What exactly is the government supposed to do re anti-Semitism?
Unless you ban the internet and bring in the thought police! And it was pretty disgraceful to have a crowd calling Starmer a traitor for not being able to stop a problem which is impossible to stop .
They can use the bully pulpit of office to be very clear that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and make sure that the police enforce this by arresting those with anti-Semetic signs and slogans at the various protests. In fairness, I thought the Home Secretary was good about that this morning on Today but it needs consistent messaging and action, not some soft words in the face of a particular tragedy. Too many in Labour are more concerned with winning back the votes of the Muslim population than they are about right and wrong.
I have been very critical of Israel's actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Iran. But genocidal policies by the Israeli government is no excuse for anti-Sematism here. This isn't complicated and we need to be clear and loud about it.
I am in most of my views leftish-liberal, but I really despair at the equivocations around antisemitism from so many on the left. If you can't condemn antisemitism without some mealy-mouthed qualification concerning Israel and Zionism, frankly I don't give any credence to your claims to be an anti-racist.
Critisise “The government of Israel” or “Netanyahu and his supporters”, absolutely fair.
As soon as people start talking about “Zionism”, it’s plainly clear to most normies what they actually mean.
The problem with limiting criticisms to the “The government of Israel” and “Netanyahu and his supporters" is that they have over time moulded the State of Israel in their image. Palestians living in what is legally Israel now have massively inferior rights to those of Jews, in what shorn of its religious veneer is effectively a racist state. Even worse is the plight of Palestinians in the territories that Israel is quite content to occupy in a perpetual limbo, what would have been the bantustans of South Africa representing a very real parallel with the occupied territories today, the planned culmination of apartheid that South Africa eventually turned its back on. Israel, the state, has effectively permanently suppered the creation of a parallel Palestinian state. So criticism of the State of Israel itself should be quite legitimate, because of what it has turned into during the 30 years following Rabin's assassination.
It's also of relevance that a majority of Israelis seem to be quite content with this tyrannical state of affairs, tyranny but not even of the majority given that they are in a minority over the territories Israel occupies. The fact that they are Jews does not render criticism of their collective support for their government's actions as anti-semitic, even though Israel and its supporters repeatedly try to play that card.
Israel is quite literally a racist state. That’s the whole point of it. Israel is either a racist state or it is nothing.
It’s a western liberal obsession that every nation must be a multicultural paradise but the whole point of Israel is to be a self haven for jews.
That doesn’t mean Israel should be waging war on its neighbours, oppressing minorities or committing war crimes, which they are, but if Israel wasn’t racist then it wouldn’t be Israel.
I suppose a racist state based on a fairy story concocted by some stoned goat herders 3000 years ago is bound to be somewhat incoherent.
But enough about Scotland…
You English will never get over Scotland being the older country.
I wasn't aware of the precise date, I assume they are fairly close, within a century.
It rapidly falls into definitions of what is a “country”, what is a “nation” and when they happened. The neat numbers you see in the simpler history books for such things rarely make sense as absolutes.
Yes. So the traditional date for England is 927, when Athelstan conquers York, and, I believe, calls himself King of England. But earlier Kings of Wessex had called themselves King of the Anglo-Saxons, so if you wanted to you could probably push it back to Alfred the Great (so 871 or 886?)
The traditional date for Scotland is 843, but at the time Kenneth MacAlpin called himself the King of the Picts and it wasn't until Donald II in 889 that they called themselves King of Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland; Scotland being a later name derived from Latin when that was en vogue.)
But, of course, all of these rulers would have asserted their right to rule from their lineage to almost mythical roots, hundreds of years earlier.
But yes, Scotland is 84 years older than England by the most commonly used dates. And Scotland was only 91 years old when its King was first forced to submit to an English King, England only having existed for 7 years by that point.
The 927 anniversary is next year, 1100 years. For an exact dat,, the submissions to Athelstan as King of England, the Treaty of Eamont Bridge - to this day just south of Penrith - was signed on 12th July 927. Which ought to be an English bank holiday.
This is total hairy bollocks
The Venerable Bede wrote his History of the English People in 731 AD. So the English as nation had been around long enough to need a history in the 730s
England as a self perceived nation probably goes back to the 6th century. It is far older than Scotland
Nope. It was never perceived as a single nation until well into the 9th century and probably the early 10th. Offa in the late 8th century does not refer to himself as King of England, only Mercia. The first King to refer to himself as King of the English (Rex Anglorum) was Athelstan as LostPassword said earlier.
Alfred issued what he intended to be the first unified coinage system in England in 886 AD but at the time the Eastern part of England was still under Danelaw so there was no unified England at that point.
The first person to be crowned King of a unified England was even later than Athelstan - Edgar in 973 AD
I studied Medieval/Dark Age English history and this is patently rubbish
Bede saw the English as a nation with a history in 731. He simply did
What exactly is the government supposed to do re anti-Semitism?
Unless you ban the internet and bring in the thought police! And it was pretty disgraceful to have a crowd calling Starmer a traitor for not being able to stop a problem which is impossible to stop .
They can use the bully pulpit of office to be very clear that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and make sure that the police enforce this by arresting those with anti-Semetic signs and slogans at the various protests. In fairness, I thought the Home Secretary was good about that this morning on Today but it needs consistent messaging and action, not some soft words in the face of a particular tragedy. Too many in Labour are more concerned with winning back the votes of the Muslim population than they are about right and wrong.
I have been very critical of Israel's actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Iran. But genocidal policies by the Israeli government is no excuse for anti-Sematism here. This isn't complicated and we need to be clear and loud about it.
I am in most of my views leftish-liberal, but I really despair at the equivocations around antisemitism from so many on the left. If you can't condemn antisemitism without some mealy-mouthed qualification concerning Israel and Zionism, frankly I don't give any credence to your claims to be an anti-racist.
Critisise “The government of Israel” or “Netanyahu and his supporters”, absolutely fair.
As soon as people start talking about “Zionism”, it’s plainly clear to most normies what they actually mean.
The problem with limiting criticisms to the “The government of Israel” and “Netanyahu and his supporters" is that they have over time moulded the State of Israel in their image. Palestians living in what is legally Israel now have massively inferior rights to those of Jews, in what shorn of its religious veneer is effectively a racist state. Even worse is the plight of Palestinians in the territories that Israel is quite content to occupy in a perpetual limbo, what would have been the bantustans of South Africa representing a very real parallel with the occupied territories today, the planned culmination of apartheid that South Africa eventually turned its back on. Israel, the state, has effectively permanently suppered the creation of a parallel Palestinian state. So criticism of the State of Israel itself should be quite legitimate, because of what it has turned into during the 30 years following Rabin's assassination.
It's also of relevance that a majority of Israelis seem to be quite content with this tyrannical state of affairs, tyranny but not even of the majority given that they are in a minority over the territories Israel occupies. The fact that they are Jews does not render criticism of their collective support for their government's actions as anti-semitic, even though Israel and its supporters repeatedly try to play that card.
Israel is quite literally a racist state. That’s the whole point of it. Israel is either a racist state or it is nothing.
It’s a western liberal obsession that every nation must be a multicultural paradise but the whole point of Israel is to be a self haven for jews.
That doesn’t mean Israel should be waging war on its neighbours, oppressing minorities or committing war crimes, which they are, but if Israel wasn’t racist then it wouldn’t be Israel.
I suppose a racist state based on a fairy story concocted by some stoned goat herders 3000 years ago is bound to be somewhat incoherent.
But enough about Scotland…
You English will never get over Scotland being the older country.
I wasn't aware of the precise date, I assume they are fairly close, within a century.
It rapidly falls into definitions of what is a “country”, what is a “nation” and when they happened. The neat numbers you see in the simpler history books for such things rarely make sense as absolutes.
Yes. So the traditional date for England is 927, when Athelstan conquers York, and, I believe, calls himself King of England. But earlier Kings of Wessex had called themselves King of the Anglo-Saxons, so if you wanted to you could probably push it back to Alfred the Great (so 871 or 886?)
The traditional date for Scotland is 843, but at the time Kenneth MacAlpin called himself the King of the Picts and it wasn't until Donald II in 889 that they called themselves King of Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland; Scotland being a later name derived from Latin when that was en vogue.)
But, of course, all of these rulers would have asserted their right to rule from their lineage to almost mythical roots, hundreds of years earlier.
But yes, Scotland is 84 years older than England by the most commonly used dates. And Scotland was only 91 years old when its King was first forced to submit to an English King, England only having existed for 7 years by that point.
The 927 anniversary is next year, 1100 years. For an exact dat,, the submissions to Athelstan as King of England, the Treaty of Eamont Bridge - to this day just south of Penrith - was signed on 12th July 927. Which ought to be an English bank holiday.
This is total hairy bollocks
The Venerable Bede wrote his History of the English People in 731 AD. So the English as nation had been around long enough to need a history in the 730s
England as a self perceived nation probably goes back to the 6th century. It is far older than Scotland
Nope. It was never perceived as a single nation until well into the 9th century and probably the early 10th. Offa in the late 8th century does not refer to himself as King of England, only Mercia. The first King to refer to himself as King of the English (Rex Anglorum) was Athelstan as LostPassword said earlier.
Alfred issued what he intended to be the first unified coinage system in England in 886 AD but at the time the Eastern part of England was still under Danelaw so there was no unified England at that point.
The first person to be crowned King of a unified England was even later than Athelstan - Edgar in 973 AD
Not sure I agree
You are correct that was when the single country named England with its approximate current boundaries came into being.
But kingdoms are organic - “England” was just a political figleaf to hide what was really a Greater Wessex. And that had been an extant kingdom for hundreds of years
Er no. It was one of a number of Kingdoms existing side by side and often at war with each other.
If a single European state ever comes into existence you wouldn't date its founding from Napoleon's time. It would be patent nonsense.
Northumbria was an independent kIngdom until 867 East Anglia was an independent Kingdom until 869 Mercia was an independent Kingdom until 879
All of these fell because of the Danes and then remained under Danish control to agreater or lesser degree until the early 10th century.
Wessex tried very hard to gain control of its neighbours but it didn't succeed until after the end of Danelaw. And even Wessex wasn't a stable kingdom until Ecgberht in the early 9th century
The idea there was a single political entity called England before Athelstan simply isn't true.
It’s nothing to do with politics it’s a cultural sense - and also things like language
Replacing SKS seems to be much like the Grand National - many riders, many fallers. The small shortlist (Burnham, Miliband, Streeting, Rayner) are joined by a load of possibles.
I'd be very interested to hear thoughts as to whether these outsiders could somehow find themselves projected into an office that they didn't seek, but were hardly likely to turn down if called upon. (I'll add some of my thoughts first)
Thornberry - She's a bit ghastly, but she can also be very good. Darren Jones - He's front and centre as to knowing what's going on these days. Peter Kyle - Sneaky! Bridget Philipson - Once spoken of in hushed tones in a good way, now the other way. Hilary Benn - It'd make his father proud until his father saw his policies. Dougie - I simply don't get this one. Lisa Nandy - she's given up I think anyway. Alistair Carns - he gets his own vote. Louise Haigh - a woman scorned. Do not approach. John Healey - as Healey's go he's not great. Stephen Kinnock - He just won't. Miatta Fahnbulleh - Hahahahahaha. (I just include her because she seems to have backers)
I think that you have to add Powell as she is deputy leader, and that must count for something, and Cooper.
You look at that list and it is just frankly so depressing. The complete lack of competence, credibility, judgement, understanding, I could go on all day. Starmer is abysmal. And he's still better than any of the alternatives.
And even once you extend the shortlist to other parties...
Farage and Polanski are different versions of terrible. Badenoch just isn't up to it. Ed Davey isn't trying to be PM- the Lib Dems have a 100 seats at most strategy which works for them but isn't the damn point.
Its a truly terrible time in our politics. I am 64 and I cannot remember a time like it. As a child we had Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons, a genuinely brilliant man. Healey, Roy Mason, even Foot, these were men of genuine talent, skills and passion. Thatcher's government was incredible by today's standards. Howe, Whitelaw, Carrington, Lawson, Pym, even Heseltine, a government of genuine talent. Blair and Brown, not my taste, especially the latter but gifted, Blair especially. The Coalition, Cameron, Osborne, Clegg. Serious people doing a serious job to the best of their ability.
No one is going to agree with everyone on that list and what they did, hell, I don't. But we had leadership and a sense of purpose. Now, in every party, we seem to have people whose primary goal is to be PM. Just for their own egos. With no idea what they want this country to be, how to improve the lives of those that live here, no clear plan at all. It's tragic.
I am not sure Wilson was a great as people make out. He may have come in on a wave of optimism and modernisation but a lot of what he did, particularly into the seventies makes some of today's decisions look almost sane. His control of the economy was dire and there were a large number of personal and political scandals that remind me very much of Johnson at his worst. As I said the other day it is true the calibre of MPs and ministers in the 60s and 70s was miles ahead of what we have now. But they still managed to do a lot of deeply stupid things and they are fortunate that Parliamentary sessions weren't recorded in those days.
What exactly is the government supposed to do re anti-Semitism?
Unless you ban the internet and bring in the thought police! And it was pretty disgraceful to have a crowd calling Starmer a traitor for not being able to stop a problem which is impossible to stop .
They can use the bully pulpit of office to be very clear that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and make sure that the police enforce this by arresting those with anti-Semetic signs and slogans at the various protests. In fairness, I thought the Home Secretary was good about that this morning on Today but it needs consistent messaging and action, not some soft words in the face of a particular tragedy. Too many in Labour are more concerned with winning back the votes of the Muslim population than they are about right and wrong.
I have been very critical of Israel's actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Iran. But genocidal policies by the Israeli government is no excuse for anti-Sematism here. This isn't complicated and we need to be clear and loud about it.
I am in most of my views leftish-liberal, but I really despair at the equivocations around antisemitism from so many on the left. If you can't condemn antisemitism without some mealy-mouthed qualification concerning Israel and Zionism, frankly I don't give any credence to your claims to be an anti-racist.
Critisise “The government of Israel” or “Netanyahu and his supporters”, absolutely fair.
As soon as people start talking about “Zionism”, it’s plainly clear to most normies what they actually mean.
The problem with limiting criticisms to the “The government of Israel” and “Netanyahu and his supporters" is that they have over time moulded the State of Israel in their image. Palestians living in what is legally Israel now have massively inferior rights to those of Jews, in what shorn of its religious veneer is effectively a racist state. Even worse is the plight of Palestinians in the territories that Israel is quite content to occupy in a perpetual limbo, what would have been the bantustans of South Africa representing a very real parallel with the occupied territories today, the planned culmination of apartheid that South Africa eventually turned its back on. Israel, the state, has effectively permanently suppered the creation of a parallel Palestinian state. So criticism of the State of Israel itself should be quite legitimate, because of what it has turned into during the 30 years following Rabin's assassination.
It's also of relevance that a majority of Israelis seem to be quite content with this tyrannical state of affairs, tyranny but not even of the majority given that they are in a minority over the territories Israel occupies. The fact that they are Jews does not render criticism of their collective support for their government's actions as anti-semitic, even though Israel and its supporters repeatedly try to play that card.
Israel is quite literally a racist state. That’s the whole point of it. Israel is either a racist state or it is nothing.
It’s a western liberal obsession that every nation must be a multicultural paradise but the whole point of Israel is to be a self haven for jews.
That doesn’t mean Israel should be waging war on its neighbours, oppressing minorities or committing war crimes, which they are, but if Israel wasn’t racist then it wouldn’t be Israel.
I suppose a racist state based on a fairy story concocted by some stoned goat herders 3000 years ago is bound to be somewhat incoherent.
But enough about Scotland…
You English will never get over Scotland being the older country.
I wasn't aware of the precise date, I assume they are fairly close, within a century.
It rapidly falls into definitions of what is a “country”, what is a “nation” and when they happened. The neat numbers you see in the simpler history books for such things rarely make sense as absolutes.
Yes. So the traditional date for England is 927, when Athelstan conquers York, and, I believe, calls himself King of England. But earlier Kings of Wessex had called themselves King of the Anglo-Saxons, so if you wanted to you could probably push it back to Alfred the Great (so 871 or 886?)
The traditional date for Scotland is 843, but at the time Kenneth MacAlpin called himself the King of the Picts and it wasn't until Donald II in 889 that they called themselves King of Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland; Scotland being a later name derived from Latin when that was en vogue.)
But, of course, all of these rulers would have asserted their right to rule from their lineage to almost mythical roots, hundreds of years earlier.
But yes, Scotland is 84 years older than England by the most commonly used dates. And Scotland was only 91 years old when its King was first forced to submit to an English King, England only having existed for 7 years by that point.
The 927 anniversary is next year, 1100 years. For an exact dat,, the submissions to Athelstan as King of England, the Treaty of Eamont Bridge - to this day just south of Penrith - was signed on 12th July 927. Which ought to be an English bank holiday.
This is total hairy bollocks
The Venerable Bede wrote his History of the English People in 731 AD. So the English as nation had been around long enough to need a history in the 730s
England as a self perceived nation probably goes back to the 6th century. It is far older than Scotland
Nope. It was never perceived as a single nation until well into the 9th century and probably the early 10th. Offa in the late 8th century does not refer to himself as King of England, only Mercia. The first King to refer to himself as King of the English (Rex Anglorum) was Athelstan as LostPassword said earlier.
Alfred issued what he intended to be the first unified coinage system in England in 886 AD but at the time the Eastern part of England was still under Danelaw so there was no unified England at that point.
The first person to be crowned King of a unified England was even later than Athelstan - Edgar in 973 AD
I studied Medieval/Dark Age English history and this is patently rubbish
Bede saw the English as a nation with a history in 731. He simply did
Weren’t you off your tits on drugs during the ‘studying’?
What exactly is the government supposed to do re anti-Semitism?
Unless you ban the internet and bring in the thought police! And it was pretty disgraceful to have a crowd calling Starmer a traitor for not being able to stop a problem which is impossible to stop .
They can use the bully pulpit of office to be very clear that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and make sure that the police enforce this by arresting those with anti-Semetic signs and slogans at the various protests. In fairness, I thought the Home Secretary was good about that this morning on Today but it needs consistent messaging and action, not some soft words in the face of a particular tragedy. Too many in Labour are more concerned with winning back the votes of the Muslim population than they are about right and wrong.
I have been very critical of Israel's actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Iran. But genocidal policies by the Israeli government is no excuse for anti-Sematism here. This isn't complicated and we need to be clear and loud about it.
I am in most of my views leftish-liberal, but I really despair at the equivocations around antisemitism from so many on the left. If you can't condemn antisemitism without some mealy-mouthed qualification concerning Israel and Zionism, frankly I don't give any credence to your claims to be an anti-racist.
Critisise “The government of Israel” or “Netanyahu and his supporters”, absolutely fair.
As soon as people start talking about “Zionism”, it’s plainly clear to most normies what they actually mean.
The problem with limiting criticisms to the “The government of Israel” and “Netanyahu and his supporters" is that they have over time moulded the State of Israel in their image. Palestians living in what is legally Israel now have massively inferior rights to those of Jews, in what shorn of its religious veneer is effectively a racist state. Even worse is the plight of Palestinians in the territories that Israel is quite content to occupy in a perpetual limbo, what would have been the bantustans of South Africa representing a very real parallel with the occupied territories today, the planned culmination of apartheid that South Africa eventually turned its back on. Israel, the state, has effectively permanently suppered the creation of a parallel Palestinian state. So criticism of the State of Israel itself should be quite legitimate, because of what it has turned into during the 30 years following Rabin's assassination.
It's also of relevance that a majority of Israelis seem to be quite content with this tyrannical state of affairs, tyranny but not even of the majority given that they are in a minority over the territories Israel occupies. The fact that they are Jews does not render criticism of their collective support for their government's actions as anti-semitic, even though Israel and its supporters repeatedly try to play that card.
Israel is quite literally a racist state. That’s the whole point of it. Israel is either a racist state or it is nothing.
It’s a western liberal obsession that every nation must be a multicultural paradise but the whole point of Israel is to be a self haven for jews.
That doesn’t mean Israel should be waging war on its neighbours, oppressing minorities or committing war crimes, which they are, but if Israel wasn’t racist then it wouldn’t be Israel.
I suppose a racist state based on a fairy story concocted by some stoned goat herders 3000 years ago is bound to be somewhat incoherent.
But enough about Scotland…
You English will never get over Scotland being the older country.
I wasn't aware of the precise date, I assume they are fairly close, within a century.
It rapidly falls into definitions of what is a “country”, what is a “nation” and when they happened. The neat numbers you see in the simpler history books for such things rarely make sense as absolutes.
Yes. So the traditional date for England is 927, when Athelstan conquers York, and, I believe, calls himself King of England. But earlier Kings of Wessex had called themselves King of the Anglo-Saxons, so if you wanted to you could probably push it back to Alfred the Great (so 871 or 886?)
The traditional date for Scotland is 843, but at the time Kenneth MacAlpin called himself the King of the Picts and it wasn't until Donald II in 889 that they called themselves King of Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland; Scotland being a later name derived from Latin when that was en vogue.)
But, of course, all of these rulers would have asserted their right to rule from their lineage to almost mythical roots, hundreds of years earlier.
But yes, Scotland is 84 years older than England by the most commonly used dates. And Scotland was only 91 years old when its King was first forced to submit to an English King, England only having existed for 7 years by that point.
The 927 anniversary is next year, 1100 years. For an exact dat,, the submissions to Athelstan as King of England, the Treaty of Eamont Bridge - to this day just south of Penrith - was signed on 12th July 927. Which ought to be an English bank holiday.
This is total hairy bollocks
The Venerable Bede wrote his History of the English People in 731 AD. So the English as nation had been around long enough to need a history in the 730s
England as a self perceived nation probably goes back to the 6th century. It is far older than Scotland
Nope. It was never perceived as a single nation until well into the 9th century and probably the early 10th. Offa in the late 8th century does not refer to himself as King of England, only Mercia. The first King to refer to himself as King of the English (Rex Anglorum) was Athelstan as LostPassword said earlier.
Alfred issued what he intended to be the first unified coinage system in England in 886 AD but at the time the Eastern part of England was still under Danelaw so there was no unified England at that point.
The first person to be crowned King of a unified England was even later than Athelstan - Edgar in 973 AD
I studied Medieval/Dark Age English history and this is patently rubbish
Bede saw the English as a nation with a history in 731. He simply did
It doesn't matter what one man thought. There were none of the trappings of single Kingdom. No unified taxation, no unified governance, no single system of coinage, no reference to being King of England or the English by any of the rulers and half the Kingdoms were at war with each other. You may have studied Medieval/Dark Age English but no one else who actually studies this stuff agrees with you.
And to be honest you are so regularly wrong on just about everything you claim that the safe bet is to believe you are wrong this time as well.
What exactly is the government supposed to do re anti-Semitism?
Unless you ban the internet and bring in the thought police! And it was pretty disgraceful to have a crowd calling Starmer a traitor for not being able to stop a problem which is impossible to stop .
They can use the bully pulpit of office to be very clear that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and make sure that the police enforce this by arresting those with anti-Semetic signs and slogans at the various protests. In fairness, I thought the Home Secretary was good about that this morning on Today but it needs consistent messaging and action, not some soft words in the face of a particular tragedy. Too many in Labour are more concerned with winning back the votes of the Muslim population than they are about right and wrong.
I have been very critical of Israel's actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Iran. But genocidal policies by the Israeli government is no excuse for anti-Sematism here. This isn't complicated and we need to be clear and loud about it.
I am in most of my views leftish-liberal, but I really despair at the equivocations around antisemitism from so many on the left. If you can't condemn antisemitism without some mealy-mouthed qualification concerning Israel and Zionism, frankly I don't give any credence to your claims to be an anti-racist.
Critisise “The government of Israel” or “Netanyahu and his supporters”, absolutely fair.
As soon as people start talking about “Zionism”, it’s plainly clear to most normies what they actually mean.
The problem with limiting criticisms to the “The government of Israel” and “Netanyahu and his supporters" is that they have over time moulded the State of Israel in their image. Palestians living in what is legally Israel now have massively inferior rights to those of Jews, in what shorn of its religious veneer is effectively a racist state. Even worse is the plight of Palestinians in the territories that Israel is quite content to occupy in a perpetual limbo, what would have been the bantustans of South Africa representing a very real parallel with the occupied territories today, the planned culmination of apartheid that South Africa eventually turned its back on. Israel, the state, has effectively permanently suppered the creation of a parallel Palestinian state. So criticism of the State of Israel itself should be quite legitimate, because of what it has turned into during the 30 years following Rabin's assassination.
It's also of relevance that a majority of Israelis seem to be quite content with this tyrannical state of affairs, tyranny but not even of the majority given that they are in a minority over the territories Israel occupies. The fact that they are Jews does not render criticism of their collective support for their government's actions as anti-semitic, even though Israel and its supporters repeatedly try to play that card.
Israel is quite literally a racist state. That’s the whole point of it. Israel is either a racist state or it is nothing.
It’s a western liberal obsession that every nation must be a multicultural paradise but the whole point of Israel is to be a self haven for jews.
That doesn’t mean Israel should be waging war on its neighbours, oppressing minorities or committing war crimes, which they are, but if Israel wasn’t racist then it wouldn’t be Israel.
I suppose a racist state based on a fairy story concocted by some stoned goat herders 3000 years ago is bound to be somewhat incoherent.
But enough about Scotland…
You English will never get over Scotland being the older country.
I wasn't aware of the precise date, I assume they are fairly close, within a century.
It rapidly falls into definitions of what is a “country”, what is a “nation” and when they happened. The neat numbers you see in the simpler history books for such things rarely make sense as absolutes.
Yes. So the traditional date for England is 927, when Athelstan conquers York, and, I believe, calls himself King of England. But earlier Kings of Wessex had called themselves King of the Anglo-Saxons, so if you wanted to you could probably push it back to Alfred the Great (so 871 or 886?)
The traditional date for Scotland is 843, but at the time Kenneth MacAlpin called himself the King of the Picts and it wasn't until Donald II in 889 that they called themselves King of Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland; Scotland being a later name derived from Latin when that was en vogue.)
But, of course, all of these rulers would have asserted their right to rule from their lineage to almost mythical roots, hundreds of years earlier.
But yes, Scotland is 84 years older than England by the most commonly used dates. And Scotland was only 91 years old when its King was first forced to submit to an English King, England only having existed for 7 years by that point.
The 927 anniversary is next year, 1100 years. For an exact dat,, the submissions to Athelstan as King of England, the Treaty of Eamont Bridge - to this day just south of Penrith - was signed on 12th July 927. Which ought to be an English bank holiday.
This is total hairy bollocks
The Venerable Bede wrote his History of the English People in 731 AD. So the English as nation had been around long enough to need a history in the 730s
England as a self perceived nation probably goes back to the 6th century. It is far older than Scotland
Nope. It was never perceived as a single nation until well into the 9th century and probably the early 10th. Offa in the late 8th century does not refer to himself as King of England, only Mercia. The first King to refer to himself as King of the English (Rex Anglorum) was Athelstan as LostPassword said earlier.
Alfred issued what he intended to be the first unified coinage system in England in 886 AD but at the time the Eastern part of England was still under Danelaw so there was no unified England at that point.
The first person to be crowned King of a unified England was even later than Athelstan - Edgar in 973 AD
I studied Medieval/Dark Age English history and this is patently rubbish
Bede saw the English as a nation with a history in 731. He simply did
It doesn't matter what one man thought. There were none of the trappings of single Kingdom. No unified taxation, no unified governance, no single system of coinage, no reference to being King of England or the English by any of the rulers and half the Kingdoms were at war with each other. You may have studied Medieval/Dark Age English but no one else who actually studies this stuff agrees with you.
And to be honest you are so regularly wrong on just about everything you claim that the safe bet is to believe you are wrong this time as well.
Replacing SKS seems to be much like the Grand National - many riders, many fallers. The small shortlist (Burnham, Miliband, Streeting, Rayner) are joined by a load of possibles.
I'd be very interested to hear thoughts as to whether these outsiders could somehow find themselves projected into an office that they didn't seek, but were hardly likely to turn down if called upon. (I'll add some of my thoughts first)
Thornberry - She's a bit ghastly, but she can also be very good. Darren Jones - He's front and centre as to knowing what's going on these days. Peter Kyle - Sneaky! Bridget Philipson - Once spoken of in hushed tones in a good way, now the other way. Hilary Benn - It'd make his father proud until his father saw his policies. Dougie - I simply don't get this one. Lisa Nandy - she's given up I think anyway. Alistair Carns - he gets his own vote. Louise Haigh - a woman scorned. Do not approach. John Healey - as Healey's go he's not great. Stephen Kinnock - He just won't. Miatta Fahnbulleh - Hahahahahaha. (I just include her because she seems to have backers)
I think that you have to add Powell as she is deputy leader, and that must count for something, and Cooper.
You look at that list and it is just frankly so depressing. The complete lack of competence, credibility, judgement, understanding, I could go on all day. Starmer is abysmal. And he's still better than any of the alternatives.
And even once you extend the shortlist to other parties...
Farage and Polanski are different versions of terrible. Badenoch just isn't up to it. Ed Davey isn't trying to be PM- the Lib Dems have a 100 seats at most strategy which works for them but isn't the damn point.
Its a truly terrible time in our politics. I am 64 and I cannot remember a time like it. As a child we had Wilson, one of the youngest Oxford dons, a genuinely brilliant man. Healey, Roy Mason, even Foot, these were men of genuine talent, skills and passion. Thatcher's government was incredible by today's standards. Howe, Whitelaw, Carrington, Lawson, Pym, even Heseltine, a government of genuine talent. Blair and Brown, not my taste, especially the latter but gifted, Blair especially. The Coalition, Cameron, Osborne, Clegg. Serious people doing a serious job to the best of their ability.
No one is going to agree with everyone on that list and what they did, hell, I don't. But we had leadership and a sense of purpose. Now, in every party, we seem to have people whose primary goal is to be PM. Just for their own egos. With no idea what they want this country to be, how to improve the lives of those that live here, no clear plan at all. It's tragic.
I am not sure Wilson was a great as people make out. He may have come in on a wave of optimism and modernisation but a lot of what he did, particularly into the seventies makes some of today's decisions look almost sane. His control of the economy was dire and there were a large number of personal and political scandals that remind me very much of Johnson at his worst. As I said the other day it is true the calibre of MPs and ministers in the 60s and 70s was miles ahead of what we have now. But they still managed to do a lot of deeply stupid things and they are fortunate that Parliamentary sessions weren't recorded in those days.
What exactly is the government supposed to do re anti-Semitism?
Unless you ban the internet and bring in the thought police! And it was pretty disgraceful to have a crowd calling Starmer a traitor for not being able to stop a problem which is impossible to stop .
They can use the bully pulpit of office to be very clear that anti-Semitism is unacceptable and make sure that the police enforce this by arresting those with anti-Semetic signs and slogans at the various protests. In fairness, I thought the Home Secretary was good about that this morning on Today but it needs consistent messaging and action, not some soft words in the face of a particular tragedy. Too many in Labour are more concerned with winning back the votes of the Muslim population than they are about right and wrong.
I have been very critical of Israel's actions in Gaza, the West Bank and now Iran. But genocidal policies by the Israeli government is no excuse for anti-Sematism here. This isn't complicated and we need to be clear and loud about it.
I am in most of my views leftish-liberal, but I really despair at the equivocations around antisemitism from so many on the left. If you can't condemn antisemitism without some mealy-mouthed qualification concerning Israel and Zionism, frankly I don't give any credence to your claims to be an anti-racist.
Critisise “The government of Israel” or “Netanyahu and his supporters”, absolutely fair.
As soon as people start talking about “Zionism”, it’s plainly clear to most normies what they actually mean.
The problem with limiting criticisms to the “The government of Israel” and “Netanyahu and his supporters" is that they have over time moulded the State of Israel in their image. Palestians living in what is legally Israel now have massively inferior rights to those of Jews, in what shorn of its religious veneer is effectively a racist state. Even worse is the plight of Palestinians in the territories that Israel is quite content to occupy in a perpetual limbo, what would have been the bantustans of South Africa representing a very real parallel with the occupied territories today, the planned culmination of apartheid that South Africa eventually turned its back on. Israel, the state, has effectively permanently suppered the creation of a parallel Palestinian state. So criticism of the State of Israel itself should be quite legitimate, because of what it has turned into during the 30 years following Rabin's assassination.
It's also of relevance that a majority of Israelis seem to be quite content with this tyrannical state of affairs, tyranny but not even of the majority given that they are in a minority over the territories Israel occupies. The fact that they are Jews does not render criticism of their collective support for their government's actions as anti-semitic, even though Israel and its supporters repeatedly try to play that card.
Israel is quite literally a racist state. That’s the whole point of it. Israel is either a racist state or it is nothing.
It’s a western liberal obsession that every nation must be a multicultural paradise but the whole point of Israel is to be a self haven for jews.
That doesn’t mean Israel should be waging war on its neighbours, oppressing minorities or committing war crimes, which they are, but if Israel wasn’t racist then it wouldn’t be Israel.
I suppose a racist state based on a fairy story concocted by some stoned goat herders 3000 years ago is bound to be somewhat incoherent.
But enough about Scotland…
You English will never get over Scotland being the older country.
I wasn't aware of the precise date, I assume they are fairly close, within a century.
It rapidly falls into definitions of what is a “country”, what is a “nation” and when they happened. The neat numbers you see in the simpler history books for such things rarely make sense as absolutes.
Yes. So the traditional date for England is 927, when Athelstan conquers York, and, I believe, calls himself King of England. But earlier Kings of Wessex had called themselves King of the Anglo-Saxons, so if you wanted to you could probably push it back to Alfred the Great (so 871 or 886?)
The traditional date for Scotland is 843, but at the time Kenneth MacAlpin called himself the King of the Picts and it wasn't until Donald II in 889 that they called themselves King of Alba (the Gaelic name for Scotland; Scotland being a later name derived from Latin when that was en vogue.)
But, of course, all of these rulers would have asserted their right to rule from their lineage to almost mythical roots, hundreds of years earlier.
But yes, Scotland is 84 years older than England by the most commonly used dates. And Scotland was only 91 years old when its King was first forced to submit to an English King, England only having existed for 7 years by that point.
The 927 anniversary is next year, 1100 years. For an exact dat,, the submissions to Athelstan as King of England, the Treaty of Eamont Bridge - to this day just south of Penrith - was signed on 12th July 927. Which ought to be an English bank holiday.
This is total hairy bollocks
The Venerable Bede wrote his History of the English People in 731 AD. So the English as nation had been around long enough to need a history in the 730s
England as a self perceived nation probably goes back to the 6th century. It is far older than Scotland
Nope. It was never perceived as a single nation until well into the 9th century and probably the early 10th. Offa in the late 8th century does not refer to himself as King of England, only Mercia. The first King to refer to himself as King of the English (Rex Anglorum) was Athelstan as LostPassword said earlier.
Alfred issued what he intended to be the first unified coinage system in England in 886 AD but at the time the Eastern part of England was still under Danelaw so there was no unified England at that point.
The first person to be crowned King of a unified England was even later than Athelstan - Edgar in 973 AD
I studied Medieval/Dark Age English history and this is patently rubbish
Bede saw the English as a nation with a history in 731. He simply did
Repeating an incorrect statement isn't a cure for its incorrectness.
Comments
Bede saw the English as a nation with a history in 731. He simply did
And to be honest you are so regularly wrong on just about everything you claim that the safe bet is to believe you are wrong this time as well.
Just as a basic principle.