Meanwhile, in another attack on free speech unlikely to bring a rebuke from the US vice president:
A CDU politician has threatened to start criminal investigations and legal action against the lead singer of Die Toten Hosen for saying that "local CDU groups are throwing themselves at the AfD" at an anti-Nazi festival in MeckPomm
The Dead Trousers is a great name for a band (or is my German O Level failing me?)
Indeed. Comes from the slang "tote Hose" used to describe eg a boring party where nothing is happening
Similar to the English expression "Dead from the Waist Down" I suppose, which was a track by Catatonia.
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
Wasn 't started in Victorian times.
Wages often crashed for some - think handloom weavers.
And life expectancy ditto. Compare the diets of Scottish agricultural workers with urbanites. It's no coincidence the police recruited from the countryside.
It did wages rose for most because of higher paid jobs in factories etc than working in the fields. Hence so many moved from rural areas to the cities and growing industrial areas for work.
Though the countryside even now can be healthier with less pollution etc
Wages? Not much use if food was adulterated and expensive.
There's a case to consider for the argument that the problem still existed well into the C20 - even WW2 - and today.
Just back from the toon. Visited the quayside market and the Newcastle Mela. The Mela was ace. All races and people together enjoying food and music in a lovely environment. Great fun. Some lovely street food.
I also didn’t see many flags but I didn’t look for them. I did see on pb earlier people reporting flags sightings which, by some happy coincidence, aligned with their view of the issue. PB at its best.
A bridge over the A36 outside Warminster had two England flags this afternoon. I think it’s a real thing going on out there, but lets appropriate it for the Rugby World Cup…
It's nice to see the Junior National Front retake the St George flag..
I think it’s really sad. Many, many people have a problem with the English identity, and flag, because of the associations with the far right. Because of this we English are denied the nationalism that is enjoyed by our Celtic cousins. To hear Elis James talk about his Welshness and following the Welsh football team is a joy. I was sickened by the events at Wembley in 2021 for the Euros final. How do we English build an identity that doesn’t reek of the racists?
The cause isn’t helped by wife beating Neanderthals attacking migrant hotels. Sadly it’s going to get worse now after a period when the English flag had more positive vibes. Not sure how you do that as the stereotype that most people have of those putting up flags on their houses ( outside of England football or rugby events ) is a shaved headed , tattooed racist thug .
No. That is the stereotype YOU have. Most people are actually able to contextualise. Something you appear to be incapable of doing.
Brits aren’t like Americans and so whether you like it or not sticking an England flag on your house outside of Royal or sporting events will give people the wrong idea .
There is a house just along from me that has flown the English flag, the Lincolnshire flag* and (since 2022) the Ukraine flag continuously for as long as I have lived here. No one considers the owners racist or xenophobic and nor should they.
Context. It matters.
And your choice of ignoring it and relying on your own bigoted stereotypes says a great deal about you and your views of the country and the people who share it with you.
*which is a horrible multicoloured thing and an eyesore compared to other county flags
I don’t understand the need to fly flags on non official buildings . Sorry I just don’t get it . You can accuse me of stereotyping but the English flag has unfortunately been hijacked .
Why do you find the English flag so offensive?
I don’t find it offensive , it’s a nice flag . The problem is those who have hijacked it .
They’re attempting to hijack it, as hooligans have done for decades, but they are only successful if you let them be.
The St George cross is a reasonable flag, more interesting than most tricolores but not as good as the Union flag, which is one of the best and most iconic designs in the world. I’m always filled with pride when I see French youth wearing fashion items with the good old British flag on them.
But it’s the English one that will continue to be contested. I think it would look better if it were adjusted to the Nordic off-centre horizontal design. Would place us more accurately in our geo-climatic milieu.
Flying St George's cross just feels distinctly un-English to me. I thought the English were supposed to have the kind of self-confidence which means you don't need to make such gestures.
Interesting. So are you claiming the Scots have an inferiority complex?
Those flying a Saltire in their gardens? I think that's at least part of it, yes.
The thing about the English (and I guess the UK as whole) is that they have not had a revolution and they haven't overthrown an oppressor, so they don't need to define themselves against one in the same way as the Americans, the Scottish, the Welsh, the French etc do.
The one thing they can cling to is the Norman Invasion, hence the febrile fascination with Anglo-Saxons. Godwinson's flag was a white soldier on a red field, if anyone is looking for ideas...
Speaking of which the new BBC drama on the Norman Conquest has just finished its first episode on BBC1 focusing on the lead up to Edward the Confessor's coronation
Which is getting dreadful reviews. Shame, it's such a good story as told by the Rest is History.
I'll give it a go tomorrow.
It takes some skill to turn an interesting historical event into a boring drama.
Fill in the vast empty spaces between the historical facts with crappy anachronistic dialogue, cliched characterisation, overblown acting and cartoon violence, then spread it over 8 episodes; job done.
Also the actor playing the Bastard is too old. Being an C11th warlord would be aging but not that much.
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
The more I sift through historical photos etc I’m aware just how prevalent the swastika was as a more or less positive symbol pre-Nazis. I’m not sure it’s possible to reclaim it from its associations.
For instance it's stamped on volumes of an old uniform edition of Kipling's works, ultimately because he liked it.
On investigation, there's an interesting piece here by the Kipling Society, who must be very bored with having to explain that old Rudyard didn't strut around with a raised right arm, unlike some of his later contemporaries it must be said.
I see Andrew Bailey's comments have drawn the predictable responses but the point is valid.
Lockdown made a lot of people re-assess their priorities and "work" wasn't seen as being the be-all and end-all of life. Indeed, some came to see work as an impediment to their life goals and aspirations. This might explain those who have opted for a post-work way of life.
With the option of bringing in cheap foreign labour seemingly closed off for political and cultural reasons (if I were Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, I'd argue five of the last three periods of sustained economic growth have been facilitated by the availability of such cheap labour), the view from the "bully pulpit" (Reform and its fellow travellers) seems to be there is a legion of people sitting on their backsides who should be dragooned back into work.
I agree to a point - there are people who would probably like to work and contribute more than they are currently able - carers, those with physical and mental challenges. I suspect what is actually being referenced are people in their 50s and 60s who have had the temerity (or financial acumen) to retire early and be able to live the life they choose (which seems to involve a lot of spending and consumption which is good for the economy but no one mentions that).
There are, I suppose, thousands of students who some would argue should be thrown off arts degree courses (the Universities are finished anyway) and should be forced into work - what kind of work no one quite knows and apparently AI is going to sweep all the transactional and menial jobs away so they might as well study English Literature, History or Taylor Swift Studies).
My nephew, who has his Uncle's intelligence and personality but unfortunately has inherited his father's looks, is going to read commercial law (sensible, but I fear he too will be outdone by AI) at York (his A levels were better than mine but as all we oldies claim, the exams today are so easy a semi-house trained gibbon could get a decent grade). He's asked me what University was like when I attended in the Middle Ages (he has my sense of humour too).
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
It's not really my choice. If flags are being used to assert a particular narrow and xenophobic form of English identity then they are going to be associated with that in many people's minds. Some people will feel afraid when they see the flags (this is the purpose of course). Do I want to add to that fear? Not really. It's sad but that's where we are right now.
Yup, and I'm not sure what the way out is.
The ideal is probably to get to a situation where the British and English flags are symbols of nations at ease with how they really are. Arguably, that was so during both the 60s and 90s version of Cool Britannia.
Right now, it's become a badge of people who hate what Britain and England currently are. And a sort of territorial marker because urinating against lampposts is taboo for humans. Not good, but we are where we are.
York. I thought it was one of those genteel slightly Hyacinth Bouquet meets Alan Bennett Yorkshire towns like Wetherby or Harrogate. But no, from this weekend’s evidence it’s very much a city of “the people”.
Tattier than its sibling Canterbury, most surprisingly. And humming with 21st century chain nightlife. Within a 5 minute walk of my Airbnb there’s a Slug & Lettuce, O’Neills, Yates’s wine lodge, and a Pitcher & Piano. Brands I thought had died a decade or more ago. Not to mention “Lil’s on the waterfront”, “plonkers”, “the stone roses bar”, “Valhalla” and a whole panoply of other venues, filled with the dolled up and lagered up party animals of North Yorkshire. Who’d have thought it?
Isn’t this though the English being the English. We have this false image of us from Victorian history and Edwardian times of being polite and mannered but that was the history of the upper to aspirant middle classes. You look at the rest of English history from Georgian back and we are a wild, drunken, unruly mob. It was very useful when establishing defence or taking over other countries to have wonderful drunken hooligans as a majority of the population.
We are individualistic - I feel this is shown in our lack of the family structure when it comes to looking after the old and sending our finest to boarding school.
We are a wild, Northern, irreligious lot. We drink, fight, shag.
We aren’t the Victorian English but we are the English of Beowulf, the fights a drunkenness in Chaucer and Shakespeare. You look at the violence of riots at the Public Schools and the universities.
We are magnificently uncouth in many ways.
We could do with being more Victorian, Britain reached its greatest heights in global history with Victorian values and have declined since
The age of some of the workers in the brothels? You think that was the height of Britain? Let alone the life expectancy of those who didn't go to grammar school.
The age in which we led the industrial revolution, new scientific discoveries and explorations, great novelists and painters and Gothic architecture and the greatest Empire the world has seen for good or ill.
Plus traditional family values where good manners and respectability were prized and uncouth behaviour frowned upon by polite society
When life expectancy and wages and life experiences were crap compared to today.
This is the greatest Britain has ever been, for good or ill. The fact that other countries have grown more doesn't diminish that.
Wages and life expectancy grew dramatically because of the Industrial Revolution started in Victorian Britain
Wasn 't started in Victorian times.
Wages often crashed for some - think handloom weavers.
And life expectancy ditto. Compare the diets of Scottish agricultural workers with urbanites. It's no coincidence the police recruited from the countryside.
It did wages rose for most because of higher paid jobs in factories etc than working in the fields. Hence so many moved from rural areas to the cities and growing industrial areas for work.
Though the countryside even now can be healthier with less pollution etc
Wages? Not much use if food was adulterated and expensive.
There's a case to consider for the argument that the problem still existed well into the C20 - even WW2 - and today.
Even more a problem when wages were lower and the Corn Laws were the main factor in higher food prices
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
It's not really my choice. If flags are being used to assert a particular narrow and xenophobic form of English identity then they are going to be associated with that in many people's minds. Some people will feel afraid when they see the flags (this is the purpose of course). Do I want to add to that fear? Not really. It's sad but that's where we are right now.
Yup, and I'm not sure what the way out is.
The ideal is probably to get to a situation where the British and English flags are symbols of nations at ease with how they really are. Arguably, that was so during both the 60s and 90s version of Cool Britannia.
Right now, it's become a badge of people who hate what Britain and England currently are. And a sort of territorial marker because urinating against lampposts is taboo for humans. Not good, but we are where we are.
Strange, the argument I often hear from proponents of the "flags" is those who are opposed to them actually hate Britain and England. The complete disconnection of these two groups is a real cause for concern.
We started having this debate in 2016 but never finished it - in what kind of Britain (or England) do we really want to live? If the answer is "the way it was", that's no answer. We can only move forward and trying to recreate some romanticised version of what was is futile. Yes, we can take elements of it but we really need some proper thinking around the kind of society and community and culture we would wish to operate.
It all starts with the park keepers - or rather, the environmental area service drones (?).
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
It's not really my choice. If flags are being used to assert a particular narrow and xenophobic form of English identity then they are going to be associated with that in many people's minds. Some people will feel afraid when they see the flags (this is the purpose of course). Do I want to add to that fear? Not really. It's sad but that's where we are right now.
Yup, and I'm not sure what the way out is.
The ideal is probably to get to a situation where the British and English flags are symbols of nations at ease with how they really are. Arguably, that was so during both the 60s and 90s version of Cool Britannia.
Right now, it's become a badge of people who hate what Britain and England currently are. And a sort of territorial marker because urinating against lampposts is taboo for humans. Not good, but we are where we are.
Strange, the argument I often hear from proponents of the "flags" is those who are opposed to them actually hate Britain and England. The complete disconnection of these two groups is a real cause for concern.
We started having this debate in 2016 but never finished it - in what kind of Britain (or England) do we really want to live? If the answer is "the way it was", that's no answer. We can only move forward and trying to recreate some romanticised version of what was is futile. Yes, we can take elements of it but we really need some proper thinking around the kind of society and community and culture we would wish to operate.
It all starts with the park keepers - or rather, the environmental area service drones (?).
If we still had park keepers, we would have people to manage the flags properly.
(I grew up in a navy town, and am firmly convinced that a carelessly scruffy flag is worse than no flag at all.)
JD Vance: "This is how wars ultimately get settled. If you go back to World War 2, if you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation." https://x.com/atrupar/status/1959620851369701496
We all recall FDR boasting of his great relationship with Hitler.
"Unconditional surrender" is not usually classified as a negotiation.
I imagine that American Indians would disagree with Vance’s take on history.
Brute force has permanently settled a great many disputes.
I imagine most sentient beings with a passing awareness of history would disagree with Vance's nonsense.
Because it's an easy way for a small number of bored people to make a big impression?
The sad thing is that the St George's Cross and the Union flag are once again getting tainted by association with the thuggish nationalist right. I've put up St George's Cross flags and bunting during recent football tournaments but I'm not sure I would again.
I'm unconvinced letting extremists claim ownership of the flag is wise, but it's your choice.
The more I sift through historical photos etc I’m aware just how prevalent the swastika was as a more or less positive symbol pre-Nazis. I’m not sure it’s possible to reclaim it from its associations.
Apologies for the slow reply (been busy).
I've a 1922 copy of The Jungle Book, with an elephant and a small swastika on the front. The broken cross was used by many cultures, including Hindus.
You may be right about reclaiming it. But the cross of Saint George is not remotely the same thing.
Comments
https://youtu.be/uJnT6bLr5_k?si=9GPVa_dN0Gu42SWQ
There's a case to consider for the argument that the problem still existed well into the C20 - even WW2 - and today.
Also the actor playing the Bastard is too old. Being an C11th warlord would be aging but not that much.
NEW THREAD
On investigation, there's an interesting piece here by the Kipling Society, who must be very bored with having to explain that old Rudyard didn't strut around with a raised right arm, unlike some of his later contemporaries it must be said.
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/facts_swastika.htm
I see Andrew Bailey's comments have drawn the predictable responses but the point is valid.
Lockdown made a lot of people re-assess their priorities and "work" wasn't seen as being the be-all and end-all of life. Indeed, some came to see work as an impediment to their life goals and aspirations. This might explain those who have opted for a post-work way of life.
With the option of bringing in cheap foreign labour seemingly closed off for political and cultural reasons (if I were Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, I'd argue five of the last three periods of sustained economic growth have been facilitated by the availability of such cheap labour), the view from the "bully pulpit" (Reform and its fellow travellers) seems to be there is a legion of people sitting on their backsides who should be dragooned back into work.
I agree to a point - there are people who would probably like to work and contribute more than they are currently able - carers, those with physical and mental challenges. I suspect what is actually being referenced are people in their 50s and 60s who have had the temerity (or financial acumen) to retire early and be able to live the life they choose (which seems to involve a lot of spending and consumption which is good for the economy but no one mentions that).
There are, I suppose, thousands of students who some would argue should be thrown off arts degree courses (the Universities are finished anyway) and should be forced into work - what kind of work no one quite knows and apparently AI is going to sweep all the transactional and menial jobs away so they might as well study English Literature, History or Taylor Swift Studies).
My nephew, who has his Uncle's intelligence and personality but unfortunately has inherited his father's looks, is going to read commercial law (sensible, but I fear he too will be outdone by AI) at York (his A levels were better than mine but as all we oldies claim, the exams today are so easy a semi-house trained gibbon could get a decent grade). He's asked me what University was like when I attended in the Middle Ages (he has my sense of humour too).
The ideal is probably to get to a situation where the British and English flags are symbols of nations at ease with how they really are. Arguably, that was so during both the 60s and 90s version of Cool Britannia.
Right now, it's become a badge of people who hate what Britain and England currently are. And a sort of territorial marker because urinating against lampposts is taboo for humans. Not good, but we are where we are.
We started having this debate in 2016 but never finished it - in what kind of Britain (or England) do we really want to live? If the answer is "the way it was", that's no answer. We can only move forward and trying to recreate some romanticised version of what was is futile. Yes, we can take elements of it but we really need some proper thinking around the kind of society and community and culture we would wish to operate.
It all starts with the park keepers - or rather, the environmental area service drones (?).
(I grew up in a navy town, and am firmly convinced that a carelessly scruffy flag is worse than no flag at all.)
I've a 1922 copy of The Jungle Book, with an elephant and a small swastika on the front. The broken cross was used by many cultures, including Hindus.
You may be right about reclaiming it. But the cross of Saint George is not remotely the same thing.