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Former illegal immigrant threatens to destroy the Republican party – politicalbetting.com

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  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,114
    Nigelb said:

    What 6GWh of battery storage looks like:
    https://x.com/tphuang/status/1939630432607232059

    I was expecting to see a photo of a field full of unsold Teslas.
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,480
    kinabalu said:

    Taz said:

    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).
    No it was just he asked if I wanted one as I said I was off for a drink in luckies in Jesmond. Let me pick what I wanted from his cabinet too !!!
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,541
    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502
    edited July 1
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,043

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    That doesn't follow. Belongingness is not a fixed sum concept.
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,480
    Leon said:

    Taz said:

    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?

    I do admire Geordie culture
    Indeed

    He offered me a second but I’ve a two mile walk ahead !!
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,121
    A name to watch in the future, George Finch.

    "‘I’m taking on the Blob’: the 18-year-old running a £400m council for Reform
    George Finch on the row over Warwickshire council’s new flag rules – and why he’s undaunted by managing 5,000 staff and a £400m budget" (£)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/im-astudent-in-charge-of-my-reform-county-council/
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,541
    As I alluded to yesterday, I am off sick with a chest infection and capable of nothing much more than languishing on the sofa watching Derbyshire against Lancashire in the county championship on Youtube from Queen's Park in Chesterfield. I very much enjoy cricket from outgrounds. What I had thought was an odd celebratory noise from the audience - which has been going on for three days, seldom in response to anything obvious - turns out to be made by the little train which offers rides around the park.
    Truly this is English sport at its finest.
    Lancashire, FWIW, now moving up through the gears a bit - 360 ahead with five wickets remaining on day 3.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387
    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    It still feels fresh when we were losing the generation that actually fought (like Harry Patch). We will be doing the same for WW2 soon.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,869
    Cookie said:

    As I alluded to yesterday, I am off sick with a chest infection and capable of nothing much more than languishing on the sofa watching Derbyshire against Lancashire in the county championship on Youtube from Queen's Park in Chesterfield. I very much enjoy cricket from outgrounds. What I had thought was an odd celebratory noise from the audience - which has been going on for three days, seldom in response to anything obvious - turns out to be made by the little train which offers rides around the park.
    Truly this is English sport at its finest.
    Lancashire, FWIW, now moving up through the gears a bit - 360 ahead with five wickets remaining on day 3.

    That train is still going?! My dad used take me on it when I was very small.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 55,727
    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 128,526

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    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.

    You cannot say the same about Tories / Reform.
    Are there? The only significant difference I can see at present between Kemi and Farage is Kemi wants to alter not repeal the ECHR (though that may change after her commission reports) and Kemi does not support scrapping the child benefit cap of 2 children maximum
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 15,001
    Cookie said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.

    Why does it have to add up to 100%? Other aspects of identity don't.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 30,275

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,132
    edited July 1
    DeclanF said:

    MattW said:

    Good morning everyone.

    FPT

    Cicero said:

    MattW said:

    tlg86 said:

    In other news, the Lib Dems are an odd bunch:

    https://x.com/_Chris_Coghlan/status/1939183505205813595

    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.
    I don't find your first statement quite convincing. I think the priest is overreaching.

    A public declaration at each service in a Roman Catholic parish for the way a politician votes does imo have implications for democratic process.

    An RC parish is not like a rural CofE parish where there may be a small number of people, a priest, and organist and a sheepdog, or even an urban / suburban CofE parish.

    The average RC parish in England has a membership of 2-3000, and a gathered attendance of 500-1000. Such a public statement in such a forum has implications for elections.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,710
    Andy_JS said:

    A name to watch in the future, George Finch.

    "‘I’m taking on the Blob’: the 18-year-old running a £400m council for Reform
    George Finch on the row over Warwickshire council’s new flag rules – and why he’s undaunted by managing 5,000 staff and a £400m budget" (£)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/im-astudent-in-charge-of-my-reform-county-council/

    He's got six years to beat Pitt's record as youngest PM. He's got one to be PM younger than Alexander became king (19-20, anyway).

    And he's 19 years older than Shapur was when he became the Great King of Persia.
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    We're busy re-enacting the 20th century with the Chinese flu, financial crisis, and war in Europe. I woudn't rule out something big happening. Still think that China's going to have a crack at Taiwan within the next few years.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 56,060
    edited July 1
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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 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.
    That doesn't follow. Belongingness is not a fixed sum concept.
    The real world doesn't seem to work according to your ideals. Here's what the London rapper "Skepta" has to say about belongingness:

    https://x.com/Skepta/status/1939395770320367788

    Who is “our”?
    I’m Nigerian, my flag is there clear as day 🇳🇬
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387
    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I thought he had played at youth level, or is that Gareth Bale?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934
    Nigelb said:

    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.
    Also:

    “We are all going to die” — Joni Ernst

    “They’ll get over it” — Mitch McConnell

    “It’s immaterial” — JD Vance

    https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1940001147592253468

    Note that Vance's self proclaimed overwhelming priority is to fund the largest new federal paramilitary force and detention camp system in US history.
  • isamisam Posts: 42,140
    MattW said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    A partner with three Irish grandparents
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I thought he had played at youth level, or is that Gareth Bale?
    And checking - England U16.
  • isamisam Posts: 42,140

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I thought he had played at youth level, or is that Gareth Bale?
    England schoolboys because he went to school in England?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    It still feels fresh when we were losing the generation that actually fought (like Harry Patch). We will be doing the same for WW2 soon.
    I've just been checking the stats. There are maybe 1000-2000 people, worldwide, born before the Somme

    But living "memory" is a different matter. To "remember" the Somme you'd have to be at least 5 years old when it happened, given that 5 is roughly the age our first fixed memories begin, albeit hazily

    There are just 17 people worldwide old enough to "remember" the Somme

    The very oldest person on the planet is an Englishwoman, Ethel Caterham, born August 1909, so she would have been almost 7 when the Somme happened. Definitely old enough to recall it, if anyone in England chose to tell her as a little girl


    https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Oldest_living_people
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,779
    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    Interesting. So if he was another nationality he could play for England through long term residency but it seems, at least at the time, being from one of the other home nations blocks that path.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,043

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    He is looking purely at blood, I think. So if none of your grandparents have any English in them you'll be 0% English even if you were born and have lived here all your life.
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,480
    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I’m sure I see him play at Perry Barr stadium for an England team (u18?) in the mid eighties.

    As JNT said, the memory cheats
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    In terms of casualties, duration of war, and cost to the nation, Ukraine is going through something pretty similar right now, in resisting a fascist invasion.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    It still feels fresh when we were losing the generation that actually fought (like Harry Patch). We will be doing the same for WW2 soon.
    I've just been checking the stats. There are maybe 1000-2000 people, worldwide, born before the Somme

    But living "memory" is a different matter. To "remember" the Somme you'd have to be at least 5 years old when it happened, given that 5 is roughly the age our first fixed memories begin, albeit hazily

    There are just 17 people worldwide old enough to "remember" the Somme

    The very oldest person on the planet is an Englishwoman, Ethel Caterham, born August 1909, so she would have been almost 7 when the Somme happened. Definitely old enough to recall it, if anyone in England chose to tell her as a little girl


    https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Oldest_living_people
    I remember the Falklands distinctly, including the return of the Canberra along the channel (from Seaton). I was 9.

    Before that? Not much.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,541

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    Interesting. So if he was another nationality he could play for England through long term residency but it seems, at least at the time, being from one of the other home nations blocks that path.
    I'm going to wade in here before checking the details, but I'm pretty sure he has one English parent and was brought up in Salford.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 122,608
    Taz said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I’m sure I see him play at Perry Barr stadium for an England team (u18?) in the mid eighties.

    As JNT said, the memory cheats
    Eligibility was a bit more fluid then.

    I remember in the 80s/90s you were eligible to play for the Republic of Ireland if you drank a pint of Guinness.
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,480

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I thought he had played at youth level, or is that Gareth Bale?
    He says never qualified to play not saying he didn’t. So I may have seen him
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,779
    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    Interesting. So if he was another nationality he could play for England through long term residency but it seems, at least at the time, being from one of the other home nations blocks that path.
    I'm going to wade in here before checking the details, but I'm pretty sure he has one English parent and was brought up in Salford.
    https://www.theguardian.com/football/2004/oct/06/theknowledge.sport

    "Contrary to popular belief, Giggsy never had the option of playing for England. He was born in Cardiff to Welsh parents, and only moved to the Manchester area when he was seven."

    "He did captain England schoolboys when he played at that level for Manchester United but, as Mark Wylie of the Manchester United museum explains: "That was due to residence. Plenty of Scots have played for England schools. It just depends on where you go to school"
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,869
    Taz said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I’m sure I see him play at Perry Barr stadium for an England team (u18?) in the mid eighties.

    As JNT said, the memory cheats
    England schoolboys, I think, which was based on residency not parentage/place of birth.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,906
    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    this just reads like you all were educated in a weird cult rather than a school.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,541
    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    Interesting. So if he was another nationality he could play for England through long term residency but it seems, at least at the time, being from one of the other home nations blocks that path.
    I'm going to wade in here before checking the details, but I'm pretty sure he has one English parent and was brought up in Salford.
    EDIT: just checked the details - his Dad was definitely Welsh - doesn't say about his mum. So my earlier understanding that he played for Wales partly to annoy his Dad was wrong. But he took his Mum's name.
    He moved to Salford at the age of 6. So he'd lived there for over a decade by the time he was playing senior football. That's eligible, surely?
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 6,526
    On Phillipe Sands and Chagos:

    https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-2025/hollow-decolonisation/

    "Under the terms of the deal, Mauritius will lease Diego Garcia to the United Kingdom for the modest sum of £101m a year, plus development monies for Mauritius. Such is the windfall for Mauritius that 81 per cent of its workforce will no longer have to pay any income tax.

    There is a lot of truth in Mr Sands’s words. It is, for instance, difficult to imagine that he would be feted in Mauritius (which gave him citizenship by special ministerial decree a few years ago, ostensibly so that he could dodge Covid restrictions in Germany, though he was happy enough to keep it afterwards) had he acted against that country.

    Certainly, Mauritius would not have conferred on him its highest national honour, carrying with it the title of “The Honourable”.

    In fact, under a 2021 Mauritian law banning “misrepresenting the sovereignty of Mauritius over any part of its territory”, The Honourable Mr Sands would potentially face a decade in a Mauritian prison had he represented Britain against Mauritius, or written on behalf of the UK government in support of British sovereignty over the Chagos.

    As he admitted to the British parliament, Mr Sands was involved in the drafting of the 2021 law, something he did not think was incompatible with his involvement in English PEN."
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,114
    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,023
    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502
    carnforth said:

    On Phillipe Sands and Chagos:

    https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-2025/hollow-decolonisation/

    "Under the terms of the deal, Mauritius will lease Diego Garcia to the United Kingdom for the modest sum of £101m a year, plus development monies for Mauritius. Such is the windfall for Mauritius that 81 per cent of its workforce will no longer have to pay any income tax.

    There is a lot of truth in Mr Sands’s words. It is, for instance, difficult to imagine that he would be feted in Mauritius (which gave him citizenship by special ministerial decree a few years ago, ostensibly so that he could dodge Covid restrictions in Germany, though he was happy enough to keep it afterwards) had he acted against that country.

    Certainly, Mauritius would not have conferred on him its highest national honour, carrying with it the title of “The Honourable”.

    In fact, under a 2021 Mauritian law banning “misrepresenting the sovereignty of Mauritius over any part of its territory”, The Honourable Mr Sands would potentially face a decade in a Mauritian prison had he represented Britain against Mauritius, or written on behalf of the UK government in support of British sovereignty over the Chagos.

    As he admitted to the British parliament, Mr Sands was involved in the drafting of the 2021 law, something he did not think was incompatible with his involvement in English PEN."

    What distinguishes this from treachery?

    Nothing

    People like Mr Sands will only stop doing shit like this when there is a very heavy price to pay, and it is paid
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,480

    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

    FAFO chaps

    Was it worth it for the likes and retweets
  • TresTres Posts: 2,906
    Cookie said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    this is bollocks, giggs was born in Wales to Welsh parents. His dad played rugby league and got a contract for a northern team when giggs was a kid.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,541
    edited July 1

    Taz said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I’m sure I see him play at Perry Barr stadium for an England team (u18?) in the mid eighties.

    As JNT said, the memory cheats
    Eligibility was a bit more fluid then.

    I remember in the 80s/90s you were eligible to play for the Republic of Ireland if you drank a pint of Guinness.
    I remember Tony Cascarino played for the ROI on the grounds that his surname sounded a bit Irish (on reflection: no it doesn't. Perhaps in those days we were so blinded by any sort of apparent exoticism that a man with an 'o' on the end of his name could conceivably be from anywhere.).

    My favourite of this stripe was the Scottish rugby player who qualified to play for Scotland solely on the grounds of having a grandparent from the Channel Islands, which is like having a wildcard. Though I can't now think who this was and the internet is giving me no clues. I don't think I've imagined it?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,779
    Cookie said:

    Cookie said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    Interesting. So if he was another nationality he could play for England through long term residency but it seems, at least at the time, being from one of the other home nations blocks that path.
    I'm going to wade in here before checking the details, but I'm pretty sure he has one English parent and was brought up in Salford.
    EDIT: just checked the details - his Dad was definitely Welsh - doesn't say about his mum. So my earlier understanding that he played for Wales partly to annoy his Dad was wrong. But he took his Mum's name.
    He moved to Salford at the age of 6. So he'd lived there for over a decade by the time he was playing senior football. That's eligible, surely?
    It is complicated, here is the history and detail.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_eligibility_rules#Home_nations_agreement

    I think he would be eligible on that basis now, since 2009, but wasn't then. Requires 5 years education under age of 18.

    For other nationalities 5 years of any age meets the residency test.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 30,567

    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

    One of those acts I hadn't heard of until everyone started talking about them. Still have no real clue and thats's absolutely fine.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 63,682
    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 30,275
    edited July 1

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I thought he had played at youth level, or is that Gareth Bale?
    He captained England Schools.
    Because he was at an English school.
    However. He was born in Wales. Had no English grandparents and didn't qualify by residence at the time he was first picked for Wales.
    Of course, he could have waited.
    But at no stage did he have a choice to play for England. He was never eligible for selection.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 15,001

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    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.
    I claim no source.

    New governments rarely overturn years old minor tax changes. It's too expensive and people have gotten used to the change.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Well, except that the Battle of Waterloo was literally done in a day or so, and the Battle of the Somme lasted months
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 36,121
    Cookie said:

    As I alluded to yesterday, I am off sick with a chest infection and capable of nothing much more than languishing on the sofa watching Derbyshire against Lancashire in the county championship on Youtube from Queen's Park in Chesterfield. I very much enjoy cricket from outgrounds. What I had thought was an odd celebratory noise from the audience - which has been going on for three days, seldom in response to anything obvious - turns out to be made by the little train which offers rides around the park.
    Truly this is English sport at its finest.
    Lancashire, FWIW, now moving up through the gears a bit - 360 ahead with five wickets remaining on day 3.

    I didn't know they played anywhere other than Derby these days. Interesting.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,402
    Cookie said:

    Taz said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I’m sure I see him play at Perry Barr stadium for an England team (u18?) in the mid eighties.

    As JNT said, the memory cheats
    Eligibility was a bit more fluid then.

    I remember in the 80s/90s you were eligible to play for the Republic of Ireland if you drank a pint of Guinness.
    I remember Tony Cascarino played for the ROI on the grounds that his surname sounded a bit Irish (on reflection: no it doesn't. Perhaps in those days we were so blinded by any sort of apparent exoticism that a man with an 'o' on the end of his name could conceivably be from anywhere.).

    My favourite of this stripe was the Scottish rugby player who qualified to play for Scotland solely on the grounds of having a grandparent from the Channel Islands, which is like having a wildcard. Though I can't now think who this was and the internet is giving me no clues. I don't think I've imagined it?
    Budge Pountney. His grandmother was a bursar at my prep school. Would rather have had to face him at full pace than his grandmother - fearsome lady.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 24,779
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I thought he had played at youth level, or is that Gareth Bale?
    He captained England Schools.
    Because he was at an English school.
    However. He was born in Wales. Had no English grandparents and didn't qualify by residence at the time he was first picked for Wales.
    Of course, he could have waited.
    But at no stage did he have a choice.
    He couldn't have waited for residence qualification. The home nations had an agreement not to select on that basis until 2009 when they adjusted it to allow it to count whilst under 18.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 39,152
    edited July 1

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,043

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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 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.
    That doesn't follow. Belongingness is not a fixed sum concept.
    The real world doesn't seem to work according to your ideals. Here's what the London rapper "Skepta" has to say about belongingness:

    https://x.com/Skepta/status/1939395770320367788

    Who is “our”?
    I’m Nigerian, my flag is there clear as day 🇳🇬
    You're misconstruing.

    Taking the (here legally) population of England - I am saying that how racially "English" you are (based on the blood of your ancestors) should not impact belonging. Not self-ID (that is personal for Skepta and everyone else), but as in the rights you have and how you are treated.

    You disagree, do you?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    It still feels fresh when we were losing the generation that actually fought (like Harry Patch). We will be doing the same for WW2 soon.
    I've just been checking the stats. There are maybe 1000-2000 people, worldwide, born before the Somme

    But living "memory" is a different matter. To "remember" the Somme you'd have to be at least 5 years old when it happened, given that 5 is roughly the age our first fixed memories begin, albeit hazily

    There are just 17 people worldwide old enough to "remember" the Somme

    The very oldest person on the planet is an Englishwoman, Ethel Caterham, born August 1909, so she would have been almost 7 when the Somme happened. Definitely old enough to recall it, if anyone in England chose to tell her as a little girl

    https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Oldest_living_people
    I remember the Falklands distinctly, including the return of the Canberra along the channel (from Seaton). I was 9.

    Before that? Not much.
    I remember watching the results of the 1970 general election, when I was eight, and the weekend of Bloody Sunday the following year, when we arrived in Belfast, on the way to an unfortunately timed summer holiday to S Ireland.

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 30,275
    Ryan Giggs' Dad played RL for Swinton. That's why he was in England.
    Good player. Ran like his son. Always had a blinder against Wigan.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    It still feels fresh when we were losing the generation that actually fought (like Harry Patch). We will be doing the same for WW2 soon.
    I've just been checking the stats. There are maybe 1000-2000 people, worldwide, born before the Somme

    But living "memory" is a different matter. To "remember" the Somme you'd have to be at least 5 years old when it happened, given that 5 is roughly the age our first fixed memories begin, albeit hazily

    There are just 17 people worldwide old enough to "remember" the Somme

    The very oldest person on the planet is an Englishwoman, Ethel Caterham, born August 1909, so she would have been almost 7 when the Somme happened. Definitely old enough to recall it, if anyone in England chose to tell her as a little girl


    https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Oldest_living_people
    I remember the Falklands distinctly, including the return of the Canberra along the channel (from Seaton). I was 9.

    Before that? Not much.
    Your earliest memory is 9??!

    I can remember nursery school quite vividly, and I was 4

    As for non-personal memories, I distinctly recall events - as my parents spoke about them, or watched them on TV - from the age of about 5 or 6. Apollo 11 and the moon landing is one such. Perfectly clear in my memory
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,402
    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    Up there with “first man in line to fight the Gorilla or last man in line with Bonnie Blue?”
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 54,840

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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 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.
    That doesn't follow. Belongingness is not a fixed sum concept.
    The real world doesn't seem to work according to your ideals. Here's what the London rapper "Skepta" has to say about belongingness:

    https://x.com/Skepta/status/1939395770320367788

    Who is “our”?
    I’m Nigerian, my flag is there clear as day 🇳🇬
    I disagree with this "rapper".
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    The thing that always terrifies me is that it didn't matter how good a soldier you were - you could be the best soldier in the history of soldiers and a random shell would rip you apart, or a machine gun would send ten bullets into you in half a second. Arguably for much of the history of war if you were good enough (and certainly for middle ages knights) you had the right armour, you were pretty hard to kill. But as soon as gunpowder comes along that changes.

    There are other features of the Somme that are worthy of note. On the right flank, alongside the French, the British achieved a significant success and at one point it looked like the cavalry would go through into open country. Sadly communications issues ended any hope of that but it was still a significant advance and villages recaptured.

    The other thing is that we regard the WW2 fighting as very different from 25 years before, yet in reality the British (under Monty) fought their battles as the British and Empire/Dominions had done in 1917-18 - a huge emphasis on surprise, preponderance of shellfire, creeping barrages and so. And the casualty rates from Normandy to May 1945 were in line with the big battles of WW1.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934

    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

    One of those acts I hadn't heard of until everyone started talking about them. Still have no real clue and thats's absolutely fine.
    And I intend to keep it that way.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 12,384
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    It still feels fresh when we were losing the generation that actually fought (like Harry Patch). We will be doing the same for WW2 soon.
    I've just been checking the stats. There are maybe 1000-2000 people, worldwide, born before the Somme

    But living "memory" is a different matter. To "remember" the Somme you'd have to be at least 5 years old when it happened, given that 5 is roughly the age our first fixed memories begin, albeit hazily

    There are just 17 people worldwide old enough to "remember" the Somme

    The very oldest person on the planet is an Englishwoman, Ethel Caterham, born August 1909, so she would have been almost 7 when the Somme happened. Definitely old enough to recall it, if anyone in England chose to tell her as a little girl


    https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Oldest_living_people
    Of course this means there is nobody who has active memory of the outbreak of the Great War. Soon there will be no living memory of it at all.
    Next year we shall be as far from One Small Step than it was from Titanic and as far from JFKs assassination as it was from Victorias death.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 15,541
    Cookie said:

    Taz said:

    dixiedean said:

    isam said:

    boulay said:

    tlg86 said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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.
    Point of order.
    Ryan Giggs was never qualified to play for England at any time.
    I’m sure I see him play at Perry Barr stadium for an England team (u18?) in the mid eighties.

    As JNT said, the memory cheats
    Eligibility was a bit more fluid then.

    I remember in the 80s/90s you were eligible to play for the Republic of Ireland if you drank a pint of Guinness.
    I remember Tony Cascarino played for the ROI on the grounds that his surname sounded a bit Irish (on reflection: no it doesn't. Perhaps in those days we were so blinded by any sort of apparent exoticism that a man with an 'o' on the end of his name could conceivably be from anywhere.).

    My favourite of this stripe was the Scottish rugby player who qualified to play for Scotland solely on the grounds of having a grandparent from the Channel Islands, which is like having a wildcard. Though I can't now think who this was and the internet is giving me no clues. I don't think I've imagined it?
    Budge Poutney! It was Budge Poutney. I didn't imagine it.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 56,060
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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 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.
    That doesn't follow. Belongingness is not a fixed sum concept.
    The real world doesn't seem to work according to your ideals. Here's what the London rapper "Skepta" has to say about belongingness:

    https://x.com/Skepta/status/1939395770320367788

    Who is “our”?
    I’m Nigerian, my flag is there clear as day 🇳🇬
    You're misconstruing.

    Taking the (here legally) population of England - I am saying that how racially "English" you are (based on the blood of your ancestors) should not impact belonging. Not self-ID (that is personal for Skepta and everyone else), but as in the rights you have and how you are treated.

    You disagree, do you?
    Everyone is equal under the law, even tourists and visitors, so that's not the same thing as belonging or identity.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,114

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Seeing those clips of the Waterloo reenactment the other day, their method of warfare appears to have been designed to maximise casualties.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 30,275
    edited July 1
    I have a memory of my parents shipping me off to my Aunt's for an end of the Sixties Party on New year's Eve. There was jump racing on the telly.
    I would have been three and a month.
    The same thing happened when our kid was born. Three and a half. I thought my surprise would be a toy cash register...
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387
    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    Agincourt on the English side every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Very low casualties and hardly any of note (pace Shakespeare).
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 30,275
    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    Very much depends on which days.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 122,608
    Leon said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Well, except that the Battle of Waterloo was literally done in a day or so, and the Battle of the Somme lasted months
    Obviously you’ve never heard about the likes of the Battle of Quatre Bras.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502
    dixiedean said:

    I have a memory of my parents shipping me off to my Aunt's for an end of the Sixties Party on New year's Eve.
    I would have been three and a month.
    The same thing happened when our kid was born. Three and a half.

    But what's your first memory of a non-personal event? Something in the news? Or something that happened in your town, but not personally witnessed? Perhaps discussed in front of you

    For me, as I say, it is Apollo 11. Age 6

    My dad always claimed he could remember his Dad and a friend discussing Peace in Our Time, and Munich, when he was 4
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 30,275

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    It still feels fresh when we were losing the generation that actually fought (like Harry Patch). We will be doing the same for WW2 soon.
    I've just been checking the stats. There are maybe 1000-2000 people, worldwide, born before the Somme

    But living "memory" is a different matter. To "remember" the Somme you'd have to be at least 5 years old when it happened, given that 5 is roughly the age our first fixed memories begin, albeit hazily

    There are just 17 people worldwide old enough to "remember" the Somme

    The very oldest person on the planet is an Englishwoman, Ethel Caterham, born August 1909, so she would have been almost 7 when the Somme happened. Definitely old enough to recall it, if anyone in England chose to tell her as a little girl


    https://gerontology.fandom.com/wiki/Oldest_living_people
    Of course this means there is nobody who has active memory of the outbreak of the Great War. Soon there will be no living memory of it at all.
    Next year we shall be as far from One Small Step than it was from Titanic and as far from JFKs assassination as it was from Victorias death.
    The halfway point between the end of WW2 and today was Live Aid.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 12,384
    edited July 1
    Ipsos scottish westminster poll out

    SNP 31
    Lab 22
    Ref 18
    Con 10
    Green 10
    LD 9

    Fieldwork 12 to 18 Jun

    Holyrood constituency
    SNP 34
    Lab 23
    Ref 14
    Con 10
    Green 9
    LD 9
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 128,526
    edited July 1
    MattW said:

    DeclanF said:

    MattW said:

    Good morning everyone.

    FPT

    Cicero said:

    MattW said:

    tlg86 said:

    In other news, the Lib Dems are an odd bunch:

    https://x.com/_Chris_Coghlan/status/1939183505205813595

    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.
    I don't find your first statement quite convincing. I think the priest is overreaching.

    A public declaration at each service in a Roman Catholic parish for the way a politician votes does imo have implications for democratic process.

    An RC parish is not like a rural CofE parish where there may be a small number of people, a priest, and organist and a sheepdog, or even an urban / suburban CofE parish.

    The average RC parish in England has a membership of 2-3000, and a gathered attendance of 500-1000. Such a public statement in such a forum has implications for elections.
    Indeed and if the C of E was ever disestablished the RC church would effectively become the English national church again within a decade for the first time since the Reformation, as the Roman Catholic church is already the largest Christian denomination in virtually every nation without an established or national church and become even more vocal in public debate.

    The C of E meanwhile would just be one of many Protestant churches, albeit on the more liberal end compared to say the Baptist and Pentecostal evangelical churches
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502

    Ipsos scottish westminster poll out

    SNP 31
    Lab 22
    Ref 18
    Con 10
    Green 10
    LD 9

    Fieldwork 12 to 18 Jun

    LDs 6th?!
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,869
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    I have a memory of my parents shipping me off to my Aunt's for an end of the Sixties Party on New year's Eve.
    I would have been three and a month.
    The same thing happened when our kid was born. Three and a half.

    But what's your first memory of a non-personal event? Something in the news? Or something that happened in your town, but not personally witnessed? Perhaps discussed in front of you

    For me, as I say, it is Apollo 11. Age 6

    My dad always claimed he could remember his Dad and a friend discussing Peace in Our Time, and Munich, when he was 4
    I'm too young to remember the bombing itself, but my earliest recollection of TV news is the investigation into Lockerbie. The image of the cockpit was on TV a lot.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 122,608

    Ipsos scottish westminster poll out

    SNP 31
    Lab 22
    Ref 18
    Con 10
    Green 10
    LD 9

    Fieldwork 12 to 18 Jun

    Clear Unionist victory.

    Scotland votes to remain British.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934
    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    The Somme... probably.
    Over a fifth of the British forces ended up killed or missing, but it was fought over nearly five months, so unless your dice rolled really badly, you'd have a very good chance of surviving unscathed.
    The first day of the Somme, though, accounted for over half of those casualties

    c.10% fatalities at Agincourt, for the English, and c.10% "killed and missing" at Waterloo - so a damn close-run thing between those two options.

  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 39,152
    @annmarie

    “I don’t know,” Trump told reporters at the White House this morning when asked if he would deport @elonmusk — the South African-born entrepreneur and US citizen— before adding that “we’ll have to take a look.”
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 54,840
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    I have a memory of my parents shipping me off to my Aunt's for an end of the Sixties Party on New year's Eve.
    I would have been three and a month.
    The same thing happened when our kid was born. Three and a half.

    But what's your first memory of a non-personal event? Something in the news? Or something that happened in your town, but not personally witnessed? Perhaps discussed in front of you

    For me, as I say, it is Apollo 11. Age 6

    My dad always claimed he could remember his Dad and a friend discussing Peace in Our Time, and Munich, when he was 4
    Probably the Iranian Embassy siege, 1980, I would have been 4.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,023
    edited July 1

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Seeing those clips of the Waterloo reenactment the other day, their method of warfare appears to have been designed to maximise casualties.
    Musket balls were like dum dum bullets, in terms of the injuries they caused.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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 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.
    That doesn't follow. Belongingness is not a fixed sum concept.
    The real world doesn't seem to work according to your ideals. Here's what the London rapper "Skepta" has to say about belongingness:

    https://x.com/Skepta/status/1939395770320367788

    Who is “our”?
    I’m Nigerian, my flag is there clear as day 🇳🇬
    You're misconstruing.

    Taking the (here legally) population of England - I am saying that how racially "English" you are (based on the blood of your ancestors) should not impact belonging. Not self-ID (that is personal for Skepta and everyone else), but as in the rights you have and how you are treated.

    You disagree, do you?
    Everyone is equal under the law, even tourists and visitors, so that's not the same thing as belonging or identity.
    Not in the US, apparently.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    I have a memory of my parents shipping me off to my Aunt's for an end of the Sixties Party on New year's Eve.
    I would have been three and a month.
    The same thing happened when our kid was born. Three and a half.

    But what's your first memory of a non-personal event? Something in the news? Or something that happened in your town, but not personally witnessed? Perhaps discussed in front of you

    For me, as I say, it is Apollo 11. Age 6

    My dad always claimed he could remember his Dad and a friend discussing Peace in Our Time, and Munich, when he was 4
    My Dad was born in 1939. He remembers seeing crashed bombers and I asked him about VE day. He has a vivid memory of going into Trowbridge and watching effigies of Hitler and Mussolini being burnt on a fire, and being upset about it (not really understanding what was happening).
  • MattWMattW Posts: 28,132
    edited July 1
    Andy_JS said:

    A name to watch in the future, George Finch.

    "‘I’m taking on the Blob’: the 18-year-old running a £400m council for Reform
    George Finch on the row over Warwickshire council’s new flag rules – and why he’s undaunted by managing 5,000 staff and a £400m budget" (£)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/im-astudent-in-charge-of-my-reform-county-council/

    He's more impressive than the Councillor "Lord Joseph Boam" of Leicestershire, who is an Andrew Tate fan who has expressed contempt for people who are suffering from depression.

    However his flag arguments do not make sense, and imo he is swallowing too many RefUK boilerplate positions unexamined. He is not understanding the limitations of inexperience, and that he has feet of clay like all of us. From this piece:

    Finch says: “My question is, and its a simple one: why is there a non-elected bureaucrat on £200,000 or more making decisions that elected councillors should make?

    “She is disregarding democracy – I was elected with the biggest majority in Warwickshire and I can’t even get a flag changed. It shows me a blob of bureaucrats that are disregarding the majority. I can’t imagine what the blob is like in Whitehall if it’s this bad here.”


    He is the leader of a minority party leading the Council. His personal majority is irrelevant. "Disregarding the majority" is BS because they are 22 from 57 Councillors - what majority?

    From the other Telegraph piece quoted by I think @Andy_JS , the Chief Executive pointed out that in Warwicks the convention was that flags practice was set by the Chief Exec, not the Council Leader, and identified to him the appropriate process via the Councillor body / Executive for changing that practice.

    But he got his knickers in a twist, and wanted to arrogate to himself without proper process the ability to make that decision. Then Zia Yusuf piled in with the rhetoric.

    I'd suggest that at this time Officer insistence on RefUK Councillors following correct process is massively important, not least as part of the cultural training of RefUK councillors; we know what happened with Trump.

    (As a personal aside, he also expresses avid admiration for Lee Anderson, which is 'a view).
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 19,387
    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    The Somme... probably.
    Over a fifth of the British forces ended up killed or missing, but it was fought over nearly five months, so unless your dice rolled really badly, you'd have a very good chance of surviving unscathed.
    The first day of the Somme, though, accounted for over half of those casualties

    c.10% fatalities at Agincourt, for the English, and c.10% "killed and missing" at Waterloo - so a damn close-run thing between those two options.

    10% at Agincourt is not my recollection - where is that from?
  • SandraMcSandraMc Posts: 757

    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

    One of those acts I hadn't heard of until everyone started talking about them. Still have no real clue and thats's absolutely fine.
    What I find so offensive about Bob Vylan is that the lyrics are so poor. They just seem to be rants with obscenity turned up to 11. Shelley raged against the establishment but produced Ozymandius. We have gone from:
    "My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings.
    Look on my works ye mighty and despair."
    To

    " I heard you want your country back. Shut the f*** up."
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 12,384
    Leon said:

    Ipsos scottish westminster poll out

    SNP 31
    Lab 22
    Ref 18
    Con 10
    Green 10
    LD 9

    Fieldwork 12 to 18 Jun

    LDs 6th?!
    Until Alba and the Scottish Family Party wake up, yeah
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 128,526

    Ipsos scottish westminster poll out

    SNP 31
    Lab 22
    Ref 18
    Con 10
    Green 10
    LD 9

    Fieldwork 12 to 18 Jun

    Holyrood constituency
    SNP 34
    Lab 23
    Ref 14
    Con 10
    Green 9
    LD 9

    Gives a clear Unionist majority at Holyrood next year, albeit SNP retain most seats and Swinney stays FM.

  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 23,114
    Leon said:

    Ipsos scottish westminster poll out

    SNP 31
    Lab 22
    Ref 18
    Con 10
    Green 10
    LD 9

    Fieldwork 12 to 18 Jun

    LDs 6th?!
    Tories almost 6th!
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,043

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    algarkirk said:

    From Tony Blair’s former political secretary:

    https://x.com/johnmcternan/status/1939781925029257308

    The concept of ethnic English is truly evil

    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 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.
    That doesn't follow. Belongingness is not a fixed sum concept.
    The real world doesn't seem to work according to your ideals. Here's what the London rapper "Skepta" has to say about belongingness:

    https://x.com/Skepta/status/1939395770320367788

    Who is “our”?
    I’m Nigerian, my flag is there clear as day 🇳🇬
    You're misconstruing.

    Taking the (here legally) population of England - I am saying that how racially "English" you are (based on the blood of your ancestors) should not impact belonging. Not self-ID (that is personal for Skepta and everyone else), but as in the rights you have and how you are treated.

    You disagree, do you?
    Everyone is equal under the law, even tourists and visitors, so that's not the same thing as belonging or identity.
    Oh no, you've gone all 'SKS cagey lawyer' on me.

    Rephrase: Do people with 100% pure ethnic English blood have more right to live in England than those with little or none at all?

    IYO, not what the law says.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    I have a memory of my parents shipping me off to my Aunt's for an end of the Sixties Party on New year's Eve.
    I would have been three and a month.
    The same thing happened when our kid was born. Three and a half.

    But what's your first memory of a non-personal event? Something in the news? Or something that happened in your town, but not personally witnessed? Perhaps discussed in front of you

    For me, as I say, it is Apollo 11. Age 6

    My dad always claimed he could remember his Dad and a friend discussing Peace in Our Time, and Munich, when he was 4
    Yes, that too.
    I was thinking of overtly political events, so had excluded that.

    I had an Airfix kit of the Lunar module.
    I think my older brother got the Saturn V...
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 11,179
    edited July 1

    Andy_JS said:

    Goodness me.

    "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/

    I love this quote "Cheshire Police said the case does not have any impact on Letby's 2023 convictions for murder and attempted murder."

    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.
    I'd suggest not noticing - or ignoring the warnings about - a mass murderer on the ward would be a strong indicator of failure too. I don't think you can read much into it.
  • TazTaz Posts: 19,480
    SandraMc said:

    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

    One of those acts I hadn't heard of until everyone started talking about them. Still have no real clue and thats's absolutely fine.
    What I find so offensive about Bob Vylan is that the lyrics are so poor. They just seem to be rants with obscenity turned up to 11. Shelley raged against the establishment but produced Ozymandius. We have gone from:
    "My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings.
    Look on my works ye mighty and despair."
    To

    " I heard you want your country back. Shut the f*** up."
    Unless it’s the Palestinians, of course.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 46,043

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    I have a memory of my parents shipping me off to my Aunt's for an end of the Sixties Party on New year's Eve.
    I would have been three and a month.
    The same thing happened when our kid was born. Three and a half.

    But what's your first memory of a non-personal event? Something in the news? Or something that happened in your town, but not personally witnessed? Perhaps discussed in front of you

    For me, as I say, it is Apollo 11. Age 6

    My dad always claimed he could remember his Dad and a friend discussing Peace in Our Time, and Munich, when he was 4
    Probably the Iranian Embassy siege, 1980, I would have been 4.
    I was there at that - spectator only, I stress!
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 14,821
    edited July 1
    MattW said:

    Andy_JS said:

    A name to watch in the future, George Finch.

    "‘I’m taking on the Blob’: the 18-year-old running a £400m council for Reform
    George Finch on the row over Warwickshire council’s new flag rules – and why he’s undaunted by managing 5,000 staff and a £400m budget" (£)

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/im-astudent-in-charge-of-my-reform-county-council/

    He's more impressive than the Councillor "Lord Joseph Boam" of Leicestershire, who is an Andrew Tate fan who has expressed contempt for people who are suffering from depression.

    However his flag arguments do not make sense, and imo he is swallowing too many RefUK boilerplate positions unexamined. He is not understanding the limitations of inexperience, and that he has feet of clay like all of us. From this piece:

    Finch says: “My question is, and its a simple one: why is there a non-elected bureaucrat on £200,000 or more making decisions that elected councillors should make?

    “She is disregarding democracy – I was elected with the biggest majority in Warwickshire and I can’t even get a flag changed. It shows me a blob of bureaucrats that are disregarding the majority. I can’t imagine what the blob is like in Whitehall if it’s this bad here.”


    He is the leader of a minority party leading the Council. His personal majority is irrelevant. "Disregarding the majority" is BS because they are 22 from 57 Councillors - what majority?

    From the other Telegraph piece quoted by I think @Andy_JS , the Chief Executive pointed out that in Warwicks the convention was that flags practice was set by the Chief Exec, not the Council Leader, and identified to him the appropriate process via the Councillor body / Executive for changing that practice.

    But he got his knickers in a twist, and wanted to arrogate to himself without proper process the ability to make that decision. Then Zia Yusuf piled in with the rhetoric.

    I'd suggest that at this time Officer insistence on RefUK Councillors following correct process is massively important, not least as part of the cultural training of RefUK councillors; we know what happened with Trump.
    Finch might reflect on why it is that non elected engineers make decisions on bridge design and fleet maintenance when clearly elected councillors are qualified to make all these decisions. Perhaps elected councillors would like to do the accounting side of a £500 million budget too.

    In their spare time they can make all the decisions and all the home visits of the families and children social workers, who they can then make redundant.

    At 7 am each day they can do a care assistant home call.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 78,934

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    The Somme... probably.
    Over a fifth of the British forces ended up killed or missing, but it was fought over nearly five months, so unless your dice rolled really badly, you'd have a very good chance of surviving unscathed.
    The first day of the Somme, though, accounted for over half of those casualties

    c.10% fatalities at Agincourt, for the English, and c.10% "killed and missing" at Waterloo - so a damn close-run thing between those two options.

    10% at Agincourt is not my recollection - where is that from?
    A quick grab off Wikipedia (and I took the upper end of the range).
    The true numbers seem to be somewhat contested:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt#Numbers_at_Agincourt
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 39,023
    edited July 1

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    The Somme... probably.
    Over a fifth of the British forces ended up killed or missing, but it was fought over nearly five months, so unless your dice rolled really badly, you'd have a very good chance of surviving unscathed.
    The first day of the Somme, though, accounted for over half of those casualties

    c.10% fatalities at Agincourt, for the English, and c.10% "killed and missing" at Waterloo - so a damn close-run thing between those two options.

    10% at Agincourt is not my recollection - where is that from?
    Total casualties were 25% in Wellington’s army.

    I would guess that about 50% of the wounded (15%), would have died.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 31,527
    Nigelb said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    In terms of casualties, duration of war, and cost to the nation, Ukraine is going through something pretty similar right now, in resisting a fascist invasion.
    Perhaps, but that is a crucial difference. The First World War was odd in many ways:-
    • It came out of nowhere
    • We still don't really know how it started
    • No-one was sure what they were fighting for
    • It ground on for four years, slaughtering millions
    • Then suddenly it ended
    Indeed, so abrupt was its finish that many Germans believed they'd been stabbed in the back, which led to the rise of the Nazis and another world war. Civilians and soldiers alike, they'd been told they were winning, and then within a few weeks it was all over and Germany had lost.

    The Ukrainians know exactly how the SMO started and why they are fighting.
  • jamesdoylejamesdoyle Posts: 812
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Sean_F said:

    DavidL said:

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Amazing, restored footage of British Tommys waiting in the trench, for the order to go over, in Beaumont Hamel, the Somme, July 1, 1916

    https://x.com/sommecourt/status/1939933208465879535

    Awesome. Heartbreaking.
    109 years ago, to this very day

    So, still just within living memory

    You can see the fear in their faces and understandably so. I wonder how many survived the day.

    Thank god our generations have never had to go through anything like that.
    Tolkien’s active military career only lasted three months, but it must have been three months of hell, on the Somme.

    Better that, though, than being commanded by Cadorna on the Isonzo, or one of the Russian or Austrian idiots on the Eastern Front.
    The Somme was terrifying, but I'm not sure being on the battlefield of Waterloo 100 years earlier was much better.
    Absolutely peak PB question...

    One day on the Somme, one day at Waterloo, or one day at Agincourt?
    The Somme... probably.
    Over a fifth of the British forces ended up killed or missing, but it was fought over nearly five months, so unless your dice rolled really badly, you'd have a very good chance of surviving unscathed.
    The first day of the Somme, though, accounted for over half of those casualties

    c.10% fatalities at Agincourt, for the English, and c.10% "killed and missing" at Waterloo - so a damn close-run thing between those two options.

    10% at Agincourt is not my recollection - where is that from?
    A quick grab off Wikipedia (and I took the upper end of the range).
    The true numbers seem to be somewhat contested:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Agincourt#Numbers_at_Agincourt
    Battle of Towton Moor, Wars of the Roses, 1461. 10-20% (considerable argument over this) of the combatants died. Reckoned (again controversial) to be 1% of the population of the country, dying in 1 day.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 62,502
    edited July 1
    SandraMc said:

    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

    One of those acts I hadn't heard of until everyone started talking about them. Still have no real clue and thats's absolutely fine.
    What I find so offensive about Bob Vylan is that the lyrics are so poor. They just seem to be rants with obscenity turned up to 11. Shelley raged against the establishment but produced Ozymandius. We have gone from:
    "My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings.
    Look on my works ye mighty and despair."
    To

    " I heard you want your country back. Shut the f*** up."
    It is a measure of our times. Coarse, thick, depressing, bleak, stupid, adolescent, and wanky. IQ decline turned into music

    And you don't have to go back to Shelley to find superior counter-cultural lyrics. Consider Country Joe and the Fish, singing about Vietnam. Witty, dark, clever, and powerful:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOo13RnfaMc

    Well, c'mon on all you big strong men
    Uncle Sam needs your help again
    He's got himself in a terrible jam
    Way down yonder in Vietnam
    So put down your books and pick up a gun
    Gonna have a whole lot of fun

    And it's 1, 2, 3,
    what're we fighting for?
    Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
    Next stop is Vietnam

    And it's 5, 6, 7,
    open up the pearly gates
    There ain't no time to wonder why
    Whoopee! we're all gonna die

    Well c'mon on Wall Street Don't be slow
    Why man this war is a-go-go
    There's plenty good money to be made
    By supplyin' the Army with the tools of its trade
    Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb
    They drop it on-the Vietcong

    And it's 1, 2, 3,
    what're we fighting for?
    Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
    Next stop is Vietnam

    And it's 5, 6, 7,
    open up the pearly gates
    Well, there ain't no time to wonder why
    Whoopee! we're all gonna die


    Well c'mon generals, let's move fast
    Your big chance has come at last
    Gotta go out and get those Reds
    The only good Commie is the one who's dead
    And you know that peace can only be won
    When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come

    And it's 1, 2, 3,
    what're we fighting for?
    Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
    Next stop is Vietnam

    And it's 5, 6, 7,
    open up the pearly gates
    There ain't no time to wonder why
    Whoopee! we're all gonna die

    C'mon mothers throughout the land
    Pack your boys off to Vietnam
    C'mon fathers, don't hesitate
    Send yer sons off before it's too late
    And you can be the first one on your block
    To have your boy come home in a box
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 14,821
    SandraMc said:

    The Bob Vylan lads are trying to dig themselves out of a hole.

    One of those acts I hadn't heard of until everyone started talking about them. Still have no real clue and thats's absolutely fine.
    What I find so offensive about Bob Vylan is that the lyrics are so poor. They just seem to be rants with obscenity turned up to 11. Shelley raged against the establishment but produced Ozymandius. We have gone from:
    "My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings.
    Look on my works ye mighty and despair."
    To

    " I heard you want your country back. Shut the f*** up."
    A pedant notes that it is Ozymandias.
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