On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
Presumably Goodwin thinks Donald Trump is not American.
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
Do you think that the "family farms tax" would be a barrier to a deal? That is a policy, not a deep-rooted instrument of ideology.
I am reasonably confident that the result of the next election will be glorious chaos. Time for parties to start thinking who their friends and allies are, and as hateful as they may find it that almost certainly means working with their former colleagues who splintered off.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
It depends on how you define English, is it an ethnicity or a nationality?
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
As entertaining as the Habib party launch was, it points towards further ruptions within the pop-right. The less from the 2024 election was that an awful lot of races are close, so it only needs fragmentation of vote blocks for the right to have most votes but lose the seat to the red right...
A minor alt-Reform party picking up 2 to 3% might also be the difference in some Con-Reform fights. Rural Norfolk for example will likely be very tight fights within a few %
Yes Kemi will be cheering Habib on
I think it unlikely Habib will even reach the giddy heights of 2%.
50/1 Habib as next PM if actually setting fire to your money has been banned while the drought continues.
In 1991, Jaffa Cake took on HMRC, arguing that their product was indeed a cake and not a biscuit. It may seem an innocuous point, but the latter definition would relieve them of tax. Luckily for McVities, the court sided with them.
Nearly 30 years later, M&S find themselves embroiled in a similar scenario with their launch of the “strawberries and creme” sandwich, inspired by the Japanese 7-Eleven stalwart. The sandwich consists of fresh fruit and cream between two slices of sweetened white bread, and is retailing for £2.80.
The sandwich has gone viral, but one financial expert has suggested it could land the retailer in hot water with the taxman.
HW Fisher’s VAT manager Simon Knivett said such a sandwich could be subject to a 1980s legislative amendment, meaning Marks would have to pay additional VAT on it. “If the bread is sweetened and designed to be eaten with fingers, the case for classifying it as confectionery is surprisingly strong,” he said.
What he's objecting to is Goodwin's argument that being English comes only from multiple generations of descent, only from blood, rather than Englishness being something that one can acquire culturally.
This differs for differing nationalities. For instance Brazil is a real melting pot of differing ethnicities whereas South Korea is full of ethnic Koreans. We're neither Brazil nor Korea so the question of what constitutes England and the English is an interesting one.
Korea is almost as much an admixture of different ethnic groups as are the "English". It's just that centuries of deliberate isolation gave rise to the "pure blooded" Korean myth.
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
So your scenario is that Labour need allies to govern, and refuse proffered support because they doggedly cling to the "family farm tax" as some kind of last bastion of democratic socialism that has to be defended to the death?
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Years ago it became fashionable among sociologists to refer to the second generation effect where the children of immigrants would later adopt a stronger affiliation to their parents' real or imagined homeland, and believe they were more victims of discrimination. Whether those ideas are still current, I could not say.
"Three Lucy Letby hospital bosses arrested over ‘manslaughter’ Staff investigated in connection with ‘increased fatalities’ in years neonatal nurse carried out baby murders"
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
No, it’s just that you’re not as English as someone with four English grandparents. And the person with those grandparents isn’t as ‘whatever countries your grandparents came from-ish’. Doesn’t make anyone better or worse, I don’t think being English is superior to being from anywhere else but, if all my grandparents were Spanish, I wouldn’t be as English as I am
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Four years like the last 12 months, might see public patience with Labour completely exhausted.
That said, I’d expect Reform to be winning 150-200 or so seats, next time, with Labour winning somewhat more.
That's the unknown.
How far will this government continue to drown after being thrown in the deep end? Or will some of its members start to do a fair approximation of swimming?
How much will some of the longer term bets (energy, planning, Europe) be seen to have paid off by 2028/9?
The electorate are far less patient than in the past. But with no election imminent, that doesn't matter. And most governments would be happy with second place and a single-figure deficit at this stage.
It didn't get thrown, it jumped in. And, unlike Cameron and Osborne who laid out austerity (such as it was) from the start, Starmer and Reeves didn't bother with anything like that. Which may not have been terribly clever.
I won't argue Starmer and Reeves seemed ill-prepared for coming into Government - perhaps they didn't brlieve the polls (some on here didn't) but we all knew the Conservatives were exhausted after 14 years running the Government - they were out of ideas and were reduced to kicking the poor old can down the poorly-maintained road.
Across a range of issues, it wasn't that the Conservatives tried things and got them wrong - they simply gave up trying, perhaps understandable after Covid but nonetheless countries can't drift on inertia which is why you change Government but the new Government faces the same problems and has to come up with responses if not solutions.
The problem is across a range of inter-connected and inter-dependent issues there are no easy solutions - at best, there are costly and unpopular schemes which might pay dividends a decade or more down the road but that's not how modern politics functions and so frustration sets in.
Adult social care is an enormous issue but neither Labour nor Conservatives have felt willing or able to tackle it despite big Parliamentary majorities. That's a damning indictment of where we are or rather where we aren't.
Some good points here. All the "Starmer is a dipstick" stuff is fine (I'm not blind to his flaws myself) however I'm a tad disappointed by how rarely it's accompanied by a recognition of how tough the gig of government is right now.
Growth has been sluggish for almost two decades. This isn't UK specific, it's across the developed world. There are deep structural reasons for it. Many of these are immune to the powers of a domestic political leader in a liberal democracy.
Looking at what can be done (by a UK government in a parliamentary term) the main tool is £££ but after the shocks of the GFC and Covid and the return of inflation - and the state response thereto - there is zero slack in the finances. They're tight as a drum. So is the politics. We can't borrow more and the public won't tolerate big spending cuts or tax rises.
Therefore whoever is in government is to a large extent hemmed in as regards economic and fiscal policy. They're in a box constructed by the public and the bond markets. Any assessment of the government that makes no allowance for this is whistling up a gum tree. It's either partisan wibble or just emoting.
Course, where would we be without partisan wibble and emoting. A much poorer site. So don't read me wrong and stop doing it. All I ask is that every so often when a poster offers up a "worse government in recorded history" missive they follow it in brackets by "although I recognise the scale of the task and it's not clear anybody else would be a great deal better."
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
All great points, but missing one thing. The task of government is leadership not followership. That people want no/low tax and great public services is just the way human nature is.
Which means that government must explain, persuade, tell a story, inspire, encourage and lead. They must also accept that the govern is to choose between actual alternatives, that not all good things are compatible with all other good things, and so on.
I think the good or great leaders all have a decent story to tell: Churchill, Attlee, Thatcher, Blair. All will come unstuck somewhere, none of these left office at exactly the moment of their choosing. The present lot's best chance is to learn from them and accept that at some point their wheels too will come off.
Yes, governmemt is very hard, especially in the modern era when it is analysed and commented on constantly by every herbert on the internet. But Starmer has just made so many unforced errors - Alleygate, Chagos, the 'deal' with Europe, the U turns, claiming he didn't read his own speeches, any responsibility he bears for Rachel Reeves... FWIW I think in respect of trying to navigate the Trump situation he's done a tricky job very well. And ditto Ukraine, and ditto the Middle East.
Which should worry me more?! The possibility of the Border Feds finding edgeporn on my phone or the possibility of being murdered by a Fent addict in Nob Hill?
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
Presumably Goodwin thinks Donald Trump is not American.
Plenty of Americans don't think they're American, so it cuts both ways.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
No, it’s just that you’re not as English as someone with four English grandparents. And the person with those grandparents isn’t as ‘whatever countries your grandparents came from-ish’. Doesn’t make anyone better or worse, I don’t think being English is superior to being from anywhere else but, if all my grandparents were Spanish, I wouldn’t be as English as I am
If you’re measuring degrees of Englishness there must be a cut off point where someone ceases to be English at all. If you’re measuring it based on blood, which you are, surely zero English blood means not English?
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
This is why I roll my eyes at petty identity stuff (or "flagshagging" as it got dubbed at one point). In this country it's pretty hard to be "pure". And pure-what? Witness the knuckle-draggers complaining about immigrants as getting favours instead of "pure-bred Anglo-Saxons". Yeah, that hyphen might cause a problem with "pure", never mind that both are migrants.
England and the English should be proud of our mixed heritage. It literally defines who we are, how we speak, the names of the places we live, our history.
I think Anglo-Saxon maxes out at 40%, even in the SE. Earlier migrations had a much bigger impact on our genetics.
In terms of cultural identity, I think it's about where you went to school. If that school was majority ethnic minority then that's just a reflection of modern Britain which now has multiple and mixed ethnicities, like it or not.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
No, it’s just that you’re not as English as someone with four English grandparents. And the person with those grandparents isn’t as ‘whatever countries your grandparents came from-ish’. Doesn’t make anyone better or worse, I don’t think being English is superior to being from anywhere else but, if all my grandparents were Spanish, I wouldn’t be as English as I am
If you’re measuring degrees of Englishness there must be a cut off point where someone ceases to be English at all. If you’re measuring it based on blood, which you are, surely zero English blood means not English?
Also dead
This puts me in mind of a university friend from Tanzania, who used to react to a Kenyan friend teasing him for being 'fresh' by saying "go to Dar [es Salaam] and ask them how English I am".
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
It's sweet that you think that Reform &/or the Tories would scrap the "farms tax" immediately.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
No, it’s just that you’re not as English as someone with four English grandparents. And the person with those grandparents isn’t as ‘whatever countries your grandparents came from-ish’. Doesn’t make anyone better or worse, I don’t think being English is superior to being from anywhere else but, if all my grandparents were Spanish, I wouldn’t be as English as I am
If you’re measuring degrees of Englishness there must be a cut off point where someone ceases to be English at all. If you’re measuring it based on blood, which you are, surely zero English blood means not English?
Well there are billions of people in the world who are not English! I don’t get what you mean
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
Yes, and Sunak is as English as they come. I think distance matters in this sort of thing. Irish identity will persist because it's not far to visit on a fairly regular basis.
And I 100% disagree. The article is entirely disingenuous. If put into place parliament will get even worse at taking any serious responsibility for future generations who don't currently have a vote.
The OBR is not some ancient and storied institution from the days of Walpole or Pitt the Elder, it was created by George Osborne to trip up Labour Chancellors. Like many Osborne wheezes, this one backfired on his own side, viz Liz Truss.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I suppose it depends on other cultural things like which sports teams you support.
Is TSE English? As ever, it depends how you define Englishness. It's easier with British as that is obviously a formal legel nationality.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
It depends on how you define English, is it an ethnicity or a nationality?
I'd say what Isam says is true in either case.
I'm English. I was born and raised here. But also I'm a bit Scottish. My mother is Scottish. So if I'm a bit Scottish, I can't be 100% English. So Isam is more English than me. I can't be a bit Scottish without being slightly less English, and to claim otherwise is unicorns and fairies magical thinking. How much is that 'bit'? Well it's a bit subjective. If it's blood, I'm clearly 50% Scottish. But that's daft, because my mum's Dad was English. So 25%. But then a bit further back and there's some Welsh in there too. And if you go far enough back we all came from Africa.
I'd say the bit is 'how Scottish do I feel' - which is, say, about 5%. Not a lot, but a bit. And hence I'm less English than Isam. There's no moral value attached to that either way, that's just the way things are: if you're 'a bit' one nationality that makes you slightly less another nationality.
I wouldn't say ethnicity is unimportant, but cultural identification is more important - so yoir influences as you were raised have more to making you English, and will vary from person to person to person. That's one of the reasons some foreigners seem less foreign than others - if you 'present' as British, you look British no matter what your skin colour.
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
It's sweet that you think that Reform &/or the Tories would scrap the "farms tax" immediately.
They would, it is a key commitment from both Farage and Badenoch and even Ed Davey to scrap the wicked and hated farms tax
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
So your scenario is that Labour need allies to govern, and refuse proffered support because they doggedly cling to the "family farm tax" as some kind of last bastion of democratic socialism that has to be defended to the death?
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
No, it’s just that you’re not as English as someone with four English grandparents. And the person with those grandparents isn’t as ‘whatever countries your grandparents came from-ish’. Doesn’t make anyone better or worse, I don’t think being English is superior to being from anywhere else but, if all my grandparents were Spanish, I wouldn’t be as English as I am
If you’re measuring degrees of Englishness there must be a cut off point where someone ceases to be English at all. If you’re measuring it based on blood, which you are, surely zero English blood means not English?
Also dead
This puts me in mind of a university friend from Tanzania, who used to react to a Kenyan friend teasing him for being 'fresh' by saying "go to Dar [es Salaam] and ask them how English I am".
My late dad was born in Dar es Salaam, before the War.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I agree, I think, with self definition - if you feel a bit Irish then you don't feel entirely English. But I don't think it links to blood/genetics. Someone with two Irish parents that they don't know about, adopted a birth and brought up in an English identifying family is likely to consider themselves English (and not Irish at all) and I wouldn't quibble with that. That might change, of course, if that person discovered they had Irish parents.
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
It's sweet that you think that Reform &/or the Tories would scrap the "farms tax" immediately.
It is interesting that you seem to think they might not. You and your source are definitely wrong on this one. However, it is unlikely that Reeves's replacement will not scrap it himself, especially now Mr Reeves has gone.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I suppose it depends on other cultural things like which sports teams you support.
Is TSE English? As ever, it depends how you define Englishness. It's easier with British as that is obviously a formal legel nationality.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I agree, I think, with self definition - if you feel a bit Irish then you don't feel entirely English. But I don't think it links to blood/genetics. Someone with two Irish parents that they don't know about, adopted a birth and brought up in an English identifying family is likely to consider themselves English (and not Irish at all) and I wouldn't quibble with that. That might change, of course, if that person discovered they had Irish parents.
I have a friend who was adopted as a baby. His biological roots are Italian. Naturally, he made a big deal of this when Italy won the World Cup in 2006 (not so sure he was so happy in 2021, mind).
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
Yes, and Sunak is as English as they come. I think distance matters in this sort of thing. Irish identity will persist because it's not far to visit on a fairly regular basis.
If your identity, or nationality, or ethnicity is 'a bit Irish' or 'a bit Indian' or in my case 'a bit Scottish' then your identity, or nationality, or ethnicity is not 100% English. That's just maths. There's nothing pejorative about this. But thinking otherwise is indulging in magical thinking.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I suppose it depends on other cultural things like which sports teams you support.
Is TSE English? As ever, it depends how you define Englishness. It's easier with British as that is obviously a formal legel nationality.
I am as English as Queen Victoria.
"So your father's German, you're half German and you married a German!?"
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
There are one or two other issues too. Like these: Isn't it kinder to deal with matters of communion more privately.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I agree, I think, with self definition - if you feel a bit Irish then you don't feel entirely English. But I don't think it links to blood/genetics. Someone with two Irish parents that they don't know about, adopted a birth and brought up in an English identifying family is likely to consider themselves English (and not Irish at all) and I wouldn't quibble with that. That might change, of course, if that person discovered they had Irish parents.
My father in law was adopted. We don't kniw anything about his genetic origins, but (based largely I think on ginger hair) there is a family belief that he is genetically Irish. So potentially my daughters are a bit Irish.
But genetics is such a small part of what makes a human a human. What makes me a bit Scottish is less the bland fact of genetics, but the cultual input growing up from my mother and grandmother, and childhood visits to places which meant something to the family.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
Yes, and Sunak is as English as they come. I think distance matters in this sort of thing. Irish identity will persist because it's not far to visit on a fairly regular basis.
The impossibility of imposing a cultural or ethnic identity can be shown in a nice simple way, inspired by @Eabhal’s strange idea that it might be linked to school.
I went to the same school as Sunak and Douglas Jardine. We all consider or considered ourselves English. All educated in England, prep school, Boarding School and University.
Rishi is the only one of the three of us born in England. I’m the only one of us with English parents. Douglas Jardine was born in India to Scottish parents.
Rishi was PM of the United Kingdom, Douglas Jardine Captain of England Cricket and I represented GB at a sport (unnamed to reduce chances of doxxing myself) so all “represented” different concepts of the larger country.
Which of us is least English? Englishness to me is a cultural thing not a genetic or soil issue, I imagine it to be the same for the other two.
The 92 year old who has just been convicted of a rape and murder back in 1967 has been sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 20 years.
"Do the best you can" comes to mind!
The judge is required by the law to use a formula in deciding a minimum term, even though in this case it is meaningless. This restriction on the judge's freedom is fairly new. In a less regulated world (sentencing is far far too regulated) the judge would just have given him life and said no more.
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
There are one or two other issues too. Like these: Isn't it kinder to deal with matters of communion more privately.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
Do people also get punted out of communion for other 'contrary to the natural order of things' such as using antibiotics, taking flights, driving etc?
Of your list, I'd note that homosexual activity is very much in the natural order of things, as can be observed (albeit to varying degrees and sometimes infrequently) among animals other than humans.
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
There are one or two other issues too. Like these: Isn't it kinder to deal with matters of communion more privately.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
Do people also get punted out of communion for other 'contrary to the natural order of things' such as using antibiotics, taking flights, driving etc?
Of your list, I'd note that homosexual activity is very much in the natural order of things, as can be observed (albeit to varying degrees and sometimes infrequently) among animals other than humans.
Only the Biblical natural order of things is relevant to the RC church
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
There are one or two other issues too. Like these: Isn't it kinder to deal with matters of communion more privately.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
RC priests have in the past refused communion to those using contraception
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Four years like the last 12 months, might see public patience with Labour completely exhausted.
That said, I’d expect Reform to be winning 150-200 or so seats, next time, with Labour winning somewhat more.
That's the unknown.
How far will this government continue to drown after being thrown in the deep end? Or will some of its members start to do a fair approximation of swimming?
How much will some of the longer term bets (energy, planning, Europe) be seen to have paid off by 2028/9?
The electorate are far less patient than in the past. But with no election imminent, that doesn't matter. And most governments would be happy with second place and a single-figure deficit at this stage.
It didn't get thrown, it jumped in. And, unlike Cameron and Osborne who laid out austerity (such as it was) from the start, Starmer and Reeves didn't bother with anything like that. Which may not have been terribly clever.
I won't argue Starmer and Reeves seemed ill-prepared for coming into Government - perhaps they didn't brlieve the polls (some on here didn't) but we all knew the Conservatives were exhausted after 14 years running the Government - they were out of ideas and were reduced to kicking the poor old can down the poorly-maintained road.
Across a range of issues, it wasn't that the Conservatives tried things and got them wrong - they simply gave up trying, perhaps understandable after Covid but nonetheless countries can't drift on inertia which is why you change Government but the new Government faces the same problems and has to come up with responses if not solutions.
The problem is across a range of inter-connected and inter-dependent issues there are no easy solutions - at best, there are costly and unpopular schemes which might pay dividends a decade or more down the road but that's not how modern politics functions and so frustration sets in.
Adult social care is an enormous issue but neither Labour nor Conservatives have felt willing or able to tackle it despite big Parliamentary majorities. That's a damning indictment of where we are or rather where we aren't.
Some good points here. All the "Starmer is a dipstick" stuff is fine (I'm not blind to his flaws myself) however I'm a tad disappointed by how rarely it's accompanied by a recognition of how tough the gig of government is right now.
Growth has been sluggish for almost two decades. This isn't UK specific, it's across the developed world. There are deep structural reasons for it. Many of these are immune to the powers of a domestic political leader in a liberal democracy.
Looking at what can be done (by a UK government in a parliamentary term) the main tool is £££ but after the shocks of the GFC and Covid and the return of inflation - and the state response thereto - there is zero slack in the finances. They're tight as a drum. So is the politics. We can't borrow more and the public won't tolerate big spending cuts or tax rises.
Therefore whoever is in government is to a large extent hemmed in as regards economic and fiscal policy. They're in a box constructed by the public and the bond markets. Any assessment of the government that makes no allowance for this is whistling up a gum tree. It's either partisan wibble or just emoting.
Course, where would we be without partisan wibble and emoting. A much poorer site. So don't read me wrong and stop doing it. All I ask is that every so often when a poster offers up a "worse government in recorded history" missive they follow it in brackets by "although I recognise the scale of the task and it's not clear anybody else would be a great deal better."
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
All great points, but missing one thing. The task of government is leadership not followership. That people want no/low tax and great public services is just the way human nature is.
Which means that government must explain, persuade, tell a story, inspire, encourage and lead. They must also accept that the govern is to choose between actual alternatives, that not all good things are compatible with all other good things, and so on.
I think the good or great leaders all have a decent story to tell: Churchill, Attlee, Thatcher, Blair. All will come unstuck somewhere, none of these left office at exactly the moment of their choosing. The present lot's best chance is to learn from them and accept that at some point their wheels too will come off.
Yes, you don't want to slip into fatalism. I hope I'm avoiding that. And it's mainly the fiscal and economic constraints I'm talking about. There's more scope in (eg) social policy and this can make a big difference.
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
So your scenario is that Labour need allies to govern, and refuse proffered support because they doggedly cling to the "family farm tax" as some kind of last bastion of democratic socialism that has to be defended to the death?
No Labour would have to back down
They wouldn't have to back down - they don't care about this policy and would drop it in a heartbeat.
When push comes to shove there are zero barriers in Labour / LibDems / Greens and likely a few others working together at least as C&S.
The 92 year old who has just been convicted of a rape and murder back in 1967 has been sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 20 years.
"Do the best you can" comes to mind!
The judge is required by the law to use a formula in deciding a minimum term, even though in this case it is meaningless. This restriction on the judge's freedom is fairly new. In a less regulated world (sentencing is far far too regulated) the judge would just have given him life and said no more.
Perhaps the sentencing guidelines should give some credit for his having largely gone straight and murdered no-one else since 1967.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I suppose it depends on other cultural things like which sports teams you support.
Is TSE English? As ever, it depends how you define Englishness. It's easier with British as that is obviously a formal legel nationality.
I am as English as Queen Victoria.
"So your father's German, you're half German and you married a German!?"
I don't understand this whole definition of "English" from either side. On one hand we have the revelry of English heroes like St George (never came here) and Richard the Lionheart (here briefly, didn't speak English). On the other hand the absurdist guff posted from McTernan about why patriotism is scary.
The English are a truly multicultural hodgepodge of all that's great in Europe - Celts, Romans, Vikings, Germans, French etc. There is no "ethnic English" but the suggestion that there is is not "truly evil". Celebrate all we are, warts and all.
We’re descendants of all of Europe’s most accomplished killers.
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
There are one or two other issues too. Like these: Isn't it kinder to deal with matters of communion more privately.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
RC priests have in the past refused communion to those using contraception
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
Yes, and Sunak is as English as they come. I think distance matters in this sort of thing. Irish identity will persist because it's not far to visit on a fairly regular basis.
The impossibility of imposing a cultural or ethnic identity can be shown in a nice simple way, inspired by @Eabhal’s strange idea that it might be linked to school.
I went to the same school as Sunak and Douglas Jardine. We all consider or considered ourselves English. All educated in England, prep school, Boarding School and University.
Rishi is the only one of the three of us born in England. I’m the only one of us with English parents. Douglas Jardine was born in India to Scottish parents.
Rishi was PM of the United Kingdom, Douglas Jardine Captain of England Cricket and I represented GB at a sport (unnamed to reduce chances of doxxing myself) so all “represented” different concepts of the larger country.
Which of us is least English? Englishness to me is a cultural thing not a genetic or soil issue, I imagine it to be the same for the other two.
Is Kevin Pietersen as English as Nasser Hussain? Both born abroad to an English mother and non English Father, both captained England at Cricket… I’d say Hussain is more English by virtue of being schooled here, so it’s not all about blood and soil, but it’s a nuanced subject and it’s a spectrum rather than binary
"Three Lucy Letby hospital bosses arrested over ‘manslaughter’ Staff investigated in connection with ‘increased fatalities’ in years neonatal nurse carried out baby murders"
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
Yes, and Sunak is as English as they come. I think distance matters in this sort of thing. Irish identity will persist because it's not far to visit on a fairly regular basis.
The impossibility of imposing a cultural or ethnic identity can be shown in a nice simple way, inspired by @Eabhal’s strange idea that it might be linked to school.
I went to the same school as Sunak and Douglas Jardine. We all consider or considered ourselves English. All educated in England, prep school, Boarding School and University.
Rishi is the only one of the three of us born in England. I’m the only one of us with English parents. Douglas Jardine was born in India to Scottish parents.
Rishi was PM of the United Kingdom, Douglas Jardine Captain of England Cricket and I represented GB at a sport (unnamed to reduce chances of doxxing myself) so all “represented” different concepts of the larger country.
Which of us is least English? Englishness to me is a cultural thing not a genetic or soil issue, I imagine it to be the same for the other two.
Is Kevin Pietersen as English as Nasser Hussain? Both born abroad to an English mother and non English Father, both captained England at Cricket… I’d say Hussain is more English by virtue of being schooled here, so it’s not all about blood and soil, but it’s a nuanced subject and it’s a spectrum rather than binary
Its about what a person feels, really. I knew a guy in NZ, born in the UK, moved to NZ pre-school, sounds like a Kiwi, thinks he is a Kiwi, basically is a Kiwi.
With sport its tricky. How many of the Kilted Kiwi's who played rugby for Scotland by dint of a grandparent genuinely felt Scottish? Did Zola Budd really feel British in 1984?
Everyone is different. Ryan Giggs could have played for England, and who knows, night have helped England to actually win something. He was on a hiding to nothing with Wales, but that was his country and so he played for Wales and I completely respect that. I am only ever English (well Wiltshire, tbh) and cannot conceive of pulling on another nations shirt, and singing the anthem etc.
I don't understand this whole definition of "English" from either side. On one hand we have the revelry of English heroes like St George (never came here) and Richard the Lionheart (here briefly, didn't speak English). On the other hand the absurdist guff posted from McTernan about why patriotism is scary.
The English are a truly multicultural hodgepodge of all that's great in Europe - Celts, Romans, Vikings, Germans, French etc. There is no "ethnic English" but the suggestion that there is is not "truly evil". Celebrate all we are, warts and all.
We’re descendants of all of Europe’s most accomplished killers.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I don't think is necessarily right. An alternative but similar viewpoint would be your identity has to add up to 100%, not your nationality. Someone might identify primarily as an Aston Villa supporter and spend most of their free time following them home and away. Their secondary identity might be as a teacher or a musician. Nationality could be well down their list.
Someone else might have nationality as their primary identity even if it is split across more than one nation.
Intensity of feeling of nationality matters here if we have to rank peoples national identity for some reason.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
I agree, I think, with self definition - if you feel a bit Irish then you don't feel entirely English. But I don't think it links to blood/genetics. Someone with two Irish parents that they don't know about, adopted a birth and brought up in an English identifying family is likely to consider themselves English (and not Irish at all) and I wouldn't quibble with that. That might change, of course, if that person discovered they had Irish parents.
I have a friend who was adopted as a baby. His biological roots are Italian. Naturally, he made a big deal of this when Italy won the World Cup in 2006 (not so sure he was so happy in 2021, mind).
My colleague has an Italian Heritage and Italian name, but is born and bred in England. He got so much abuse as a kid from his mates that he ended up supporting Italy.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
Yes, and Sunak is as English as they come. I think distance matters in this sort of thing. Irish identity will persist because it's not far to visit on a fairly regular basis.
The impossibility of imposing a cultural or ethnic identity can be shown in a nice simple way, inspired by @Eabhal’s strange idea that it might be linked to school.
I went to the same school as Sunak and Douglas Jardine. We all consider or considered ourselves English. All educated in England, prep school, Boarding School and University.
Rishi is the only one of the three of us born in England. I’m the only one of us with English parents. Douglas Jardine was born in India to Scottish parents.
Rishi was PM of the United Kingdom, Douglas Jardine Captain of England Cricket and I represented GB at a sport (unnamed to reduce chances of doxxing myself) so all “represented” different concepts of the larger country.
Which of us is least English? Englishness to me is a cultural thing not a genetic or soil issue, I imagine it to be the same for the other two.
I don't think it's the school per se, just that it serves as a useful proxy for your formative years. You're right that it's inherently impossible to nail down.
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
There are one or two other issues too. Like these: Isn't it kinder to deal with matters of communion more privately.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
RC priests have in the past refused communion to those using contraception
The 92 year old who has just been convicted of a rape and murder back in 1967 has been sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 20 years.
"Do the best you can" comes to mind!
The judge is required by the law to use a formula in deciding a minimum term, even though in this case it is meaningless. This restriction on the judge's freedom is fairly new. In a less regulated world (sentencing is far far too regulated) the judge would just have given him life and said no more.
Perhaps the sentencing guidelines should give some credit for his having largely gone straight and murdered no-one else since 1967.
"Three Lucy Letby hospital bosses arrested over ‘manslaughter’ Staff investigated in connection with ‘increased fatalities’ in years neonatal nurse carried out baby murders"
17 and cloudy on the coast road in Newcastle. Short sleeved shirt not ideal. Just had a haircut and barber gave me a very large whiskey after. After a light breakfast it’s gone to my head somewhat
"Three Lucy Letby hospital bosses arrested over ‘manslaughter’ Staff investigated in connection with ‘increased fatalities’ in years neonatal nurse carried out baby murders"
I don't understand this whole definition of "English" from either side. On one hand we have the revelry of English heroes like St George (never came here) and Richard the Lionheart (here briefly, didn't speak English). On the other hand the absurdist guff posted from McTernan about why patriotism is scary.
The English are a truly multicultural hodgepodge of all that's great in Europe - Celts, Romans, Vikings, Germans, French etc. There is no "ethnic English" but the suggestion that there is is not "truly evil". Celebrate all we are, warts and all.
We’re descendants of all of Europe’s most accomplished killers.
George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly was born circa 1563.1 He was the son of George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly and Lady Anne Hamilton.2 He married Lady Henrietta Stuart, daughter of Esmé Stuart, 1st Duke of Lennox and Catherine de Balsac, on 21 July 1588.2 He died on 13 June 1636.3 He succeeded as the 6th Earl of Huntly [S., 1445] on 19 October 1576.2 He held the office of Captain of the Guard in 1588.2 In 1588 he rebelled in concert with Spanish forces.2 Between 24 May 1588 and September 1589 at Borthwick Castle, Midlothian, ScotlandG, he was captured and imprisoned for treason.2 He murdered James Stuart, 2nd Lord Doune on 7 February 1591/92, slashed to death.
17 and cloudy on the coast road in Newcastle. Short sleeved shirt not ideal. Just had a haircut and barber gave me a very large whiskey after. After a light breakfast it’s gone to my head somewhat
It's just gone noon and the barber gave you a hefty glass of scotch after a rug rethink?
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
No, it’s just that you’re not as English as someone with four English grandparents. And the person with those grandparents isn’t as ‘whatever countries your grandparents came from-ish’. Doesn’t make anyone better or worse, I don’t think being English is superior to being from anywhere else but, if all my grandparents were Spanish, I wouldn’t be as English as I am
Well that's the key. If how 'English' you are in an ethnic sense carries no serious connotations beyond conversational interest - eg there's no implication of greater rights and belonging - then it becomes a non-issue. This imo is where we ought to be heading. But I doubt most of those who get hung up on the concept would agree with me.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
Yes, and Sunak is as English as they come. I think distance matters in this sort of thing. Irish identity will persist because it's not far to visit on a fairly regular basis.
The impossibility of imposing a cultural or ethnic identity can be shown in a nice simple way, inspired by @Eabhal’s strange idea that it might be linked to school.
I went to the same school as Sunak and Douglas Jardine. We all consider or considered ourselves English. All educated in England, prep school, Boarding School and University.
Rishi is the only one of the three of us born in England. I’m the only one of us with English parents. Douglas Jardine was born in India to Scottish parents.
Rishi was PM of the United Kingdom, Douglas Jardine Captain of England Cricket and I represented GB at a sport (unnamed to reduce chances of doxxing myself) so all “represented” different concepts of the larger country.
Which of us is least English? Englishness to me is a cultural thing not a genetic or soil issue, I imagine it to be the same for the other two.
Is Kevin Pietersen as English as Nasser Hussain? Both born abroad to an English mother and non English Father, both captained England at Cricket… I’d say Hussain is more English by virtue of being schooled here, so it’s not all about blood and soil, but it’s a nuanced subject and it’s a spectrum rather than binary
Its about what a person feels, really. I knew a guy in NZ, born in the UK, moved to NZ pre-school, sounds like a Kiwi, thinks he is a Kiwi, basically is a Kiwi.
With sport its tricky. How many of the Kilted Kiwi's who played rugby for Scotland by dint of a grandparent genuinely felt Scottish? Did Zola Budd really feel British in 1984?
Everyone is different. Ryan Giggs could have played for England, and who knows, night have helped England to actually win something. He was on a hiding to nothing with Wales, but that was his country and so he played for Wales and I completely respect that. I am only ever English (well Wiltshire, tbh) and cannot conceive of pulling on another nations shirt, and singing the anthem etc.
ISTR he played for Wales because a) Ferguson judged he'd lose him less often if he played for Wales than England and persuaded him England wouldn't pick him but Wales would, and b), hazier memory this, but he'd fallen out with his Dad who was his English parent. But ISTR he was raised in Salford.
17 and cloudy on the coast road in Newcastle. Short sleeved shirt not ideal. Just had a haircut and barber gave me a very large whiskey after. After a light breakfast it’s gone to my head somewhat
-17 is still shirt sleeved shirt weather in The Toon!
I refer the honourable PBers to my remarks at the end of the last thread.
If Musk takes on the state, he will lose. Starting with government contracts and subsidies.
And if Musk pays for opponents of some Congressmen, they will find other billionaire donors who want to retain their own contracts, tax cuts and subsidies.
This is the American way.
I think there's a good chance SpaceX will be deemed a critical resource for the nation and taken off him (perhaps leaving him with Starlink...)
It wouldn't be the first time the government have interfered in space launch companies: they forced Boeing and Lockheed to form ULA.
Why would they leave him with Starlink - that has significant military implications so easy to see that being nationalised as well.
I'm not saying they will; they *might*. Because Starlink's a commercial service to ?millions? of consumers, and not as critical to the US as SpaceX's launch capability is.
Not exactly true. And the military are, if anything, thinking about further committing to SpaceX.
Pentagon to consider SpaceX alternative for Space Force satellite program
The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget would suspend procurement of data-transport satellites for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a mesh network of satellites designed for secure communications and missile tracking operated by the Space Force’s Space Development Agency. The outcome of the review could impact the procurement of as many as 140 satellites for Transport Layer Tranche 3, which the SDA had planned to order in 2026 for deployment in 2028.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman confirmed the possibility of this shift during a June 26 congressional hearing, telling the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee that the service will pursue an analysis of alternatives to determine the way forward.
...The potential alternative centers on SpaceX’s Starshield program, a militarized version of the company’s commercial Starlink broadband satellites. News that the Pentagon was considering this first surfaced in March when Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) questioned Air Force Secretary nominee Troy Meink during a confirmation hearing about budget discussions regarding the PWSA program..
"Three Lucy Letby hospital bosses arrested over ‘manslaughter’ Staff investigated in connection with ‘increased fatalities’ in years neonatal nurse carried out baby murders"
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
In Medieval times, the priest would send the offending individual on a pilgrimage to one of the great shrines in Europe - Rome, Santiago, Jerusalem etc. It was both an opportunity to reflect and to get the person out of the way of those seeking revenge. Such is the way of these things, eventually there was a tariff to avoid going or you could send someone else.
Much of the background can be found in the book 'Pilgrimage' by Johnathan Sumption (for it is he). No wonder a medieval scholar would have such a jaundiced view of today's politicians and churchmen. He will have studied it all before.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
Is she as English as you on top of being Irish?
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
No, it has to add up to 100%. If you consider yourself ‘a bit Irish’ it means you have to subtract that off how English you are. This only needs to be seen as offensive if English is considered better than Irish, or any other nationality, which I don’t believe to be so
No it doesn't have to sum to 100%. It can be more complicated. Imagine that years ago you'd moved to Australia and brought your kids up there. They'd be Aussies and would probably identify as such, but you'd have made damn sure they knew about their English heritage and maybe even kept their UK passports. That's a very common and reasonable scenario.
Adjacent to Matt Goodwin explaining his embrace of the concept of English ethno-nationalism, Simon Cooke's thread with a lot of "ethno-nationalism is just reality" type responses:
Of the 200 counties with the highest proportion of voters reliant on public health insurance, a staggering 84pc voted for Trump in last year’s election.
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The PB Pendant's Charter requires me to ask whether you have a partner with three Irish grandparents, or whether all of the grandparents of three of your partners are Irish?
I make no conclusions concerning your social habits, but I do worry slightly that under options B in 10-20 years' time we will experience a demographic explosion of trainspotters.
17 and cloudy on the coast road in Newcastle. Short sleeved shirt not ideal. Just had a haircut and barber gave me a very large whiskey after. After a light breakfast it’s gone to my head somewhat
That sounds a terrific deal (unless it was to mollify you).
The whole Tim Farron thing was strange and so is this. Like, what did you expect?
Ooof. That's harsh. It's not the Lib Dems, it is imo that particular priest taking an inappropriate public stance, even if he is of a different view. That will be manna for the National Secular Society - they will be asking "how many of the other Roman Catholic MPs caved in to bullying by their priests?".
The MP is there to represent his constituents, or his own conscience in matters like this.
And the Roman Catholic church teaches the right to an individual conscience. Roughly (AI but about right):
In Catholic teaching, individuals have a right and duty to follow their conscience, which is seen as a judgment of reason that helps them discern good from evil. This right is not absolute, however, as conscience must be formed and informed by objective moral truths, particularly those revealed through Church teaching and Scripture. While individuals are not to be forced to act against their conscience, they also have a responsibility to seek truth and conform their conscience to it.
Good on the MP, and shame on the priest.
I wonder if the excommunication of the MP was sanctioned by the Bishop. If not, it is the Priest who will have questions to answer.
Is this formally "excommunication", which is a very institutionalised word in the RC Church, aiui?
At a parish level, for a Priest to publicly announce and deny communion needs something regarded as 'grave and continuing public sin' - more commonly that could be carrying on a scandalous affair or similar in full view of the community. Traditionally it could also be divorce or cohabitation (?). A public calling out would probably require a public repentance, or private repentance followed by a public announcement.
(TBF some other churches have arrangements such as "disfellowshipping", and the Westminster Confession prescribes three stages of rebuke, based on iirc guidance sent by Saint Paul to one of the congregations who received his NT "letters".)
Here to me the priestly interference with the democratic process seems quite a biggie, maybe up there with someone doing postal votes for an entire family.
I think both the press and the Bishop may have things to say.
The priest is not interfering with the democratic process. He is stating what the requirements to receive the sacraments in the Catholic Church are. The MP is free to accept these or not. He has chosen not to, as is his right, and the priest is pointing out that when you do not follow the rules of an organisation, there are consequences the organisation is entitled to impose. Whether the priest was wise to do so quite so publicly is another matter.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
There are one or two other issues too. Like these: Isn't it kinder to deal with matters of communion more privately.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
Do people also get punted out of communion for other 'contrary to the natural order of things' such as using antibiotics, taking flights, driving etc?
Of your list, I'd note that homosexual activity is very much in the natural order of things, as can be observed (albeit to varying degrees and sometimes infrequently) among animals other than humans.
I'm with you on this generally. The idea of natural law may be an interesting starting point but a bad ending point, as nature sadly is not entirely benign and is often quite nasty. Morality should reflect the reality of a war with the natural order - smallpox, earthquakes, the dangers of childbirth - as well as a collaboration. One of the reasons why I am a Christian but not a Roman Catholic. (Though I have a great fondness for the RC community generally).
You’re being very disingenuous there William, I am shocked.
You haven’t posted the context, he’s pointing the evilness of Matt Goodwin saying Rishi Sunak isn’t English.
This is chilling stuff Goodwin is trading in. Yes, he circles around it, but ultimately this is just the world view of the skinhead.
Yes. But it is one of the inevitable outcomes of mass migration without the wholehearted consent of the exisiting population. Ethnicity is a fact - as well as a social imaginary. That nations have the right to control borders is a fact. The failure of border control leads to deadly focussing on ethnicity.
A further danger is seeing and diagnosing this issue as one of 'right' or 'left'. It isn't.
Three of my partners grandparents are Irish. As in born in Ireland, Irish accents, still live there/died there. All of mine were born and bred in London. I’d say, without any malice, this makes her less English than me, and by extension, my two children are also less English than me. I am less Irish than them. My partner certainly considers herself quite Irish, despite only spending time there on frequent family visits. I don’t see how any of this would be controversial. Do we deny her Irish blood? Or do we pretend she is just as English as me on top of being Irish as well?
The logical result of that is I, with no English grandparents, am not English, when I quite clearly am.
No, it’s just that you’re not as English as someone with four English grandparents. And the person with those grandparents isn’t as ‘whatever countries your grandparents came from-ish’. Doesn’t make anyone better or worse, I don’t think being English is superior to being from anywhere else but, if all my grandparents were Spanish, I wouldn’t be as English as I am
Well that's the key. If how 'English' you are in an ethnic sense carries no serious connotations beyond conversational interest - eg there's no implication of greater rights and belonging - then it becomes a non-issue. This imo is where we ought to be heading. But I doubt most of those who get hung up on the concept would agree with me.
In order for the there to be no implication of greater belonging, it requires relative newcomers to shed any other allegiances they might have, which is probably an unreasonable expectation.
Of the 200 counties with the highest proportion of voters reliant on public health insurance, a staggering 84pc voted for Trump in last year’s election.
Telegraph
That's why the full impact of any cuts is designed to fall after the midterms.
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
It's sweet that you think that Reform &/or the Tories would scrap the "farms tax" immediately.
They would, it is a key commitment from both Farage and Badenoch and even Ed Davey to scrap the wicked and hated farms tax
Surely on PB we should refer to it as the farmy-farm tax?
17 and cloudy on the coast road in Newcastle. Short sleeved shirt not ideal. Just had a haircut and barber gave me a very large whiskey after. After a light breakfast it’s gone to my head somewhat
-17 is still shirt sleeved shirt weather in The Toon!
On recent polling; Labour are having a terrible time but are not losing further ground; Reform have peaked for now and are not gaining from Labour's woes. Four years to go.
I think the bookies are right in making Labour favourite for most seats. Such a result almost certainly excludes a Reform/Reform led government.
It is not easy (though possible) - to imagine Labour being worse in the next four years than they have been so far.
Payroll/public sector vote, benefits class vote, liberal middle class vote, BAME vote/stop Farage vote/young people vote/Tory vote splitting Reform + me should see Labour home.
Spanner in this works: the biggest by far is a Tory/Reform electoral pact.
Bet accordingly. DYOR.
Even if Labour won most seats in a hung parliament they would still need LD and maybe SNP backing to govern. The LDs and SNP have both made clear the family farm and family business tax must be scrapped for starters
You need to hope that Swinney and Forbes aren’t replaced by left wingers before the next GE.
Even then the LDs would still be opposed to the family farms tax and the SNP likely would remain so too given the rural seats the SNP hold
It's sweet that you think that the "farms tax" will be a key issue in 2029 coalition negotiations.
It will, if Reform or Reform and the Tories win the family farms tax would of course be scrapped immediately.
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
It's sweet that you think that Reform &/or the Tories would scrap the "farms tax" immediately.
They would, it is a key commitment from both Farage and Badenoch and even Ed Davey to scrap the wicked and hated farms tax
Surely on PB we should refer to it as the farmy-farm tax?
10 points for pulling out an in-joke from over 15 years ago.
The 92 year old who has just been convicted of a rape and murder back in 1967 has been sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 20 years.
"Do the best you can" comes to mind!
The judge is required by the law to use a formula in deciding a minimum term, even though in this case it is meaningless. This restriction on the judge's freedom is fairly new. In a less regulated world (sentencing is far far too regulated) the judge would just have given him life and said no more.
Perhaps the sentencing guidelines should give some credit for his having largely gone straight and murdered no-one else since 1967.
Comments
If the LDs and SNP hold the balance of power they could refuse to give Labour confidence and supply unless it is repealed as well given both hold significant numbers of rural seats where it is the No 1 issue now
I am reasonably confident that the result of the next election will be glorious chaos. Time for parties to start thinking who their friends and allies are, and as hateful as they may find it that almost certainly means working with their former colleagues who splintered off.
Still quite amusing to see the Bill's supporters getting all exercised by the concept of coercion, a concept they have been loudly proclaiming cannot possibly ever happen because it's all about "choice" and "autonomy". Well priests have choice and autonomy too. Unless "choice" has been redefined to mean only choosing those things others approve of.
M&S Red Diamond Strawberry & Creme Sandwich
In 1991, Jaffa Cake took on HMRC, arguing that their product was indeed a cake and not a biscuit. It may seem an innocuous point, but the latter definition would relieve them of tax. Luckily for McVities, the court sided with them.
Nearly 30 years later, M&S find themselves embroiled in a similar scenario with their launch of the “strawberries and creme” sandwich, inspired by the Japanese 7-Eleven stalwart. The sandwich consists of fresh fruit and cream between two slices of sweetened white bread, and is retailing for £2.80.
The sandwich has gone viral, but one financial expert has suggested it could land the retailer in hot water with the taxman.
HW Fisher’s VAT manager Simon Knivett said such a sandwich could be subject to a 1980s legislative amendment, meaning Marks would have to pay additional VAT on it. “If the bread is sweetened and designed to be eaten with fingers, the case for classifying it as confectionery is surprisingly strong,” he said.
https://x.com/tphuang/status/1939630432607232059
"Three Lucy Letby hospital bosses arrested over ‘manslaughter’
Staff investigated in connection with ‘increased fatalities’ in years neonatal nurse carried out baby murders"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/letby-hospital-staff-arrested-manslaughter-investigation/
FWIW I think in respect of trying to navigate the Trump situation he's done a tricky job very well. And ditto Ukraine, and ditto the Middle East.
Yes.
Unless she feels differently about it. But that's up to her, not Goodwin or anyone else.
In terms of cultural identity, I think it's about where you went to school. If that school was majority ethnic minority then that's just a reflection of modern Britain which now has multiple and mixed ethnicities, like it or not.
This puts me in mind of a university friend from Tanzania, who used to react to a Kenyan friend teasing him for being 'fresh' by saying "go to Dar [es Salaam] and ask them how English I am".
You just need to squint.
Is TSE English? As ever, it depends how you define Englishness. It's easier with British as that is obviously a formal legel nationality.
I'm English. I was born and raised here. But also I'm a bit Scottish. My mother is Scottish. So if I'm a bit Scottish, I can't be 100% English. So Isam is more English than me. I can't be a bit Scottish without being slightly less English, and to claim otherwise is unicorns and fairies magical thinking.
How much is that 'bit'? Well it's a bit subjective. If it's blood, I'm clearly 50% Scottish. But that's daft, because my mum's Dad was English. So 25%. But then a bit further back and there's some Welsh in there too. And if you go far enough back we all came from Africa.
I'd say the bit is 'how Scottish do I feel' - which is, say, about 5%. Not a lot, but a bit. And hence I'm less English than Isam. There's no moral value attached to that either way, that's just the way things are: if you're 'a bit' one nationality that makes you slightly less another nationality.
I wouldn't say ethnicity is unimportant, but cultural identification is more important - so yoir influences as you were raised have more to making you English, and will vary from person to person to person. That's one of the reasons some foreigners seem less foreign than others - if you 'present' as British, you look British no matter what your skin colour.
"Do the best you can" comes to mind!
There's nothing pejorative about this. But thinking otherwise is indulging in magical thinking.
Fascinating what you learn about people on here
This is semantics, pedantry and identity. Prime PB fodder.
And, at risk of whataboutery, do we find RC priests as assiduous and attentive about refusing communion to married couples who use contraception?
The structure of RC morality stands and falls together on the basis of natural law. Assisted dying, abortion, contraception and same sex practice all belong under the same umbrella as 'contrary to the natural order of things' and therefore wrong.
Reject one bit, and you cast doubt (correctly in my view) on all.
Which is not much - plenty of ships can carry 20,000 containers.
But genetics is such a small part of what makes a human a human. What makes me a bit Scottish is less the bland fact of genetics, but the cultual input growing up from my mother and grandmother, and childhood visits to places which meant something to the family.
I went to the same school as Sunak and Douglas Jardine. We all consider or considered ourselves English. All educated in England, prep school, Boarding School and University.
Rishi is the only one of the three of us born in England. I’m the only one of us with English parents. Douglas Jardine was born in India to Scottish parents.
Rishi was PM of the United Kingdom, Douglas Jardine Captain of England Cricket and I represented GB at a sport (unnamed to reduce chances of doxxing myself) so all “represented” different concepts of the larger country.
Which of us is least English? Englishness to me is a cultural thing not a genetic or soil issue, I imagine it to be the same for the other two.
Of your list, I'd note that homosexual activity is very much in the natural order of things, as can be observed (albeit to varying degrees and sometimes infrequently) among animals other than humans.
https://dosafl.com/2021/11/12/catholics-who-dont-receive-communion-shouldnt-be-shamed-scholars-say/
When push comes to shove there are zero barriers in Labour / LibDems / Greens and likely a few others working together at least as C&S.
You cannot say the same about Tories / Reform.
With sport its tricky. How many of the Kilted Kiwi's who played rugby for Scotland by dint of a grandparent genuinely felt Scottish? Did Zola Budd really feel British in 1984?
Everyone is different. Ryan Giggs could have played for England, and who knows, night have helped England to actually win something. He was on a hiding to nothing with Wales, but that was his country and so he played for Wales and I completely respect that. I am only ever English (well Wiltshire, tbh) and cannot conceive of pulling on another nations shirt, and singing the anthem etc.
Someone else might have nationality as their primary identity even if it is split across more than one nation.
Intensity of feeling of nationality matters here if we have to rank peoples national identity for some reason.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rpdl8kd37o
To which I would add "yet."
The case for Letby being innocent would be immeasurably strengthened if the unit itself is shown to be failing, with babies dying that shouldn't have.
https://www.thepeerage.com/p10942.htm#i109420
George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly was born circa 1563.1 He was the son of George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly and Lady Anne Hamilton.2 He married Lady Henrietta Stuart, daughter of Esmé Stuart, 1st Duke of Lennox and Catherine de Balsac, on 21 July 1588.2 He died on 13 June 1636.3
He succeeded as the 6th Earl of Huntly [S., 1445] on 19 October 1576.2 He held the office of Captain of the Guard in 1588.2 In 1588 he rebelled in concert with Spanish forces.2 Between 24 May 1588 and September 1589 at Borthwick Castle, Midlothian, ScotlandG, he was captured and imprisoned for treason.2 He murdered James Stuart, 2nd Lord Doune on 7 February 1591/92, slashed to death.
I do admire Geordie culture
And the military are, if anything, thinking about further committing to SpaceX.
Pentagon to consider SpaceX alternative for Space Force satellite program
https://spacenews.com/pentagon-to-consider-spacex-alternative-for-space-force-satellite-program/
The Department of the Air Force is reconsidering its procurement of satellites for a low Earth orbit military constellation, pausing funding for the program in fiscal year 2026 while examining whether SpaceX’s Starshield satellites could provide the same capabilities at lower cost.
The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget would suspend procurement of data-transport satellites for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a mesh network of satellites designed for secure communications and missile tracking operated by the Space Force’s Space Development Agency. The outcome of the review could impact the procurement of as many as 140 satellites for Transport Layer Tranche 3, which the SDA had planned to order in 2026 for deployment in 2028.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman confirmed the possibility of this shift during a June 26 congressional hearing, telling the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee that the service will pursue an analysis of alternatives to determine the way forward.
...The potential alternative centers on SpaceX’s Starshield program, a militarized version of the company’s commercial Starlink broadband satellites. News that the Pentagon was considering this first surfaced in March when Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) questioned Air Force Secretary nominee Troy Meink during a confirmation hearing about budget discussions regarding the PWSA program..
Much of the background can be found in the book 'Pilgrimage' by Johnathan Sumption (for it is he). No wonder a medieval scholar would have such a jaundiced view of today's politicians and churchmen. He will have studied it all before.
Let's be clear, I consider myself right wing. But I will vote for any party that stops the likes of @Con_Tomlinson and @GoodwinMJ getting anywhere near political power. Because ethnonationalism is evil.
https://x.com/SimonMagus/status/1939638475797504325
Telegraph
I make no conclusions concerning your social habits, but I do worry slightly that under options B in 10-20 years' time we will experience a demographic explosion of trainspotters.
https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535