Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
We had a little reminder with the amber list of one of the reasons we got here.
In the beginning, the government gave advice telling people to avoid crowds, and not to go to places like pubs to reduce transmission.
The businesses complained that the government was trashing their business, but because they weren't ordered to close they couldn't claim on their business interruption insurance. So the government used the law to close these businesses.
Then these businesses complained that they were closed, but people were buying alcohol from off licenses and partying at each other's homes. So the government asked everyone not to visit each other.
So the police complained that they had no legal power to prevent parties in private houses, and everyone was aghast at the behaviour of other people. So we now have the absurd situation of a government regulating whether people can visit private residences.
This shows the problem with not having consistent principles, but instead bowing to the latest pressure.
A rather good summation.
I would also add - Business complained that they couldn't claim on their insurance over the legally enforced closures. This was because this would have collapsed the insurance companies, without actually helping anyone. So furlough etc was invented.
Whenever new restrictions are temporarily brought in it is difficult to remove them.Sometines they never get removed at all. It’s why I was surprised how willingly the public accepted lockdowns. Now plenty of those who accepted them happily, whilst scolding anyone who queried the policy, are moaning about them going on for too long.
It is ironic that "Britons Never Shall be Slaves", which in the 19th century was somtimes used by radical movements against slavery and for workers' rights, is now regarded as unforgivably oppressive, and that a hymn to freedom should be seen as, by implication, supporting enslavement.
In history, it is very common that ideas and laws about equality *caused* change when the inconsistency between the words and the current state of society became an issue.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - signed with a notable breach of the words in the actions of many that signed. But later became a rallying cry of the anti-slavery movement.
At least one of the signatories, AIUI, owned slaves.
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
Mr. Boy, I'd be interested to know how far back you'd go with that. Living memory would be my instinctive approach to this sort of thing. How would you handle Caesar, who massacred a tribe (NB including women and children) of Thuringii during peace talks in... 53 BC (I think)?
I'm not an especial fan of Caesar, certainly not compared to Mr. Eagles, but I don't think that incident should be the prism through which he is viewed, just one of numerous significant events and decisions that he was involved in.
Although we disagree on some things you do seem reasonable, but many who bang on about this are not. They're iconoclasts, revisionists, and sometimes outright racists. With that in mind, I hope you forgive me if I seemed a little sharp in response.
No forgiveness necessary. It's an interesting question. Personally I would have a very high bar for removing statues. I think it's a question of weighing up the positives and negatives, and you'd need to see the negatives outweighing the positives by a wide margin before acting. Churchill is the obvious kind of figure that would not make the cut for removal. Equally a slave trader doesn't seem to me someone that a society that is knowledgeable about its history would want to see honoured in its Town centres. I see little in Rhodes' history that merits his prominent position on an Oxford college, either. Since Caesar was an aggressive foreign invader I'm not sure we should be having a statue of him anyway (do we have one? I have no idea). I am guessing if I were Italian I wouldn't be calling for his statue to be removed.
Isn't Rhodes' commemoration at Oxford due to him leaving money for Rhodes scholarships?
It is ironic that "Britons Never Shall be Slaves", which in the 19th century was somtimes used by radical movements against slavery and for workers' rights, is now regarded as unforgivably oppressive, and that a hymn to freedom should be seen as, by implication, supporting enslavement.
In history, it is very common that ideas and laws about equality *caused* change when the inconsistency between the words and the current state of society became an issue.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - signed with a notable breach of the words in the actions of many that signed. But later became a rallying cry of the anti-slavery movement.
At least one of the signatories, AIUI, owned slaves.
It is ironic that "Britons Never Shall be Slaves", which in the 19th century was somtimes used by radical movements against slavery and for workers' rights, is now regarded as unforgivably oppressive, and that a hymn to freedom should be seen as, by implication, supporting enslavement.
In history, it is very common that ideas and laws about equality *caused* change when the inconsistency between the words and the current state of society became an issue.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - signed with a notable breach of the words in the actions of many that signed. But later became a rallying cry of the anti-slavery movement.
At least one of the signatories, AIUI, owned slaves.
Many more than that, IIRC
And then they framed the US Constitution in a way that implicitly accommodated slave-owning. Quite the hypocrisy
17 of the 55 delegates to the Consitutional Convention owned a total of 1400 slaves. 8 of the first 12 presidents were slave-owners
Mr. Boy, I'd be interested to know how far back you'd go with that. Living memory would be my instinctive approach to this sort of thing. How would you handle Caesar, who massacred a tribe (NB including women and children) of Thuringii during peace talks in... 53 BC (I think)?
I'm not an especial fan of Caesar, certainly not compared to Mr. Eagles, but I don't think that incident should be the prism through which he is viewed, just one of numerous significant events and decisions that he was involved in.
Although we disagree on some things you do seem reasonable, but many who bang on about this are not. They're iconoclasts, revisionists, and sometimes outright racists. With that in mind, I hope you forgive me if I seemed a little sharp in response.
No forgiveness necessary. It's an interesting question. Personally I would have a very high bar for removing statues. I think it's a question of weighing up the positives and negatives, and you'd need to see the negatives outweighing the positives by a wide margin before acting. Churchill is the obvious kind of figure that would not make the cut for removal. Equally a slave trader doesn't seem to me someone that a society that is knowledgeable about its history would want to see honoured in its Town centres. I see little in Rhodes' history that merits his prominent position on an Oxford college, either. Since Caesar was an aggressive foreign invader I'm not sure we should be having a statue of him anyway (do we have one? I have no idea). I am guessing if I were Italian I wouldn't be calling for his statue to be removed.
Isn't Rhodes' commemoration at Oxford due to him leaving money for Rhodes scholarships?
He left the money that paid for the building where his statue is (a building that was my home for my first year at Oriel).
Mr. Boy, I'd be interested to know how far back you'd go with that. Living memory would be my instinctive approach to this sort of thing. How would you handle Caesar, who massacred a tribe (NB including women and children) of Thuringii during peace talks in... 53 BC (I think)?
I'm not an especial fan of Caesar, certainly not compared to Mr. Eagles, but I don't think that incident should be the prism through which he is viewed, just one of numerous significant events and decisions that he was involved in.
Although we disagree on some things you do seem reasonable, but many who bang on about this are not. They're iconoclasts, revisionists, and sometimes outright racists. With that in mind, I hope you forgive me if I seemed a little sharp in response.
No forgiveness necessary. It's an interesting question. Personally I would have a very high bar for removing statues. I think it's a question of weighing up the positives and negatives, and you'd need to see the negatives outweighing the positives by a wide margin before acting. Churchill is the obvious kind of figure that would not make the cut for removal. Equally a slave trader doesn't seem to me someone that a society that is knowledgeable about its history would want to see honoured in its Town centres. I see little in Rhodes' history that merits his prominent position on an Oxford college, either. Since Caesar was an aggressive foreign invader I'm not sure we should be having a statue of him anyway (do we have one? I have no idea). I am guessing if I were Italian I wouldn't be calling for his statue to be removed.
There is one of Caesar by Tower Hill - because of his supposed connection with the creation of the fort that later became the site of the Tower of London
Just watching Burnham's GM Mayor briefing (Sky News now live), which included the Tory Leader of Bolton Council speaking. Both firmly of the view, and Bolton Leader has been told by Govt colleagues, that this is just guidance, isn't binding, doesn't = local lockdown by stealth.
So basically, ignore.
It does need clearing up, and quickly, because it is an utter shambles. Burnham quite measured and mature about it all actually.
Picture does look grim in Bolton though. The worst affected bits are barely 2 miles from where i live (in the borough next door). It does worry me where we'll be up here in a month's time.
By this data: https://coviddatashare.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/TableCumulative_Rate_20210524.html it looks to me like the peak in Bolton has already passed - likewise Blackburn and Bedford. Others less clear - Rossendale looks to be ramping up a bit. But no clear signs to me, yet, that everwhere will follow Bolton's trajectory. I remain optimistic that we're already past the worst.
Note that most data gives you a seven day average figure, up to a few days ago. This is laudable, as it smooths out noise and also ignores days with significantly incomplete data - but it does mean that any data you see is effectively at least a week out of date already.
Interesting stats. What is clear is that there is no logic to some of the 8 areas now under stealth lockdown "guidance" - some are only 16th on the list (N Tyneside) whereas others high up this list (Rossendale, Hyndburn, Manchester) aren't subject to guidance at all despite being worse affected than some of the authorities who are?
Who updated this "guidance" on Friday, the work experience lad?
It was supposedly due to the incidence of the Indian variant, but BBC had a map with a lot of these areas only having a handful of cases and being in the same band as many other places, but things may have developed since then.
In Kirklees, rates have consistently struggled to come down since February - I suspect of anywhere in the UK we may have fewest days with 7DRA below 50 (perhaps Derry & Blackburn competing for that, but I suspect they're behind) and it was pretty distributed around hotspots across the whole borough till a few days ago, when one Dewsbury area showed its spike. I suspect we have a little way to go up before we go down, but it's a mix of lagging on the downswing and newly emerging hotspots round here.
It baffles me. It's amazing there's anyone in Kirkless (and Blackburn) left to infect.
EDIT: Actually, it turns out Kirklees is no higher than upper-mid table - about 80th - in terms of number of positive tests per 100,000 (Around 8,000 per 100,000). Blackburn with Darwen is top with around 13,000 per 100,000, followed by Knowlsey, Merthyr Tydfil, Burnley, and Barking and Dagenham.) This won't equate to highest number of infections overall, though, which is basically unknowable due to the paucity of testing in the early months of the pandemic.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
That's an interesting interpretation on your part, not least because of your implicit condemnation of defence against invasion.
It's also a highly unusual approach to take in recent independence politics and no doubt helps explain why so few people voted for Alba if they are so silly as to try a video like that.
And I see you think a SNP councillor for the area should not be allowed to complain about vandalism just because it is a statue of Robert the Bruce.
And ytou still haven't explained why you want to deport Quaker children.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
Mr. Boy, I'd be interested to know how far back you'd go with that. Living memory would be my instinctive approach to this sort of thing. How would you handle Caesar, who massacred a tribe (NB including women and children) of Thuringii during peace talks in... 53 BC (I think)?
I'm not an especial fan of Caesar, certainly not compared to Mr. Eagles, but I don't think that incident should be the prism through which he is viewed, just one of numerous significant events and decisions that he was involved in.
Although we disagree on some things you do seem reasonable, but many who bang on about this are not. They're iconoclasts, revisionists, and sometimes outright racists. With that in mind, I hope you forgive me if I seemed a little sharp in response.
No forgiveness necessary. It's an interesting question. Personally I would have a very high bar for removing statues. I think it's a question of weighing up the positives and negatives, and you'd need to see the negatives outweighing the positives by a wide margin before acting. Churchill is the obvious kind of figure that would not make the cut for removal. Equally a slave trader doesn't seem to me someone that a society that is knowledgeable about its history would want to see honoured in its Town centres. I see little in Rhodes' history that merits his prominent position on an Oxford college, either. Since Caesar was an aggressive foreign invader I'm not sure we should be having a statue of him anyway (do we have one? I have no idea). I am guessing if I were Italian I wouldn't be calling for his statue to be removed.
There is one of Caesar by Tower Hill - because of his supposed connection with the creation of the fort that later became the site of the Tower of London
Isn't that Trajan? A little checking seems to indicate he's often misnamed as C. Julius Caesar.
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
For the record, I have never ever questioned the efficacy or wisdom of vaccines per se. Ever.
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
For the record, I have never ever questioned the efficacy or wisdom of vaccines per se. Ever.
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
As I understand it, there is advice from the government about not travelling to Bolton etc. No legally enforced measures apart from those in the rest of England.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
That's an interesting interpretation on your part, not least because of your implicit condemnation of defence against invasion.
It's also a highly unusual approach to take in recent independence politics and no doubt helps explain why so few people voted for Alba if they are so silly as to try a video like that.
And I see you think a SNP councillor for the area should not be allowed to complain about vandalism just because it is a statue of Robert the Bruce.
And ytou still haven't explained why you want to deport Quaker children.
Alba got 44,913 votes on the list, votes which could well have cost the SNP the 1 extra list seat it needed in the South of Scotland for a majority.
A sizeable section of the pro independence movement in Scotland is driven by anti English sentiment
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
For the record, I have never ever questioned the efficacy or wisdom of vaccines per se. Ever.
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
Mr. Boy, I'd be interested to know how far back you'd go with that. Living memory would be my instinctive approach to this sort of thing. How would you handle Caesar, who massacred a tribe (NB including women and children) of Thuringii during peace talks in... 53 BC (I think)?
I'm not an especial fan of Caesar, certainly not compared to Mr. Eagles, but I don't think that incident should be the prism through which he is viewed, just one of numerous significant events and decisions that he was involved in.
Although we disagree on some things you do seem reasonable, but many who bang on about this are not. They're iconoclasts, revisionists, and sometimes outright racists. With that in mind, I hope you forgive me if I seemed a little sharp in response.
No forgiveness necessary. It's an interesting question. Personally I would have a very high bar for removing statues. I think it's a question of weighing up the positives and negatives, and you'd need to see the negatives outweighing the positives by a wide margin before acting. Churchill is the obvious kind of figure that would not make the cut for removal. Equally a slave trader doesn't seem to me someone that a society that is knowledgeable about its history would want to see honoured in its Town centres. I see little in Rhodes' history that merits his prominent position on an Oxford college, either. Since Caesar was an aggressive foreign invader I'm not sure we should be having a statue of him anyway (do we have one? I have no idea). I am guessing if I were Italian I wouldn't be calling for his statue to be removed.
There is one of Caesar by Tower Hill - because of his supposed connection with the creation of the fort that later became the site of the Tower of London
Isn't that Trajan? A little checking seems to indicate he's often misnamed as C. Julius Caesar.
Hmm - actually, could be, it is a rather crappy generic piece of statuary. Used to pass by it on a daily basis...
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
That's an interesting interpretation on your part, not least because of your implicit condemnation of defence against invasion.
It's also a highly unusual approach to take in recent independence politics and no doubt helps explain why so few people voted for Alba if they are so silly as to try a video like that.
And I see you think a SNP councillor for the area should not be allowed to complain about vandalism just because it is a statue of Robert the Bruce.
And ytou still haven't explained why you want to deport Quaker children.
I suspect Mr HYUFD's ancestors have lived in Essex for a very great deal longer that mine, and that somewhere a Mr Hopkins from Manningtree* (N.Essex) figures.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
That's an interesting interpretation on your part, not least because of your implicit condemnation of defence against invasion.
It's also a highly unusual approach to take in recent independence politics and no doubt helps explain why so few people voted for Alba if they are so silly as to try a video like that.
And I see you think a SNP councillor for the area should not be allowed to complain about vandalism just because it is a statue of Robert the Bruce.
And ytou still haven't explained why you want to deport Quaker children.
Alba got 44,913 votes on the list, votes which could well have cost the SNP the 1 extra list seat it needed in the South of Scotland for a majority.
A sizeable section of the pro independence movement in Scotland is driven by anti English sentiment
In the sense that tyhey don't want to be ruled from Epping.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
You need to read Tony Blair's article in the New Statesman:
"People are suspicious that behind the agenda of many of the culture warriors on the left lies an ideology they find alien and extreme.'
Mr Blair warned that voters do not like 'their country their flag or their history being disrespected'.
'''Defund the police' may be the left's most damaging political slogan since ''the dictatorship of the proletariat'',' he said.
'People do not like their country, their flag or their history being disrespected. People like common sense, proportion and reason.'"
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 25m The reason it looks like chaos is because the Government wants to introduce a local lockdown, but is trying to avoid formalising it because of fears over a local backlash.
Mr. Boy, I'd be interested to know how far back you'd go with that. Living memory would be my instinctive approach to this sort of thing. How would you handle Caesar, who massacred a tribe (NB including women and children) of Thuringii during peace talks in... 53 BC (I think)?
I'm not an especial fan of Caesar, certainly not compared to Mr. Eagles, but I don't think that incident should be the prism through which he is viewed, just one of numerous significant events and decisions that he was involved in.
Although we disagree on some things you do seem reasonable, but many who bang on about this are not. They're iconoclasts, revisionists, and sometimes outright racists. With that in mind, I hope you forgive me if I seemed a little sharp in response.
No forgiveness necessary. It's an interesting question. Personally I would have a very high bar for removing statues. I think it's a question of weighing up the positives and negatives, and you'd need to see the negatives outweighing the positives by a wide margin before acting. Churchill is the obvious kind of figure that would not make the cut for removal. Equally a slave trader doesn't seem to me someone that a society that is knowledgeable about its history would want to see honoured in its Town centres. I see little in Rhodes' history that merits his prominent position on an Oxford college, either. Since Caesar was an aggressive foreign invader I'm not sure we should be having a statue of him anyway (do we have one? I have no idea). I am guessing if I were Italian I wouldn't be calling for his statue to be removed.
Isn't Rhodes' commemoration at Oxford due to him leaving money for Rhodes scholarships?
He left the money that paid for the building where his statue is (a building that was my home for my first year at Oriel).
Yes, you'd think the giant majuscules E LARGA MUNIFICENTIA CAECILII RHODES on the facade might give people a clue...
Gove is such a massive snake. He should be sacked over this new attempt to extend lockdown without telling people affected by it or informing Parliament in advance.
Can Scotland take him back, please?
@TSE got him dead right by describing him as the perfect human incarnation of the story of the Scorpion and the Frog.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
'Bruce predated slavery' ummm?
Quite, not the mostr sensible remark.
I never knew THIS
‘It did not become illegal to own a slave in Scotland until 1778.
Until then it had been fashionable for wealthy families to have a young 'black boy' or girl 'attending' on them.
Scottish newspapers, such as the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/20(1-)] and the 'Caledonian Mercury' [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/23-24] from the 1740s to the 1770s, carried adverts offering 'slaves for sale' or rewards for the capture of 'escaped slaves'.’
No surprise - surge testing has found cases (hence a lot of the increase, while the positivity rate stayed the same, the number of tests increased, not that Robert Peston can understand that), and it is probably running out of people to infect as it encounters the vaccinated hordes. That and I believe some of the schools have shut/gone remote too.
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
For the record, I have never ever questioned the efficacy or wisdom of vaccines per se. Ever.
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
You referred to them as "experimental", which is the dangerous language of the anti-vax nutters. They are not "experimental", they have undergone vigorous clinical trials. Vaccines do mean liberation. Without them, the alternative is massive death toll for years to come, or continuous restriction on liberty
Whenever new restrictions are temporarily brought in it is difficult to remove them.Sometines they never get removed at all. It’s why I was surprised how willingly the public accepted lockdowns. Now plenty of those who accepted them happily, whilst scolding anyone who queried the policy, are moaning about them going on for too long.
Income tax was a temporary measure, as was the 70mph speed limit.
The week involves pupils dressing up in red, white and blue and singing an “anthem” called “One Britain One Dream”, which ends with the repeating lines “Strong Britain Great Nation”.
Haha. What a load of shit.
I never thought our descent into fascism would be so cringe-worthy.
Hmmm.
A fascist movement founded by a former Police Inspector called Kash Singh from Bradford. Interesting. It looks to be more about inclusiveness in Bradford, which is needed.
No surprise - surge testing has found cases (hence a lot of the increase, while the positivity rate stayed the same, the number of tests increased, not that Robert Peston can understand that), and it is probably running out of people to infect as it encounters the vaccinated hordes. That and I believe some of the schools have shut/gone remote too.
No, positivity rates went up in Bolton and other areas.
They appear to be on the way back down. We will have an update in about 40 minutes, I hope.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
'Bruce predated slavery' ummm?
Quite, not the mostr sensible remark.
I never knew THIS
‘It did not become illegal to own a slave in Scotland until 1778.
Until then it had been fashionable for wealthy families to have a young 'black boy' or girl 'attending' on them.
Scottish newspapers, such as the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/20(1-)] and the 'Caledonian Mercury' [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/23-24] from the 1740s to the 1770s, carried adverts offering 'slaves for sale' or rewards for the capture of 'escaped slaves'.’
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
UK isn't a soevereign country any more, not since Brexit. Northern Ireland, remember. And let's not talk about the Olympics.
I thought Eurovision was based on TV partners anyway rather than "sovereign countries". If STV were offering big bucks, I doubt Eurovision would refuse.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
'Bruce predated slavery' ummm?
Quite, not the mostr sensible remark.
I never knew THIS
‘It did not become illegal to own a slave in Scotland until 1778.
Until then it had been fashionable for wealthy families to have a young 'black boy' or girl 'attending' on them.
Scottish newspapers, such as the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/20(1-)] and the 'Caledonian Mercury' [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/23-24] from the 1740s to the 1770s, carried adverts offering 'slaves for sale' or rewards for the capture of 'escaped slaves'.’
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
'Bruce predated slavery' ummm?
Quite, not the mostr sensible remark.
I never knew THIS
‘It did not become illegal to own a slave in Scotland until 1778.
Until then it had been fashionable for wealthy families to have a young 'black boy' or girl 'attending' on them.
Scottish newspapers, such as the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/20(1-)] and the 'Caledonian Mercury' [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/23-24] from the 1740s to the 1770s, carried adverts offering 'slaves for sale' or rewards for the capture of 'escaped slaves'.’
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
UK isn't a soevereign country any more, not since Brexit. Northern Ireland, remember. And let's not talk about the Olympics.
I thought Eurovision was based on TV partners anyway rather than "sovereign countries". If STV were offering big bucks, I doubt Eurovision would refuse.
It does seem odd to have a Scottish team in the footie, but not in the singing.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
'Bruce predated slavery' ummm?
Quite, not the mostr sensible remark.
I never knew THIS
‘It did not become illegal to own a slave in Scotland until 1778.
Until then it had been fashionable for wealthy families to have a young 'black boy' or girl 'attending' on them.
Scottish newspapers, such as the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/20(1-)] and the 'Caledonian Mercury' [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/23-24] from the 1740s to the 1770s, carried adverts offering 'slaves for sale' or rewards for the capture of 'escaped slaves'.’
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
For the record, I have never ever questioned the efficacy or wisdom of vaccines per se. Ever.
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
When people don’t or won’t take them, yes you can.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
I'm not averse to countries apologising for atrocities etc which they may have been part of in the past, but I would just mention 2 things:
1) I'm not sure why the average guy in the street should feel guilty about it, no-one alive today was aroound 200 years ago. That goes for companies as well.
2) The other countries in the world need to accept their part in it (including European, US, Asian and African countries) and act accordingly. Us remainers are always told to "move on" after 5 years, but for God sake even I would move on after 200 years.
All that's fine if we didn't have a culture that enthusiastically celebrates Great British Achievements of 100 or 200 or 300 years ago, or that time Alfred the Great had a satisfactory bowel movement after beating back the Danes.
For some reason you didn't mention Scotland's orgasms over William Wallace or Bannockburn?
Perhaps because there aren't any. It's quite a difference, for instance when someone vandalised the Bruce statue at Bannockburn the response was 'meh'. And that was the height of the statue wars.
That was the very statue that was vandalised.Bruce, in Scotland? You're impluing there would have been massive outcries. But nobody did anything more than groan at the vandalism and I'm sure the Historic Sxcotland conservators had a few sweartie words.
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
If a Union Jack flag had been put on the Bruce statute there would certainly have been outrage from the left Nationalists, the fact it was a BLM slogan put on it was all that saved that but even then B'annockburn SNP councillor Alasdair Macpherson described the damage to the statue as appalling. He said: “The comments painted on the statue are ill-informed. Robert Bruce pre-dated slavery. This is wanton vandalism. It’s heartbreaking to see.
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
'Bruce predated slavery' ummm?
Quite, not the mostr sensible remark.
I never knew THIS
‘It did not become illegal to own a slave in Scotland until 1778.
Until then it had been fashionable for wealthy families to have a young 'black boy' or girl 'attending' on them.
Scottish newspapers, such as the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/20(1-)] and the 'Caledonian Mercury' [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/23-24] from the 1740s to the 1770s, carried adverts offering 'slaves for sale' or rewards for the capture of 'escaped slaves'.’
And it looks like slavery was quite popular in medieval Scotland too. So the Bruce remark is indeed foolish
Is there any documentation about what happened to these people once they became adult?
There's been a lot of work done on slavery and Scotland in the last decade or two, and awareness raising (in a fairly sensible way) - I'm not familiar with it as my historical interests tend to lie elsewhere, but it should be there in googleland.
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
For the record, I have never ever questioned the efficacy or wisdom of vaccines per se. Ever.
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
You referred to them as "experimental", which is the dangerous language of the anti-vax nutters. They are not "experimental", they have undergone vigorous clinical trials. Vaccines do mean liberation. Without them, the alternative is massive death toll for years to come, or continuous restriction on liberty
BBC North West Today news just on now explained how the local lockdown cock-up came to light - a pub landlord in Bolton stumbled across the new guidance yesterday, emailed BBC North West who then looked into it and broke the story on their late news bulletin last night.
Increasing confusion, anger and upset now in the affected areas. Reports of hoteliers in the Lakes now getting calls from guests in Burnley, Blackburn etc saying "can we still come?, do we have to cancel?" etc and not having the faintest idea what they should be saying or doing.
How long can the Govt go on just doing nothing about this? It's staggering!
An acquaintance has gone to see her parents in East Anglia for the first time in over a year. Now she has no idea whether she should be returning to Hounslow or not. All most bizarre.
It makes South West Railways' job a tad more difficult as their passengers might be criminalised in the course of getting from London to Weybridge.
Isn't it guidance?
Sounds like leaving it up to individuals to me. Good.
Yeah, I think the bad thing this time is it wasn't really announced. Having guidance that says in hot spot areas it is recommended to minimise social interaction wherever possible seems sensible enough to me.
It is interesting to see how people *want* advice to be legal restrictions.
I'm sure very few people want that. Everyone, meanwhile, wants clarity and an adherence to the previously stated parameters for lockdown.
Setting aside the confusion/coms nonsense - do you think the government should have *advice* going beyond 21st June, for example?
I think it would be fine for the government to have advice beyond June 21st but there needs to be a rebasing and explanation about advice vs legal restrictions.
People should be free to go to the pub in swimming trunks or full Hazmat protective gear. It should be up to the the pub and the punters, in that order. The government is more than welcome to say "if you go to the pub in Bolton please be aware of the current incidence of Covid, and here are the measures which will allow you to protect yourself" and then leave it to the peeps.
Of course this begs the bigger question of how long we will or should get case/death/hospitalisation stats. Not sure the answer to that but once we are in a "steady state" then those should go also.
Absolutely.
I have been flabbergasted by the willingness, nay, desire, with which many of our countrymen seem to have embraced extraordinary regulation of our fundamental liberties over the past 14 months.
It needs to end.
What flabbergasts me is when people who have spent to the past year pouring a reservoir of scorn on anybody who even questioned the orthodoxy of lockdown, self isolation, furlough, masks and vaccination say 'it needs to end'
But there it is.
I have said to you before, you could be an effective agent provocateur, and you do make some good points, yet completely undermine any argument you might have with your superstitious nonsense about vaccinations. Your antivaxism renders anything else you say worthless.
For the record, I have never ever questioned the efficacy or wisdom of vaccines per se. Ever.
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
As I understand it, there is advice from the government about not travelling to Bolton etc. No legally enforced measures apart from those in the rest of England.
We’re all going to have to learn what normal is like again. We got used to “undesirable” being a synonym for “unlawful”.
Normal is that we aren’t banned from going anywhere.
Normal is that, if radiation levels in a town are lethal then you are advised not to enter but it’s not actually unlawful to do so.
Normal is that you can, against Gvt advice, if you choose, travel to a country where the Black Death is everywhere or Brits are shot on sight if you can get a flight (though you’ll invalidate your insurance).
No surprise - surge testing has found cases (hence a lot of the increase, while the positivity rate stayed the same, the number of tests increased, not that Robert Peston can understand that), and it is probably running out of people to infect as it encounters the vaccinated hordes. That and I believe some of the schools have shut/gone remote too.
No, positivity rates went up in Bolton and other areas.
They appear to be on the way back down. We will have an update in about 40 minutes, I hope.
Sorry the point from Peston was that the rise was not due to increased testing, when the large part of the increased positives was from the surge testing, combined with a small increase in the positivity.
The week involves pupils dressing up in red, white and blue and singing an “anthem” called “One Britain One Dream”, which ends with the repeating lines “Strong Britain Great Nation”.
Haha. What a load of shit.
Please tell me this is satire.
This course of patriotic song is standard fare in the US, Russia, China, even France.
Of course if it was belting out Flower of Scotland 5 times a day the SNP would have no complaints
And? Civus Britannicus sum. We don't do that sort of thing.
And 5x Flower of Scotland would require some serious anti-depressants.
We should do it more, we have far too many Scottish, Welsh and English national songs and not enough British national songs bar GSTQ which is more about the monarch than the nation and Rule Britannia which was more suitable for the age of Empire
When @Dura_Ace and I have the same instinctive view of things selling this is going to make Sisyphus's labours look like a gentle workout.
It does not need to be sold, the Tories have a majority of 80 and if they want to do it it will be done
Not by me.
If it becomes the law it will be required of every schoolchild across the UK
What stadia have you in mind to punish the dissenters?
This is one reason I'm not excessively concerned by B.1.617.2:
Yes, some of the areas with concentrations of the variant are bad (Bolton, Bedford). Others with supermajorities of all cases being this variant are green or yellow, and falling (South Oxfordshire is just on my doorstep: majority this variant, yellow on the map, and falling). Wiltshire: majority this variant, yellow, and falling. West Oxfordshire is pretty much 100% Indian Variant, and while it's growing, it's down to 4 new cases in Witney and 2 new cases in Carterton, and that's it.
Maybe I'll be proven to be too blase about it, but the Kent variant swept the country in two or three weeks and saw massive spikes everywhere. This one's been stumbling around trying to spark and only achieving a handful of isolated outbreaks, primarily in the unvaccinated, and those are already largely coming under control.
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
I'm not sure it's really in the Government's power, never mind Epping Town Council's power. Is Westminster really going to legislate about Eurovision?
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
UK isn't a soevereign country any more, not since Brexit. Northern Ireland, remember. And let's not talk about the Olympics.
I thought Eurovision was based on TV partners anyway rather than "sovereign countries". If STV were offering big bucks, I doubt Eurovision would refuse.
It does seem odd to have a Scottish team in the footie, but not in the singing.
We have a European team in the golf. Vive la difference.
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
I'm not sure it's really in the Government's power, never mind Epping Town Council's power. Is Westminster really going to legislate about Eurovision?
We should refuse to send an entry if Scotland is allowed and the BBC should refuse to send any further funds as they are a UK broadcaster not a Scotland only broadcaster.
Not that the Eurovision managers would allow it anyway as it would guarantee a Catalonian entry shortly after which would see Spain withdraw too
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
You need to read Tony Blair's article in the New Statesman:
"People are suspicious that behind the agenda of many of the culture warriors on the left lies an ideology they find alien and extreme.'
Mr Blair warned that voters do not like 'their country their flag or their history being disrespected'.
'''Defund the police' may be the left's most damaging political slogan since ''the dictatorship of the proletariat'',' he said.
'People do not like their country, their flag or their history being disrespected. People like common sense, proportion and reason.'"
Common sense: don't venerate slave traders and white supremacists, people who do not represent the values of our great country and are unworthy of our respect. Proportion: remove statues of slave traders and white supremacists from positions of prominence and put them in a museum where they can be placed in their historical context and understood against the prevalent historical currents. Reason: understand our history in full rather than drawing a veil over the parts that make us feel uncomfortable or reacting angrily to those who want to discuss historical wrongs.
I assume the BBC would have a veto on the Eurovision "plan" as I assume they "own the rights" to televise Eurovision to the UK as a whole. Although obviously we don't know what that contract really says and when it's up for renewal.
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
I'm not sure it's really in the Government's power, never mind Epping Town Council's power. Is Westminster really going to legislate about Eurovision?
We should refuse to send an entry if Scotland is allowed and the BBC should refuse to send any further funds as they are a UK broadcaster not a Scotland only broadcaster.
Not that the Eurovision managers would allow it anyway as it would guarantee a Catalonian entry shortly after which would see Spain withdraw too
You're making some huge leaps there. Is there any demand for a Catalonian Eurovision entry?
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
It has its own team in most major sports, sports which are played by millions and followed by billions...
Football Cricket Rugby Union Rugby League Golf Hockey Netball
Yet it cannot be allowed to enter a drag act from Falkirk into a naff singing competition – as to do so would cause some sort of diplomatic incident?
I'm going to enjoy hearing your reasoning on this one...
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
I'm not sure it's really in the Government's power, never mind Epping Town Council's power. Is Westminster really going to legislate about Eurovision?
We should refuse to send an entry if Scotland is allowed and the BBC should refuse to send any further funds as they are a UK broadcaster not a Scotland only broadcaster.
Not that the Eurovision managers would allow it anyway as it would guarantee a Catalonian entry shortly after which would see Spain withdraw too
You're making some huge leaps there. Is there any demand for a Catalonian Eurovision entry?
There would be if Scotland was given an entry despite not being an independent sovereign state, there is at least as much support in Catalonia for independence as there is in Scotland
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
I'm not sure it's really in the Government's power, never mind Epping Town Council's power. Is Westminster really going to legislate about Eurovision?
We should refuse to send an entry if Scotland is allowed and the BBC should refuse to send any further funds as they are a UK broadcaster not a Scotland only broadcaster.
Not that the Eurovision managers would allow it anyway as it would guarantee a Catalonian entry shortly after which would see Spain withdraw too
You're making some huge leaps there. Is there any demand for a Catalonian Eurovision entry?
There would be if Scotland was given an entry despite not being an independent sovereign state, there is at least as much support in Catalonia for independence as there is in Scotland
OK, so you don't know, you're just making it up. Gotcha.
The week involves pupils dressing up in red, white and blue and singing an “anthem” called “One Britain One Dream”, which ends with the repeating lines “Strong Britain Great Nation”.
Haha. What a load of shit.
Please tell me this is satire.
This course of patriotic song is standard fare in the US, Russia, China, even France.
Of course if it was belting out Flower of Scotland 5 times a day the SNP would have no complaints
And? Civus Britannicus sum. We don't do that sort of thing.
And 5x Flower of Scotland would require some serious anti-depressants.
We should do it more, we have far too many Scottish, Welsh and English national songs and not enough British national songs bar GSTQ which is more about the monarch than the nation and Rule Britannia which was more suitable for the age of Empire
When @Dura_Ace and I have the same instinctive view of things selling this is going to make Sisyphus's labours look like a gentle workout.
It does not need to be sold, the Tories have a majority of 80 and if they want to do it it will be done
Not by me.
If it becomes the law it will be required of every schoolchild across the UK
What stadia have you in mind to punish the dissenters?
You might need some large capacity venues.
The kids will all sing, just maybe not the right words. Patriotic anthems given 'The Virgin Mary had a baby baboon' treatment, anyone?
I assume the BBC would have a veto on the Eurovision "plan" as I assume they "own the rights" to televise Eurovision to the UK as a whole. Although obviously we don't know what that contract really says and when it's up for renewal.
I think the BBC is more major shareholder than contractual party, via the European Broadcasting Union. I’m sure arrangements could be made for Scotland to compete separately on the basis it would make good telly, but I doubt the BBC wants the fight right now.
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
It has its own team in most major sports, sports which are played by millions and followed by billions...
Football Cricket Rugby Union Rugby League Golf Hockey Netball
Yet it cannot be allowed to enter a drag act from Falkirk into a naff singing competition – as to do so would cause some sort of diplomatic incident?
I'm going to enjoy hearing your reasoning on this one...
As there is already a UK entry, there is no UK team in any of the sports you listed above apart from the UK football team and Hockey teams at the Olympics (plus there is the British Lions too of course in rugby union).
This new "guidance" about not leaving pox-infested places like Kirklees. This is exactly the kind of thing that the "pakis out" Heavy Wollen Independents stand for. Foreigners have brought this foreign plague with them and now the government have stupidly had to impose bans on natives. Yes I know that "paki" is both insulting and laughably inaccurate in this case, but its the language and mentality used amongst WWC communities in northern places like that. Ask my aunties FFS.
The only oddity with today's polity is that the people really hacked off with the Tories for doing this will punish them by voting Tory.
"Both" is probably the objectively correct answer.
I think with a good song (well-performed) the UK could get to 15th or so at present, but not much higher.
I quite liked SuRie's effort in 2018 - and particularly the stoic way she delivered it after that nasty stage invasion - but she still only got to 24th.
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
It has its own team in most major sports, sports which are played by millions and followed by billions...
Football Cricket Rugby Union Rugby League Golf Hockey Netball
Yet it cannot be allowed to enter a drag act from Falkirk into a naff singing competition – as to do so would cause some sort of diplomatic incident?
I'm going to enjoy hearing your reasoning on this one...
Please do not get him started again
He is having one of those days conservatives hold their head in their hands in total embarrassment and dismay
I assume the BBC would have a veto on the Eurovision "plan" as I assume they "own the rights" to televise Eurovision to the UK as a whole. Although obviously we don't know what that contract really says and when it's up for renewal.
I think the BBC is more major shareholder than contractual party, via the European Broadcasting Union. I’m sure arrangements could be made for Scotland to compete separately on the basis it would make good telly, but I doubt the BBC wants the fight right now.
"European Broadcasting Union"? Yuck. We need to pull out of that euro-shite pronto.
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
It has its own team in most major sports, sports which are played by millions and followed by billions...
Football Cricket Rugby Union Rugby League Golf Hockey Netball
Yet it cannot be allowed to enter a drag act from Falkirk into a naff singing competition – as to do so would cause some sort of diplomatic incident?
I'm going to enjoy hearing your reasoning on this one...
“I was on the fence over independence, but seeing the Scotland entry sing so powerfully brought tears to my eyes and saw me sign up for the SNP”.
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
I'm not sure it's really in the Government's power, never mind Epping Town Council's power. Is Westminster really going to legislate about Eurovision?
We should refuse to send an entry if Scotland is allowed and the BBC should refuse to send any further funds as they are a UK broadcaster not a Scotland only broadcaster.
Not that the Eurovision managers would allow it anyway as it would guarantee a Catalonian entry shortly after which would see Spain withdraw too
Is this the very same Spain which is just about to send a team to Euro 2021, despite both Scotland and Wales competing in that tournament?
I assume the BBC would have a veto on the Eurovision "plan" as I assume they "own the rights" to televise Eurovision to the UK as a whole. Although obviously we don't know what that contract really says and when it's up for renewal.
A Scottish public service broadcaster would need to join the EBU first, according to whatever are their membership criteria, before they could enter the song contest. Yes, the BBC have the UK rights to the broadcast.
Mr. Boy, slavery was endemic in Africa at the time. And Arabia. And continued elsewhere after we stopped it.
A fetish for self-flagellation is not something I find appealing.
Oh, and, of course, we've got the tens of millions Stalin imprisoned and slaughtered, the Holocaust, Mao's epic death toll, Roman slavery. And the Aztec sacrifices.
Why are you so afraid of addressing bad things we did in the past? It isn't a reflection on us personally. It doesn't affect the pride we can take in the good things we did. It's just a question of being honest. The fact is that Britain built its wealth and power over the course of a couple of hundred years off the back of African Labour in the new world, a trade in human misery that we were active participants in. It's just laughable that people act so defensively whenever anyone brings it up or suggests minor acts of remembrance (like no longer venerating slave traders).
You need to read Tony Blair's article in the New Statesman:
"People are suspicious that behind the agenda of many of the culture warriors on the left lies an ideology they find alien and extreme.'
Mr Blair warned that voters do not like 'their country their flag or their history being disrespected'.
'''Defund the police' may be the left's most damaging political slogan since ''the dictatorship of the proletariat'',' he said.
'People do not like their country, their flag or their history being disrespected. People like common sense, proportion and reason.'"
Common sense: don't venerate slave traders and white supremacists, people who do not represent the values of our great country and are unworthy of our respect. Proportion: remove statues of slave traders and white supremacists from positions of prominence and put them in a museum where they can be placed in their historical context and understood against the prevalent historical currents. Reason: understand our history in full rather than drawing a veil over the parts that make us feel uncomfortable or reacting angrily to those who want to discuss historical wrongs.
Anyone who thinks the answer is iconoclasm is someone either not thinking clearly or someone who has a more ideological agenda.
The Government are quite right to quash this with the general law.
This is one reason I'm not excessively concerned by B.1.617.2:
Yes, some of the areas with concentrations of the variant are bad (Bolton, Bedford). Others with supermajorities of all cases being this variant are green or yellow, and falling (South Oxfordshire is just on my doorstep: majority this variant, yellow on the map, and falling). Wiltshire: majority this variant, yellow, and falling. West Oxfordshire is pretty much 100% Indian Variant, and while it's growing, it's down to 4 new cases in Witney and 2 new cases in Carterton, and that's it.
Maybe I'll be proven to be too blase about it, but the Kent variant swept the country in two or three weeks and saw massive spikes everywhere. This one's been stumbling around trying to spark and only achieving a handful of isolated outbreaks, primarily in the unvaccinated, and those are already largely coming under control.
Where can I see this data - can you give a link please? Looks interesting!
Let them. It would give the English somebody not to vote for....
They can't, they are part of the sovereign UK and no non sovereign country competes in Eurovision
So Scotland competes in the Euros, World Cup, Rugby World Cup, Cricket World Cup yet is not allowed to compete in effing Eurovision??
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
If they did it would set a precedent, soon you would have Catalonia, Wales even Bavaria and Venice demanding to do the same
I don't think Eurovision really cares about setting a geopolitical precedent. They just want to see drag queens singing.
Tough, Scotland is part of the UK and that is where it is staying. If there is a UK team or contestant already that UK team or contestant stays. Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
I'm not sure it's really in the Government's power, never mind Epping Town Council's power. Is Westminster really going to legislate about Eurovision?
We should refuse to send an entry if Scotland is allowed and the BBC should refuse to send any further funds as they are a UK broadcaster not a Scotland only broadcaster.
Not that the Eurovision managers would allow it anyway as it would guarantee a Catalonian entry shortly after which would see Spain withdraw too
Is this the very same Spain which is just about to send a team to Euro 2021, despite both Scotland and Wales competing in that tournament?
If there was a Catalonian team too Spain correctly would refuse to enter.
Personally I would have just one UK team for the football and cricket and rugby world cups too but we are where we are and there is not one now
I assume the BBC would have a veto on the Eurovision "plan" as I assume they "own the rights" to televise Eurovision to the UK as a whole. Although obviously we don't know what that contract really says and when it's up for renewal.
I think the BBC is more major shareholder than contractual party, via the European Broadcasting Union. I’m sure arrangements could be made for Scotland to compete separately on the basis it would make good telly, but I doubt the BBC wants the fight right now.
"European Broadcasting Union"? Yuck. We need to pull out of that euro-shite pronto.
We should spend the money on Casualty and Holby City instead.
Comments
https://twitter.com/ormondroyd/status/1397190951072849941
And, as I said, that was at the height of the statue wars. Now remember what happened when people did things to a statue of Churchill or any ohter icon of your party, or there was even a rumour that they might. That's a huge difference.
I would also add - Business complained that they couldn't claim on their insurance over the legally enforced closures. This was because this would have collapsed the insurance companies, without actually helping anyone. So furlough etc was invented.
“I hope the police catch the culprits."
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/bannockburn-robert-bruce-statue-daubed-22181026
Nor does it change the fact that Alba's whole Holyrood campaign was based around the Bruce's descendants in the Yes campaign throwing the English out of Scotland again as that video showed
Dominic Cummings will allege Boris Johnson said 'Covid is only killing 80-year-olds' when delaying the autumn lockdown
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1397193661021048837
Bolton's Covid cases are flat for the first time in a MONTH:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9613591/Has-Boltons-Indian-variant-outbreak-peaked-Infections-FLAT-time-April.html
No travel restrictions apply
Sounds like Gove has erred
17 of the 55 delegates to the Consitutional Convention owned a total of 1400 slaves. 8 of the first 12 presidents were slave-owners
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1397193661021048837?s=20
EDIT: Actually, it turns out Kirklees is no higher than upper-mid table - about 80th - in terms of number of positive tests per 100,000 (Around 8,000 per 100,000). Blackburn with Darwen is top with around 13,000 per 100,000, followed by Knowlsey, Merthyr Tydfil, Burnley, and Barking and Dagenham.) This won't equate to highest number of infections overall, though, which is basically unknowable due to the paucity of testing in the early months of the pandemic.
It's also a highly unusual approach to take in recent independence politics and no doubt helps explain why so few people voted for Alba if they are so silly as to try a video like that.
And I see you think a SNP councillor for the area should not be allowed to complain about vandalism just because it is a statue of Robert the Bruce.
And ytou still haven't explained why you want to deport Quaker children.
What say you Mr HYUFD?
What I have questioned, is the concept of vaccine makes free. Vaccines mean liberation. The example of Bolton is the latest piece of evidence they don't.
You can have two mature vaccines and still be locked down.
All this stuff is priced in. We know he is instinctively anti-lockdown. Many will be pleased to see this confirmed. Again
A sizeable section of the pro independence movement in Scotland is driven by anti English sentiment
*Witchfinder General 17thC
Edit: Poor English.
"People are suspicious that behind the agenda of many of the culture warriors on the left lies an ideology they find alien and extreme.'
Mr Blair warned that voters do not like 'their country their flag or their history being disrespected'.
'''Defund the police' may be the left's most damaging political slogan since ''the dictatorship of the proletariat'',' he said.
'People do not like their country, their flag or their history being disrespected. People like common sense, proportion and reason.'"
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/05/tony-blair-without-total-change-labour-will-die
@DPJHodges
·
25m
The reason it looks like chaos is because the Government wants to introduce a local lockdown, but is trying to avoid formalising it because of fears over a local backlash.
4,215,859 was the peak for this on 21st March.
‘It did not become illegal to own a slave in Scotland until 1778.
Until then it had been fashionable for wealthy families to have a young 'black boy' or girl 'attending' on them.
Scottish newspapers, such as the 'Edinburgh Evening Courant [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/20(1-)] and the 'Caledonian Mercury' [Shelfmark: GIVB.2/23-24] from the 1740s to the 1770s, carried adverts offering 'slaves for sale' or rewards for the capture of 'escaped slaves'.’
You could buy a slave in Scotland until 1778?!
https://www.nls.uk/collections/topics/slavery/
And it looks like slavery was quite popular in medieval Scotland too. So the Bruce remark is indeed foolish
A fascist movement founded by a former Police Inspector called Kash Singh from Bradford. Interesting. It looks to be more about inclusiveness in Bradford, which is needed.
https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/19326602.bradford-children-perform-song-annual-obon-event-launch-continues/
If you want sectarian goonery, then to go back to the National
They appear to be on the way back down. We will have an update in about 40 minutes, I hope.
That is pathetic and ridiculous.
Plus Scotland does not compete in the Olympics independently either, only as part of the UK
Normal is that we aren’t banned from going anywhere.
Normal is that, if radiation levels in a town are lethal then you are advised not to enter but it’s not actually unlawful to do so.
Normal is that you can, against Gvt advice, if you choose, travel to a country where the Black Death is everywhere or Brits are shot on sight if you can get a flight (though you’ll invalidate your insurance).
You might need some large capacity venues.
Strange but true, contemporary polling amongst non white people showed they thought Enoch Powell’s speech was good for race relations
Europeans don’t like the UK: 45%
The song wasn't good: 14%
Both: 25%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/survey-results/daily/2021/05/25/2fcb1/3?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=daily_questions&utm_campaign=question_3 https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1397198989565509638/photo/1
Yes, some of the areas with concentrations of the variant are bad (Bolton, Bedford).
Others with supermajorities of all cases being this variant are green or yellow, and falling (South Oxfordshire is just on my doorstep: majority this variant, yellow on the map, and falling).
Wiltshire: majority this variant, yellow, and falling.
West Oxfordshire is pretty much 100% Indian Variant, and while it's growing, it's down to 4 new cases in Witney and 2 new cases in Carterton, and that's it.
Maybe I'll be proven to be too blase about it, but the Kent variant swept the country in two or three weeks and saw massive spikes everywhere. This one's been stumbling around trying to spark and only achieving a handful of isolated outbreaks, primarily in the unvaccinated, and those are already largely coming under control.
Football and rugby are different as the UK does not compete as one entity (although Scotland did compete as part of the UK football team in the 2012 Olympics)
Not that the Eurovision managers would allow it anyway as it would guarantee a Catalonian entry shortly after which would see Spain withdraw too
Proportion: remove statues of slave traders and white supremacists from positions of prominence and put them in a museum where they can be placed in their historical context and understood against the prevalent historical currents.
Reason: understand our history in full rather than drawing a veil over the parts that make us feel uncomfortable or reacting angrily to those who want to discuss historical wrongs.
Football
Cricket
Rugby Union
Rugby League
Golf
Hockey
Netball
Yet it cannot be allowed to enter a drag act from Falkirk into a naff singing competition – as to do so would cause some sort of diplomatic incident?
I'm going to enjoy hearing your reasoning on this one...
The only oddity with today's polity is that the people really hacked off with the Tories for doing this will punish them by voting Tory.
I quite liked SuRie's effort in 2018 - and particularly the stoic way she delivered it after that nasty stage invasion - but she still only got to 24th.
He is having one of those days conservatives hold their head in their hands in total embarrassment and dismay
I think they were granted an entry as it was a Welsh language contestant.
So Scotland could enter a Gaelic language speaking contestant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wales_in_the_Junior_Eurovision_Song_Contest
Edit - I'd also like to point out we let Israel and Australia compete in a European music contest.
So entry to the contest is pretty flexible.
Yeah.
A Scottish public service broadcaster would need to join the EBU first, according to whatever are their membership criteria, before they could enter the song contest. Yes, the BBC have the UK rights to the broadcast.
The Government are quite right to quash this with the general law.
Personally I would have just one UK team for the football and cricket and rugby world cups too but we are where we are and there is not one now