, the Anglican God is *the* God, is it? Have you told the Catholics, Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Jews, the Muslims and the Sikhs yet?
There is only 1 God if you belong to an Abrahamic religion, which includes all Christians, Muslims and Jews, just different methods of worshipping him. It is still the same God who revealed himself to Abraham that you worship.
56% of the global population belong to an Abrahamic religion
They may have evolved from a common ancestor but saying that they're the same is like saying that humans and chimpanzees are the same.
Actually I’ve had a better idea on a new national anthem. Not Bohemian Rapsody (too long, no one normal can sing it) but anothe Queen staple: We Are The Champions.
I like that but it would have been embarrassing having that played to introduce our Cricket team in the 90s.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
Land of Peace and Fairness. Brothers all are we.
No objection to revising the words. Just keep the tune.
All these old hymns have problems imo.
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
Change the national anthem to Bohemian Rhapsody, an anthem we all know and love.
That would be an awesome anthem to be played while our athletes walked in at the Olympics.
"Scaramouche Scaramouche will you do the Fandango?"
Title - Hospitals in north of England 'to run out of Covid beds within a week'
First line - Some hospitals in the north of England are set to run out of beds for Covid patients within a week
What a difference the word 'some' can have.
How does it modify the essential impact of this particular story, though?
One implies no spare capacity in a few hospitals. The other implies no spare capacity in the NHS.
I see. And another Guardian headline today,
"Italian women take legal action over foetus graves marked with mothers' names"
implies that all 25 million of them are plaintiffs, does it?
Even if you weren't wrong, what consolation is the "just a few" claim when the cause of loss of capacity is a virus known to be spreading exponentially everywhere in the N of E?
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
But she is literally anointed "by God". There is a special anointing oil used during the Coronation of an English Sovereign, a sacred and holy recipe dating back to Moses and Mesopotamia
I believe royal babies are also baptised with Jordan water. So take yer boring, colourless republican atheism and shove it
So, the Anglican God is *the* God, is it? Have you told the Catholics, Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Jews, the Muslims and the Sikhs yet?
There is only 1 God if you belong to an Abrahamic religion, which includes all Christians, Muslims and Jews, just different methods of worshipping him. It is still the same God who revealed himself to Abraham that you worship.
56% of the global population belong to an Abrahamic religion
They may have evolved from a common ancestor but saying that they're the same is like saying that humans and chimpanzees are the same.
Well in religious terms as an Anglican Christian I have more in common with a Muslim than an atheist certainly
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
You can't get outraged about Trump calling Harris a monster and then in the same breath claim Trump is insane.
Why do this. Let Trump so his mad man act and let the American people vote him out.
In any event, my reading of the 25th is that the declaration that the President is unfit has to come either from the Vice President (or from the President himself).
The time that the 25th may need to be invoked is after the election, if Trump refuses the result. A transition under Pence would be far less damaging to America.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
The Queen is our Head of State and anointed by God at her coronation and the royal anthem reflects that, however that does not prevent having an English national anthem as well
"Anointed by God" 😂
We're a country with people and voters, not a theocracy.
If you want to pray to a God on Sundays or any other day then that's fine, do whatever you please. Don't shove it down the rest of our throats though.
But she is literally anointed "by God". There is a special anointing oil used during the Coronation of an English Sovereign, a sacred and holy recipe dating back to Moses and Mesopotamia
I believe royal babies are also baptised with Jordan water. So take yer boring, colourless republican atheism and shove it
So, the Anglican God is *the* God, is it? Have you told the Catholics, Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Jews, the Muslims and the Sikhs yet?
There is only 1 God if you belong to an Abrahamic religion, which includes all Christians, Muslims and Jews, just different methods of worshipping him. It is still the same God who revealed himself to Abraham that you worship
No it isn't.
Yes it is, see the Tomb of Abraham in Hebron which is a sacred site for Christians, Muslims and Jews
It'd be funny to see how Scots would react if he flagged an English goal off for offside.
Despite the shitey BBC feeling that we Jocks should enjoy the privilege of watching an England friendly rather than a Scottish qualifying match, I doubt many outside the ultra Yoons will be watching.
Aren't you impressed with the offerings of BBC Scotland this evening ?
19:00 Island Medics 19:30 Beechgrove 20:00 Landward 20:30 The Scandals That Shocked Scotland 21:00 The Nine 22:00 The Karen Dubar Show
BBC Scotland : too wee, too poor, too stupid - but easily directed
And a nice job creation scheme for Glasgow media luvvies and middle managers I suspect.
Can we please also finally change the English national anthem to Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem? It is ridiculous and in my view disrespectful to Wales to have God Save the Queen as our anthem when she is their Queen too and the same goes for when England plays Scotland or Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand or Canada.
Just play God Save the Queen when a royal is in attendance at an England game alongside the English anthem or for Team GB at the Olympics
How about we sing a national anthem that is about the country and not asking a sky fairy to save a wealthy individual "born to rule over us"?
Quite right. Jerusalem probably fits the bill? Haven’t double checked every lyric!
Still a bit religious, as is Land of Hope and Glory, but not enough to bother me. I'd be happy with either but prefer the latter.
Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory are both what an anthem should be - about what you want your country to be. Not sycophantically pandering to an individual.
I Vow To Thee My Country. A very singable hymn.
A fine tune, but a tad depressing. An anthem should be rousing?
Whatever the merits of demerits of God Save the Queen or its alternatives, we should be happy that anything we choose to sing will always be infinitely better than, Lord help us, "Flower of Scotland"
OMFG lol
As sung by upper class rugger buggers at Murrayfield ...
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
It is possibly the worst anthem in the world. No offence.
Scotland has so many good tunes, and you ended up with THAT
The Proclaimers 500 miles would make a good modern anthem! Call and response, very stirring, excellent melody
That's an interesting suggestion!
Scots wha hae is much better than FoS, if you want a stirring battle hymn, and if you want a Flodden lament there's The flooers o the forest are a wede awa, though that's more likely to be encountered at a funeral actually.
It's quite common for nations to pick terrible dirgey anthems when they have brilliant tunes everyone knows
Advance Australia Fair is awful, yet Waltzing Mathilda, sung by 100,000 lusty Aussies can bring a stern man close to tears
That Irish anthem is shite, and yet when they sing Molly Malone, or the Fields of Athenry....
The Londonderry Air is sublime. Is it tarnished by being unacceptable on one side of the religious divide? (And if so, which side; I really don't know.)
One of the greatest tunes ever written. But too sad and yearning for an anthem?
It is possibly Gaelic in origin (no one knows for sure), but it comes from Ulster traditions, and the words are "Protestant" so it is quite unifying. Both sides can claim it
How about Danny Boy for an English anthem? Words written by an Englishman after all.
Actually I’ve had a better idea on a new national anthem. Not Bohemian Rapsody (too long, no one normal can sing it) but anothe Queen staple: We Are The Champions.
I like that but it would have been embarrassing having that played to introduce our Cricket team in the 90s.
Like that stupid haka thing: you do that and then lose to France, you really do look a complete ct.
The Pelosi commission is to make sure there are no issues in how the 25th amendment is discharged and has to be bi-partisan so won’t happen without GOP input . Not sure what the big deal is . People aren’t voting on Pelosi and given Trumps recent behaviour not sure the GOP screaming and shouting about this and highlighting this would do much good for them as it just focuses people on whether Trump is becoming even more unstable than normal !
Comments
What is in swift and definite decline is allegiance to any particular organised religion.
https://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39284/bsa35_full-report.pdf
PPP Polls
Biden 49
Trump 48
Interestingly the sample self reported vote in 2016 was Trump 49, Biden 41 , that’s close to the winning margin of 9 points .
Hold a competition for a new secular anthem.
1. The quality of market research and polling firms since 2016 has generally declined - margins have declined, structural pressures have increased and polling is not a top priority for them. Staff have been juniorised. In the US, you also do not have accepted national standards;
2. Typically only 1%-2% (and usually closer to 1%) of respondents pick up. Pick up rates of calls from unknown numbers has continued to decline (for phone polls). It is a major problem for the market research companies on the customised side (i.e. ad hoc research, which is what polling effectively is);
3. Sample calls are relatively small (2000 across the US seems to be a large survey). A number on here have said that doesn't matter as long as the methodology is followed correctly. But given (1) and (2), the temptation will be to cut corners to meet deadlines;
4. Registration numbers in swing states (PA, FL, NC) have been trending towards the Republicans. I posted the regression analysis on here the other day for Pennsylvania showing the strong correlation between shift in votes at a county level and changes in registration. Yet the polling data would suggest that historic correlation would be broken;
5. Smaller weighting to this but there seems to be a fair degree of evidence that the "who do you think your neighbour will vote for" is a more accurate predictor of result;
6. The national polls have convinced themselves they got 2016 essentially right whilst the state polls were seen as out. That suggests there is maybe a chance the state polls are more accurate in 2020 because of the realisation they were wrong and needed to correct themselves, than national polls, which have essentially convinced themselves they have done no wrong
"House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment."
Why now? Seems like terrible timing to me. Biden should have a quiet word with Pelosi.
We are days away from depth charging our economy a second time and the results are going to be horrendous. We better be sure that this isn't largely chasing a phantom.
God Save The Queen is fine. Just the Sex Pistols one.
Given that maybe 90% of students seem to be asymptomatic running tests only on those with symptoms might not pick many up.
https://twitter.com/LiamThorpECHO/status/1314302671340404736
Sad.
To be honest, after the passing of the Queen, the question of the Monarchy is bound to rise up the political agenda. The fact that the Queen has not been able for reasons of age, tradition and inclination to be an effective player in the consitution has been noted by many: there will be many demands to reform both the House of Lords and ther Monarchy to provide effective brakes on untrammelled Prime Ministerial power.
For too long, we simply said that the monarchy brought in tourists, but we did not modernise it in time. Now, in addition to the political disaster of Brexit, the gathering economic disaster of Covid will in short order be joined by a consitutional crisis when those who are anti Monarchists are joined by those who do not care fo the new new Monarch personally.
Much change and sad times are coming
I quite agree. A man's a man for all that is the one to go for.
Are the Democrats sniffing yet another polling disaster incoming...
Including a shortened version in probably the most famous rock performance of all time. But the full version was played elsewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbvyNnw8Qjg
(You got a like for the Sex Pistols comment though)
First line - Some hospitals in the north of England are set to run out of beds for Covid patients within a week
What a difference the word 'some' can have.
It pains me to say this but the most rousing anthem out there is La Marseillaise.
The reason for the problems in getting a test were quite simple. Demand suddenly rose to around 100% of capacity.
In fact on 19th Sept and 26th September tests processed *exceeded* theoretical capacity.
Test capacity then increased to over 300k and the gap between capacity and demand opened up again. It is entirely unsurprising that with excess capacity in the system again, that problems getting a test have apparently subsided.
Ode to Joy is pretty rousing too 😇
Scotland has so many good tunes, and you ended up with THAT
The Proclaimers 500 miles would make a good modern anthem! Call and response, very stirring, excellent melody
For rousing, stirring, and beautiful anthems look to Wales. Or Russia
1) To legitimise talk of Trump being mentally/physically unfit to be POTUS
2) Put out there that Trump will not go quietly if he loses
3) Push GOPers to either say they'll help kick out a sore loser who tries to squat (which will damage them with Trump's base) or damn for saying they won't oust a sore loser who is squatting in the White House.
Scots wha hae is much better than FoS, if you want a stirring battle hymn, and if you want a Flodden lament there's The flooers o the forest are a wede awa, though that's more likely to be encountered at a funeral actually.
But I wonder if the demand for tests on school pupils was higher in September than it is now.
Like for many things the data isn't available.
Constitutional monarchy ensures the Head of State is apolitical, if the PM has a lot of power it is only because the electorate have made it so as they did in 2019, they can equally give them virtually no power at all as they did in 2017 when they voted for a hung parliament.
There may be a bit more opposition to a King Charles, given the Prince of Wales has an approval rating of 47% with 20% disapproving of him compared to the Queen's 78% approval and 11% disapproval rating but that is enough still to keep the monarchy until we get to William who has a 73% approval rating and only 9% disapproval rating.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Prince_Charles
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Queen_Elizabeth_II
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Prince_William_Duke_of_Cambridge
I wouldn't be surprised if we look back on the last couple of weeks in a month and realise that everyone's got massively spooked by universities and the numbers drop dramatically again.
https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1314306293637828608
A 1000 person poll of 253768092 people has a lower margin of error than a 100 person poll of 1000 people.
It is not intuitive but that is how the mathematics shakes out.
https://comresglobal.com/our-work/margin-of-error-calculator/
Why do this. Let Trump so his mad man act and let the American people vote him out.
Advance Australia Fair is awful, yet Waltzing Mathilda, sung by 100,000 lusty Aussies can bring a stern man close to tears
That Irish anthem is shite, and yet when they sing Molly Malone, or the Fields of Athenry....
56% of the global population belong to an Abrahamic religion
Tubthumper by Chumbawamba?
Seems to capture a certain essence of mordern Englishness. Easy words to sing along to too!
And the answer was "One day, seven hours. He was later imprisoned for 17 years."
My wife came up with the perfect question: Record time for breaking all Ten Commandments.
19:00 Island Medics
19:30 Beechgrove
20:00 Landward
20:30 The Scandals That Shocked Scotland
21:00 The Nine
22:00 The Karen Dubar Show
How about repurposing the Imperial March from Star Wars? I’m sure someone could produce some suitable words.
His long standing environmentalism was once presented as him being out of touch.
As was his suggestion of Being a Defender of Faith, rather than *The* Faith....
I recall that when the Guardian breathlessly reported on the constitutional horror of his letters to ministers, that the letters turned out to be a set of polite questions on quite anodyne topics.
I'm homeschooling my youngest until Tuesday next week. Whether she gets a test or not won't change that, the school won't have her or any of her classmates back until Tuesday (a full fortnight after they texted me at 8:41am not to bring her in).
The fact that getting a test doesn't change whether you have to isolate or not means people who want a test just to get back to normal rather than for epidemiological reasons aren't seeking to do so anymore.
In California, in 2018 there was a referendum on joining Arizona in getting rid of the time change. Sadly, the Federal government has refused to allow it.
It is possibly Gaelic in origin (no one knows for sure), but it comes from Ulster traditions, and the words are "Protestant" so it is quite unifying. Both sides can claim it
You want that in the National Anthem?
"Italian women take legal action over foetus graves marked with mothers' names"
implies that all 25 million of them are plaintiffs, does it?
Even if you weren't wrong, what consolation is the "just a few" claim when the cause of loss of capacity is a virus known to be spreading exponentially everywhere in the N of E?