Once Charles and William actually start performing the role of monarch, and it becomes normalised, then 'support for the monarchy' will trend back up to its longstanding mean.
I think for William and Kate that's true, the public, largely, seem unconvinced by Charles. If the republicans want to win they'll go for it around 5 or 6 years into Charles' reign, I don't see him being a particularly popular monarch with anyone under 60.
Once Charles and William actually start performing the role of monarch, and it becomes normalised, then 'support for the monarchy' will trend back up to its longstanding mean.
I think for William and Kate that's true, the public, largely, seem unconvinced by Charles. If the republicans want to win they'll go for it around 5 or 6 years into Charles' reign, I don't see him being a particularly popular monarch with anyone under 60.
There will obviously never be a referendum on the monarchy while we have a Tory government and the LDs also back keeping the monarchy.
So to get such a referendum you would need a Labour majority government or one propped up by the SNP. However even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy unlike his predecessor the republican Corbyn and even Sturgeon has said she would keep the monarchy too
You’re such a fantasist. “Even” Sturgeon. Bollocks. Sturgeon’s policy is unchanged from previous decades: the issue of the monarchy will be dealt with post-independence, not pre-.
On topic, Frost is the last person the conservative party need as a leader at this time of great insensitivity over NIP, actually that should read at 'anytime'
On the monarchy, the queen has been the glue that has held it together over 7 decades but that is coming to an end and the monarchy with it's archaic traditions will have to go through colossal change to make itself relevant to modern day UK
Deference in all its forms should be abolished, as should all the parading around in military uniforms with lots of meaningless medals on display.
At the state opening of Parliament, Charles looked and sounded like a very old man and he is not the future
I do believe William and Kate understand just how rapidly this change is coming and I expect in fairly quick time we will see a much reduced monarchy no longer touring with great pomp and ceremony the commonwealth countries, nor any more bowing or walking backwards in deference, and the end of ridiculous military dressing up
I do believe most would accept a less formal, more modern monarchy, as I cannot see many wanting a republic with a President Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Nadine Dories, JRM or ANO
Why on earth would you want abolish “deference in all its forms”?
It’s just an extension of courtesy - nothing to do with the royals. It’s just respect due to someone, for example because of their age.
Servility is something totally different but barely exists any more
I do not want to abolish respect and civility, but why anyone should have to bow to someone else, or walk backwards, or generally act as an inferior to anyone else is beyond me and should be abolished wherever it takes place
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM.
Liverpool is a socialist city that voted for Corbyn in 2019 even when the UK as a whole rejected him by a landslide. Liverpool is way left of the rest of the UK
Michael Gove wants the Lords relocated to “other parts of the UK”. Wick, your day has come!
An idea that pops its head up every now and then (it was threatened during May's term IIRC) but never with any coherent reasoning for why splitting the legislature location would achieve anything.
It certainly wouldn't address London dominance. Its scale is so disproportionate to the rest of the country that is inevitable.
They have to move out of the palace anyway - they either refurb the QEII Centre or they try something different.
It’s only for a few years, so think of it as a pilot scheme
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Corbyn would have kept us in lockdown for far longer than Johnson did. So, in that respect, Johnson was the better bet.
And, he would have been very half-hearted over Ukraine.
Wasn't Boris forced to end lockdown by a Cabinet revolt?
As for Ukraine, Corbyn was critical of Russia and calling for sanctions while Boris was taking their money.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
You're projecting your views on to the mass of the population, who disagree. This is not a poor country, As I said, if people disliked pomp and ceremony, Republics would not adopt pomp and ceremony.
Some do, some don't. France certainly does, as do America and Russia. Switzerland has a rotation of the governing council for current head of state, and I can't remember an event with regal-style pomp and ceremony in the 15 years I lived there. Denmark has royalty, and has a bit of ceremony, but also films the Queen cycling and playing Scrabble. In Britain, perhaps because of memories of Empire, we go in for ceremony more, but I think most people would quite like the Royals to tone it down a bit.
Even a country as small as Latvia celebrates its independence day with huge pomp and ceremony (having been in Riga at the time).
Yes, it's not only size that affects it. Latvia is very conscious about its independent status for obvious historical reasons, in a way that would never cross the mind of the average Dane. Perhaps if Britain were a little less uneasy about our status in the modern world, we would attach less weight to tradition?
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
Horrific statistic on radio after racist killing in Buffalo. The shooter believes in 'White replacement theory' which suggests that White Americans are deliberately being replaced by immigrants.'They did a poll in Associated press four days ago which found that a third of Americans believe in it' according to BBC News
Race replacement theory is bonkers.
It is a far right conspiracy theory.
Talking of bonkers, your comparing the U.K. under Johnson to Iraq under Saddam or Zim under Mugabe was pretty much up there.
I didn't compare them. I compared the feeling of impotence one must feel when having a leader who is a cheat and a liar and who is known to be throughout the world and you can do nothing about it but rage
Course you did 🙄
My post that you are referring to " There's something strangely unnerving about having a PM who lies freely.It creates a disconnect between citizen and government. It takes away any pride or patriotism you might feel. This is what life must have felt like under a Mugabe or Saddam".
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
Maybe they can but they need to be side-lined if necessary
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
The DUP wanted Brexit, they got it. They should just live with it now. It’s what they wanted
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
Maybe they can but they need to be side-lined if necessary
Lets see where this goes
You're absolutely right - they should be sidelined. The next party in line is the Alliance...
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
How likely is it that Corbyn would have appointed the wife of a Tory MP to run the programme?
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM.
Liverpool is a socialist city that voted for Corbyn in 2019 even when the UK as a whole rejected him by a landslide. Liverpool is way left of the rest of the UK
AIUI even the blue (in footballing terms, natch) part of Liverpool thinks the city has been extremely badly done to over Hillsborough, where the Establishment apparently conspired to protect it's own.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
This has literally happened at every jubilee: silver, gold, diamond.. "it's not relevant", "no-one cares", "it will be a washout" etc.
And then it happens, it's amazing and everyone enjoys it and remembers it.
Beg to differ. Or maybe it depends where you live. The last jubilee was almost nonexistent in Scotland - I think the only street parties were in Red Morningside/Barnton and certain parts of Lanarkshire.
I don't think I've ever even seen any kind of celebration of a jubilee in my adult life. Never heard of anyone having any kind of party. Like dixiedean - I _think_ I have a vague memory of some bunting for the 1977 event - but it's so vague it may well have been on the TV news.
On the monarchy itself - I'm quite happy for Charles to get his shot as king. It'd feel cruel to me to snatch it from him after all this time. But I would be very open to a president after that. Possibly with William being the unopposed candidate to give a little continuity before it's opened up to whatever process has been decided..
@Carnyx , the missile range is on South Uist (or at least they are launched from there), with a tracking station on St Kilda.
The RAF used to have a base on Benbecula though, I remember Nimrods landing there.
#PBPedantry
Oh, that Eabhal!
Yes, on checking, quite right. Benbecula was the base for the missile work, I think, with the launches from South Uist. IWM website has pics of the missile being pulled out of the hangar at Benbecula and driven off to the firing point? But they have totally muddled their Long Island geography.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
How likely is it that Corbyn would have appointed the wife of a Tory MP to run the programme?
She did a great job managing the program. But someone else could have managed it. The key was the work done by the scientists finding something that worked, not the person managing the program.
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
We will get a much better understanding of the monarchy's place in the great scheme of things once the Queen is no longer with us. She does unite the vast majority of us. Down here in Sidmouth there are plans for a street party and celebrations, but it is noticeable (and understandable) how backward looking and nostalgic they are. The monarchy has a lot to tell us about our past. Its big challenge is to be part of our future. Saying its better than President Johnson or Blair does not really cut the mustard, because it doesn't have to be President Johnson or Blair instead of King William.
It has to be a party political politician however who half the country will hate, see France and the USA
It doesn't have to be. May countries have low-profile presidents who seem to be acceptable to large strands of political opinion.
Countries generally relatively small not permanent members of the UN Security Council with nuclear weapons who are also top 10 economies in the G7 and G20 like the UK.
If we were a republic we would have to have a grand imperial Presidency like that of the USA and France to reflect our power in the world and our current President would be President Johnson who would reside at Buckingham Palace and be head of the armed forces
UKi s 9th and sliding. 23rd on GDP. I'd be surprised if it was even No 11 by the time the crown is cancelled.
No it isn't, it is 6th by gdp and a permanent UN Security Council member with nuclear weapons
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Abide with me was sung by a choir of non whites. Draw your own conclusion.
I wonder if it had been Prince Harry there if he would have been cheered as he seems to engage more with younger people in spite of his negative rankings.
On topic, Frost is the last person the conservative party need as a leader at this time of great insensitivity over NIP, actually that should read at 'anytime'
On the monarchy, the queen has been the glue that has held it together over 7 decades but that is coming to an end and the monarchy with it's archaic traditions will have to go through colossal change to make itself relevant to modern day UK
Deference in all its forms should be abolished, as should all the parading around in military uniforms with lots of meaningless medals on display.
At the state opening of Parliament, Charles looked and sounded like a very old man and he is not the future
I do believe William and Kate understand just how rapidly this change is coming and I expect in fairly quick time we will see a much reduced monarchy no longer touring with great pomp and ceremony the commonwealth countries, nor any more bowing or walking backwards in deference, and the end of ridiculous military dressing up
I do believe most would accept a less formal, more modern monarchy, as I cannot see many wanting a republic with a President Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Nadine Dories, JRM or ANO
Why on earth would you want abolish “deference in all its forms”?
It’s just an extension of courtesy - nothing to do with the royals. It’s just respect due to someone, for example because of their age.
Servility is something totally different but barely exists any more
I do not want to abolish respect and civility, but why anyone should have to bow to someone else, or walk backwards, or generally act as an inferior to anyone else is beyond me and should be abolished wherever it takes place
Why bow or curtsey? It's asking people to abandon their self-respect and humanity. And the Tories manipulate that entire mentality, of cringing to the aristos, in so many ways.
Which one is the writing of a white supremacist and which one is Tucker Carlson?
So you believe that certain political beliefs shouldn’t be contested?
I think that's exactly what Alistair is doing there. It seems to be you who is uncomfortable with his calling out racist propaganda.
He is implying that Tucker is a racist and white supremacist (he may well be - I’ve never found him interesting enough to listen to at length).
However the two excerpts are simply saying that certain claims are never backed up with argument but simply stated as a truism (“diversity is strength”). That’s a reasonable criticism to make.
As far as I know, Carlson doesn’t then go down the dark path that the racist nut job in Buffalo did - I’m assuming the comparable text is from him but it may be someone else - of attacking and killing innocent individuals on the grounds of their colour.
My fundamental point is that shouting at someone asking a reasonable question/criticism and claiming they are racist because a known racist asked the same question is designed to stop people asking questions.
@Carnyx , the missile range is on South Uist (or at least they are launched from there), with a tracking station on St Kilda.
The RAF used to have a base on Benbecula though, I remember Nimrods landing there.
#PBPedantry
Oh, that Eabhal!
Yes, on checking, quite right. Benbecula was the base for the missile work, I think, with the launches from South Uist. IWM website has pics of the missile being pulled out of the hangar at Benbecula and driven off to the firing point? But they have totally muddled their Long Island geography.
Compton Mackenzie wrote Rockets Galore, as a sort of sequel to Whisky Galore about the episode.
Load of SUV tyres got done in Edinburgh last night.
Possible this could really escalate as an issue? There is definitely a big political divide between car drivers and others (particularly cyclists) in the city.
Frosty would be a brilliant choice as the next Tory PM. The man is a charisma vacuum, a hero to the Brexit ultras but a potential gift to the opposition. Literally the only thing going for the Tories atm is the charisma factor and the (to me utterly mystifying) appeal of the PM. Without that, a narrow Labour victory would be a rout.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Abide with me was sung by a choir of non whites. Draw your own conclusion.
I wonder if it had been Prince Harry there if he would have been cheered as he seems to engage more with younger people in spite of his negative rankings.
Liverpool is pretty racially mixed city, as one would expect of a major seaport. Can't recall whether Liverpool FC fans are more or less likely to be racially mixed than those of Everton.
Frosty would be a brilliant choice as the next Tory PM. The man is a charisma vacuum, a hero to the Brexit ultras but a potential gift to the opposition. Literally the only thing going for the Tories atm is the charisma factor and the (to me utterly mystifying) appeal of the PM. Without that, a narrow Labour victory would be a rout.
Which one is the writing of a white supremacist and which one is Tucker Carlson?
So you believe that certain political beliefs shouldn’t be contested?
I think that's exactly what Alistair is doing there. It seems to be you who is uncomfortable with his calling out racist propaganda.
He is implying that Tucker is a racist and white supremacist (he may well be - I’ve never found him interesting enough to listen to at length).
However the two excerpts are simply saying that certain claims are never backed up with argument but simply stated as a truism (“diversity is strength”). That’s a reasonable criticism to make.
As far as I know, Carlson doesn’t then go down the dark path that the racist nut job in Buffalo did - I’m assuming the comparable text is from him but it may be someone else - of attacking and killing innocent individuals on the grounds of their colour.
My fundamental point is that shouting at someone asking a reasonable question/criticism and claiming they are racist because a known racist asked the same question is designed to stop people asking questions.
10 people have been murdered by a brainwashed teen and you're defending Tucker Carlson.
Load of SUV tyres got done in Edinburgh last night.
Possible this could really escalate as an issue? There is definitely a big political divide between car drivers and others (particularly cyclists) in the city.
Been happening earlier int he year too. Morningside Assault Tractors have been targeted in the New Town and Porty for instance.
You're projecting your views on to the mass of the population, who disagree. This is not a poor country, As I said, if people disliked pomp and ceremony, Republics would not adopt pomp and ceremony.
Some do, some don't. France certainly does, as do America and Russia. Switzerland has a rotation of the governing council for current head of state, and I can't remember an event with regal-style pomp and ceremony in the 15 years I lived there. Denmark has royalty, and has a bit of ceremony, but also films the Queen cycling and playing Scrabble. In Britain, perhaps because of memories of Empire, we go in for ceremony more, but I think most people would quite like the Royals to tone it down a bit.
Even a country as small as Latvia celebrates its independence day with huge pomp and ceremony (having been in Riga at the time).
Yes, it's not only size that affects it. Latvia is very conscious about its independent status for obvious historical reasons, in a way that would never cross the mind of the average Dane. Perhaps if Britain were a little less uneasy about our status in the modern world, we would attach less weight to tradition?
Perhaps we would be less “uneasy” about our status if we didn’t have a large left wing political elite (minor member: you) which despises Britain, wants to see it broken up, wants to see it dissolved in the EU, loathes symbols of Britishness, regards the flag as racist, regards most Britons as racist, and wants to change our constitution until it no longer resembles the Britain we know.
Gee. I wonder where this “uneasiness” might come from
@Carnyx , the missile range is on South Uist (or at least they are launched from there), with a tracking station on St Kilda.
The RAF used to have a base on Benbecula though, I remember Nimrods landing there.
#PBPedantry
BTW there is a chap called Fraser Macdonald who has apparently written academic papers on that sort of thing - have not fished them out yet. He did write this book which I bought without looking carefully enough - it is not about Corporal nearly so much as the rocket scientist who was one of the development team.
My conclusion, after some pondering, is that Jubilees are like World Cups or Eurovision. Utterly enjoyable for those who take an interest. They party on and make lifelong memories. For those who don't. A bizarre event that we are somewhat aware is happening, as they are impossible to avoid. But totally forgotten. FWIW. I do remember Brian May on Buckingham Palace. But only when prompted. I doubt I'd have been able to say why he was up there. But probably would have guessed Olympics. Other than that. No memory whatsoever of jubilee 2002 or 2012.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
While agreeing with the last statement, if we hadn't left the EMA, and therefore still had a very significant role, maybe overall approval would have been quicker.
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
This has literally happened at every jubilee: silver, gold, diamond.. "it's not relevant", "no-one cares", "it will be a washout" etc.
And then it happens, it's amazing and everyone enjoys it and remembers it.
Beg to differ. Or maybe it depends where you live. The last jubilee was almost nonexistent in Scotland - I think the only street parties were in Red Morningside/Barnton and certain parts of Lanarkshire.
Royal celebrations do have their moments in Glasgow though. They even had to send in the Cossacks when the choruses of ‘you can shove your royal wedding up your arse’ became too loud in Kelvingrove.
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
This has literally happened at every jubilee: silver, gold, diamond.. "it's not relevant", "no-one cares", "it will be a washout" etc.
And then it happens, it's amazing and everyone enjoys it and remembers it.
I remember the silver. Gold, diamond? Not a clue
Gold at least had the boats on the Thames in the rain. We did a bbq. Very nice.
Was Gold the one where Brian May Was strumming his guitar on the palace roof.
Rolf Harris and Lenny Henry were at one too.
I think you may be conflating the Jubilee with the self-deprecating humour around 2012 and the subsequent national celebration of the events themselves (something which totally fooled non-Brit friends living in England who genuinely thought we expected it to be rubbish and stayed at home).
I only vaguely remember 1977, and I have my mug (there may have been sandwiches in the village hall, but then again, it might have been my friend Trevor's birthday party). The other jubilees completely passed me by.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
As we know we didn't need to sign up to that - the senior medic who signed off our vaccine as safe said that, and she'd know. But for the countries who suffered serious sanity issues by using the EU scheme, they all got the vaccine at pretty much the same time we did.
There seems to be this myth that only Boris Johnson saved us.
@Carnyx , the missile range is on South Uist (or at least they are launched from there), with a tracking station on St Kilda.
The RAF used to have a base on Benbecula though, I remember Nimrods landing there.
#PBPedantry
BTW there is a chap called Fraser Macdonald who has apparently written academic papers on that sort of thing - have not fished them out yet. He did write this book which I bought without looking carefully enough - it is not about Corporal nearly so much as the rocket scientist who was one of the development team.
Interesting - but it's not about the Rocket Range!
I have played less than ten rounds of golf in my life, but one of them was on Benbecula, where the golf course sort of surrounds the airbase, and includes the odd abandoned runway. There are great tactical advantages to be had by landing your ball on the runway, where it will bounce impressively and run on for ages. Most of my golf was that holiday. I didn't particularly take to the game. But I very much enjoyed the settings, particularly a course on the west of Arran, at sunset, with views over to the Mull of Kintyre. Where the ball went was almost incidental to the experience.
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
This has literally happened at every jubilee: silver, gold, diamond.. "it's not relevant", "no-one cares", "it will be a washout" etc.
And then it happens, it's amazing and everyone enjoys it and remembers it.
I remember the silver. Gold, diamond? Not a clue
Gold at least had the boats on the Thames in the rain. We did a bbq. Very nice.
Was Gold the one where Brian May Was strumming his guitar on the palace roof.
Rolf Harris and Lenny Henry were at one too.
I think you may be conflating the Jubilee with the self-deprecating humour around 2012 and the subsequent national celebration of the events themselves (something which totally fooled non-Brit friends living in England who genuinely thought we expected it to be rubbish and stayed at home).
I only vaguely remember 1977, and I have my mug (there may have been sandwiches in the village hall, but then again, it might have been my friend Trevor's birthday party). The other jubilees completely passed me by.
If you can remember Trevor's party, you weren't really there.
Which one is the writing of a white supremacist and which one is Tucker Carlson?
So you believe that certain political beliefs shouldn’t be contested?
I think that's exactly what Alistair is doing there. It seems to be you who is uncomfortable with his calling out racist propaganda.
He is implying that Tucker is a racist and white supremacist (he may well be - I’ve never found him interesting enough to listen to at length).
However the two excerpts are simply saying that certain claims are never backed up with argument but simply stated as a truism (“diversity is strength”). That’s a reasonable criticism to make.
As far as I know, Carlson doesn’t then go down the dark path that the racist nut job in Buffalo did - I’m assuming the comparable text is from him but it may be someone else - of attacking and killing innocent individuals on the grounds of their colour.
My fundamental point is that shouting at someone asking a reasonable question/criticism and claiming they are racist because a known racist asked the same question is designed to stop people asking questions.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
"excitement of the FA Cup final" ?
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
Once Charles and William actually start performing the role of monarch, and it becomes normalised, then 'support for the monarchy' will trend back up to its longstanding mean.
I think for William and Kate that's true, the public, largely, seem unconvinced by Charles. If the republicans want to win they'll go for it around 5 or 6 years into Charles' reign, I don't see him being a particularly popular monarch with anyone under 60.
Once Charles and William actually start performing the role of monarch, and it becomes normalised, then 'support for the monarchy' will trend back up to its longstanding mean.
I think for William and Kate that's true, the public, largely, seem unconvinced by Charles. If the republicans want to win they'll go for it around 5 or 6 years into Charles' reign, I don't see him being a particularly popular monarch with anyone under 60.
There will obviously never be a referendum on the monarchy while we have a Tory government and the LDs also back keeping the monarchy.
So to get such a referendum you would need a Labour majority government or one propped up by the SNP. However even Starmer has said he now backs a reformed monarchy unlike his predecessor the republican Corbyn and even Sturgeon has said she would keep the monarchy too
the issue of the monarchy will be dealt with post-independence, not pre-.
Bit like the currency, EU membership and pretty much everything else then….
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
We will get a much better understanding of the monarchy's place in the great scheme of things once the Queen is no longer with us. She does unite the vast majority of us. Down here in Sidmouth there are plans for a street party and celebrations, but it is noticeable (and understandable) how backward looking and nostalgic they are. The monarchy has a lot to tell us about our past. Its big challenge is to be part of our future. Saying its better than President Johnson or Blair does not really cut the mustard, because it doesn't have to be President Johnson or Blair instead of King William.
It has to be a party political politician however who half the country will hate, see France and the USA
It doesn't have to be. May countries have low-profile presidents who seem to be acceptable to large strands of political opinion.
Countries generally relatively small not permanent members of the UN Security Council with nuclear weapons who are also top 10 economies in the G7 and G20 like the UK.
If we were a republic we would have to have a grand imperial Presidency like that of the USA and France to reflect our power in the world and our current President would be President Johnson who would reside at Buckingham Palace and be head of the armed forces
UKi s 9th and sliding. 23rd on GDP. I'd be surprised if it was even No 11 by the time the crown is cancelled.
No it isn't, it is 6th by gdp and a permanent UN Security Council member with nuclear weapons
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
The DUP wanted Brexit, they got it. They should just live with it now. It’s what they wanted
More than that - the DUP had the opportunity of No Border between the GB and NI through May's deal and they rejected it.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Abide with me was sung by a choir of non whites. Draw your own conclusion.
I wonder if it had been Prince Harry there if he would have been cheered as he seems to engage more with younger people in spite of his negative rankings.
Liverpool is pretty racially mixed city, as one would expect of a major seaport. Can't recall whether Liverpool FC fans are more or less likely to be racially mixed than those of Everton.
Minor quibble: I don’t have the figures right now, but in the 90s at least, Liverpool was surprisingly white, at least compared to Manchester or Birmingham. Not quite as white as Newcastle or Sheffield, but getting there. The interesting feature of Liverpool's racial mix was that the largest ethnic minority was the Chinese.
Preveza is delightful. Everyone should come here on a Sunday morning when the whole town takes coffee and mini honey-and-cinnamon doughnuts while staring at the boats in the harbour
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
We will get a much better understanding of the monarchy's place in the great scheme of things once the Queen is no longer with us. She does unite the vast majority of us. Down here in Sidmouth there are plans for a street party and celebrations, but it is noticeable (and understandable) how backward looking and nostalgic they are. The monarchy has a lot to tell us about our past. Its big challenge is to be part of our future. Saying its better than President Johnson or Blair does not really cut the mustard, because it doesn't have to be President Johnson or Blair instead of King William.
It has to be a party political politician however who half the country will hate, see France and the USA
It doesn't have to be. May countries have low-profile presidents who seem to be acceptable to large strands of political opinion.
Countries generally relatively small not permanent members of the UN Security Council with nuclear weapons who are also top 10 economies in the G7 and G20 like the UK.
If we were a republic we would have to have a grand imperial Presidency like that of the USA and France to reflect our power in the world and our current President would be President Johnson who would reside at Buckingham Palace and be head of the armed forces
UKi s 9th and sliding. 23rd on GDP. I'd be surprised if it was even No 11 by the time the crown is cancelled.
No it isn't, it is 6th by gdp and a permanent UN Security Council member with nuclear weapons
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
Maybe they can but they need to be side-lined if necessary
Lets see where this goes
You're absolutely right - they should be sidelined. The next party in line is the Alliance...
They can't be sidelined as the largest Unionist party has to be in the Stormont executive under the GFA and the DUP were second not the Alliance
Interesting stuff re Monarchy. The deference has gone already I feel. As has much of the overt fawning. We are now three weeks from the Jubilee. I don't see a single decoration or sign that it is taking place anywhere. I may have been a kid then, but ISTR the 1977 one and the wedding of Charles and Di being front and centre of the Nation's activity for months beforehand. Meanwhile. Yet another mass shooting in America. Racially motivated by a teenager. So commonplace it passes without comment. Deep sighs.
Edit. I see it was linked to as I typed that.
We will get a much better understanding of the monarchy's place in the great scheme of things once the Queen is no longer with us. She does unite the vast majority of us. Down here in Sidmouth there are plans for a street party and celebrations, but it is noticeable (and understandable) how backward looking and nostalgic they are. The monarchy has a lot to tell us about our past. Its big challenge is to be part of our future. Saying its better than President Johnson or Blair does not really cut the mustard, because it doesn't have to be President Johnson or Blair instead of King William.
It has to be a party political politician however who half the country will hate, see France and the USA
It doesn't have to be. May countries have low-profile presidents who seem to be acceptable to large strands of political opinion.
Countries generally relatively small not permanent members of the UN Security Council with nuclear weapons who are also top 10 economies in the G7 and G20 like the UK.
If we were a republic we would have to have a grand imperial Presidency like that of the USA and France to reflect our power in the world and our current President would be President Johnson who would reside at Buckingham Palace and be head of the armed forces
UKi s 9th and sliding. 23rd on GDP. I'd be surprised if it was even No 11 by the time the crown is cancelled.
No it isn't, it is 6th by gdp and a permanent UN Security Council member with nuclear weapons
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
How likely is it that Corbyn would have appointed the wife of a Tory MP to run the programme?
She did a great job managing the program. But someone else could have managed it. The key was the work done by the scientists finding something that worked, not the person managing the program.
I'd say the management of the programme, and acquiring the right number of doses, was quite important, as the utter shambles on the continent demonstrates.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
So the LibDems are Socialist?
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
As we know we didn't need to sign up to that - the senior medic who signed off our vaccine as safe said that, and she'd know. But for the countries who suffered serious sanity issues by using the EU scheme, they all got the vaccine at pretty much the same time we did.
There seems to be this myth that only Boris Johnson saved us.
Your misreading.
The EU scheme as offered to the U.K. was beyond rubbish. Only the most fanatical Europhile could have thought it was a good idea.
Inside the EU it worked (mostly). As everyone expected, the French played fast and lose at the edges. The demand for an order for the failing French vaccine - despite bad early trial data - had people holding their heads and going “not now, for fucks sake”
Overall the U.K. setup delivered a bit faster (a month or 2) because it went for the approach of “multiple vaccines, be prepared to waste money on failures” harder than the EU. Which was the rational approach, given the situation.
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I hope all parties insist that they should all be in the room at the same time to prevent the FLSOJ using his favoured tactic of telling each of them what they want to hear.
It appears Truss is being lined up to take the blame for this particular stage of the clusterfuck.
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
Maybe they can but they need to be side-lined if necessary
Lets see where this goes
You're absolutely right - they should be sidelined. The next party in line is the Alliance...
They can't be sidelined as the largest Unionist party has to be in the Stormont executive under the GFA and the DUP were second not the Alliance
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
"excitement of the FA Cup final" ?
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
The FA Cup currently has the same value as the LDV vans trophy or the Conference playoff semi final first leg. Abide with me, on the other hand, is a beautiful, soulful, thoughtful hymn and its nice that idiots are still forced to listen to it before they play kickabout. A reminder to them that better, purer things will still be there after they've sung insulting chants at each other and wished cock rot on the opposition team.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
While agreeing with the last statement, if we hadn't left the EMA, and therefore still had a very significant role, maybe overall approval would have been quicker.
If the EMA hadn’t evacuated its operation (if only some of its staff) from London in great haste before BREXIT perhaps the EU could have approved vaccines faster.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Abide with me was sung by a choir of non whites. Draw your own conclusion.
I wonder if it had been Prince Harry there if he would have been cheered as he seems to engage more with younger people in spite of his negative rankings.
Liverpool is pretty racially mixed city, as one would expect of a major seaport. Can't recall whether Liverpool FC fans are more or less likely to be racially mixed than those of Everton.
Minor quibble: I don’t have the figures right now, but in the 90s at least, Liverpool was surprisingly white, at least compared to Manchester or Birmingham. Not quite as white as Newcastle or Sheffield, but getting there. The interesting feature of Liverpool's racial mix was that the largest ethnic minority was the Chinese.
Quibble noted. Thanks. Only been a couple of times, probably making assumptions from working OUAT in Manchester.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
As we know we didn't need to sign up to that - the senior medic who signed off our vaccine as safe said that, and she'd know. But for the countries who suffered serious sanity issues by using the EU scheme, they all got the vaccine at pretty much the same time we did.
There seems to be this myth that only Boris Johnson saved us.
And others are very keen to propagate a myth that Boris Johnson killed hundreds of thousands by botching the Covid crisis, that the UK was the worst country in Europe for it, etc, etc. We've seen loads of posts making those incorrect points time and time again.
The truth is in the middle: the government could have handled things better, but they could also have handled things much, much worse. Given the unprecedented nature of the crisis, and the untested mechanisms we had to handle it, I don't think the government did too badly.
But it could have done much, much worse. Corbyn is an ideologue. I can't see him doing anything that does not fit in with his rigid, dead ideology. And the vaccine development and rollout would have been a function of that ideology.
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
Maybe they can but they need to be side-lined if necessary
Lets see where this goes
You're absolutely right - they should be sidelined. The next party in line is the Alliance...
They can't be sidelined as the largest Unionist party has to be in the Stormont executive under the GFA and the DUP were second not the Alliance
Here I fear you are talking sense.
FLSOJ flying in to tear up treaties. But we can't touch the GFA because treaty. He isn't talking sense.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
How likely is it that Corbyn would have appointed the wife of a Tory MP to run the programme?
She did a great job managing the program. But someone else could have managed it. The key was the work done by the scientists finding something that worked, not the person managing the program.
I'd say the management of the programme, and acquiring the right number of doses, was quite important, as the utter shambles on the continent demonstrates.
The person(s) managing an organisation is often vital.
The modern cult of the anti-CEO, where the boss is irrelevant and overpaid is just another reaction. Like most reactionary ideas it is generally bollocks.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
While agreeing with the last statement, if we hadn't left the EMA, and therefore still had a very significant role, maybe overall approval would have been quicker.
If the EMA hadn’t evacuated its operation (if only some of its staff) from London in great haste before BREXIT perhaps the EU could have approved vaccines faster.
IIRC the EMA was about the first EU group we left.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
So the LibDems are Socialist?
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
Under Charles Kennedy the LDs were certainly more socialist than Blair's New Labour, let alone IDS and Howard's Tories.
Even if now Starmer Labour is more socialist than Davey's LDs and Johnson's Tories and Corbyn's Labour were far more socialist than Swinson's LDs
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
Ok, where is the most socialist city in the UK, if not Liverpool? Manchester? Stuart Maconie is quite interesting in contrasting the socialism of Manchester and Liverpool in Pies and Prejudice. He paints Liverpool's leftiness as more showy, leftier, but less sincerely felt, Manchester's as dourer and worthier but less noticeable to the outside world. Manchester has been solidly Labour for decades, but it is - at least since 1987 - a pragmatic, unnewsworthy brand of Labour. You could reasonably consider it either less or more socialist than Liverpool depending on how you were measuring it.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
So the LibDems are Socialist?
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
Or maybe the Tories are actually the socialists now? Profligate spending on their client base, in-fighting, exhausted ideas that had value 100 years ago, distorted to the point of perversion by a new establishment that sees themselves as an oppressed minority.
@Carnyx , the missile range is on South Uist (or at least they are launched from there), with a tracking station on St Kilda.
The RAF used to have a base on Benbecula though, I remember Nimrods landing there.
#PBPedantry
BTW there is a chap called Fraser Macdonald who has apparently written academic papers on that sort of thing - have not fished them out yet. He did write this book which I bought without looking carefully enough - it is not about Corporal nearly so much as the rocket scientist who was one of the development team.
Interesting - but it's not about the Rocket Range!
I have played less than ten rounds of golf in my life, but one of them was on Benbecula, where the golf course sort of surrounds the airbase, and includes the odd abandoned runway. There are great tactical advantages to be had by landing your ball on the runway, where it will bounce impressively and run on for ages. Most of my golf was that holiday. I didn't particularly take to the game. But I very much enjoyed the settings, particularly a course on the west of Arran, at sunset, with views over to the Mull of Kintyre. Where the ball went was almost incidental to the experience.
There is a quirky stat about the worlds longest holed out golf shot by Jose Maria Olazabal which went 9.232 miles that also kind of involved a runway. How did it go so far?
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
Ok, where is the most socialist city in the UK, if not Liverpool? Manchester? Stuart Maconie is quite interesting in contrasting the socialism of Manchester and Liverpool in Pies and Prejudice. He paints Liverpool's leftiness as more showy, leftier, but less sincerely felt, Manchester's as dourer and worthier but less noticeable to the outside world. Manchester has been solidly Labour for decades, but it is - at least since 1987 - a pragmatic, unnewsworthy brand of Labour. You could reasonably consider it either less or more socialist than Liverpool depending on how you were measuring it.
Somewhere controlled by the SNP. Dundee, perhaps, for instance. They're more leftwing than Labour.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
Ok, where is the most socialist city in the UK, if not Liverpool? Manchester? Stuart Maconie is quite interesting in contrasting the socialism of Manchester and Liverpool in Pies and Prejudice. He paints Liverpool's leftiness as more showy, leftier, but less sincerely felt, Manchester's as dourer and worthier but less noticeable to the outside world. Manchester has been solidly Labour for decades, but it is - at least since 1987 - a pragmatic, unnewsworthy brand of Labour. You could reasonably consider it either less or more socialist than Liverpool depending on how you were measuring it.
There's a lot of Fabianism in Manchester, still. Not so much in Liverpool.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
So the LibDems are Socialist?
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
Under Charles Kennedy the LDs were certainly more socialist than Blair's New Labour, let alone IDS and Howard's Tories.
Even if now Starmer Labour is more socialist than Davey's LDs and Johnson's Tories and Corbyn's Labour were far more socialist than Swinson's LDs
How do you define Charles K as a 'socialist'. I don't, for example, recall him advocating nationalisation.
Johnson in Belfast today in a dishonest broker role to get all parties into Stormont and supporting his shenanigans over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
An interesting approach to the problem (he created).
I thought he had flown to the UAE following the death of their leader and is due in Northern Ireland tomorrow
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Common sense? The DUP? They lost the election and refuse to play. "THIS IS OURS" so they think they can just shut it down in a strop
Maybe they can but they need to be side-lined if necessary
Lets see where this goes
You're absolutely right - they should be sidelined. The next party in line is the Alliance...
They can't be sidelined as the largest Unionist party has to be in the Stormont executive under the GFA and the DUP were second not the Alliance
Here I fear you are talking sense.
FLSOJ flying in to tear up treaties. But we can't touch the GFA because treaty. He isn't talking sense.
Ah, but the Protocol was his own treaty. Yes I know.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Abide with me was sung by a choir of non whites. Draw your own conclusion.
I wonder if it had been Prince Harry there if he would have been cheered as he seems to engage more with younger people in spite of his negative rankings.
Liverpool is pretty racially mixed city, as one would expect of a major seaport. Can't recall whether Liverpool FC fans are more or less likely to be racially mixed than those of Everton.
Minor quibble: I don’t have the figures right now, but in the 90s at least, Liverpool was surprisingly white, at least compared to Manchester or Birmingham. Not quite as white as Newcastle or Sheffield, but getting there. The interesting feature of Liverpool's racial mix was that the largest ethnic minority was the Chinese.
Yes. Rather like fellow ports Cardiff, and I think Bristol maybe too, it has a long-standing Black population going back many, many decades before Windrush. But one which remains very small as a percentage.
Dan kicking Keir in the integrity this morning on twitter. He's toned down the wingnut and struck out at the obviously bullshit parts of SKS's unilateral declaration of integrity. Enjoyable knockabout.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
So the LibDems are Socialist?
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
Under Charles Kennedy the LDs were certainly more socialist than Blair's New Labour, let alone IDS and Howard's Tories.
Even if now Starmer Labour is more socialist than Davey's LDs and Johnson's Tories and Corbyn's Labour were far more socialist than Swinson's LDs
How do you define Charles K as a 'socialist'. I don't, for example, recall him advocating nationalisation.
A short recap of German Twitter on #ESC2022 : “What a farce” “Ukraine didn’t play by the rules !!” “No one likes us, they only want our money” “This shouldn’t be so political !” “6 points for Germany is so unfair !” “This has nothing to do with the actual music
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
So the LibDems are Socialist?
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
Under Charles Kennedy the LDs were certainly more socialist than Blair's New Labour, let alone IDS and Howard's Tories.
Even if now Starmer Labour is more socialist than Davey's LDs and Johnson's Tories and Corbyn's Labour were far more socialist than Swinson's LDs
How do you define Charles K as a 'socialist'. I don't, for example, recall him advocating nationalisation.
Kennedy wanted to tax the rich more than Blair and increase the top rate of tax more than Blair and spend more than Blair and he opposed most private sector involvement in the public sector unlike Blair.
As I said Charles Kennedy was left of Blair and more socialist than Blair
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
"excitement of the FA Cup final" ?
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
My memory of the 1980s I'd that the world stopped for the FA Cup final. It was on two out of four TV channels. The streets were empty. There was certainly no other football on the same day. There was almost no other sport on the same day. No one would get married on FA Cup Final day. I can still remember all the FA Cup finals of the 80s. Whereas I couldn't tell you who won it last year. Obviously the fans of the respective teams still watch it, and the sort of people who will watch a football match or a major sporting event if it happens to be on telly (like my wife, and therefore, for indirect reasons, me). But it feels like the attention it commands is much diminished. I don't know if I'm just extrapolating from myself here.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
1) Would Corbyn have commissioned the vaccine program in the same manner? Do you think there's a chance that he would have either tried to be a partner in the European program, or even gone with (say) the Chinese vaccines, or even the Russian Sputnik one?
2) It all had to be paid for. No funding, no program.
This is a man who will not even say whether he has been vaccinated - something I think is vital for *all* politicians in this crisis. It isn't particularly personal information, and it is sure as heck not as if they're telling the public if they've ever had an STD. I see zero reason that he would not let his own personal ideology creep - or lead - the vaccine program. And that would have been a disaster.
I wasn't so much talking about Corbyn as poking at the Johnson Sainthood that gets projected onto him. He didn't develop the vaccine - the scientists did. It wasn't down to him that the scientists developed it when they did, its down to the scientists.
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The EU vaccine scheme was a bad idea because, the offer to the U.K. was
1) give us the money 2) have no say on what vaccines are procured. 3) no say on timing, regulation etc 4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
While agreeing with the last statement, if we hadn't left the EMA, and therefore still had a very significant role, maybe overall approval would have been quicker.
If the EMA hadn’t evacuated its operation (if only some of its staff) from London in great haste before BREXIT perhaps the EU could have approved vaccines faster.
IIRC the EMA was about the first EU group we left.
Because they bolted from their London HQ and tried to renege on their lease?
On topic - I agree with TSE, it's an amusing sequence of events, but isn't going to happen. He won't be selected, if he's selected he won't win, if he wins he still won't be next leader. A bit more plausible than Ian Blackford, I concede.
If Johnson were to resign, e.g. because of Partygate, the Tories would have to decide if they wanted calm moderation (the overwhelmingly obvious candidate for that being Hunt, not Tugendhat or Javid) or a defender of the faith (presumably Truss). If Johnson had resigned due to embarrassing circusmtances, they might feel that prudence suggested the former. But I'm not sure that the current membership is that level-headed.
I'm a constituent of Hunt's and like him, though not to the point of voting for him or the Tories. But I do know lots of ex-Tories who would return to the fold if he were leader.
A problem Hunt increasingly has is that he's effectively 'gone missing' while the country has had three turbulent years.
Has anyone become PM while sulking on the backbenches for so long when their party was in government ?
Which one is the writing of a white supremacist and which one is Tucker Carlson?
So you believe that certain political beliefs shouldn’t be contested?
I think that's exactly what Alistair is doing there. It seems to be you who is uncomfortable with his calling out racist propaganda.
He is implying that Tucker is a racist and white supremacist (he may well be - I’ve never found him interesting enough to listen to at length).
However the two excerpts are simply saying that certain claims are never backed up with argument but simply stated as a truism (“diversity is strength”). That’s a reasonable criticism to make.
As far as I know, Carlson doesn’t then go down the dark path that the racist nut job in Buffalo did - I’m assuming the comparable text is from him but it may be someone else - of attacking and killing innocent individuals on the grounds of their colour.
My fundamental point is that shouting at someone asking a reasonable question/criticism and claiming they are racist because a known racist asked the same question is designed to stop people asking questions.
I agree with you that making extreme statements should not be conflated with murder. I think you may be straining the point by implying that Carlson is noted for "reasonable questions/criticism" - see the link to his thoughts elsewhere on this thread. There's reasonable criticism. There's unreasonable criticism. And there's murder. They are three different things.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
How likely is it that Corbyn would have appointed the wife of a Tory MP to run the programme?
She did a great job managing the program. But someone else could have managed it. The key was the work done by the scientists finding something that worked, not the person managing the program.
I'd say the management of the programme, and acquiring the right number of doses, was quite important, as the utter shambles on the continent demonstrates.
The person(s) managing an organisation is often vital.
The modern cult of the anti-CEO, where the boss is irrelevant and overpaid is just another reaction. Like most reactionary ideas it is generally bollocks.
The funny thing about the Mail's reactionary outrage is that it will make it more of a 'thing' to boo the royals.
They really do shoot themselves in the foot.
I find it interesting though. I'm not sure I would boo William but I get this sense at the moment that reminds me so much of 1992-7. During that time there was this same reactionary 'Back to Basics' guff and outrage from the right wing press. The same Nasty Party rearing its ugly head. But all the while the country was getting ready to move on.
Times they are a changing.
No it doesn't at all, just shows the fact that Liverpool is the most socialist city in the UK after Glasgow and does not have a single Tory MP. Indeed every MP in Liverpool is Labour and there are no Tory councillors in Liverpool either despite the Tory landslide in the rest of the UK in 2019
Liverpool - the city, the people - feel a visceral outrage towards the establishment due to the Hillsborough cover-up. Thats all it is. As "the most socialist city in the UK" they had a LibDem council recently.
So its not socialism, you can't make simplistic sneering comments like that. Or you can, if you want to fuel their justified hate for your lot.
The only time Liverpool did not have a Labour Council this century was in the Blair years when Charles Kennedy's LDs were arguably more socialist than Blair's New Labour. So that does not defeat the point at all. Now every Liverpool MP is Labour and the council is Labour controlled too.
Liverpool is a socialist city
Genuine delusion. You don't have a point for me to defeat. Its literally you talking utter laughable bollocks and doubling down over and over and over.
As Wogan said to David Icke, "they're laughing AT you"
There are no Tory MPs or Tory councillors in Liverpool despite the fact we have a Tory government elected by a landslide in 2019
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM
Yes. A city that has a LibDem council for 12 years in recent times is not "the most socialist city in the UK".
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It had a Lib Dem Council when the LDs were leftwing under Charles Kennedy and indeed more leftwing than New Labour.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
So the LibDems are Socialist?
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
Under Charles Kennedy the LDs were certainly more socialist than Blair's New Labour, let alone IDS and Howard's Tories.
Even if now Starmer Labour is more socialist than Davey's LDs and Johnson's Tories and Corbyn's Labour were far more socialist than Swinson's LDs
The LDs have never been socialist. I am anti socialist and have never felt uncomfortable in the LDs.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
"excitement of the FA Cup final" ?
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
My memory of the 1980s I'd that the world stopped for the FA Cup final. It was on two out of four TV channels. The streets were empty. There was certainly no other football on the same day. There was almost no other sport on the same day. No one would get married on FA Cup Final day. I can still remember all the FA Cup finals of the 80s. Whereas I couldn't tell you who won it last year. Obviously the fans of the respective teams still watch it, and the sort of people who will watch a football match or a major sporting event if it happens to be on telly (like my wife, and therefore, for indirect reasons, me). But it feels like the attention it commands is much diminished. I don't know if I'm just extrapolating from myself here.
Grandstand would have footage of the teams that morning having a fry up and a couple of pints for breakfast at the team hotel, then they'd follow the coaches and the teams would show off their hideous suits, have a couple of pints and head to the changing room. There would be an extensive discussion on what history and 'luck' tells you about the dressing room you got and then the teams would have a couple of pints watching good luck messages from club legends. Also, interviews with the club magic sponge boy and mascots while they enjoyed a couple of pints
On topic - I agree with TSE, it's an amusing sequence of events, but isn't going to happen. He won't be selected, if he's selected he won't win, if he wins he still won't be next leader. A bit more plausible than Ian Blackford, I concede.
If Johnson were to resign, e.g. because of Partygate, the Tories would have to decide if they wanted calm moderation (the overwhelmingly obvious candidate for that being Hunt, not Tugendhat or Javid) or a defender of the faith (presumably Truss). If Johnson had resigned due to embarrassing circusmtances, they might feel that prudence suggested the former. But I'm not sure that the current membership is that level-headed.
I'm a constituent of Hunt's and like him, though not to the point of voting for him or the Tories. But I do know lots of ex-Tories who would return to the fold if he were leader.
A problem Hunt increasingly has is that he's effectively 'gone missing' while the country has had three turbulent years.
Has anyone become PM while sulking on the backbenches for so long when their party was in government ?
Not W. Churchill. He did sulk for years, but he was FL of the Admiralty for the first 8 months of the war, so doesn't count.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
And of course lockdown wasn't something which was 'switched on'.
Restriction had started to be brought in ten days before lockdown was officially implemented.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
"excitement of the FA Cup final" ?
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
My memory of the 1980s I'd that the world stopped for the FA Cup final. It was on two out of four TV channels. The streets were empty. There was certainly no other football on the same day. There was almost no other sport on the same day. No one would get married on FA Cup Final day. I can still remember all the FA Cup finals of the 80s. Whereas I couldn't tell you who won it last year. Obviously the fans of the respective teams still watch it, and the sort of people who will watch a football match or a major sporting event if it happens to be on telly (like my wife, and therefore, for indirect reasons, me). But it feels like the attention it commands is much diminished. I don't know if I'm just extrapolating from myself here.
It was the only domestic club match in the country televised live. Is probably the explanation for that. We had. Home Internationals. The European finals. The FA Cup Final. Not even the League Cup I think. That was it for live football.
It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson, but David Frost could be it. A man of no achievement with a sub-mediocre mind with no political experience and no support base of any kind beyond the comment pages of the Telegraph would be an absolute disaster. Not even the Taliban Tories would be so stupid, would they?
"It is almost impossible to imagine a worse choice for Prime Minister than Boris Johnson"
It is far, far from impossible. Labour's candidate for the 2019 GE is an example: particularly given the two crises that have faced the country since then. Corbyn would have been disastrous with both the Covid crisis and the Ukrainian War. The former we did not do too badly at, nor well; but on the latter we've done very well indeed IMO.
And we came very near having PM Corbyn during both of these.
I'd hope both parties consider this and try to get leaders who are more competent than Johnson or Corbyn.
I always thought that Johnson was the better choice than Corbyn, but now I am not so sure. Labour MPs at least sought to remove Corbyn and would have had a lot of control over him if he had got into office. I am not sure they would have played along with him undoing the UK's democracy in the way that Tory MPs have allowed Johnson to do.
I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. And Ukraine would have seen him toppled.
"I suspect that Corbyn's handling of Covid would have produced similar overall results to Johnson's. "
Why do you suspect that? He has refused to say if he has been vaccinated. It was vital for politicians to encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated, which was why we saw politicians publicising getting vaccinated once it was their turn. Corbyn sadly has quite a following in a demographic where (AIUI) vaccination rates are lower, and his unequivocally saying that he had been vaccinated would have helped.
I'm also unsure how well he would have tackled vaccine procurement, given the inclusion of big pharma (boo, hiss).
"And Ukraine would have seen him toppled."
Which would have been too late to help Ukraine.
The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn and a lot more would have been spent on ensuring people on low incomes did not have to go to work while the pandemic raged. Care homes would also have been better looked after. Vaccine procurement would certainly have been an issue, but the roll-out would have happened against a backdrop of fewer initial deaths.
Corbyn would have had to have stopped sending help to Ukraine as he would have inherited a situation where it was happening, so it would have been an issue from Day One of his premiership.
Of course, he would have been a desperately poor PM and he should never have been offered as a choice. Having seen Johnson's performance over the last two and a half years - and in particular his attacks on our democracy and the rule of law - I just don't think Corbyn would have been worse.
You have zero evidence any of that would have happened. As an example: "The UK would have locked down far earlier under Corbyn". We locked down on the 23rd March. How much earlier do you think 'far' earlier was?
What got us out of the mess was vaccine development, purchase and roll-out. Lockdowns gave us time; vaccines have given us freedom. I see *zero* reason to believe that Corbyn would have done as well as this government did in any of those areas, and plenty of indications that he would have done worse.
Your point about vaccine development. Once the government commissioned the vaccine programme they were in the hands of the scientists working in academia and the private sector. How quickly they got to a working and safe vaccine wouldn't have been influenced by whom the PM was.
How likely is it that Corbyn would have appointed the wife of a Tory MP to run the programme?
She did a great job managing the program. But someone else could have managed it. The key was the work done by the scientists finding something that worked, not the person managing the program.
I'd say the management of the programme, and acquiring the right number of doses, was quite important, as the utter shambles on the continent demonstrates.
The person(s) managing an organisation is often vital.
The modern cult of the anti-CEO, where the boss is irrelevant and overpaid is just another reaction. Like most reactionary ideas it is generally bollocks.
On topic, Frost is the last person the conservative party need as a leader at this time of great insensitivity over NIP, actually that should read at 'anytime'
On the monarchy, the queen has been the glue that has held it together over 7 decades but that is coming to an end and the monarchy with it's archaic traditions will have to go through colossal change to make itself relevant to modern day UK
Deference in all its forms should be abolished, as should all the parading around in military uniforms with lots of meaningless medals on display.
At the state opening of Parliament, Charles looked and sounded like a very old man and he is not the future
I do believe William and Kate understand just how rapidly this change is coming and I expect in fairly quick time we will see a much reduced monarchy no longer touring with great pomp and ceremony the commonwealth countries, nor any more bowing or walking backwards in deference, and the end of ridiculous military dressing up
I do believe most would accept a less formal, more modern monarchy, as I cannot see many wanting a republic with a President Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Nadine Dories, JRM or ANO
Why on earth would you want abolish “deference in all its forms”?
It’s just an extension of courtesy - nothing to do with the royals. It’s just respect due to someone, for example because of their age.
Servility is something totally different but barely exists any more
I do not want to abolish respect and civility, but why anyone should have to bow to someone else, or walk backwards, or generally act as an inferior to anyone else is beyond me and should be abolished wherever it takes place
Why bow or curtsey? It's asking people to abandon their self-respect and humanity. And the Tories manipulate that entire mentality, of cringing to the aristos, in so many ways.
While I agree with your first two sentences, I don't really recognise your third. Most Tories I know see aristos as an amusing irrelevance, meriting neither respect nor disrespect.
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
"excitement of the FA Cup final" ?
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
My memory of the 1980s I'd that the world stopped for the FA Cup final. It was on two out of four TV channels. The streets were empty. There was certainly no other football on the same day. There was almost no other sport on the same day. No one would get married on FA Cup Final day. I can still remember all the FA Cup finals of the 80s. Whereas I couldn't tell you who won it last year. Obviously the fans of the respective teams still watch it, and the sort of people who will watch a football match or a major sporting event if it happens to be on telly (like my wife, and therefore, for indirect reasons, me). But it feels like the attention it commands is much diminished. I don't know if I'm just extrapolating from myself here.
Grandstand would have footage of the teams that morning having a fry up and a couple of pints for breakfast at the team hotel, then they'd follow the coaches and the teams would show off their hideous suits, have a couple of pints and head to the changing room. There would be an extensive discussion on what history and 'luck' tells you about the dressing room you got and then the teams would have a couple of pints watching good luck messages from club legends. Also, interviews with the club magic sponge boy and mascots while they enjoyed a couple of pints
Just watched the Liverpool fans booing the National Anthem AND Abide with Me
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
Well done, Liverpool fans. The tune is a dirge, and totally out of keeping with the excitement of the FA Cup final. It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
"excitement of the FA Cup final" ?
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
My memory of the 1980s I'd that the world stopped for the FA Cup final. It was on two out of four TV channels. The streets were empty. There was certainly no other football on the same day. There was almost no other sport on the same day. No one would get married on FA Cup Final day. I can still remember all the FA Cup finals of the 80s. Whereas I couldn't tell you who won it last year. Obviously the fans of the respective teams still watch it, and the sort of people who will watch a football match or a major sporting event if it happens to be on telly (like my wife, and therefore, for indirect reasons, me). But it feels like the attention it commands is much diminished. I don't know if I'm just extrapolating from myself here.
Certainly the amount games on TV has made the cup final less of a big event. But it’s also a function of the dominance of the Big 6 (well, Big 5, one of the Big 6 hasn’t been in an FA Cup Final since 1991...).
Liverpool v Chelsea is a bit “meh”. If there’s a Hull or a Palace or even a Leicester, it adds to the event as it’s a very big deal for that club and the supporters. I honestly couldn’t care who won yesterday. I dislike both clubs, so I had no one to support.
On topic, Frost is the last person the conservative party need as a leader at this time of great insensitivity over NIP, actually that should read at 'anytime'
On the monarchy, the queen has been the glue that has held it together over 7 decades but that is coming to an end and the monarchy with it's archaic traditions will have to go through colossal change to make itself relevant to modern day UK
Deference in all its forms should be abolished, as should all the parading around in military uniforms with lots of meaningless medals on display.
At the state opening of Parliament, Charles looked and sounded like a very old man and he is not the future
I do believe William and Kate understand just how rapidly this change is coming and I expect in fairly quick time we will see a much reduced monarchy no longer touring with great pomp and ceremony the commonwealth countries, nor any more bowing or walking backwards in deference, and the end of ridiculous military dressing up
I do believe most would accept a less formal, more modern monarchy, as I cannot see many wanting a republic with a President Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Nadine Dories, JRM or ANO
Why on earth would you want abolish “deference in all its forms”?
It’s just an extension of courtesy - nothing to do with the royals. It’s just respect due to someone, for example because of their age.
Servility is something totally different but barely exists any more
I do not want to abolish respect and civility, but why anyone should have to bow to someone else, or walk backwards, or generally act as an inferior to anyone else is beyond me and should be abolished wherever it takes place
Why bow or curtsey? It's asking people to abandon their self-respect and humanity. And the Tories manipulate that entire mentality, of cringing to the aristos, in so many ways.
While I agree with your first two sentences, I don't really recognise your third. Most Tories I know see aristos as an amusing irrelevance, meriting neither respect nor disrespect.
The entire system of honours and peerages. BEM upwards. Legitimised and anchored by the old fashioned royalty.
Liz Truss didn’t cook up the Protocol strategy by herself; it was surely conceived by 10 Downing Street.
But at the first sign of grapeshot (an American congressional committee), Boris is over to Northern Ireland and briefing that Truss has mis-handled it.
And I see upthread that Big G has already fallen for the spin (“Boris is said to be a dove”).
It’s embarrassing. I do actually feel bad for unionists (though not the DUP) who were stitched up by Boris and “Frostie”.
Comments
Similarly there seems to be this "oh no, the EU vaccine scheme!!!" line. As if the Europeans didn';t get the vaccine. They did. And were ahead of us in some stages of the roll-out. Even America, with Trump advocating injecting bleach - got the vaccine quickly.
So Corbyn would have had to be deliberately obstructionist to make much of a difference.
The only time the council did not go Labour controlled this century was in the Blair years went it went to the control of the even more leftwing Charles Kennedy led LDs rather than the Tories before returning to Labour control when Brown became PM.
Liverpool is a socialist city that voted for Corbyn in 2019 even when the UK as a whole rejected him by a landslide. Liverpool is way left of the rest of the UK
I mean, Abide with Me? What are they booing? A poetic hope for some meaning in death? Nah, let’s boo that
What utter scum. Hope they lose to Real Madrid
It’s only for a few years, so think of it as a pilot scheme
As for Ukraine, Corbyn was critical of Russia and calling for sanctions while Boris was taking their money.
Its laughable. YOU are laughable. You say this absurd absolutist stuff that simply isn't true.
It was suggested this morning that Boris is far more of a dove on this than Truss, who is hawkish
Let's hope common sense prevails across the political divide
Not a great year for ex-Aussie cricketers.
Lets see where this goes
It should be replaced. We aren't in the Victorian era any more.
On the monarchy itself - I'm quite happy for Charles to get his shot as king. It'd feel cruel to me to snatch it from him after all this time. But I would be very open to a president after that. Possibly with William being the unopposed candidate to give a little continuity before it's opened up to whatever process has been decided..
Yes, on checking, quite right. Benbecula was the base for the missile work, I think, with the launches from South Uist. IWM website has pics of the missile being pulled out of the hangar at Benbecula and driven off to the firing point? But they have totally muddled their Long Island geography.
I wonder if it had been Prince Harry there if he would have been cheered as he seems to engage more with younger people in spite of his negative rankings.
However the two excerpts are simply saying that certain claims are never backed up with argument but simply stated as a truism (“diversity is strength”). That’s a reasonable criticism to make.
As far as I know, Carlson doesn’t then go down the dark path that the racist nut job in Buffalo did - I’m assuming the comparable text is from him but it may be someone else - of attacking and killing innocent individuals on the grounds of their colour.
My fundamental point is that shouting at someone asking a reasonable question/criticism and claiming they are racist because a known racist asked the same question is designed to stop people asking questions.
Possible this could really escalate as an issue? There is definitely a big political divide between car drivers and others (particularly cyclists) in the city.
https://news.stv.tv/east-central/edinburgh-suv-drivers-left-deflated-as-climate-activists-ramp-up-car-tyre-attacks
Gee. I wonder where this “uneasiness” might come from
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Escape-Earth-Secret-History-Rocket/dp/1781259704/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Interesting - but it's not about the Rocket Range!
Utterly enjoyable for those who take an interest. They party on and make lifelong memories.
For those who don't. A bizarre event that we are somewhat aware is happening, as they are impossible to avoid. But totally forgotten.
FWIW. I do remember Brian May on Buckingham Palace. But only when prompted. I doubt I'd have been able to say why he was up there.
But probably would have guessed Olympics.
Other than that. No memory whatsoever of jubilee 2002 or 2012.
1) give us the money
2) have no say on what vaccines are procured.
3) no say on timing, regulation etc
4) no say on who gets what vaccine
Only someone who had serious sanity issues would have signed up to that.
The most critical thing with speeding up the vaccine development was large orders placed before testing was complete - on a basis of we-pay-for-it-if-it-works-or-not.
I think you may be conflating the Jubilee with the self-deprecating humour around 2012 and the subsequent national celebration of the events themselves (something which totally fooled non-Brit friends living in England who genuinely thought we expected it to be rubbish and stayed at home).
I only vaguely remember 1977, and I have my mug (there may have been sandwiches in the village hall, but then again, it might have been my friend Trevor's birthday party). The other jubilees completely passed me by.
There seems to be this myth that only Boris Johnson saved us.
Most of my golf was that holiday. I didn't particularly take to the game. But I very much enjoyed the settings, particularly a course on the west of Arran, at sunset, with views over to the Mull of Kintyre. Where the ball went was almost incidental to the experience.
You do realise that most people are not football fans. If forced to watch a match, I think I'd get some paint in, daub some on the wall beneath the TV, and watch that dry instead.
(Then again, I've watched hundreds of F1 races...)
Frosty? He's Gr-r-r-r-eat!
Talk about “pig in a poke”….
Proper Greece. Love it
The problem is that PPP per capita demonstrates how bad things are for Brits compared to many other places.
Many LD voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Labour in 2019 while many New Labour voters from 2001 and 2005 voted Tory or LD in 2018.
So my point Liverpool is a socialist city stands absolutely
That saved a generation on the cost of an economics degree.
A Pareto improvement indeed.
On that measure, are Plaid Cymru really Tories...?
The EU scheme as offered to the U.K. was beyond rubbish. Only the most fanatical Europhile could have thought it was a good idea.
Inside the EU it worked (mostly). As everyone expected, the French played fast and lose at the edges. The demand for an order for the failing French vaccine - despite bad early trial data - had people holding their heads and going “not now, for fucks sake”
Overall the U.K. setup delivered a bit faster (a month or 2) because it went for the approach of “multiple vaccines, be prepared to waste money on failures” harder than the EU. Which was the rational approach, given the situation.
It appears Truss is being lined up to take the blame for this particular stage of the clusterfuck.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/truss-the-human-hand-grenade-gets-blame-for-brussels-blow-up-jjqpn8hlx
Abide with me, on the other hand, is a beautiful, soulful, thoughtful hymn and its nice that idiots are still forced to listen to it before they play kickabout. A reminder to them that better, purer things will still be there after they've sung insulting chants at each other and wished cock rot on the opposition team.
Only been a couple of times, probably making assumptions from working OUAT in Manchester.
The truth is in the middle: the government could have handled things better, but they could also have handled things much, much worse. Given the unprecedented nature of the crisis, and the untested mechanisms we had to handle it, I don't think the government did too badly.
But it could have done much, much worse. Corbyn is an ideologue. I can't see him doing anything that does not fit in with his rigid, dead ideology. And the vaccine development and rollout would have been a function of that ideology.
The modern cult of the anti-CEO, where the boss is irrelevant and overpaid is just another reaction. Like most reactionary ideas it is generally bollocks.
Anodyne, cut costs management produces anodyne, cost cutting organisations.
Intelligent, quick thinking management tends to produce nimble organisations that can produce value rapidly.
Look up how Surrey Satellites embarrassed the Big Boys a number of times, by build satellites fast and cheaply.
Even if now Starmer Labour is more socialist than Davey's LDs and Johnson's Tories and Corbyn's Labour were far more socialist than Swinson's LDs
Stuart Maconie is quite interesting in contrasting the socialism of Manchester and Liverpool in Pies and Prejudice. He paints Liverpool's leftiness as more showy, leftier, but less sincerely felt, Manchester's as dourer and worthier but less noticeable to the outside world.
Manchester has been solidly Labour for decades, but it is - at least since 1987 - a pragmatic, unnewsworthy brand of Labour. You could reasonably consider it either less or more socialist than Liverpool depending on how you were measuring it.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/scotland2021
But one which remains very small as a percentage.
Enjoyable knockabout.
A short recap of German Twitter on #ESC2022 :
“What a farce”
“Ukraine didn’t play by the rules !!”
“No one likes us, they only want our money”
“This shouldn’t be so political !”
“6 points for Germany is so unfair !”
“This has nothing to do with the actual music
https://twitter.com/minna_alander/status/1525760342055321601
As I said Charles Kennedy was left of Blair and more socialist than Blair
Obviously the fans of the respective teams still watch it, and the sort of people who will watch a football match or a major sporting event if it happens to be on telly (like my wife, and therefore, for indirect reasons, me). But it feels like the attention it commands is much diminished. I don't know if I'm just extrapolating from myself here.
Has anyone become PM while sulking on the backbenches for so long when their party was in government ?
Also, interviews with the club magic sponge boy and mascots while they enjoyed a couple of pints
All it took for the UK to get 12 points was a few thousand anti-tank missiles #EUROVISION
https://twitter.com/ross_greer/status/1525599027106091008
Restriction had started to be brought in ten days before lockdown was officially implemented.
Is probably the explanation for that.
We had. Home Internationals. The European finals. The FA Cup Final. Not even the League Cup I think.
That was it for live football.
Liverpool v Chelsea is a bit “meh”. If there’s a Hull or a Palace or even a Leicester, it adds to the event as it’s a very big deal for that club and the supporters. I honestly couldn’t care who won yesterday. I dislike both clubs, so I had no one to support.
But at the first sign of grapeshot (an American congressional committee), Boris is over to Northern Ireland and briefing that Truss has mis-handled it.
And I see upthread that Big G has already fallen for the spin (“Boris is said to be a dove”).
It’s embarrassing.
I do actually feel bad for unionists (though not the DUP) who were stitched up by Boris and “Frostie”.