Mixed bag of local by-elections today. Labour defences in Wigan and Falkirk, LD defence in Surrey Heath, and Con defence in Harrow. Wigan and Harrow look like nailed on defences, SNP may take Falkirk, and LDs should just hang on in Surrey.
The Wigan defence is Leigh West. Part of the Red Wall indeed, and losing through death a long-time and popular leader of Wigan Council. So. It may not be as nailed on as it appears. This is an area of plenty new build private housing that is rapidly becoming a very outer suburb of Manchester.
Interesting. Traditionally, I never expect governing parties to gain. But this is interesting territory for the Conservatives, for the reasons you say. Greater Manchester's planning document Places for Everyone is also proving something of a headache for incumbent parties in the councils across Greater Manchester (though magically, Andy Burnham has sailed serenely above the political pain this has caused.)
Not saying I expect a Tory gain, but... One thing Labour have going for them is the Leigh, Atherton and Tyldesley Together people have a candidate which will split the anti-Lab vote. Independence from Wigan was a key factor in Leigh going blue. The distaste for pie eaters by lobbygobblers dates back to the General Strike.
My niece married someone from outside her community.
She's from Yorkshire, he's from Lancashire.
Oh, and she's British-Asian and he's half Italian.
As an aside, a significant proportion of TV adverts now include couples from different ethnicities.
Its become very noticable. I understand why, but I'd be amazed if more than 10% of couples were of mixed heritage. I look sadly and my wife and I and start thinking of blacking up* in case I need to buy a sofa...
* A joke. Obviously. Just in case it outrages someone.
Anyone south and west of Bristol sees very few mixed race couples. Even down on holiday. The ads have obviously been made by someone in that there London....
BTW if anybody didn't see Josh Widdecombe on Who Do You Think You Are? - jaw-dropping is all I can say!!
I am in a mixed race/cross cultural relationship as are a good number of people of my acquaintance, including three of my close friends from secondary school, both my wife's brothers and several other members of her family, my brother, my daughter's music teacher, many of the parents of my kids' friends, about half of the parents on my son's football team, many of my friends from university and colleagues and former colleagues, many of my neighbours. I always think this is totally normal then I come on here, or go to Cornwall on holiday, and realise that it isn't...
Slightly ominous increase in admissions too, up 11% week on week.
Eek
Why eek? Have been reassured by people on here repeatedly that Covid is Over. That the months of sustained 30-40k new cases a day is no concern. That if anything it would be good if we went out and caught Covid.
Surely the pray the pox away argument can't be false?
Is that the UK now more than double the daily cases of the entire EU?
No its not. But the EU isn't testing and finding its cases in the way the UK is. The UK should copy the EU in this instance and stop all this incessant testing.
Thats a LD winning here graph.
Appears the Country (uk) with 45,000 cases a day and only 157 new deaths is doing brilliantly compared to say Germany with 2700 new cases and 15 new deaths
My niece married someone from outside her community.
She's from Yorkshire, he's from Lancashire.
Oh, and she's British-Asian and he's half Italian.
As an aside, a significant proportion of TV adverts now include couples from different ethnicities.
A significant proportion?? Virtually ALL of them, as far as I can see. It has become something of a private joke in advertising circles
Black men with white women is, for whatever reason, much more common than the reverse
“Interacial”, as I’m sure you know, is a popular category in adult videos - and one for which the white lady actress can expect to be paid extra, compared to acting with a white man. Is that racist?
If we're going to get into discussions of the adult category, then shouldn't we be more concerned with interfamilial?
That’s just very weird - but apparently is really popular in the USA, as in the most requested to producers from their paying customers.
Which I understand about as much as I understand paying $77k a year in property taxes.
Indeed, I don't get it and find it deeply disturbing.
The world’s biggest shipping line, @Maersk, said it had to divert some ships from Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port, due to congestion caused by a trucker shortage 🚛🚢
Definite empty shelves in this corner of north London. By far the worst yet
No bin liners, for some reason
A plastics shortage, perhaps, that might also explain the bottled water problem. But I'm guessing. Round here, bin liners have been awol for some time, though this week I could get a couple of rolls (does that make me a panic buyer or a hoarder?) of some brand I've not seen before. There are also some new types of cat food on the shelves, again suggesting Sainsbury's are scratching around for stock.
Catfood round here tends to mean Aldi Tuna Flakes, which are far less expensive than catfood.
Isn't tuna bad for cats?
Is it? Cats don't appear to think so. It's like cocaine to them. Which maybe proves your point.
To a degree it is alleged to be kitty-coca ie addictive.
that would be because my entirely legitimate predilections would mean that I was fishing in a smaller pool. It would not be because society was anti-gay or homophobic.
Kinabalu would applaud this exact logic when applied to racial differences. In a few years, he'll either be applauding it when it comes to the dating market or - like Graham Linehan - he'll be having bile poured on his head by the people he used to stand alongside.
It's an interesting question. Is it "racist" to have racial dating preferences?
A LOT of people do have these preferences. And they are happy to express it on dating websites in ways they would never do elsewhere
Not sure about “racist” but I think it’s rather sad and a sign of someone who probably won’t find a long term, loving, stable relationship. They’re looking for someone to slot into their existing preferences, that they can project their desires onto.
Love should be about more than that.
The profiles that express racial preferences always come across as sad, let alone bigoted. It's an unpleasant thing to say in public
However there's no denying people have honest preferences, and - as I say - it's hard to condemn for something that is very possibly innate. Like so many women preferring taller men?
Top Tip:
To avoid revealing a racial preference and appearing to be racist, simply add the following to your profile:
Music: like Wagner, dislike Reggae
Books: love My Struggle, dislike Brick Lane
Interests: history, particularly the Third Reich
Movies: Triumph of the Will, Birth of a Nation
You're a peasant. Wagner is wonderful (although a bit dull often). All books are great. The third Reich is one of the most fascinating periods of history. Early German cinema is really interesting.
I agree that Wagner is wonderful, though never dull. It's the audience that is dull not Wagner. I am over 40 years too late to have a relevant profile, but would it not be the case that if an young man, or woman, popped Wagner on their profile they are probably destined for life as a hermit?
Wagner’s music has beautiful moments but bad quarter hours.
There was an interesting if slightly eccentric programme on BBC4 titled 'We Want The Light: Jews and German Music' a couple of weeks ago, unsurprisingly Wagner figured prominently. No doubt he was a bad lad and he certainly still inspires very strong opinions among Jewish people; if I recall correctly Norman Lebrecht was particularly vituperative while Daniel Barenboim was very measured.
I saw the Proms Gotterdammerung with Barenboim in person, and what a performance it was. Nina Stemme at her best.
He suggested that Wagner the composer and Wagner the political writer were different, and that there was nothing in the works themselves to complain about, but there was in certain (and wrong) interpretations of them.
Of course, many of the left had similar views to Wagner at the time (and still do today, as we know).
Other composers also expressed anti-semitic views. Nobody complains about a programme of Chopin Nocturnes, but perhaps they should?
Via @Kantar_UKI , 23-27 September, Changes with 23 August.
Look at the fieldwork dates, they predate the Conservative conference and most of the Labour conference.
Indeed before Starmer's speech in fact.
Can anyone in the actual world remember anything about SKS's speech except that he kept being interrupted and disagreed with by shouty members of his own party who looked and sounded unelectable and made the party look the same? (Guido helpfully distilled it to 1 minute which saved a lot of time).
Has he stopped speaking yet?
Yep he has crashed a lorry on Tuesday and taken legal action against Labour supporters for whistleblowing since.
An all action kinda guy
He needs to reinstate Claudia Webbe - not just the whip, but her role deciding whether anti-semite friends of her anti-semite friend the Jeremy should be kicked out of the party.
Oh and he has formed a new diversity panel as well to tackle racism.
No Blacks and nobody of Asian extraction. In fact everybody is white
You couldnt make it up.
Except you arent even surprised with this guy.
A number of Starmer's problem MPs are women of colour; I've been wondering how he will eventually deal with them.
Slightly ominous increase in admissions too, up 11% week on week.
Eek
Why eek? Have been reassured by people on here repeatedly that Covid is Over. That the months of sustained 30-40k new cases a day is no concern. That if anything it would be good if we went out and caught Covid.
Surely the pray the pox away argument can't be false?
Is that the UK now more than double the daily cases of the entire EU?
No its not. But the EU isn't testing and finding its cases in the way the UK is. The UK should copy the EU in this instance and stop all this incessant testing.
Thats a LD winning here graph.
Appears the Country (uk) with 45,000 cases a day and only 157 new deaths is doing brilliantly compared to say Germany with 2700 new cases and 15 new deaths
UK winning here
How about Romania with 16,383 cases and 303 deaths?
that would be because my entirely legitimate predilections would mean that I was fishing in a smaller pool. It would not be because society was anti-gay or homophobic.
Kinabalu would applaud this exact logic when applied to racial differences. In a few years, he'll either be applauding it when it comes to the dating market or - like Graham Linehan - he'll be having bile poured on his head by the people he used to stand alongside.
It's an interesting question. Is it "racist" to have racial dating preferences?
A LOT of people do have these preferences. And they are happy to express it on dating websites in ways they would never do elsewhere
Not sure about “racist” but I think it’s rather sad and a sign of someone who probably won’t find a long term, loving, stable relationship. They’re looking for someone to slot into their existing preferences, that they can project their desires onto.
Love should be about more than that.
The profiles that express racial preferences always come across as sad, let alone bigoted. It's an unpleasant thing to say in public
However there's no denying people have honest preferences, and - as I say - it's hard to condemn for something that is very possibly innate. Like so many women preferring taller men?
Top Tip:
To avoid revealing a racial preference and appearing to be racist, simply add the following to your profile:
Music: like Wagner, dislike Reggae
Books: love My Struggle, dislike Brick Lane
Interests: history, particularly the Third Reich
Movies: Triumph of the Will, Birth of a Nation
You're a peasant. Wagner is wonderful (although a bit dull often). All books are great. The third Reich is one of the most fascinating periods of history. Early German cinema is really interesting.
A friend of ours, who died a couple of years ago, had a life long aim to convert everyone to an appreciation of Wagner. As a tribute to him, I put on my Christmas list a DVD of Tristan and Isolde. With my husband we watched the first act a few weeks ago. It was loooong. We decided to leave it a year or so before watching the second act. On top of that my husband decided to add to my Wagner experience by buying a bust of Wagner as an extra Christmas present for me so I now have to sit in the living room with that ghastly anti-semite looking at me (Wagner that is - not my husband.)
Via @Kantar_UKI , 23-27 September, Changes with 23 August.
Look at the fieldwork dates, they predate the Conservative conference and most of the Labour conference.
Indeed before Starmer's speech in fact.
Yes, although as no polls have really changed on the back of either Sir Keir’s or Boris’s speech, it’s probably ok to accept it as valid isn’t it?
You can still back Cons Most Seats at over 1.5. I'm on at an average 1.7. It's my best MTM betting position. My worst is short Trump both for the Nom and POTUS at an average well above where he's trading now.
Enough about Wagner or David Davis, Mick has cancelled Brown Sugar!
The skydog slaver will no longer be whipping the women just around midnight or at any other time - not at a Stones gig anyway.
This is a song that has always troubled me. Not really for the slavery aspect to it, where I think you can make a case that the song is pointing to the cruelty of the system, albeit in a rather crass and tasteless way. It's lines like "just like a young girl should" that just come off as rather eugh. I'm not sure it is a huge loss from the setlist. It's got a great riff, which I guess makes it a good live track, but they have plenty of other songs to replace it with - most of the other songs on Sticky Fingers, in fact, are better than Brown Sugar.
Via @Kantar_UKI , 23-27 September, Changes with 23 August.
Look at the fieldwork dates, they predate the Conservative conference and most of the Labour conference.
Indeed before Starmer's speech in fact.
Yes, although as no polls have really changed on the back of either Sir Keir’s or Boris’s speech, it’s probably ok to accept it as valid isn’t it?
You can still back Cons Most Seats at over 1.5. I'm on at an average 1.7. It's my best MTM betting position. My worst is short Trump both for the Nom and POTUS at an average well above where he's trading now.
I backed Con most seats at 1.79 for £25, my big bet is on the majority, but underwater at the moment. I’m on at an average of 5/4 and it’s 6/4 now
that would be because my entirely legitimate predilections would mean that I was fishing in a smaller pool. It would not be because society was anti-gay or homophobic.
Kinabalu would applaud this exact logic when applied to racial differences. In a few years, he'll either be applauding it when it comes to the dating market or - like Graham Linehan - he'll be having bile poured on his head by the people he used to stand alongside.
It's an interesting question. Is it "racist" to have racial dating preferences?
A LOT of people do have these preferences. And they are happy to express it on dating websites in ways they would never do elsewhere
Not sure about “racist” but I think it’s rather sad and a sign of someone who probably won’t find a long term, loving, stable relationship. They’re looking for someone to slot into their existing preferences, that they can project their desires onto.
Love should be about more than that.
The profiles that express racial preferences always come across as sad, let alone bigoted. It's an unpleasant thing to say in public
However there's no denying people have honest preferences, and - as I say - it's hard to condemn for something that is very possibly innate. Like so many women preferring taller men?
Top Tip:
To avoid revealing a racial preference and appearing to be racist, simply add the following to your profile:
Music: like Wagner, dislike Reggae
Books: love My Struggle, dislike Brick Lane
Interests: history, particularly the Third Reich
Movies: Triumph of the Will, Birth of a Nation
You're a peasant. Wagner is wonderful (although a bit dull often). All books are great. The third Reich is one of the most fascinating periods of history. Early German cinema is really interesting.
I agree that Wagner is wonderful, though never dull. It's the audience that is dull not Wagner. I am over 40 years too late to have a relevant profile, but would it not be the case that if an young man, or woman, popped Wagner on their profile they are probably destined for life as a hermit?
Wagner’s music has beautiful moments but bad quarter hours.
So Rossini said, but then he wrote lots of lightweight cheese.
Remarkable then, that his views should coincide so precisely with mine!
If you want music with a message, try Shostakovich.
Enough about Wagner or David Davis, Mick has cancelled Brown Sugar!
The skydog slaver will no longer be whipping the women just around midnight or at any other time - not at a Stones gig anyway.
This is a song that has always troubled me. Not really for the slavery aspect to it, where I think you can make a case that the song is pointing to the cruelty of the system, albeit in a rather crass and tasteless way. It's lines like "just like a young girl should" that just come off as rather eugh. I'm not sure it is a huge loss from the setlist. It's got a great riff, which I guess makes it a good live track, but they have plenty of other songs to replace it with - most of the other songs on Sticky Fingers, in fact, are better than Brown Sugar.
I wouldn't be seeing them now in any case. No way. Wish they'd stop. I like Brown Sugar but, yes, it has "girls = toys or meat" sentiment. Haven't done a precise study or anything but I reckon there's quite a lot of this in tracks by the big rock bands of back then. Maybe the scene they were in, all the "party" stuff happening around them, led to what were then young blokes thinking and writing in that vein. Another Stones eg - and also a song I like - is Under My Thumb. The lyrics of that are quite dark for misogyny.
Via @Kantar_UKI , 23-27 September, Changes with 23 August.
Look at the fieldwork dates, they predate the Conservative conference and most of the Labour conference.
Indeed before Starmer's speech in fact.
Yes, although as no polls have really changed on the back of either Sir Keir’s or Boris’s speech, it’s probably ok to accept it as valid isn’t it?
You can still back Cons Most Seats at over 1.5. I'm on at an average 1.7. It's my best MTM betting position. My worst is short Trump both for the Nom and POTUS at an average well above where he's trading now.
I backed Con most seats at 1.79 for £25, my big bet is on the majority, but underwater at the moment. I’m on at an average of 5/4 and it’s 6/4 now
There's our bet of course. That's about flat, I'd say.
Enough about Wagner or David Davis, Mick has cancelled Brown Sugar!
The skydog slaver will no longer be whipping the women just around midnight or at any other time - not at a Stones gig anyway.
This is a song that has always troubled me. Not really for the slavery aspect to it, where I think you can make a case that the song is pointing to the cruelty of the system, albeit in a rather crass and tasteless way. It's lines like "just like a young girl should" that just come off as rather eugh. I'm not sure it is a huge loss from the setlist. It's got a great riff, which I guess makes it a good live track, but they have plenty of other songs to replace it with - most of the other songs on Sticky Fingers, in fact, are better than Brown Sugar.
I wouldn't be seeing them now in any case. No way. Wish they'd stop. I like Brown Sugar but, yes, it has "girls = toys or meat" sentiment. Haven't done a precise study or anything but I reckon there's quite a lot of this in tracks by the big rock bands of back then. Maybe the scene they were in, all the "party" stuff happening around them, led to what were then young blokes thinking and writing in that vein. Another Stones eg - and also a song I like - is Under My Thumb. The lyrics of that are quite dark for misogyny.
Comments
One thing Labour have going for them is the Leigh, Atherton and Tyldesley Together people have a candidate which will split the anti-Lab vote.
Independence from Wigan was a key factor in Leigh going blue.
The distaste for pie eaters by lobbygobblers dates back to the General Strike.
Appears the Country (uk) with 45,000 cases a day and only 157 new deaths is doing brilliantly compared to say Germany with 2700 new cases and 15 new deaths
UK winning here
The human mind has some dark corners
They'll end up as Cityboys in banks.
He suggested that Wagner the composer and Wagner the political writer were different, and that there was nothing in the works themselves to complain about, but there was in certain (and wrong) interpretations of them.
Of course, many of the left had similar views to Wagner at the time (and still do today, as we know).
Other composers also expressed anti-semitic views. Nobody complains about a programme of Chopin Nocturnes, but perhaps they should?
New thread
The skydog slaver will no longer be whipping the women just around midnight or at any other time - not at a Stones gig anyway.
I'm not sure it is a huge loss from the setlist. It's got a great riff, which I guess makes it a good live track, but they have plenty of other songs to replace it with - most of the other songs on Sticky Fingers, in fact, are better than Brown Sugar.
If you want music with a message, try Shostakovich.