This seems a good moment to report Mrs PtP's visit to Golders Green on Wednesday when she happened to have a work appointment there with the Jewish Chronicle. She didn't witness the attack but spoke to a number who did. They made it clear to her that it had little to do with anti-semitism and everything to do with a nutcase committing a horrible crime, because that's what some nutcases do. It isn't surprising that local leaders have taken the opportunity to press their claims in the aftermath but any suggestion that Golders Green or anywhere else in London is a no go zone are complete bollox. I have passed through myself several times in the past few days and there are no signs of the local Jews hiding in terror, covering their stars of David, removing their skull caps, or dressing any differently to the way they do normally. I was personally able to make my usual visit to Daniels and scoff a smoked salmon bagel without fear. In short, it is business as usual.
Mrs PtP is half Jewish. I am not Jewish, although I do have a roman nose. Neither of us has a dog in this fight. I used to think this was perhaps a lazy or unprincipled position but increasingly I see it as one to be proud of.
I hope it doesn't cause offence.
I agree that this attacker is more crazy than motivated by religion or politics, but I wonder how people would feel about it if an equally deranged, serial offender who had only been out of a mental home a few days was a white Englishman who randomly sought out Muslims in one of East London’s Islamic neighbourhoods. I reckon people would be laying the blame at Farage and Rupert Lowe’s door, and Sir Keir would be referencing ‘far right thuggery’
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
Yes, just as there were Germans before there was a Germany.
As for English, wind back the language. Anglish. Used to describe not just the Angles but the Saxons and the Jutes and the Romano-Celts and everyone else. As "English" is a genetic evolution of all those groups and Norse and French, its crazy to try and name a hard date where it started. Genetically, phonetically, politically you need to wait until long after the Normal conquest to amalgamate them fully. But that would be daft, so we use the ish, just as Germans use the ic.
Quite so. It is impossible to precisely date the inception of an ancient nation like England (or France, Japan, etc). They aren’t places that formally declared independence and nationhood and suddenly existed like the USA
For Bede to write his book the idea of the “English people” must have been around for a while - culturally, linguistically, etc
But he was the first person to famously say it, so 731AD - the date of his statement - is a decent compromise if we insist on pinning it down
And "nation" of people is separate from "state" in whatever form you want to imagine it - city, princedom, kingdom etc.
Although whilst Bede may be describing the English people, how many of the English people would describe themselves thus?
I'm not sure it matters. The nation is bloody old and survived multiple invasions by simply folding the invaders into who we are. I spent 15 years living in a town named after a Viking lord and have a name derived from old French. And am English. We English wouldn't be English without the vikings and normans adding to us. We evolve. Which is why the petty bigotry from so many makes me chuckle. Migrants? Check your history luv...
Yes. It doesn’t especially matter. It’s historical fun or nationalist willywaving, no more than that. This debate began with @Theuniondivvie claiming Scotland is older than the evil England. Really not sure that’s true
But who cares? What’s definitely true is that Western European nations - England, Scotland, France, Germany, and others - are some of the oldest on earth. But not as old as some nations in East Asia. And China is the oldest of all
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
The original contention was however about "England" as a nation or state. Reference to the common religion of peoples on the island doesn't imply nationhood. Bede was not describing a national people in anything like the later medieval or modern sense. He was describing a loose cultural‑linguistic category whose unity was primarily religious, not political. “English” is simply a convenient label for the peoples evangelised by Augustine’s mission; akin to Caesar's references to 'the Gauls' in his earlier writings.
On the other hand, later generations in early England certainly took the bringing of a common religion to the isle as the germ of nationhood, and referred back to Bede in that way.
The English Devolution and Empowerment Bill has received Royal Assent this means future mayoralty elections will go back to using the Supplementary Vote system .
AV would be so much better.
Having to assume who will be in the top two is likely to be more of a challenge in our new multi-party environment.
Under SV, you should vote for your “heart” candidate first and your “head” candidate (based on tactical voting considerations) second. But lots of voters don’t understand that and vote for their “head” candidate first and their “heart” candidate second.
“I was in Stranger's Bar on Monday night. The reports about Angela Rayner are true. If the choice facing the Labour Party is between her and Keir Starmer, they must stick with Starmer > Daily Mail >”
If the US can have drunken Pete why can’t we have drunken Ange !
Seriously though if the story is true then it’s rather troubling . But we live in strange times and I still wouldn’t rule out PM Rayner .
It’s a bit depressing tho, isn’t it?
Given they spend most of their time in the multitude of bars pissing it up that would suggest we would have very very few candidates. They are regularly pissed on the subsidised bevvy.
King had personally lobbied Trump for this, including back in Windsor.
We’re supposed to be grateful for a scrap when his stupid war is going to cause huge economic misery for the UK .
Fxck him and fxck his cesspit administration,
It’s £150m exports for the Scottish whisky industry. In return for 4 days making Trump feel good about himself. That’s worth having regardless of anything else
Yes it’s good news until Trump throws a tirade and hammers the UK on something else .
The economic damage caused by his war is going to cause untold economic misery for many people in the UK and around the world .
I agree. But you take the small wins. Trump is what he is, and if playing our King is an ace up our sleeve then anyone who wants to gain say that can go jack themselves off. (Given my ten-dency to pun, I tried tried to get the whole royal flush, but couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t mildly homophobic for “queen” so though better of it)
The English Devolution and Empowerment Bill has received Royal Assent this means future mayoralty elections will go back to using the Supplementary Vote system .
Should’ve been AV, but better than nothing.
Yes AV is fairer . The Tories made the change to FPTP in an effort to win more mayoralties. Labour have changed it back which helps protect them especially in London .
The Tories made the change when the left was split and the right was united. However, now the right is just as divided. SV and AV now help protect Tory candidates from Reform UK/Restore Britain.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
Yes, just as there were Germans before there was a Germany.
As for English, wind back the language. Anglish. Used to describe not just the Angles but the Saxons and the Jutes and the Romano-Celts and everyone else. As "English" is a genetic evolution of all those groups and Norse and French, its crazy to try and name a hard date where it started. Genetically, phonetically, politically you need to wait until long after the Normal conquest to amalgamate them fully. But that would be daft, so we use the ish, just as Germans use the ic.
Quite so. It is impossible to precisely date the inception of an ancient nation like England (or France, Japan, etc). They aren’t places that formally declared independence and nationhood and suddenly existed like the USA
For Bede to write his book the idea of the “English people” must have been around for a while - culturally, linguistically, etc
But he was the first person to famously say it, so 731AD - the date of his statement - is a decent compromise if we insist on pinning it down
And "nation" of people is separate from "state" in whatever form you want to imagine it - city, princedom, kingdom etc.
Although whilst Bede may be describing the English people, how many of the English people would describe themselves thus?
I'm not sure it matters. The nation is bloody old and survived multiple invasions by simply folding the invaders into who we are. I spent 15 years living in a town named after a Viking lord and have a name derived from old French. And am English. We English wouldn't be English without the vikings and normans adding to us. We evolve. Which is why the petty bigotry from so many makes me chuckle. Migrants? Check your history luv...
Yes. It doesn’t especially matter. It’s historical fun or nationalist willywaving, no more than that. This debate began with @Theuniondivvie claiming Scotland is older than the evil England. Really not sure that’s true
But who cares? What’s definitely true is that Western European nations - England, Scotland, France, Germany, and others - are some of the oldest on earth. But not as old as some nations in East Asia. And China is the oldest of all
Who cares? The folk that have posted multipally about it I assume. Still, a good haul for a throwaway line.
I said yesterday that Reform councils had failed and some nobber tried to poke a stick at me personally whilst insisting they hadn't failed because having promised to cut council tax they had put it up.
You claimed Durham, along with Kent, is a failed council. It isn’t. It’s doing fine. Won an award. I’ve seen improvements from the last time where I live and council tax, in real terms, has gone down.
I get it you don’t like Reform and I get it you don’t have a high opinion of people who vote for them even though you understand why. However some balance on their performance at a council level may be more interesting than ‘they’re all shit’ 👍
I gave them as examples and said they had failed *on their own terms*. We're talking politics here. People who say "fuck Labour and Tory I want things to change" and voting for the party offering massive change.
Staffordshire in the FT piece. Another example. Reform would cut council tax. Fail. Would scrap woke. Fail. Would do proper governance. Fail. Their words, not mine. Their voter's expectations, not mine.
It isn't about what you or I think, its about what *the voters* think. They voted for a promised tax cut. And got a rise. They voted for change. And got chaos. As they sit in their decaying communities which continue to decay, you think they will be satisfied with "yebbut my council tax went up by a few tenths of a percent vs that Labour council"?
As a resident of Durham in their case it is very much about what I think, as a voter there.
We have not got ‘chaos’ as you call it in Durham. Most Reform, like most councils, are just getting on with what they can.
The voters will pass judgement in three years time in Durham.
I assume it was agreed in advance they would be removed, so that it seemed like His Majesty achieved something tangible.
But I do like when politicians (national, regional, and local) claim credit for achieving X because they supported X.
You see it a lot at local level in particular because of how unlikely it is that the politician was actually involved in something - unless you're in a Cabinet it is very unusual an individual would have personal decision-making authority, by the way local government powers work - so they have to fall back on implying they were instrumental.
People on here wailing and gnashing their teeth because the SNP got one over Westminster crawlers who got nothing but tariffs.
Golly, if I heard aright the crowd in Golders Green were chanting 'traitor, traitor' at Starmer during his visit yesterday. While far from an SKS fan, that seems a bit strong. Who or what is he a traitor to?
Yes and holding posters labelled "Keir Starmer Jew harmer" with a picture that appears to be Corbyn with a Starmer mask.
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.
It’s been a shift in the culture over the last 30 years - driven by the media and now social media. To be a politician is hugely unpleasant.
I have a number of friends who a generation ago would have gone into politics, most likely content to be backbenchers and serve their local communities. But the environment is so unpleasant now that none of them have the slightest interest
I'm increasingly convinced that the loss of the bit in bold is part of our collective problem.
It's understandable that we didn't want part-time MPs (or councillors) treating the role as one thing you do out of many. But if everyone going to Westminster has ambitions that can only be fulfilled by being a Top Minister (hello Al! hello Wes! hello Robert! etc), then it's going to be a ghastly place to work. And then the people who are good and with a healthy five percent of self-doubt get squeezed out by the pure ambition balls.
Labour politicians looking at Keir and thinking "I could do better than that" might not get entirely wrong. But it's still their choice to be dicks about it.
That’s the heart of the problem.
*Why* is it understandable that we didn’t want part time MPs? Their job is to represent their local communities in parliament and to scrutinise government. Surely that’s actually better performed by people who have outside interests as well?
Part of the problem is that in order to improve their chance of elections they basically became local problem solvers which isn’t the best use of their time.
May be the answer it to fund an “office of the MP” in each constituency very well and essentially outsource that role to staff?
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.
It’s been a shift in the culture over the last 30 years - driven by the media and now social media. To be a politician is hugely unpleasant.
I have a number of friends who a generation ago would have gone into politics, most likely content to be backbenchers and serve their local communities. But the environment is so unpleasant now that none of them have the slightest interest
I'm increasingly convinced that the loss of the bit in bold is part of our collective problem.
It's understandable that we didn't want part-time MPs (or councillors) treating the role as one thing you do out of many. But if everyone going to Westminster has ambitions that can only be fulfilled by being a Top Minister (hello Al! hello Wes! hello Robert! etc), then it's going to be a ghastly place to work. And then the people who are good and with a healthy five percent of self-doubt get squeezed out by the pure ambition balls.
Labour politicians looking at Keir and thinking "I could do better than that" might not get entirely wrong. But it's still their choice to be dicks about it.
I don't think that is the case. LD, SNP, PC, DUP, Green MPs are unlikely to ever be government ministers for example, let alone PM, and I suspect that neither do many Labour MPs.
There is a noticeable trend for high turnover of MPs, and while much of this is down to mercurial voting by the electorate, a lot of MPs have stood down prematurely over recent parliaments. Some of this is policy differences such as the purge of Tory Remainers, but a lot of MPs cite the abuse they get, particularly on Social Media.
I do not think this is unique to MPs. We have become a much less tolerant society over the last decade or so, and show little respect for people in authority and the professions. Such abuse is why there is such a retention problem with skilled teachers, frontline NHS staff, but also on hospitality workers etc.
We have become a lot less civil as a society, not just via anti-semitism, misogyny, Transphobia and Islamophobia, but in our daily interactions too.
We come back to the negative effects of social media.
The SNP would say literally anything at this stage before an election where they are relying in snookers to shore up their seat count...
At least they're not facing an electoral Untergang as certain PBers were predicting only a few months ago. Any word from the doorsteps?
I'm playing no part in this campaign due to work deluge. But from what they're saying in the campaign chat they're pretty happy with things.
Here in the NE we're forecast to pick up 1 - 3 seats off the list depending on which one you look at. I'm voting Tory (please shoot me) in the constituency to try and see off both the Nats and the Fukers, and LD obviously on the list.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
Yes, just as there were Germans before there was a Germany.
As for English, wind back the language. Anglish. Used to describe not just the Angles but the Saxons and the Jutes and the Romano-Celts and everyone else. As "English" is a genetic evolution of all those groups and Norse and French, its crazy to try and name a hard date where it started. Genetically, phonetically, politically you need to wait until long after the Normal conquest to amalgamate them fully. But that would be daft, so we use the ish, just as Germans use the ic.
Isn't that a common pattern - the idea of the nation comes long before someone actually implements it?
Germany and Italy took especially long to get to the implementation...
In the USA regular gasoline has gone up by an average of 17 cents a gallon in 2 days !
At least we can be sure that the Iran war will end before early voting begins for the mid-terms !
The GOP can try and rig the vote but there’s a point at which the Blue Wave will be unstoppable if gas prices and inflation remain high .
How much more will it go up by when they resume the bombing ?
I dread to think ! If interest rates start going up aswell as inflation then that’s going to hammer those especially on variable rate mortgages . It will also increase government borrowing costs .
Most of the public seem to be unaware of the horror show that’s fast approaching.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
Yes, just as there were Germans before there was a Germany.
As for English, wind back the language. Anglish. Used to describe not just the Angles but the Saxons and the Jutes and the Romano-Celts and everyone else. As "English" is a genetic evolution of all those groups and Norse and French, its crazy to try and name a hard date where it started. Genetically, phonetically, politically you need to wait until long after the Normal conquest to amalgamate them fully. But that would be daft, so we use the ish, just as Germans use the ic.
Quite so. It is impossible to precisely date the inception of an ancient nation like England (or France, Japan, etc). They aren’t places that formally declared independence and nationhood and suddenly existed like the USA
For Bede to write his book the idea of the “English people” must have been around for a while - culturally, linguistically, etc
But he was the first person to famously say it, so 731AD - the date of his statement - is a decent compromise if we insist on pinning it down
And "nation" of people is separate from "state" in whatever form you want to imagine it - city, princedom, kingdom etc.
Although whilst Bede may be describing the English people, how many of the English people would describe themselves thus?
I'm not sure it matters. The nation is bloody old and survived multiple invasions by simply folding the invaders into who we are. I spent 15 years living in a town named after a Viking lord and have a name derived from old French. And am English. We English wouldn't be English without the vikings and normans adding to us. We evolve. Which is why the petty bigotry from so many makes me chuckle. Migrants? Check your history luv...
Yes. It doesn’t especially matter. It’s historical fun or nationalist willywaving, no more than that. This debate began with @Theuniondivvie claiming Scotland is older than the evil England. Really not sure that’s true
But who cares? What’s definitely true is that Western European nations - England, Scotland, France, Germany, and others - are some of the oldest on earth. But not as old as some nations in East Asia. And China is the oldest of all
Also, "Scotland" and "England" back then were not on the same boundaries as now...
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
The original contention was however about "England" as a nation or state. Reference to the common religion of peoples on the island doesn't imply nationhood. Bede was not describing a national people in anything like the later medieval or modern sense. He was describing a loose cultural‑linguistic category whose unity was primarily religious, not political. “English” is simply a convenient label for the peoples evangelised by Augustine’s mission; akin to Caesar's references to 'the Gauls' in his earlier writings.
Again, you’re simply wrong. The whole POINT of Bede’s boook is to establish and cement the idea of the *gens Anglorum*’ - the Christian, English-speaking people who inhabit this island. He contrasts them with the British Celts
In Book I, chapter 15, he gives his famous account of the adventus Saxonum - the arrival of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. From the get-go he starts treating these distinct peoples as a single emergent gens. He notes their separate origins before quickly folding them together. Et voila, England. A nation. The “same people in the same place”
By your definition Germany didn’t exist until January 1871 when it was formally unified as a state. But does anyone sensible think that? No
There is a danger of looking at all history from a modern perspective. It is convenient to us to define the world in a UN sort of way - there is land and it is all split up in a single manner by which each inch of it is clearly assigned to a single nation state authority with a head of state you can put a name to and clear boundaries. Exceptions like Antarctica and the moon are subject to international treaty agreed by those powers.
This is recent; history doesn't work like that. In the UK we are additionally confused because being a small island we imagine that boundaries are more easily discerned than in the huge land masses. Though f you ask the people of Berwick or Carlisle you will find it is hard here too.
The bit I have italicised is neither true nor false because it doesn't say enough to qualify as either.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
Nope that is ridiculous. There is no evidence of such a rebranding exercise nor was there any need for it.
I’m sure that a good Mercian such as yourself would have been happy to be a conquered nation that formed part of the kingdom of Wessex.
Golly, if I heard aright the crowd in Golders Green were chanting 'traitor, traitor' at Starmer during his visit yesterday. While far from an SKS fan, that seems a bit strong. Who or what is he a traitor to?
Yes and holding posters labelled "Keir Starmer Jew harmer" with a picture that appears to be Corbyn with a Starmer mask.
I thought it well known that while Starmer is athiest, his wife and children are Jewish.
Some people won't be happy until Starmer is ordering the Met to smash protesters against the Gaza smo in the face with their truncheons, like their brave Polizei colleagues in Berlin.
This seems a good moment to report Mrs PtP's visit to Golders Green on Wednesday when she happened to have a work appointment there with the Jewish Chronicle. She didn't witness the attack but spoke to a number who did. They made it clear to her that it had little to do with anti-semitism and everything to do with a nutcase committing a horrible crime, because that's what some nutcases do. It isn't surprising that local leaders have taken the opportunity to press their claims in the aftermath but any suggestion that Golders Green or anywhere else in London is a no go zone are complete bollox. I have passed through myself several times in the past few days and there are no signs of the local Jews hiding in terror, covering their stars of David, removing their skull caps, or dressing any differently to the way they do normally. I was personally able to make my usual visit to Daniels and scoff a smoked salmon bagel without fear. In short, it is business as usual.
Mrs PtP is half Jewish. I am not Jewish, although I do have a roman nose. Neither of us has a dog in this fight. I used to think this was perhaps a lazy or unprincipled position but increasingly I see it as one to be proud of.
I hope it doesn't cause offence.
I agree that this attacker is more crazy than motivated by religion or politics, but I wonder how people would feel about it if an equally deranged, serial offender who had only been out of a mental home a few days was a white Englishman who randomly sought out Muslims in one of East London’s Islamic neighbourhoods. I reckon people would be laying the blame at Farage and Rupert Lowe’s door, and Sir Keir would be referencing ‘far right thuggery’
In that case it would be accurate - what the "currents of hate" in the sea of online discourse do, is carry people along them.
Which is why it is very dangerous to make interoperate statements and ones that are political untruths.
Years back, Shell was going to decommission a floating storage tank in the North Sea - the Brent Spar. It had been clean out and was going to be sunk. Greenpeace was very opposed to this. So they mounted a campaign that went over the top - even claiming that the Brent Spar was radioactive.
A guy with a few screws loose took this as the spur to plant a bomb near a Shell petrol station in Germany. Fortunately no one was hurt.
When asked, Greenpeace were very defensive about the rhetoric they'd used. It was curious to see how they couldn't understand that their intemperate language could be (mis)interpreted as a call to action. "But the cause is right, so we were justified in..."
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.
It’s been a shift in the culture over the last 30 years - driven by the media and now social media. To be a politician is hugely unpleasant.
I have a number of friends who a generation ago would have gone into politics, most likely content to be backbenchers and serve their local communities. But the environment is so unpleasant now that none of them have the slightest interest
I'm increasingly convinced that the loss of the bit in bold is part of our collective problem.
It's understandable that we didn't want part-time MPs (or councillors) treating the role as one thing you do out of many. But if everyone going to Westminster has ambitions that can only be fulfilled by being a Top Minister (hello Al! hello Wes! hello Robert! etc), then it's going to be a ghastly place to work. And then the people who are good and with a healthy five percent of self-doubt get squeezed out by the pure ambition balls.
Labour politicians looking at Keir and thinking "I could do better than that" might not get entirely wrong. But it's still their choice to be dicks about it.
That’s the heart of the problem.
*Why* is it understandable that we didn’t want part time MPs? Their job is to represent their local communities in parliament and to scrutinise government. Surely that’s actually better performed by people who have outside interests as well?
Part of the problem is that in order to improve their chance of elections they basically became local problem solvers which isn’t the best use of their time.
May be the answer it to fund an “office of the MP” in each constituency very well and essentially outsource that role to staff?
They already get suitcases of money for their "offices" and as seen clearly in the past it was their families they hired first , money grabbing chancers.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
Yes, just as there were Germans before there was a Germany.
As for English, wind back the language. Anglish. Used to describe not just the Angles but the Saxons and the Jutes and the Romano-Celts and everyone else. As "English" is a genetic evolution of all those groups and Norse and French, its crazy to try and name a hard date where it started. Genetically, phonetically, politically you need to wait until long after the Normal conquest to amalgamate them fully. But that would be daft, so we use the ish, just as Germans use the ic.
Quite so. It is impossible to precisely date the inception of an ancient nation like England (or France, Japan, etc). They aren’t places that formally declared independence and nationhood and suddenly existed like the USA
For Bede to write his book the idea of the “English people” must have been around for a while - culturally, linguistically, etc
But he was the first person to famously say it, so 731AD - the date of his statement - is a decent compromise if we insist on pinning it down
And "nation" of people is separate from "state" in whatever form you want to imagine it - city, princedom, kingdom etc.
Although whilst Bede may be describing the English people, how many of the English people would describe themselves thus?
I'm not sure it matters. The nation is bloody old and survived multiple invasions by simply folding the invaders into who we are. I spent 15 years living in a town named after a Viking lord and have a name derived from old French. And am English. We English wouldn't be English without the vikings and normans adding to us. We evolve. Which is why the petty bigotry from so many makes me chuckle. Migrants? Check your history luv...
Yes. It doesn’t especially matter. It’s historical fun or nationalist willywaving, no more than that. This debate began with @Theuniondivvie claiming Scotland is older than the evil England. Really not sure that’s true
But who cares? What’s definitely true is that Western European nations - England, Scotland, France, Germany, and others - are some of the oldest on earth. But not as old as some nations in East Asia. And China is the oldest of all
But China isn’t really the oldest *continuous* kingdom is it? After all the Mongols dominated for several generations
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.
It’s been a shift in the culture over the last 30 years - driven by the media and now social media. To be a politician is hugely unpleasant.
I have a number of friends who a generation ago would have gone into politics, most likely content to be backbenchers and serve their local communities. But the environment is so unpleasant now that none of them have the slightest interest
I'm increasingly convinced that the loss of the bit in bold is part of our collective problem.
It's understandable that we didn't want part-time MPs (or councillors) treating the role as one thing you do out of many. But if everyone going to Westminster has ambitions that can only be fulfilled by being a Top Minister (hello Al! hello Wes! hello Robert! etc), then it's going to be a ghastly place to work. And then the people who are good and with a healthy five percent of self-doubt get squeezed out by the pure ambition balls.
Labour politicians looking at Keir and thinking "I could do better than that" might not get entirely wrong. But it's still their choice to be dicks about it.
Just to provide a story from Ireland of this sort of thing. During the financial crash the RTE economics correspondent became very prominent, reporting as he was every evening on the dire news. He decided that he wanted to jump to the over side of the fence, so to speak, and he gave up the news job, and was elected in 2009 as a TD for Fine Gael in a by-election.
But he was then very disappointed to be neglected as a backbencher not to be involved in shaping policy. Now, maybe you could say that the full-time politicians treated him badly, and this was a failure to make use of his talents, but his reaction was that he hadn't gone into politics to be a backbencher, and so he resigned, only 8 months after being elected, and not waiting long enough for Fine Gael to return to government at the 2011 general election.
The system doesn't do a good job of making a backbench MP/TD feel like a worthwhile job, but it is really important. They're necessary to hold the frontbenchers to account. But it seems to be a job that is beneath anyone good enough to do it. It is one of the reasons that politics is functioning so badly.
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.
It’s been a shift in the culture over the last 30 years - driven by the media and now social media. To be a politician is hugely unpleasant.
I have a number of friends who a generation ago would have gone into politics, most likely content to be backbenchers and serve their local communities. But the environment is so unpleasant now that none of them have the slightest interest
I'm increasingly convinced that the loss of the bit in bold is part of our collective problem.
It's understandable that we didn't want part-time MPs (or councillors) treating the role as one thing you do out of many. But if everyone going to Westminster has ambitions that can only be fulfilled by being a Top Minister (hello Al! hello Wes! hello Robert! etc), then it's going to be a ghastly place to work. And then the people who are good and with a healthy five percent of self-doubt get squeezed out by the pure ambition balls.
Labour politicians looking at Keir and thinking "I could do better than that" might not get entirely wrong. But it's still their choice to be dicks about it.
I don't want my MP to be a glorified social worker, swamped with 'case work'. I want them to be focused on issues of national and international importance, yes bringing a regional perspective to the table where appropriate, but not bothering themselves with faff that should be the concern of local councillors (or nobody at all).
One problem is that there's often no other effective means of complaint or redress if something goes wrong. That's why people turn to the their MP for help.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
The original contention was however about "England" as a nation or state. Reference to the common religion of peoples on the island doesn't imply nationhood. Bede was not describing a national people in anything like the later medieval or modern sense. He was describing a loose cultural‑linguistic category whose unity was primarily religious, not political. “English” is simply a convenient label for the peoples evangelised by Augustine’s mission; akin to Caesar's references to 'the Gauls' in his earlier writings.
Again, you’re simply wrong. The whole POINT of Bede’s boook is to establish and cement the idea of the *gens Anglorum*’ - the Christian, English-speaking people who inhabit this island. He contrasts them with the British Celts
In Book I, chapter 15, he gives his famous account of the adventus Saxonum - the arrival of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. From the get-go he starts treating these distinct peoples as a single emergent gens. He notes their separate origins before quickly folding them together. Et voila, England. A nation. The “same people in the same place”
By your definition Germany didn’t exist until January 1871 when it was formally unified as a state. But does anyone sensible think that? No
The Latin word "gens" is however flexible in translation, and can mean a tribe, ethnic group, linguistic community, or simply a population with shared customs. It doesn't refer to a political unity or a collective political identity. And the last part of your attempt at response makes a giant leap following your 'voila' for which there is neither evidence nor argumentation.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
Yes, just as there were Germans before there was a Germany.
As for English, wind back the language. Anglish. Used to describe not just the Angles but the Saxons and the Jutes and the Romano-Celts and everyone else. As "English" is a genetic evolution of all those groups and Norse and French, its crazy to try and name a hard date where it started. Genetically, phonetically, politically you need to wait until long after the Normal conquest to amalgamate them fully. But that would be daft, so we use the ish, just as Germans use the ic.
Quite so. It is impossible to precisely date the inception of an ancient nation like England (or France, Japan, etc). They aren’t places that formally declared independence and nationhood and suddenly existed like the USA
For Bede to write his book the idea of the “English people” must have been around for a while - culturally, linguistically, etc
But he was the first person to famously say it, so 731AD - the date of his statement - is a decent compromise if we insist on pinning it down
And "nation" of people is separate from "state" in whatever form you want to imagine it - city, princedom, kingdom etc.
Although whilst Bede may be describing the English people, how many of the English people would describe themselves thus?
I'm not sure it matters. The nation is bloody old and survived multiple invasions by simply folding the invaders into who we are. I spent 15 years living in a town named after a Viking lord and have a name derived from old French. And am English. We English wouldn't be English without the vikings and normans adding to us. We evolve. Which is why the petty bigotry from so many makes me chuckle. Migrants? Check your history luv...
Yes. It doesn’t especially matter. It’s historical fun or nationalist willywaving, no more than that. This debate began with @Theuniondivvie claiming Scotland is older than the evil England. Really not sure that’s true
But who cares? What’s definitely true is that Western European nations - England, Scotland, France, Germany, and others - are some of the oldest on earth. But not as old as some nations in East Asia. And China is the oldest of all
I thought Scotland was invented by the Victorians? With Scotland's highland culture back-projected onto the entire contemporary nation despite lowland peoples having none of that language, culture or history?
Today I had an appointment with the Respiratory Clinic a year after I was admitted with serious chest pain. I assumed it was a routine follow up but in fact I was told that last year my right lung had collapsed because of the cancer & that there was some metastatic cancer in the lung, which had not spread since treatment started. I even got shown a picture of it, lucky old me, as well as of some efflusion, which is minor but with a warning that if it gets worse it might need to be drained.
Now the fact that the treatment seems to be keeping the cancer at bay is good. But this is the first time I've been told the disease is in my lungs, as well as breast, spine, pelvis & ribs. The oncologist's correspondence has never mentioned it. It's news to me. So what else has been kept from me? Or is it just one clinic not talking to the other?
Also the scans from the hospital are not shared with the GP if they are more than 3 months old. Why not? On Tuesday I get to hear the result of the hip X-ray to see what's causing the pain making it hard for me to walk. I am bracing myself for more unexpected/bad/what the fuck does this mean now news.
Meanwhile the nice lady registrar did tell me how important it was to avoid infection. Which I know. I did point out that I survived the Covid years without catching it & have not in fact had a cold, sore throat or flu in years. A fat lot of good that has done me.
I am finding this all hard to process. The weather is gorgeous - like last year - so it feels unreal that something bad is happening to me. The debates on here seem pointless. There are no elections where I live. As for Wales I feel about it much as Sir Thomas More did in his comment to Richie Rich in A Man For All Seasons.
As for what is happening to Jews in this country, it is beyond depressing. Too many on here seem unable to condemn what is being done to our fellow citizens here without a lot of whtaboutery. There is a lot of bad faith commentary which suggests that many still feel that Jews have to justify why they should not be attacked or made to feel unsafe. They don't. That this should need saying is evidence to me of a latent sort of unconscious anti-semitism which somehow does not see Jews as fully belonging. It is repellent. Starmer's speech was pretty good but far too late. Real effective action now needs to follow. The advice of the anti-terrorism tsar, Jonathan Hall KC, should be listened to -
This is, IMO, true. And has been true from the start. If you organise a march in favour of those carrying out a massacre while they are still doing it (the first pro-Palestine March was organised on the afternoon of 7 October) you are not a good faith actor in any sense.
FWIW the Golders Green attack was being discussed by two people in the waiting room & they were pretty angry at the criticisms being made of the police as they were trying to disarm the attacker.
At any event, I am taking a break for a bit. It's all too much.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
The original contention was however about "England" as a nation or state. Reference to the common religion of peoples on the island doesn't imply nationhood. Bede was not describing a national people in anything like the later medieval or modern sense. He was describing a loose cultural‑linguistic category whose unity was primarily religious, not political. “English” is simply a convenient label for the peoples evangelised by Augustine’s mission; akin to Caesar's references to 'the Gauls' in his earlier writings.
Again, you’re simply wrong. The whole POINT of Bede’s boook is to establish and cement the idea of the *gens Anglorum*’ - the Christian, English-speaking people who inhabit this island. He contrasts them with the British Celts
In Book I, chapter 15, he gives his famous account of the adventus Saxonum - the arrival of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. From the get-go he starts treating these distinct peoples as a single emergent gens. He notes their separate origins before quickly folding them together. Et voila, England. A nation. The “same people in the same place”
By your definition Germany didn’t exist until January 1871 when it was formally unified as a state. But does anyone sensible think that? No
There is a danger of looking at all history from a modern perspective. It is convenient to us to define the world in a UN sort of way - there is land and it is all split up in a single manner by which each inch of it is clearly assigned to a single nation state authority with a head of state you can put a name to and clear boundaries. Exceptions like Antarctica and the moon are subject to international treaty agreed by those powers.
This is recent; history doesn't work like that. In the UK we are additionally confused because being a small island we imagine that boundaries are more easily discerned than in the huge land masses. Though f you ask the people of Berwick or Carlisle you will find it is hard here too.
The bit I have italicised is neither true nor false because it doesn't say enough to qualify as either.
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.
It’s been a shift in the culture over the last 30 years - driven by the media and now social media. To be a politician is hugely unpleasant.
I have a number of friends who a generation ago would have gone into politics, most likely content to be backbenchers and serve their local communities. But the environment is so unpleasant now that none of them have the slightest interest
I'm increasingly convinced that the loss of the bit in bold is part of our collective problem.
It's understandable that we didn't want part-time MPs (or councillors) treating the role as one thing you do out of many. But if everyone going to Westminster has ambitions that can only be fulfilled by being a Top Minister (hello Al! hello Wes! hello Robert! etc), then it's going to be a ghastly place to work. And then the people who are good and with a healthy five percent of self-doubt get squeezed out by the pure ambition balls.
Labour politicians looking at Keir and thinking "I could do better than that" might not get entirely wrong. But it's still their choice to be dicks about it.
I don't want my MP to be a glorified social worker, swamped with 'case work'. I want them to be focused on issues of national and international importance, yes bringing a regional perspective to the table where appropriate, but not bothering themselves with faff that should be the concern of local councillors (or nobody at all).
One problem is that there's often no other effective means of complaint or redress if something goes wrong. That's why people turn to the their MP for help.
Yes, and importantly public sector organisations immediately react to MPs’ enquiries, in the same way as large companies immediately react to enquiries from journalists.
For many people stuck in a bureaucratic hole it can be their last resort, and it’s good that there’s a couple of people working for each MP that can fulfil this function. The total cost (say £100k per MP, £6.5m per year) is very little in the grand scheme of public spending, to hold them accountable.
This seems a good moment to report Mrs PtP's visit to Golders Green on Wednesday when she happened to have a work appointment there with the Jewish Chronicle. She didn't witness the attack but spoke to a number who did. They made it clear to her that it had little to do with anti-semitism and everything to do with a nutcase committing a horrible crime, because that's what some nutcases do. It isn't surprising that local leaders have taken the opportunity to press their claims in the aftermath but any suggestion that Golders Green or anywhere else in London is a no go zone are complete bollox. I have passed through myself several times in the past few days and there are no signs of the local Jews hiding in terror, covering their stars of David, removing their skull caps, or dressing any differently to the way they do normally. I was personally able to make my usual visit to Daniels and scoff a smoked salmon bagel without fear. In short, it is business as usual.
Mrs PtP is half Jewish. I am not Jewish, although I do have a roman nose. Neither of us has a dog in this fight. I used to think this was perhaps a lazy or unprincipled position but increasingly I see it as one to be proud of.
I hope it doesn't cause offence.
I agree that this attacker is more crazy than motivated by religion or politics, but I wonder how people would feel about it if an equally deranged, serial offender who had only been out of a mental home a few days was a white Englishman who randomly sought out Muslims in one of East London’s Islamic neighbourhoods. I reckon people would be laying the blame at Farage and Rupert Lowe’s door, and Sir Keir would be referencing ‘far right thuggery’
Oh, I am sure the usual idiots would respond as you would imagine. But you and I are not the usual idiots, and this site is happily free from them for the most part.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
It's about more than kingdom titles, though, isn't it? The question is whether the concept of all the people's living south and east of the mountains where the heathen celts live were seen as one people, or peoples of separate, warring kingdoms. Richard is right that, prior to Athelstan, there wasn't really that sense of commonality, other than that all the kingdoms had faced recurring threat from the Vikings. Leon's blunder into what is really an academic debate reflected the mistranslation he has of Bede's actual work, which referred to "our island and nation" - suggesting that, if Bede did indeed perceive some wider community of interest beyond the individual kingdoms, he was imagining Great Britain and not England.
This is ignorant bollocks. I know my Dark Age English history well
Bede constructed a vision of the *gens Anglorum* - the English people - as a single Christian nation with a shared destiny. Even though politically they were fragmented into Mercia, Wessex, Northumbria, and the rest. That said, he excluded the Isle of Wight because the inhabitants were known for bestiality, but otherwise: English
Bede essentially confirmed the English as a self-conscious people before England existed as a state
Yes, just as there were Germans before there was a Germany.
As for English, wind back the language. Anglish. Used to describe not just the Angles but the Saxons and the Jutes and the Romano-Celts and everyone else. As "English" is a genetic evolution of all those groups and Norse and French, its crazy to try and name a hard date where it started. Genetically, phonetically, politically you need to wait until long after the Normal conquest to amalgamate them fully. But that would be daft, so we use the ish, just as Germans use the ic.
Quite so. It is impossible to precisely date the inception of an ancient nation like England (or France, Japan, etc). They aren’t places that formally declared independence and nationhood and suddenly existed like the USA
For Bede to write his book the idea of the “English people” must have been around for a while - culturally, linguistically, etc
But he was the first person to famously say it, so 731AD - the date of his statement - is a decent compromise if we insist on pinning it down
And "nation" of people is separate from "state" in whatever form you want to imagine it - city, princedom, kingdom etc.
Although whilst Bede may be describing the English people, how many of the English people would describe themselves thus?
I'm not sure it matters. The nation is bloody old and survived multiple invasions by simply folding the invaders into who we are. I spent 15 years living in a town named after a Viking lord and have a name derived from old French. And am English. We English wouldn't be English without the vikings and normans adding to us. We evolve. Which is why the petty bigotry from so many makes me chuckle. Migrants? Check your history luv...
Yes. It doesn’t especially matter. It’s historical fun or nationalist willywaving, no more than that. This debate began with @Theuniondivvie claiming Scotland is older than the evil England. Really not sure that’s true
But who cares? What’s definitely true is that Western European nations - England, Scotland, France, Germany, and others - are some of the oldest on earth. But not as old as some nations in East Asia. And China is the oldest of all
I thought Scotland was invented by the Victorians? With Scotland's highland culture back-projected onto the entire contemporary nation despite lowland peoples having none of that language, culture or history?
Glasgow received large numbers of migrant Gaels in the 19th-20th century so it was and to an extent is definitely part of the culture. I guess you could say the same about Edinburgh and the English.
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.
You are missing my point.
“Emgland” wasn’t a new political entity. Wessex conquered the other kingdoms and the danelaw. “England” was just a rebranding of “Wessex” to make it more politically acceptable
Hence the correct date is the foundation of Wessex.
Nope that is ridiculous. There is no evidence of such a rebranding exercise nor was there any need for it.
I’m sure that a good Mercian such as yourself would have been happy to be a conquered nation that formed part of the kingdom of Wessex.
Back then I was apparently ravaging Ireland along with my Viking colleagues. Consider it as a hyperactive business trip.
In the USA regular gasoline has gone up by an average of 17 cents a gallon in 2 days !
At least we can be sure that the Iran war will end before early voting begins for the mid-terms !
The GOP can try and rig the vote but there’s a point at which the Blue Wave will be unstoppable if gas prices and inflation remain high .
How much more will it go up by when they resume the bombing ?
I dread to think ! If interest rates start going up aswell as inflation then that’s going to hammer those especially on variable rate mortgages . It will also increase government borrowing costs .
Most of the public seem to be unaware of the horror show that’s fast approaching.
Comments
At least we can be sure that the Iran war will end before early voting begins for the mid-terms !
The GOP can try and rig the vote but there’s a point at which the Blue Wave will be unstoppable if gas prices and inflation remain high .
But who cares? What’s definitely true is that Western European nations - England, Scotland, France, Germany, and others - are some of the oldest on earth. But not as old as some nations in East Asia. And China is the oldest of all
Still, a good haul for a throwaway line.
We have not got ‘chaos’ as you call it in Durham. Most Reform, like most councils, are just getting on with what they can.
The voters will pass judgement in three years time in Durham.
https://news.sky.com/share/13538458
I thought it well known that while Starmer is athiest, his wife and children are Jewish.
*Why* is it understandable that we didn’t want part time MPs? Their job is to represent their local communities in parliament and to scrutinise government. Surely that’s actually better performed by people who have outside interests as well?
Part of the problem is that in order to improve their chance of elections they basically became local problem solvers which isn’t the best use of their time.
May be the answer it to fund an “office of the MP” in each constituency very well and essentially outsource that role to staff?
Here in the NE we're forecast to pick up 1 - 3 seats off the list depending on which one you look at. I'm voting Tory (please shoot me) in the constituency to try and see off both the Nats and the Fukers, and LD obviously on the list.
Germany and Italy took especially long to get to the implementation...
NEW THREAD
Most of the public seem to be unaware of the horror show that’s fast approaching.
This is recent; history doesn't work like that. In the UK we are additionally confused because being a small island we imagine that boundaries are more easily discerned than in the huge land masses. Though f you ask the people of Berwick or Carlisle you will find it is hard here too.
The bit I have italicised is neither true nor false because it doesn't say enough to qualify as either.
Which is why it is very dangerous to make interoperate statements and ones that are political untruths.
Years back, Shell was going to decommission a floating storage tank in the North Sea - the Brent Spar. It had been clean out and was going to be sunk. Greenpeace was very opposed to this. So they mounted a campaign that went over the top - even claiming that the Brent Spar was radioactive.
A guy with a few screws loose took this as the spur to plant a bomb near a Shell petrol station in Germany. Fortunately no one was hurt.
When asked, Greenpeace were very defensive about the rhetoric they'd used. It was curious to see how they couldn't understand that their intemperate language could be (mis)interpreted as a call to action. "But the cause is right, so we were justified in..."
But he was then very disappointed to be neglected as a backbencher not to be involved in shaping policy. Now, maybe you could say that the full-time politicians treated him badly, and this was a failure to make use of his talents, but his reaction was that he hadn't gone into politics to be a backbencher, and so he resigned, only 8 months after being elected, and not waiting long enough for Fine Gael to return to government at the 2011 general election.
The system doesn't do a good job of making a backbench MP/TD feel like a worthwhile job, but it is really important. They're necessary to hold the frontbenchers to account. But it seems to be a job that is beneath anyone good enough to do it. It is one of the reasons that politics is functioning so badly.
https://www.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/03/30/the-matter-of-britain/
For many people stuck in a bureaucratic hole it can be their last resort, and it’s good that there’s a couple of people working for each MP that can fulfil this function. The total cost (say £100k per MP, £6.5m per year) is very little in the grand scheme of public spending, to hold them accountable.
https://x.com/bladeofthes/status/2049976300501094462?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q