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A new addition (or two) to the ever growing republican movement – politicalbetting.com
A new addition (or two) to the ever growing republican movement – politicalbetting.com
The normally compliant Daily Mail reporting on the demise of the Royals and accepting that the argument for a Republic is all too persuasive. The Royals days as Head of State are numbered. pic.twitter.com/nsa0oWq8Fr
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A west London nightclub could lose its licence after a gun battle erupted at the exact moment a health and safety officer was visiting to investigate crime and disorder claims.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgqyj5yeqpjo
Republicanism is best argued when they pick their battles, targeting things like coronation costs is a better choice than often picked at least. As a monarchist I'm not going to argue there are no good arguments against my position, that would be just as silly.
We could end up like the French with the Government spending more on the Presidency than we do on the Monarchy, and more on maintaining the Disestablished Church Buildings than we prviously did on grants etc to the church institution.
StillWaters said:
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That can’t be right.
He is saying - I think - that the structure of the LLP means that these 4 law firms are reducing their tax bills by £4bn.
Which implies they are making profits of £29bn - I don’t believe that. (At 13.8%)
Their total revenues were £8.4in 2024 (Links 2.1; A&O 2.2; FBD £1.8; CC 2.3). I can believe that they paid out £4bn in partners profits. Which would mean that the lost tax is in the region of £500m.
Still very significant, but…
I said:
I agree that your numbers are more realistic but why on earth do we have a tax system that once again results in different levels of tax being raised depending on the vehicle for your business? We need a massive simplification and homogenisation of taxes so that you pay the same tax on the same income whether you earn it, receive it in dividends, receive it in pensions, operate through a company, an LLP or a partnership or some other model such as a trust etc etc. These multiple distortions may work well for accountants but they damage our economy and encourage non productive efforts to play the system.
But anyway - my view prior to the reign of the current monarch was that he would be the last hereditary head of state. People would just find him too ridiculous. Actually, he's been a lot better than I feared. But he just doesn't have the magic of his mother. She was probably the most famous person in the world. She had probably met more people than anyone else in the world. She could enthuse royalists while making low grade republicans happily suspend disbelief. She is still the person most people associate with the words 'the Queen'.
The current king is doing his best and has carved out some interesting niches (like urban design), but I fear it is not enough. The magic is gone.
It's silly in its ceremonial aspect, naturally, but I've yet to be persuaded its such a big deal that we need big changes in that area. Not many of our problems could not be addressed without tackling it.
I would expect remaining Caribbean monarchies to end fairly soon (some have been working on it for seemingly decades, it's surprising more have not done so already), and possibly only your UK/Canada/Australia ones in the medium term, but I presently expect the monarchy to last my lifetime here.
However, these things can be more brittle than expected - if people don't really care to change it can continue on without much enthusiasm (eg Canada), but equally support can erode quickly if the wrong monarch messed up in a big way.
Anti-wheelchair A-Barrier in a cocktail dress as part of an "art" project.
Doesn't matter - it still blocks mobility scooters and power wheelchairs, as is discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010.
And it needs to come out to leave just an entrance.
https://x.com/mattwardman/status/1687198688949735424
To add insult to injury, @KeepBritainTidy have given the park a Green Flag, for which compliance with the Equality Act 2010, and "Access for All", are basic criteria.
https://x.com/mattwardman/status/1687201260301340676
This is at ///puns.rust.paid. Very PB.
Has anywhere tried to just not have a Head of State, not even a boring token elected one?
Presumably, something in the setup of a nation breaks, but what?
Some more perspective on those supposedly 'huge' costs.
And this is the point, surely. Those that want to pull down traditional "conservative" parts of the country such as the monarchy in the belief that this will lead the way to a happy egalitarian "liberal" future are going to be proven very disappointed indeed.
The beneficiaries will be the illiberal hard right. They are the ones who benefit from disorientating change and the insecurity that comes with it.
The "cost" of the coronation is meaningless without (a) comparing it to the economic and softpower boost it gives to UK Plc and (b) comparing it to the cost of a presidential investment, which will be far from zero, with very little boost to the economics or softpower of UK Plc.
Next.
The next coronation will provide something of a quandary for suburban Billy who’s just your average millionaire next door, down with the young dads. Not sure acres of gold leaf and some attention seeker with a sword will be a good fit.
Blair Force One was supposed to be a Concord at one point.
The hacks were very upset when the “seats in a refuelling tanker” thing was unveiled under the Coalition. They’d come to write brutal pieces about luxury for politicians, while luxuriating themselves. Then they got to sit in standard seats and not even get a glass of bubbly.
People crave and look for that, and we all like our myths, legends and history, whilst despising politicians.
I'm not worried.
So, about a 30% chance in the next 5 years
As we've often mentioned, the late Queen was essentially a social democrat who Thatcher famously disliked for m beinh this, abd Charles and William are much the same, in this.
See also: House of Lords.
That's why I see myself as a small-c conservative: I'm not against change, but change for change's sake often ends in a far worse situation. Try to make good changes, mostly in incremental evolutions (rarely revolutions). Think the changes, and their effects, through. You won't always get it right, but you'll do better than many of the changes both governing parties have given us over the last three decades.
But don't remain static, either. Preserve what 'works', alter what doesn't.
As for the Coronation, the cost is trivial in the scheme of things.
Lived there for a year or so when a toddler, even remember being taken to the original Madam Doubtfire’s.
Where's The Truman Show apparatus when you need it?
"Cue the Sun"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn5oqtmzGMk
Were it not for that we'd have had a delinquent Nazi-sympathising King on the throne, who couldn't control his behaviour or keep his gob shut, and the Attlee government would have abolished the monarchy in their post 1945 administration.
“Could”!!
I'm unsure if that was the NHS working well or badly. Certainly, seeing the surgeon before prepping me might have been good. Though maybe the blood results fed into the decision.
Mr. Jessop, blimey, hope you're ok.
F1: working through ideas now... tempted by something a bit long on Gasly.
https://x.com/TalalAlhaj/status/1858591812665159956
The British monarchy is old, trusted, comforting, and consoling. The world is a fucking freakshow, but the King of England is in his castle, as he has been since 800AD and Alfred the Great
Honestly, with the universe in terrifying flux, who is going to vote for fairly pointless and dramatic change, which will be an enormous emotional wrench (even for Republicans)?
It is never going to happen, bar, as I say, a huge war or some similar apocalypse
But now that has happened I really cannot be bothered. We have so many real problems to address as a nation and it would frankly be too self indulgent for words to waste time and energy replacing the Royal family when those problems are not being addressed. We can stick to pointless, irrelevant gestures such as getting rid of the hereditaries in the House of Lords and stagger on.
It's.... Satanic
Trudeau was filmed dancing badly, while the anti-semites had a riot in Montreal.
So she called me up.
I turned up in a suit and asked a convenient nurse to show me the diagnostics. So she flipped the screen around. Apparently she thought I was a doctor…
Whatever you think about Brexit, one thing it did make clear is that system changes can eat up a surprising amount of government attention and time, and basically blow your chances of doing anything else at the same time. So if you're going to make them you'd better be convinced that the change is necessary and the gains will be worth the candle. On the monarchy and HoL reform I am not convinced.
We all go to sleep around November 15 and wake up March 15. We burn up all the fat so we are thin and athletic when we re-emerge. We also prolong our lives by 50 years. And skip winter every year. What's not to love? We can move Christmas to Easter
The plan to combine staff across the newspaper, magazines and supplements, which are owned by Reach, was announced on Friday in an internal email to staff from the Mirror’s editor-in-chief, Caroline Waterston.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/nov/23/daily-mirror-and-ok-magazine-to-merge-staff
*Prays his touch hasn't deserted him*
Also, this is the price I pay for my generally quite fortunate life of travel. When I am NOT travelling I REALLY notice how shit our climate is (which it is, relatively) - much more than I used to
I shall try to restrain my lamentations to my daily jeremiad against the darkness
Doesn't get as hideously hot as the Med coast (esp these days), avoids the high winds of the western Algarve
No other country has the NHS, and few have anything much like it. Other countries do have healthcare systems though, many considerably better than ours. If we hadn't created the NHS we might have something more like the French or German systems. And my guess is you'd probably still be around.
We spend £72 million on a coronation.
Let's spend it on a presidential election every five years instead.
One of the guests was a Spanish journalist who spoke about the Royal visit a few days after the floods and the reaction of the crowds throwing mud. She said the impression given in the UK media was of it being a serious problem for the Spanish Royals when in fact it was the exact opposite. The anger was directed against the Spanish Socialist PM and the Valencia Region Right Wing President who had been throwing blame at each other since the floods.
Apparently both the PM and President fled but the Royals stayed and spoke to the crowd even though they were covered in mud. This went down extremely well with the crowd and has gone down extremely well in Spain as well and the Royal's standing has much improved. The only UK paper that has really covered this properly is the Times.
There were few who thought him a starter,
Many who thought themselves smarter.
But he ended PM,
CH and OM,
an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Surely not!
The Med does not, for me, have proper beaches.
(Is that sufficiently BJO like?)
Only about eight years later, ofcourse, there was the other famous case of the Queen's Christmas message that Thatcher's No.10 was supposed to have vetoed, because of "moving away from the language of division in our society" was supposed to have been a clear dig at Thatcher, around
the time of the miners' strike.
I'm having a lovely November. And today is the perfect day to bake the Christmas Cake.
Which will start in 20 minutes.
COP29, which started badly with plenty of no shows, is now on the verge of a complete breakdown, and that's on top of the Commonwealth hustle and FUBAR last month:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8jykpdgr08t
God bless the King!
Betting PostF1: in the end, went for a boring 1.6 on Leclerc to beat Verstappen.
However, a few other things. If you backed the 7.5 tip on Sainz early on, hedge at 3.5.
Also, if you've got a free bet or feel like flinging a pound somewhere, there are some interesting Gasly/Ocon bets.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2024/11/las-vegas-pre-race-2024.html
Edited extra bit: I need to be off now. Best of luck to those who bet.
To rescue Britain, the public need to demand:
1. Border controls. Remove illegal arrivals immediately, appeals heard overseas.
2. Large-scale deportation of those who entered illegally. No foreign courts holding jurisdiction.
3. Concerted assimilation, with a policy to deport radical imams and extreme Islamists.
4. End BBC licence fee. They lie.
5. Repeal Equality Act, Human Rights Act and close “supreme” court. None of these innovations have protected our natural liberties.
6. Give parents a legal right to control their share to local education budget. Parent power is the only way to counter woke indoctrination.
7. Abolish all renewable energy targets and restrictions on hydrocarbons.
8. Terminate QE and unwind monetary manipulation that has destroyed productivity.
9. 10 percent across the board cut in public spending to save the country from looming bankruptcy. Pain now so our children might not be poorer than us.
10. Department of Prime Minister to end the clown show of incompetence in Westminster
https://x.com/DouglasCarswell/status/1860351187213746539
In the end, somthing like this will be tried, because, in the end, voters will vote for it, in their desperation
Good afternoon, everybody.
https://thecritic.co.uk/labour-and-monarchy/
"The British Labour Party has never been a republican party, even if it has had republicans in it. Ninety-nine years ago, the Labour conference considered a motion “that the hereditary principle in the British Constitution be abolished”. The motion was overwhelmingly defeated. George Lansbury, who vies with Jeremy Corbyn for the title of Labour’s most left-wing leader, told conference delegates that it was the capitalist system that made people poor, not the King."
On Atlee, specifically:
"In 1959, Attlee wrote an essay on “The Role of the Monarchy” for The Observer. Labour’s greatest prime minister explained that whilst he had been responsible for many radical changes in British society, “there is one feature of which I have never felt any urge to abolish, and that is the monarchy”. For Attlee, the great advantage of the constitutional monarch is that he or she stands as “the general representative of the people”. Attlee wrote that Britain was lucky “in having as head of state a person who is not the choice of one section of the people but is the common possession, so to speak, of them all”."
A strange argument
I am deeply apprehensive about a Trump Presidency but the prospect of an end of these circuses is something to welcome.
The earliest sunset, where I am, to the nearest minute, is 4 pm. We’ll have that in just two weeks’ time, after which there is basically ten days when nothing changes, then we resume the march towards springtime.
Yes, they are incredible. Wild and beautiful and huge and clean. Great surfing (apparently - I don't surf)
If there is any criticism it is the wind, it can be brutal and it somehow makes the hot sun hotter
But nonetheless magnificent
Shame about Portuguese food. It's OK if you stick to grilled sardines and custard tarts. Nice wine