IDS is a fucking slap headed antediluvian irrelevance. A mysterious relic of a forgotten age like those stupid old stones Leon was boring on about. Nothing he does or does not do matters at all.
The problem is, if Sunak gets asked about it. He can't condemn it and he can't condone it so he'll have to finesse a non-answer. A maneuver at which we know he sucks arse.
If I was in charge of security, anywhere in the world, looking after a fixed target, these stories would be giving me nightmares. It is surely just a matter of time before these cheap, hard to detect, easy to operate drones become the weapon of choice of every terrorist group on the planet.
I saw a piece yesterday about this: the ultimate in cheap and disposable. They'll be ubiquitous oon
Ukraine claimed to shoot down all the Russian missiles, and all but one of the Russian drones, that were launched by Russia last night in retaliation for the large Ukrainian drone attacks on various targets in Russia.
So looks like the Ukrainian drones and/or air defences are better than the Russian equivalents.
I expect that HY will come along shortly to actually insist that actually the Tories are spending more actually than ever on Defence and that actually we can't trust Labour because if they get in we'd be in a ludicrous position where all our fast attack subs are tied up unable to defend us.
I am not especially worried about our defence under Starmer as I would have been under Corbyn
I think the Tory odds there are still a bit too long. They will hold the seat unless someone convinces floating voters that they are the challenger. (I've no further personal insight so DYOR.)
I agree it is currently impossible to call across the 3 parties.
In terms of the anecdotes, sadly we are all going to be able to produce stuff churned out by each party to prove they are in the lead (or knocking on the door). The one from the LDs last night was they had knocked on 42,000 doors which presumably is the whole constituency.
The initial posterboard count will be the first indication, in my opinion, as that will sway the floating voter as to whom is best to eject the Tory. After that it is the leaflet count. Heaven help our trees.
The poster (someone remind me who?) that suggested that the Independent candidate was on good odds, was onto something, I think.
Why? Surely he is going to get drown out by the others who have the manpower, the experience and the money to fight a by election. In an equal fight I would agree, but this won't be that.
I have to say that I post that opinion without knowing if there are any special circumstances that contradict it.
I received this bunch of flowers from one of my children today - completely out of the blue (no birthday or anything else) - with a card simply saying:
"All this, and more, simply because you're my mother xx"
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
You would think so. Although it's a bit tricky. If someone defines themselves as a christian for cultural reasons, that is their choice.
A bit like trying to decide who is and who is not a muslim when you aren't one yourself.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
Yes of course. However those two elements are part of a wider picture. The growth in the new churches and among BAME populations disguises the indigenous faith community collapse, which is occurring among RC churches too.
The rise in the new churches matches nicely the decline in older nonconformist churches - which are mostly in a bad way.
Cathedral attendance indicates two things: thousands, but not millions, of people want high quality worship in settings where you can be anonymous, don't have to be evangelical, listen to rubbish etc. I don't blame them. That this cannot in many places be had in your local parish church is the problem not the solution.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
If I was in charge of security, anywhere in the world, looking after a fixed target, these stories would be giving me nightmares. It is surely just a matter of time before these cheap, hard to detect, easy to operate drones become the weapon of choice of every terrorist group on the planet.
I saw a piece yesterday about this: the ultimate in cheap and disposable. They'll be ubiquitous oon
Ukraine claimed to shoot down all the Russian missiles, and all but one of the Russian drones, that were launched by Russia last night in retaliation for the large Ukrainian drone attacks on various targets in Russia.
So looks like the Ukrainian drones and/or air defences are better than the Russian equivalents.
Or the Ukrainians are doing a better job of covering things up.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
You would think so. Although it's a bit tricky. If someone defines themselves as a christian for cultural reasons, that is their choice.
A bit like trying to decide who is and who is not a muslim when you aren't one yourself.
On that basis Richard Dawkins is a Christian. But I think that would be a bit of a stretch in any reasonable theological terms.
I’m amazed the IDS comments haven’t received more media attention.
Morning all.
Someone noticed IDS?
Or is this the "IDS supports Vandals" one?
Should have said Ostrogoths, then he would have received some attention.
AFAICS the motohoons (lobotomised section) have moved on from ULEZ to blaming a person riding a bike who was run down by a speeding fire engine in Brixton which went through a red light.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
Bloody Premier League glory hunters. Bankrupting the local sides.
Any value in backing Doncaster to beat Everton tonight.
Can get 10s on Betfair?
Possibly. However. We were bloody dire in the game on TV which people saw. The two games nobody saw, we actually were better than last season. Can't score, can't win. Simple.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
You would think so. Although it's a bit tricky. If someone defines themselves as a christian for cultural reasons, that is their choice.
A bit like trying to decide who is and who is not a muslim when you aren't one yourself.
Professor Richard Dawkins defines himself as a ‘cultural Christian’.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
Yeah, whatever you like, but if they don’t believe in God, they are by any sensible definition not Christian.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
We no longer burn Catholics, Protestant dissenters and open atheists as heretics at the stake.
Indeed at the rural church I attend we have a few Catholics and evangelicals and liberals worshipping together and even an atheist bell ringer, cultural Christians also play a part in the church. Sometimes more than very religious Christians who might just read the bible at home but not physically attend church very often
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
Yes of course. However those two elements are part of a wider picture. The growth in the new churches and among BAME populations disguises the indigenous faith community collapse, which is occurring among RC churches too.
The rise in the new churches matches nicely the decline in older nonconformist churches - which are mostly in a bad way.
Cathedral attendance indicates two things: thousands, but not millions, of people want high quality worship in settings where you can be anonymous, don't have to be evangelical, listen to rubbish etc. I don't blame them. That this cannot in many places be had in your local parish church is the problem not the solution.
If your Parish church is welcoming and has a good choir no reason it cannot also get good attendance.
To be fair to evangelicals though it is often the most hardline and conservative evangelical churches which have the most money and biggest congregations in the C of E, think Holy Trinity Brompton or St Ebbe's Oxford
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
We no longer burn Catholics, dissenters and open atheists as heretics at the stake.
Indeed at the rural church I attend we have a few Catholics and evangelicals and liberals worshipping together and even an atheist bell ringer, cultural Christians also play a part in the church. Sometimes more than very religious Christians who might just read the bible at home but not physically attend church very often
He can ring his bell as much as he likes, doesn’t make him a bishop basher!
Everybody (below flag rank) said moving the SSNs to Faslane from Devonport would be a retention and hence availability disaster. And, lo, it came to pass.
The problem is being exacerbated by the the fact that the Australians are now offering laterals with much improved terms of service for any Sundodger with a pulse.
Noted a US submarine prowling round Skye a few weeks ago. I'd have thought Faslane > Devonport as a place to live, but I appreciate not everyone is infatuated with the west coast of Scotland.
It's not entirely to do with the relative merits of the two locations. They people they really needed to move were mid-career senior technical types with families and partners with their own careers, etc.
The gap between Kinloss closing and Poseidon starting up at Lossie caused a lot of bother for the RAF for the same reason.
Not to mention the UK's defence capabilities. It's not as if they didn't know decades before that they needed to replace Nimrod MR.1 with something sensible.
The comedy behind that was intense.
The famous "the wings don't fit" was the start of it with the Nimrod conversions. Aside from the fact that people have been swapping wings on planes since WWI*... It turned out that there were stability concerns, and instead of changing the tail to match the wings, Big and Expensive went for a trim tab and a non-redundant software/hardware setup. Yes, they were cooking their own MCAS....
The fit issues were down to the Nimrods not having been built, in the first place, on the original Comet line - they were custom built, virtually by hand on totally inadequate jigs. The Comet, contrary to what some say, was very carefully engineered - especially for weight. Accuracy was vital, tolerances fine. Structural misalignments measured in cm meant each plane was structurally different.
So sign off was refused. In the past, it would have been legal to simply order the chap doing sign off to sign the design as airworthy. Following changes in the law, this might work in terms of discipline - Court Martial if you don’t. But the problem was that the person giving the order would be legally liable. So no one in the senior management team would give the order. The minister in question, quite rightly, said that he wasn’t going to order an illegal sign off of a unairworthy aircraft.
So they were scrapped.
*Funny story about some over keen apprentices at Sopwith, in 1918 who fitted a number of Sopwith Salamanders with Snipe wings - because they matched up perfectly. The Salamander weighed something like double, empty....
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
If I was in charge of security, anywhere in the world, looking after a fixed target, these stories would be giving me nightmares. It is surely just a matter of time before these cheap, hard to detect, easy to operate drones become the weapon of choice of every terrorist group on the planet.
I saw a piece yesterday about this: the ultimate in cheap and disposable. They'll be ubiquitous oon
Ukraine claimed to shoot down all the Russian missiles, and all but one of the Russian drones, that were launched by Russia last night in retaliation for the large Ukrainian drone attacks on various targets in Russia.
So looks like the Ukrainian drones and/or air defences are better than the Russian equivalents.
Or the Ukrainians are doing a better job of covering things up.
Or they have a greater need to hide their losses.
A lot of the Russian attacks are against civilian targets, so there's not much incentive for Ukraine to cover those up.
I think the Tory odds there are still a bit too long. They will hold the seat unless someone convinces floating voters that they are the challenger. (I've no further personal insight so DYOR.)
Thanks for that - have you a feel for the effect the independent candidate may have?
No - I don't even know if he's standing again, do you?
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
I think the Tory odds there are still a bit too long. They will hold the seat unless someone convinces floating voters that they are the challenger. (I've no further personal insight so DYOR.)
Thanks for that - have you a feel for the effect the independent candidate may have?
No - I don't even know if he's standing again, do you?
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
But surely less than 5% of the population are Anglican bishops?
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
As you say, the existence of France was never under threat in the way that the existence of Ukraine is under threat now. For that reason, Ukraine will fight itself to a standstill rather than give anything up to the Russians voluntarily. They will fight on even if the Americans withdraw support. The hope that this is what will happen will also drive the Russians on. It's very hard to see how this ends any time soon.
Obviously late to the party, but this is why the war will drag on. It's also why Russia can't win. Ukraine will fight to the end. My (admittedly vague) understanding of the Ukrainians is that they are going to continue to fight until they are wiped out. That's one heck of a lot that Russia therefore has to achieve.
If Trump was somehow President TODAY, and announced an end of all Ukrainian support: 1. This wouldn't happen anyway. The US MIC would ensure some level of support continued (and Trump would remain unaware of it). 2. There would be other countries, and individuals, willing to step up support. Certainly I would increase my voluntary contributions. I'm sure others will as well. Unless the West therefore is going to refuse 'Cash and Carry' transactions (they won't), then support will continue.
So Russia can't win. No matter what it does now, it's lost; but the belief in Russia that Trump will come riding in and save the day is wrongheaded. But it's all they've got.
They (Russia) don't want to face the alternative. They've started a modern industrial war, far in excess of what they failed to do in Afghanistan, that would require a ten year conventional commitment to 'win'. In which they're going to have to STOP the corruption (good luck with that), START full mobilisation (good luck with that), START training their troops properly (good luck with that) , START developing a proper Arms industry not reliant on Western Tech (good luck with that) and STOP targeting civilians and instead concentrate on military assets (good luck with that). And of course, whilst they do all that, their civilian economy will pretty much collapse.
The alternative is to crack out the (50:50 working/not working) nukes, and hope they don't get nuked back.
Russia won't do one of those things. Let alone all of them. They're screwed.
Putin is hoping to do a GRR Martin, and die before he has to face the music of what he's started. He'll probably get his wish. 9mm headache, or an accident with a window beckons eventually.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
Yeah, whatever you like, but if they don’t believe in God, they are by any sensible definition not Christian.
I'm quite comfortable defining myself as an atheist, but I don't find your definition sensible at all.
All definitions are arbitrary. We create them because they are useful. If your definition of a Christian is so strict that it doesn't include people willing to go through the Catholic preparing for marriage course as Christian then I don't think it's a useful definition.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
We no longer burn Catholics, dissenters and open atheists as heretics at the stake.
Indeed at the rural church I attend we have a few Catholics and evangelicals and liberals worshipping together and even an atheist bell ringer, cultural Christians also play a part in the church. Sometimes more than very religious Christians who might just read the bible at home but not physically attend church very often
He can ring his bell as much as he likes, doesn’t make him a bishop basher!
Some have said he's a campanologist, but his Mother insists he's just not found the right girl yet.
I've had a look at the local election data for Bedfordshire Mid.
This is more up to date, being the first by election for which there is a 2023 local round, but is complicated by a strong Independent showing and the odd non-contention by all parties, though the latter isn't too distorting.
Here goes: Con 31.3% Ind 29.8% Lab 16.2% LD 12.8% Green 8.2% RefUK 2.2%
In the 2015 round locals and the GE fell together, and that pretty much shows the 10% Independent vote in the LEs that year, plus a little more, breaking to the Tories. Given the changes since then it is reasonable to consider the Ind vote as broadly right leaning.
In this respect the game is as follows:
Con - keep the Con LE vote plus consolidate as much of the Ind vote as possible.
Lab and LD - consolidate the LLG vote as much as possible, attract disgruntled Inds and a touch of additional turnout.
For example 80% consolidation plus a 40/40 split of the Ind vote would leave: Challenger 41.7%, Con 43.2% and any extra turnout, as in Selby, could get the challenger over the line.
More vote splitting means more Inds need to be attracted.
I'd suggest Lab and LD have equal chances of consolidating the LLG vote if they show as best placed, but LD have slightly more chance of attracting more of the Ind vote, but it's messy.
Doing a bit of how I guess transfers could pan out if Labour get a foothold, I think something like a 33 / 33 / 25 Con / Lab / LD result is a real possibility, with Con attracting back only around 25% of Ind, but losing most of that additional share to a 20% turnout increase.
I think the Tory odds there are still a bit too long. They will hold the seat unless someone convinces floating voters that they are the challenger. (I've no further personal insight so DYOR.)
Thanks for that - have you a feel for the effect the independent candidate may have?
No - I don't even know if he's standing again, do you?
He said a few weeks ago he would stand but has been quiet since the Dorries letter. I'm not clear about which party he would draw most support from.
I received this bunch of flowers from one of my children today - completely out of the blue (no birthday or anything else) - with a card simply saying:
"All this, and more, simply because you're my mother xx"
I am feeling really quite tearful.
You should write a really, really long thank you letter.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Of the many features currently impossible in UK society religious homogeneity would be near the top. This always unequal struggle was formally abandoned in 1690.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
The rate of inflation across all shop purchases came down from 8.4 per cent in July to 6.9 per cent in August, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Food 13.5 -> 11.5
Non food unchanged at 4.7%.
Probably another drop in inflation but getting from 6% to 2% won't happen is going to be much much tougher than the drop from 10 -> 6%.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
We no longer burn Catholics, dissenters and open atheists as heretics at the stake.
Indeed at the rural church I attend we have a few Catholics and evangelicals and liberals worshipping together and even an atheist bell ringer, cultural Christians also play a part in the church. Sometimes more than very religious Christians who might just read the bible at home but not physically attend church very often
He can ring his bell as much as he likes, doesn’t make him a bishop basher!
Some have said he's a campanologist, but his Mother insists he's just not found the right girl yet.
I have dabbled with the odd bit of bell-ringing in the past - in my experience religious belief among ringers is only slightly more common than among the population in general. There are certain areas of shared interest between church and tower, but they are largely separate groups! (I wouldn't be surprised if it were different in rural areas however.)
I think the Tory odds there are still a bit too long. They will hold the seat unless someone convinces floating voters that they are the challenger. (I've no further personal insight so DYOR.)
Thanks for that - have you a feel for the effect the independent candidate may have?
No - I don't even know if he's standing again, do you?
He said a few weeks ago he would stand but has been quiet since the Dorries letter. I'm not clear about which party he would draw most support from.
Will the Tories suffer from a 'cross with Dorries' affect, or are her comments that she had continued to do her casework etc., true, and is the picture on the ground less cross with her than the media would suggest?
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Iran and The Vatican are the two only other states that have unelected clergy in their parliaments.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Given the UK has legal homosexual marriage unlike the majority of states in the world, has legal abortion unlike many nations in the world, has legal divorce and no longer makes church attendance compulsory, the idea we are a theocratic state is ludicrous. We also have one of the biggest welfare states in the world, not a society where the poor are solely reliant on charity from the church
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
Bloody Premier League glory hunters. Bankrupting the local sides.
Any value in backing Doncaster to beat Everton tonight.
Can get 10s on Betfair?
I assume Everton will put out their 4th string side, but even then...probably not.
Donny are not exactly setting the world on fire and are bottom of league two with 1 draw from 5.
Not sure what's gone wrong - they looked like they might make the Championship a few years back. Soon we'll have the best stadium in non-league football.
Weirdly the Rugby Union side are decent and were only denied promotion to the Premiership through 'not having sufficient facilities' (wrong ties, mostly).
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Given the UK has legal homosexual marriage unlike the majority of states in the world, has legal abortion unlike many nations in the world, has legal divorce and no longer makes church attendance compulsory, the idea we are a theocratic state is ludicrous. We also have one of the biggest welfare states in the world, not a society where the poor are solely reliant on charity from the church
Not relevant. Just parochial (pun intended) of you. Lots of religions don't/didn't condemn gays.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Given the UK has legal homosexual marriage unlike the majority of states in the world, has legal abortion unlike many nations in the world, has legal divorce and no longer makes church attendance compulsory, the idea we are a theocratic state is ludicrous. We also have one of the biggest welfare states in the world, not a society where the poor are solely reliant on charity from the church
Far too many of our fellow citizens are still reliant on charity, including from the churches.
Tucker Carlson interviews Hungary’s Orban. It has that fairly high level of intellectual analysis we used to see, decades ago, on British TV. Orban is bluntly honest - in his eyes - about the dying Ukrainians
Also: this interview has enjoyed 50 MILLION views. Millions probably watched 3 seconds, and moved on, but maybe millions more watched large chunks, or the whole thing. Carlson is often derided, likewise Musk, but they may be pioneering a new journalism: broadcasting to the entire world
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
Bloody Premier League glory hunters. Bankrupting the local sides.
Any value in backing Doncaster to beat Everton tonight.
Can get 10s on Betfair?
I assume Everton will put out their 4th string side, but even then...probably not.
Donny are not exactly setting the world on fire and are bottom of league two with 1 draw from 5.
Not sure what's gone wrong - they looked like they might make the Championship a few years back. Soon we'll have the best stadium in non-league football.
That'll be Southend's if they go on the way they are.
There's an article in The Spectator (I won't link to far right sites) about the calamity of the Ukrainian casualty handling. Much of the western largess is, to the complete non-surprise of anybody who has ever spent any time in that part of the world, disappearing into a vortex of theft and corruption. The head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Corps has just been sacked for giving a £1.5m contract to his daughter in law for medical supplies off aliexpress that turned out to be useless. The tory party will probably want him as their candidate for Mad Nad's seat as he seems like a good cultural fit.
Good to see you reading The Spectator. Very sensible
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Given the UK has legal homosexual marriage unlike the majority of states in the world, has legal abortion unlike many nations in the world, has legal divorce and no longer makes church attendance compulsory, the idea we are a theocratic state is ludicrous. We also have one of the biggest welfare states in the world, not a society where the poor are solely reliant on charity from the church
Far too many of our fellow citizens are still reliant on charity, including from the churches.
Far from it, as Jacob Rees Mogg said '"To have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are," he said.
"Inevitably, the state can't do everything, so I think that there is good within food banks."
There's an article in The Spectator (I won't link to far right sites) about the calamity of the Ukrainian casualty handling. Much of the western largess is, to the complete non-surprise of anybody who has ever spent any time in that part of the world, disappearing into a vortex of theft and corruption. The head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Corps has just been sacked for giving a £1.5m contract to his daughter in law for medical supplies off aliexpress that turned out to be useless. The tory party will probably want him as their candidate for Mad Nad's seat as he seems like a good cultural fit.
Good to see you reading The Spectator. Very sensible
Do you like the Spectator? I've never much cared for it myself.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Given the UK has legal homosexual marriage unlike the majority of states in the world, has legal abortion unlike many nations in the world, has legal divorce and no longer makes church attendance compulsory, the idea we are a theocratic state is ludicrous. We also have one of the biggest welfare states in the world, not a society where the poor are solely reliant on charity from the church
Not relevant. Just parochial (pun intended) of you. Lots of religions don't/didn't condemn gays.
The Bible does (even if Christ didn't specifically), the Koran does too. Even amongst Hindus the Dharma Shastras focus marriage on procreation.
Only Buddhism of mainstream religions has always been relaxed about homosexuality on the whole, albeit Buddhist monks are expected to be celibate
The rate of inflation across all shop purchases came down from 8.4 per cent in July to 6.9 per cent in August, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Food 13.5 -> 11.5
Non food unchanged at 4.7%.
Probably another drop in inflation but getting from 6% to 2% won't happen is going to be much much tougher than the drop from 10 -> 6%.
We're definitely over the top of the food inflation peak. Whilst it is coming down, it isn't coming down quickly. And now we have some profit taking happening to try and recover losses from holding prices artificially low at the worst of it.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Iran and The Vatican are the two only other states that have unelected clergy in their parliaments.
A point occasionally made by the Economist, but it is kinder to think they are having a laugh.
The HoL has a very large number of unelected persons among its number. Many rational, and rationalist, people think that, whatever the merits of OMOV and democracy, that our legislators would be even worse without them.
BTW I have very little doubt that the bishops would not survive a Labour reform of the HoL. Nor might the unelected principle. We will miss it very much when it is gone.
The rate of inflation across all shop purchases came down from 8.4 per cent in July to 6.9 per cent in August, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Food 13.5 -> 11.5
Non food unchanged at 4.7%.
Probably another drop in inflation but getting from 6% to 2% won't happen is going to be much much tougher than the drop from 10 -> 6%.
The idea interest rates will decline back to where they were anytime soon is a fantasy.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Iran and The Vatican are the two only other states that have unelected clergy in their parliaments.
So what? Homosexuality is illegal in Iran and punishable by death and Iran's supreme leader is a cleric.
Homosexual marriage, abortion and divorce are illegal in the Vatican city whose head of state is the Pope.
Homosexual marriage, abortion and divorce are legal in the UK and Bishops don't even make up a majority of the Lords which cannot even block legislation of the elected Commons. All it can do is recommend revisions to legislation, as the Bishops did over the governments proposals to send migrants to Rwanda for instance
There's an article in The Spectator (I won't link to far right sites) about the calamity of the Ukrainian casualty handling. Much of the western largess is, to the complete non-surprise of anybody who has ever spent any time in that part of the world, disappearing into a vortex of theft and corruption. The head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Corps has just been sacked for giving a £1.5m contract to his daughter in law for medical supplies off aliexpress that turned out to be useless. The tory party will probably want him as their candidate for Mad Nad's seat as he seems like a good cultural fit.
Good to see you reading The Spectator. Very sensible
Do you like the Spectator? I've never much cared for it myself.
I have read it on and off for 50 years. At the moment it is truly terrible. This is not especially the Speccie's fault. It is because no-one can articulate a workable Burkean, conservative, religious, small platoon, family based, small government, Adam Smithian and civilised polity for the UK or its parts. So instead of articulating principles it focusses on single issue trivia and what Bunyan would call 'vanity fair'.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
Modern religious studies has wrestled extensively with the question of what it means to be a follower of a particular religion, with more focus on cultural practice and identity than on belief/dogma. In other words, it’s all cultural! Modern religious studies also emphasises the diversity that exists in all faith communities.
This does set up, as one paper put it, a contrast between “the sociological relativism espoused by Mary Douglas with the Platonic essentialism associated with many believers”.
Tucker Carlson interviews Hungary’s Orban. It has that fairly high level of intellectual analysis we used to see, decades ago, on British TV. Orban is bluntly honest - in his eyes - about the dying Ukrainians
Also: this interview has enjoyed 50 MILLION views. Millions probably watched 3 seconds, and moved on, but maybe millions more watched large chunks, or the whole thing. Carlson is often derided, likewise Musk, but they may be pioneering a new journalism: broadcasting to the entire world
Scary stuff for mainstream TV news
In the first minute, Carlson: "if you take a step back, the point of NATO is to provoke war with Russia."
The rate of inflation across all shop purchases came down from 8.4 per cent in July to 6.9 per cent in August, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
Food 13.5 -> 11.5
Non food unchanged at 4.7%.
Probably another drop in inflation but getting from 6% to 2% won't happen is going to be much much tougher than the drop from 10 -> 6%.
The idea interest rates will decline back to where they were anytime soon is a fantasy.
They will stay elevated for some time now, IMHO.
Absolutely. Interest rates will not fall materially from current levels until end 2025 maybe later. This will be as a result of the difficulty which will be encountered in getting inflation much below 5%.
That Tucker Carlson/Orban interview is really worth watching, even if you despise both of them
It’s a valuable glimpse into the thought-world of the new “populist” right in mainland/mittel Europe
Also, I fear Orban is simply right about Ukraine “running out of men”. I’ve been saying it myself, I saw the evidence in Lviv and Chernivtsi
Yes but so is Russia and Ukrainian men and boys even women are willing to fight to defend their nation, fewer Russians are willing to fight and die to occupy Ukraine
Labour need to show they can win everywhere and in the South too, and SKS needs that narrative. The polling and voting record locally in Mid-Beds is good enough for them to think they've got a shot.
Look at the country that atheists are building. Good, is it? Do we look at the UK and go "Fuck, yeah. We did really well?"
Proposition: all the good stuff in the UK was created by the Silent Generation. Riven by the horrors of war they strove to create a more equitable country where the government acted for people. Then the Boomers came along, cossetted and spoilt, and quite comprehensively fucked it up, and now we have a country where the government does things to people.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
We no longer burn Catholics, dissenters and open atheists as heretics at the stake.
Indeed at the rural church I attend we have a few Catholics and evangelicals and liberals worshipping together and even an atheist bell ringer, cultural Christians also play a part in the church. Sometimes more than very religious Christians who might just read the bible at home but not physically attend church very often
He can ring his bell as much as he likes, doesn’t make him a bishop basher!
Some have said he's a campanologist, but his Mother insists he's just not found the right girl yet.
I have dabbled with the odd bit of bell-ringing in the past - in my experience religious belief among ringers is only slightly more common than among the population in general. There are certain areas of shared interest between church and tower, but they are largely separate groups! (I wouldn't be surprised if it were different in rural areas however.)
I don't have any personal experience, but bell-ringing is a fiercely competitive nest of vipers from what I can see.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
Theocratic state. Really modern.
Hardly, the Lords can't even block bills of the elected Commons as it would likely do if the upper house was elected too, only recommend revisions to legislation
Sectarian theocratic state, come to think of it.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Iran and The Vatican are the two only other states that have unelected clergy in their parliaments.
A point occasionally made by the Economist, but it is kinder to think they are having a laugh.
The HoL has a very large number of unelected persons among its number. Many rational, and rationalist, people think that, whatever the merits of OMOV and democracy, that our legislators would be even worse without them.
BTW I have very little doubt that the bishops would not survive a Labour reform of the HoL. Nor might the unelected principle. We will miss it very much when it is gone.
Indeed, if Starmer became PM and made the upper House largely elected if the Conservatives won control of it mid term they would use their elected mandate to block legislation from the Labour majority in the Commons. Leading to US style legislative deadlock
Look at the country that atheists are building. Good, is it? Do we look at the UK and go "Fuck, yeah. We did really well?"
Proposition: all the good stuff in the UK was created by the Silent Generation. Riven by the horrors of war they strove to create a more equitable country where the government acted for people. Then the Boomers came along, cossetted and spoilt, and quite comprehensively fucked it up, and now we have a country where the government does things to people.
That explanation is reductive to the point of absurdity. I would agree that Christianity has played a very valuable role in maintaining social cohesion in the past, as well as motivating people to great acts of public service.
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
38% go to university, so we should bring back the university seats in Parliament!
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
Religious homogeneity is a terrible thing. Next, we need to break religion from the state completely. Take your weirdo Bronze-age beliefs out of the structures of political power for good.
Absolutely not, less than 5% of the fully appointed Lords are Anglican Bishops despite 12% saying they are Anglican UK wide. As long as we have an unelected upper house then the Bishops must be part of that.
We also should support Parish ministry
38% go to university, so we should bring back the university seats in Parliament!
There are plenty of academics and Professors in the Lords too
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
No it is not excellent, though 46% on the latest census in England and Wales are still Christian. Even if no longer a majority that is still a plurality and still higher than the 31% globally who are Christian.
Just the rest of the world overall has more Muslims than England and Wales, 25% to 6.5% but fewer non religious than England and Wales, 16% to 37% with no religion in England and Wales
You mean, the average person who only comes to a C of E church to be married and then to be buried, is Christian? Just the same as your actual Free Church or Plymouth Brethren? A remarkably catholic doctrine on your part (pun intended).
It is entirely impossible to enumerate the religious state of the UK or anywhere without first detailing your boundaries as to what counts in which category. Crude quantitative figures are more or less useless you are reasonably clear what they are quantifying.
It's perfectly sensible to count as Christian only those who at least go regularly to church and belong to one in terms of membership and who believe stuff. This number is of course small - a few million at most.
It is equally sensible to count those who self identify as Christian, or those who use any church's ministry in some way (hatch, match dispatch, Christmas etc). This figure is of course greater.
It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you clearly label it.
FWIW data in recent years suggests a very substantial collapse among younger punters, both generally and the the established churches in particular.
I think the days are numbered for the CoE (and perhaps CoS) to really have national coverage at a realistic level. They will carry on for some time as congregations in areas of strength.
Though Pentecostal and ELIM evangelical churches are actually growing in the UK, especially amongst the Black British population.
The C of E is also seeing growth in cathedral attendance 'According to official C of E statistics, attendance at cathedral services grew by 13 per cent in the decade from 2009 to 2019'
Bloody Premier League glory hunters. Bankrupting the local sides.
Any value in backing Doncaster to beat Everton tonight.
Can get 10s on Betfair?
I assume Everton will put out their 4th string side, but even then...probably not.
Donny are not exactly setting the world on fire and are bottom of league two with 1 draw from 5.
Not sure what's gone wrong - they looked like they might make the Championship a few years back. Soon we'll have the best stadium in non-league football.
Weirdly the Rugby Union side are decent and were only denied promotion to the Premiership through 'not having sufficient facilities' (wrong ties, mostly).
Not being bankrupt appears to be the major impediment.
Tucker Carlson interviews Hungary’s Orban. It has that fairly high level of intellectual analysis we used to see, decades ago, on British TV. Orban is bluntly honest - in his eyes - about the dying Ukrainians
Also: this interview has enjoyed 50 MILLION views. Millions probably watched 3 seconds, and moved on, but maybe millions more watched large chunks, or the whole thing. Carlson is often derided, likewise Musk, but they may be pioneering a new journalism: broadcasting to the entire world
Scary stuff for mainstream TV news
In the first minute, Carlson: "if you take a step back, the point of NATO is to provoke war with Russia."
Absolute horseshit.
Where do they find these people?
I think he means - the threat of expanding NATO into Ukraine was designed to provoke
Watch all of it. Even if you violently disagree, it’s illuminating. And on a level you rarely see on mainstream news interviews
50 million views! Carlson/Musk may have lucked out
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah
Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.
And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
Tucker Carlson interviews Hungary’s Orban. It has that fairly high level of intellectual analysis we used to see, decades ago, on British TV. Orban is bluntly honest - in his eyes - about the dying Ukrainians
Also: this interview has enjoyed 50 MILLION views. Millions probably watched 3 seconds, and moved on, but maybe millions more watched large chunks, or the whole thing. Carlson is often derided, likewise Musk, but they may be pioneering a new journalism: broadcasting to the entire world
Scary stuff for mainstream TV news
In the first minute, Carlson: "if you take a step back, the point of NATO is to provoke war with Russia."
Absolute horseshit.
Where do they find these people?
Yes. The point of NATO is to keep the USA in, the Germans down, and the Russians out.
There's an article in The Spectator (I won't link to far right sites) about the calamity of the Ukrainian casualty handling. Much of the western largess is, to the complete non-surprise of anybody who has ever spent any time in that part of the world, disappearing into a vortex of theft and corruption. The head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Corps has just been sacked for giving a £1.5m contract to his daughter in law for medical supplies off aliexpress that turned out to be useless. The tory party will probably want him as their candidate for Mad Nad's seat as he seems like a good cultural fit.
Good to see you reading The Spectator. Very sensible
Do you like the Spectator? I've never much cared for it myself.
I have read it on and off for 50 years. At the moment it is truly terrible. This is not especially the Speccie's fault. It is because no-one can articulate a workable Burkean, conservative, religious, small platoon, family based, small government, Adam Smithian and civilised polity for the UK or its parts. So instead of articulating principles it focusses on single issue trivia and what Bunyan would call 'vanity fair'.
On the other hand, it’s never sold more copies, made more money, or - arguably - been so influential, in its entire and extraordinarily storied history. So I guess that’s some small consolation for them
I've had a look at the local election data for Bedfordshire Mid.
This is more up to date, being the first by election for which there is a 2023 local round, but is complicated by a strong Independent showing and the odd non-contention by all parties, though the latter isn't too distorting.
Here goes: Con 31.3% Ind 29.8% Lab 16.2% LD 12.8% Green 8.2% RefUK 2.2%
In the 2015 round locals and the GE fell together, and that pretty much shows the 10% Independent vote in the LEs that year, plus a little more, breaking to the Tories. Given the changes since then it is reasonable to consider the Ind vote as broadly right leaning.
In this respect the game is as follows:
Con - keep the Con LE vote plus consolidate as much of the Ind vote as possible.
Lab and LD - consolidate the LLG vote as much as possible, attract disgruntled Inds and a touch of additional turnout.
For example 80% consolidation plus a 40/40 split of the Ind vote would leave: Challenger 41.7%, Con 43.2% and any extra turnout, as in Selby, could get the challenger over the line.
More vote splitting means more Inds need to be attracted.
I'd suggest Lab and LD have equal chances of consolidating the LLG vote if they show as best placed, but LD have slightly more chance of attracting more of the Ind vote, but it's messy.
Doing a bit of how I guess transfers could pan out if Labour get a foothold, I think something like a 33 / 33 / 25 Con / Lab / LD result is a real possibility, with Con attracting back only around 25% of Ind, but losing most of that additional share to a 20% turnout increase.
I’m not convinced by that analysis. People vote differently in by-elections; it’s not just about usual party affiliation. There are people who identify as Conservatives who will probably go back to Conservative at the next general election, but who are pissed off at Dorries, or Johnson, or Sunak, or Truss, or the general state of the country, etc. who will vote for something else as a protest vote. They may include people who vote Conservative at generals and independent at locals, but they’ll be broader than that.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah
Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.
And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.
Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
There's an article in The Spectator (I won't link to far right sites) about the calamity of the Ukrainian casualty handling. Much of the western largess is, to the complete non-surprise of anybody who has ever spent any time in that part of the world, disappearing into a vortex of theft and corruption. The head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Corps has just been sacked for giving a £1.5m contract to his daughter in law for medical supplies off aliexpress that turned out to be useless. The tory party will probably want him as their candidate for Mad Nad's seat as he seems like a good cultural fit.
Good to see you reading The Spectator. Very sensible
Do you like the Spectator? I've never much cared for it myself.
I have read it on and off for 50 years. At the moment it is truly terrible. This is not especially the Speccie's fault. It is because no-one can articulate a workable Burkean, conservative, religious, small platoon, family based, small government, Adam Smithian and civilised polity for the UK or its parts. So instead of articulating principles it focusses on single issue trivia and what Bunyan would call 'vanity fair'.
I've had a look at the local election data for Bedfordshire Mid.
This is more up to date, being the first by election for which there is a 2023 local round, but is complicated by a strong Independent showing and the odd non-contention by all parties, though the latter isn't too distorting.
Here goes: Con 31.3% Ind 29.8% Lab 16.2% LD 12.8% Green 8.2% RefUK 2.2%
In the 2015 round locals and the GE fell together, and that pretty much shows the 10% Independent vote in the LEs that year, plus a little more, breaking to the Tories. Given the changes since then it is reasonable to consider the Ind vote as broadly right leaning.
In this respect the game is as follows:
Con - keep the Con LE vote plus consolidate as much of the Ind vote as possible.
Lab and LD - consolidate the LLG vote as much as possible, attract disgruntled Inds and a touch of additional turnout.
For example 80% consolidation plus a 40/40 split of the Ind vote would leave: Challenger 41.7%, Con 43.2% and any extra turnout, as in Selby, could get the challenger over the line.
More vote splitting means more Inds need to be attracted.
I'd suggest Lab and LD have equal chances of consolidating the LLG vote if they show as best placed, but LD have slightly more chance of attracting more of the Ind vote, but it's messy.
Doing a bit of how I guess transfers could pan out if Labour get a foothold, I think something like a 33 / 33 / 25 Con / Lab / LD result is a real possibility, with Con attracting back only around 25% of Ind, but losing most of that additional share to a 20% turnout increase.
I’m not convinced by that analysis. People vote differently in by-elections; it’s not just about usual party affiliation. There are people who identify as Conservatives who will probably go back to Conservative at the next general election, but who are pissed off at Dorries, or Johnson, or Sunak, or Truss, or the general state of the country, etc. who will vote for something else as a protest vote. They may include people who vote Conservative at generals and independent at locals, but they’ll be broader than that.
My thinking is that the main LE rounds have that element of protest / media attention and bear some relevance to by-elections in that respect as a start point from which to extrapolate. They are often a more recent than the GE as well, so as an additional data point, they can be useful.
I've been doing this for a year or two, so though not perfect, they do seem useful:
- In Wakefield and Batley and Spen, LE results were within 1% of the relative Lab/Con positions. - In Selby and Uxbridge, they gave a good indication of Labour's relative strength and, baselined against 2022 LE, the swings seen across the 3 by-elections that day were within 4% of one another.
It is more of a stretch here, and I'll admit that.
Ironically, local by-elections, which garner little attention, may be less relevant in that respect.
One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).
In the past most Christians would say that you had to believe in their specific interpretation of the sacraments or else you were not a Christian but an ungodly heretic, good only for burning.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
We no longer burn Catholics, dissenters and open atheists as heretics at the stake.
Indeed at the rural church I attend we have a few Catholics and evangelicals and liberals worshipping together and even an atheist bell ringer, cultural Christians also play a part in the church. Sometimes more than very religious Christians who might just read the bible at home but not physically attend church very often
He can ring his bell as much as he likes, doesn’t make him a bishop basher!
Some have said he's a campanologist, but his Mother insists he's just not found the right girl yet.
I have dabbled with the odd bit of bell-ringing in the past - in my experience religious belief among ringers is only slightly more common than among the population in general. There are certain areas of shared interest between church and tower, but they are largely separate groups! (I wouldn't be surprised if it were different in rural areas however.)
I don't have any personal experience, but bell-ringing is a fiercely competitive nest of vipers from what I can see.
I never noticed that, it all seemed very friendly to me especially when going on ringing tours. But I didn't stay long, I found I was afraid of the ropes.
One amusing thing is that your mistakes are audible over a wide area.
Tucker Carlson interviews Hungary’s Orban. It has that fairly high level of intellectual analysis we used to see, decades ago, on British TV. Orban is bluntly honest - in his eyes - about the dying Ukrainians
Also: this interview has enjoyed 50 MILLION views. Millions probably watched 3 seconds, and moved on, but maybe millions more watched large chunks, or the whole thing. Carlson is often derided, likewise Musk, but they may be pioneering a new journalism: broadcasting to the entire world
Scary stuff for mainstream TV news
He is the bellend of bellends, a talentless Russian gimp.
Comments
The problem is, if Sunak gets asked about it. He can't condemn it and he can't condone it so he'll have to finesse a non-answer. A maneuver at which we know he sucks arse.
So looks like the Ukrainian drones and/or air defences are better than the Russian equivalents.
https://twitter.com/HeraldPols/status/1696468250186707447
I have to say that I post that opinion without knowing if there are any special circumstances that contradict it.
Can get 10s on Betfair?
A bit like trying to decide who is and who is not a muslim when you aren't one yourself.
The rise in the new churches matches nicely the decline in older nonconformist churches - which are mostly in a bad way.
Cathedral attendance indicates two things: thousands, but not millions, of people want high quality worship in settings where you can be anonymous, don't have to be evangelical, listen to rubbish etc. I don't blame them. That this cannot in many places be had in your local parish church is the problem not the solution.
I think it's reasonable to say that what constitutes a Christian varies over time.
All three of my brothers-in-law have been married in Catholic services. Two have had children who have all had christening services at church. None of them believe in God or attend regular church services.
By your definition they are not Christian, but I'd struggle to categorise them as atheist or agnostic. I think it's reasonable to categorise them as something like "culturally Christian", or to distinguish between practising and non-practising Christians.
Or they have a greater need to hide their losses.
Someone noticed IDS?
Or is this the "IDS supports Vandals" one?
Should have said Ostrogoths, then he would have received some attention.
AFAICS the motohoons (lobotomised section) have moved on from ULEZ to blaming a person riding a bike who was run down by a speeding fire engine in Brixton which went through a red light.
However. We were bloody dire in the game on TV which people saw.
The two games nobody saw, we actually were better than last season.
Can't score, can't win. Simple.
Fair to say, however, that he is not a Christian.
Indeed at the rural church I attend we have a few Catholics and evangelicals and liberals worshipping together and even an atheist bell ringer, cultural Christians also play a part in the church. Sometimes more than very religious Christians who might just read the bible at home but not physically attend church very often
To be fair to evangelicals though it is often the most hardline and conservative evangelical churches which have the most money and biggest congregations in the C of E, think Holy Trinity Brompton or St Ebbe's Oxford
The famous "the wings don't fit" was the start of it with the Nimrod conversions. Aside from the fact that people have been swapping wings on planes since WWI*...
It turned out that there were stability concerns, and instead of changing the tail to match the wings, Big and Expensive went for a trim tab and a non-redundant software/hardware setup. Yes, they were cooking their own MCAS....
The fit issues were down to the Nimrods not having been built, in the first place, on the original Comet line - they were custom built, virtually by hand on totally inadequate jigs. The Comet, contrary to what some say, was very carefully engineered - especially for weight. Accuracy was vital, tolerances fine. Structural misalignments measured in cm meant each plane was structurally different.
So sign off was refused. In the past, it would have been legal to simply order the chap doing sign off to sign the design as airworthy. Following changes in the law, this might work in terms of discipline - Court Martial if you don’t. But the problem was that the person giving the order would be legally liable. So no one in the senior management team would give the order. The minister in question, quite rightly, said that he wasn’t going to order an illegal sign off of a unairworthy aircraft.
So they were scrapped.
*Funny story about some over keen apprentices at Sopwith, in 1918 who fitted a number of Sopwith Salamanders with Snipe wings - because they matched up perfectly. The Salamander weighed something like double, empty....
We also should support Parish ministry
It's also why Russia can't win.
Ukraine will fight to the end. My (admittedly vague) understanding of the Ukrainians is that they are going to continue to fight until they are wiped out.
That's one heck of a lot that Russia therefore has to achieve.
If Trump was somehow President TODAY, and announced an end of all Ukrainian support:
1. This wouldn't happen anyway. The US MIC would ensure some level of support continued (and Trump would remain unaware of it).
2. There would be other countries, and individuals, willing to step up support. Certainly I would increase my voluntary contributions. I'm sure others will as well. Unless the West therefore is going to refuse 'Cash and Carry' transactions (they won't), then support will continue.
So Russia can't win. No matter what it does now, it's lost; but the belief in Russia that Trump will come riding in and save the day is wrongheaded. But it's all they've got.
They (Russia) don't want to face the alternative.
They've started a modern industrial war, far in excess of what they failed to do in Afghanistan, that would require a ten year conventional commitment to 'win'. In which they're going to have to STOP the corruption (good luck with that), START full mobilisation (good luck with that), START training their troops properly (good luck with that) , START developing a proper Arms industry not reliant on Western Tech (good luck with that) and STOP targeting civilians and instead concentrate on military assets (good luck with that). And of course, whilst they do all that, their civilian economy will pretty much collapse.
The alternative is to crack out the (50:50 working/not working) nukes, and hope they don't get nuked back.
Russia won't do one of those things. Let alone all of them.
They're screwed.
Putin is hoping to do a GRR Martin, and die before he has to face the music of what he's started.
He'll probably get his wish. 9mm headache, or an accident with a window beckons eventually.
All definitions are arbitrary. We create them because they are useful. If your definition of a Christian is so strict that it doesn't include people willing to go through the Catholic preparing for marriage course as Christian then I don't think it's a useful definition.
This is more up to date, being the first by election for which there is a 2023 local round, but is complicated by a strong Independent showing and the odd non-contention by all parties, though the latter isn't too distorting.
Here goes:
Con 31.3%
Ind 29.8%
Lab 16.2%
LD 12.8%
Green 8.2%
RefUK 2.2%
In the 2015 round locals and the GE fell together, and that pretty much shows the 10% Independent vote in the LEs that year, plus a little more, breaking to the Tories. Given the changes since then it is reasonable to consider the Ind vote as broadly right leaning.
In this respect the game is as follows:
Con - keep the Con LE vote plus consolidate
as much of the Ind vote as possible.
Lab and LD - consolidate the LLG vote as much as possible, attract disgruntled Inds and a touch of additional turnout.
For example 80% consolidation plus a 40/40 split of the Ind vote would leave: Challenger 41.7%, Con 43.2% and any extra turnout, as in Selby, could get the challenger over the line.
More vote splitting means more Inds need to be attracted.
I'd suggest Lab and LD have equal chances of consolidating the LLG vote if they show as
best placed, but LD have slightly more chance of attracting more of the Ind vote, but it's messy.
Doing a bit of how I guess transfers could pan out if Labour get a foothold, I think something like a 33 / 33 / 25 Con / Lab / LD result is a real possibility, with Con attracting back only around 25% of Ind, but losing most of that additional share to a 20% turnout increase.
Have a think about how many other states in the world do the same.
Food 13.5 -> 11.5
Non food unchanged at 4.7%.
Probably another drop in inflation but getting from 6% to 2% won't happen is going to be much much tougher than the drop from 10 -> 6%.
Donny are not exactly setting the world on fire and are bottom of league two with 1 draw from 5.
Not sure what's gone wrong - they looked like they might make the Championship a few years back. Soon we'll have the best stadium in non-league football.
Weirdly the Rugby Union side are decent and were only denied promotion to the Premiership through 'not having sufficient facilities' (wrong ties, mostly).
https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Tucker Carlson interviews Hungary’s Orban. It has that fairly high level of intellectual analysis we used to see, decades ago, on British TV. Orban is bluntly honest - in his eyes - about the dying Ukrainians
Also: this interview has enjoyed 50 MILLION views. Millions probably watched 3 seconds, and moved on, but maybe millions more watched large chunks, or the whole thing. Carlson is often derided, likewise Musk, but they may be pioneering a new
journalism: broadcasting to the entire world
Scary stuff for mainstream TV news
"Inevitably, the state can't do everything, so I think that there is good within food banks."
Only Buddhism of mainstream religions has always been relaxed about homosexuality on the whole, albeit Buddhist monks are expected to be celibate
The HoL has a very large number of unelected persons among its number. Many rational, and rationalist, people think that, whatever the merits of OMOV and democracy, that our legislators would be even worse without them.
BTW I have very little doubt that the bishops would not survive a Labour reform of the HoL. Nor might the unelected principle. We will miss it very much when it is gone.
They will stay elevated for some time now, IMHO.
Homosexual marriage, abortion and divorce are illegal in the Vatican city whose head of state is the Pope.
Homosexual marriage, abortion and divorce are legal in the UK and Bishops don't even make up a majority of the Lords which cannot even block legislation of the elected Commons. All it can do is recommend revisions to legislation, as the Bishops did over the governments proposals to send migrants to Rwanda for instance
This does set up, as one paper put it, a contrast between “the sociological relativism espoused by Mary Douglas with the Platonic essentialism associated with many believers”.
It’s a valuable glimpse into the thought-world of the new “populist” right in mainland/mittel Europe
Also, I fear Orban is simply right about Ukraine “running out of men”. I’ve been saying it myself, I saw the evidence in Lviv and Chernivtsi
Absolute horseshit.
Where do they find these people?
Therefore, I expect them to elbow the LDs aside.
Look at the country that atheists are building. Good, is it? Do we look at the UK and go "Fuck, yeah. We did really well?"
Proposition: all the good stuff in the UK was created by the Silent Generation. Riven by the horrors of war they strove to create a more equitable country where the government acted for people. Then the Boomers came along, cossetted and spoilt, and quite comprehensively fucked it up, and now we have a country where the government does things to people.
NEW THREAD
However. We were bloody dire in the game on TV which people saw.
The two games n Not being bankrupt appears to be the major impediment.
Watch all of it. Even if you violently disagree, it’s illuminating. And on a level you rarely see on mainstream news interviews
50 million views! Carlson/Musk may have lucked out
Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.
And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
I've been doing this for a year or two, so though not perfect, they do seem useful:
- In Wakefield and Batley and Spen, LE results were within 1% of the relative Lab/Con positions.
- In Selby and Uxbridge, they gave a good indication of Labour's relative strength and, baselined against 2022 LE, the swings seen across the 3 by-elections that day were within 4% of one another.
It is more of a stretch here, and I'll admit that.
Ironically, local by-elections, which garner little attention, may be less relevant in that respect.
One amusing thing is that your mistakes are audible over a wide area.