Has anyone listened to the podcast in the header? It must be a difficult way of prompting discussion, as by the time people have listened to it, the thread will have changed
This would be ridiculous from some hack lawyer. That Trump's DOJ applied for this injunction is either hilarious, or rather scary.
Isn't that what Mrs Thatcher's government tried to do with Spycatcher?
Yep, which led to every bookshelf in Europe and the USA having a poster that described it as "The Book That's Banned In Britain"
It definitely increased it's sales. My brother got me a copy from the US. Banning books is never a good look politically. Not Mrs T's finest hour, along with Sec28
Which is remarkable really when you consider it’s actually a shit book.
Bolton's or Spycatcher, by Peter Wright?
I remember reading the latter and was distinctly unimpressed. My main take-away was that MI5 really weren't very good.
I don't believe that was what Wright wanted us to think.
Spycatcher. Utter pants.
I think MI5 and MI6 have got much better since they became public.
MI5 got better when Wright and his cohorts got binned. Demented conspiracy freaks who failed to notice quite a few actual spies.
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Those were dark days.
Even darker after 2001.
I thought we’d never win again.
Aye, you could understand a Labour majority of 179 in 1997, a Labour majority of 167 in 2001 was just mystifying to me.
Sadly Hague was the worst Tory leader since the Duke of Wellington, great orator though he may have been, plus Blair was still firmly occupying the centre ground in 2001
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
I've heard it before but normally from the usual professional grievance mongers.
I've never heard it from anyone genuinely offended rather than offended on behalf of others. This is is a positive, uplifting song with a noble history and spreading it wider and educating those who are interested in its background should be encouraged not discouraged.
I might even go slightly further: I wonder if this shows, ironically, how clueless many white people are about black people?
Many at the top have very few in their professional and social circles. And they are painfully aware of this. So it only takes a handful of the most voluminous on the left, now, to object and those in authority assume this must have been a huge blind-spot of theirs, and they must be representative, and so they take immediate action accordingly.
It's ignorant, it's panicky, it's open to manipulation and it's not even true. The black people I've spoken to in my professional network certainly don't see this as a priority.
We seem to be focusing about 90% of our effort at present on trying to identify and expunge any contemporary cultural feature that might have the slightest link to slavery in the past, however tangential.
It seems to be the perfect definition of the wrong priority and almost entirely missing the point.
While the app is an obvious fiasco, the manual part of Track and Trace is equally crap.
Remember all that boasting of 18 000 trackers? Well in three weeks they have only been able to contact a little over 10 000 positive patients, and an average of three contacts each.
Instead of a competent system that would be key to relaxing lockdown safely, we have a charactestically fuckwitted bit of coronashambles.
These clowns couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery, yet we are supposed to believe in their Global Britain bullshit. Run for the exits people, get out any way you can, the country is going down the plughole.
The problem seems not to be the track and trace as such, but that there aren't enough people being tested positive to enter into the system.
Where are all the other people with the virus?
3 contacts sounds about right for most people if they are observing the lockdown.
They had the virus in April, March, May when the scheme should have been operating but the govt failed to have anything in place despite 1m people offering to volunteer to help. With that manpower it could have been done on pen and paper to an effective level.
Ah, well, that's a different question to asking whether it is working at the moment. I'm not sure tracking and tracing 100k people a day was feasible but, yes, the fact that they haven't got enough cases now would imply that they could have started at least a couple of weeks earlier.
It does seem that anything connected with PHE is a bit slooooooow.
PHE has not been doing the tracing. That role was awarded to SERCO via a private contract. Indeed Primary care is kept out of the loop, and GPs not informed of results.
No, I know it is SERCO, but I thought PHE had been involved in setting up the contract. Were they bypassed entirely this time?
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Those were dark days.
Even darker after 2001.
I thought we’d never win again.
Aye, you could understand a Labour majority of 179 in 1997, a Labour majority of 167 in 2001 was just mystifying to me.
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
I've heard it before but normally from the usual professional grievance mongers.
I've never heard it from anyone genuinely offended rather than offended on behalf of others. This is is a positive, uplifting song with a noble history and spreading it wider and educating those who are interested in its background should be encouraged not discouraged.
I might even go slightly further: I wonder if this shows, ironically, how clueless many white people are about black people?
Many at the top have very few in their professional and social circles. And they are painfully aware of this. So it only takes a handful of the most voluminous on the left, now, to object and those in authority assume this must have been a huge blind-spot of theirs, and they must be representative, and so they take immediate action accordingly.
It's ignorant, it's panicky, it's open to manipulation and it's not even true. The black people I've spoken to in my professional network certainly don't see this as a priority.
We seem to be focusing about 90% of our effort at present on trying to identify and expunge any contemporary cultural feature that might have the slightest link to slavery in the past, however tangential.
It seems to be the perfect definition of the wrong priority and almost entirely missing the point.
I can comprehend seeking to get rid of statues celebrating slavers, but seeking to get rid of anti-slavery pro-freedom songs like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is really throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Its like suggesting Lincoln must fall because he was involved with the slavery debate 🤦🏻♂️
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
That's a surprise. It has been controversial ever since it was first sung. Particularly as it was first sung when black players (Offiah and Chris Oti) scored.
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Those were dark days.
Even darker after 2001.
I thought we’d never win again.
Aye, you could understand a Labour majority of 179 in 1997, a Labour majority of 167 in 2001 was just mystifying to me.
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
What the journalists should be asking is why estimating distance (which BLE is basically crap at) is a show-stopper for the NHS, but apparently not that important for other countries.
A cynical person might think that the government wants a reason for being able to say "well it doesn't matter that we are late".
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
That's a surprise. It has been controversial ever since it was first sung. Particularly as it was first sung when black players (Offiah and Chris Oti) scored.
My understanding was that it started because his nickname was "Chariots Offiah", a nod to the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, due to his lightning speed.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, then started whilst Offiah was playing as a nod to this nickname.
So it was a song of respect. I don't think there's ever been anything malicious about it.
If Matt Hancock was asked if he thought anyone found him inspirational and on top of his brief - he would answer "Thanks. That's a really great question".
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
I suspect they are struggling with the mendaciousness of our current crop of Johnsonian ministers. Either we were building a "world class" track and trace or not. The question needs to be asked is when did you realise it was not world class after all, or why did you put the Disgraced Former CEO of TalkTalk Baroness Dildo of Harding in charge of such an important project?
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
That's a surprise. It has been controversial ever since it was first sung. Particularly as it was first sung when black players (Offiah and Chris Oti) scored.
My understanding was that it started because his nickname was "Chariots Offiah", a nod to the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, due to his lightning speed.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, then started whilst Offiah was playing as a nod to this nickname.
So it was a song of respect. I don't think there's ever been anything malicious about it.
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
What the journalists should be asking is why estimating distance (which BLE is basically crap at) is a show-stopper for the NHS, but apparently not that important for other countries.
A cynical person might think that the government wants a reason for being able to say "well it doesn't matter that we are late".
Probably the same answer as for the antibody tests - the UK waited until one was found that met the Proton Down criteria test.
Other countries went with much less sensitive test - so we had stuff like Swedish experts saying that x results meant 3x people had had COVID19 because the test was not sensitive enough.
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
That's a surprise. It has been controversial ever since it was first sung. Particularly as it was first sung when black players (Offiah and Chris Oti) scored.
My understanding was that it started because his nickname was "Chariots Offiah", a nod to the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, due to his lightning speed.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, then started whilst Offiah was playing as a nod to this nickname.
So it was a song of respect. I don't think there's ever been anything malicious about it.
Did Offiah ever play Union for England?
No, he was named "Chariots", but I think that has nothing to do with the song, which as I mentioned earlier has been sung as a rugby song for many years. I suspect it was probably sung by public schoolboys (spirituals often sung by school choirs) who thought it fun to emphasise the word "coming" and with that certain lewd gestures. There will normally be a few drunken fans at Twickenham doing the full set of mimes with the song
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
2 irons in the fire makes sense BUT -
We seem to have gone from the Great Man's "world beating app by end of May" to our current "hopefully something working by the winter" in quite short order.
If Matt Hancock was asked if he thought anyone found him inspirational and on top of his brief - he would answer "Thanks. That's a really great question".
Then he'd waffle about anything but the question.
He doesn't like the question bit.
I think he's done well overall in this though. He has too seen off the Pest that is Peston - So he needs a statue.
The latest A hair stylist in Missouri was diagnosed with covid-19 in late May, and she ended up directly exposing 84 customers who had sat just inches from her face for up to 30 minutes each. She had symptoms, but wore a face mask; salons were one of the few places where people were required to wear them. Because of that, health officials say, none of her customers was infected. The result appears to be one of the clearest real-world examples of the ability of masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The latest A hair stylist in Missouri was diagnosed with covid-19 in late May, and she ended up directly exposing 84 customers who had sat just inches from her face for up to 30 minutes each. She had symptoms, but wore a face mask; salons were one of the few places where people were required to wear them. Because of that, health officials say, none of her customers was infected. The result appears to be one of the clearest real-world examples of the ability of masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The only argument against wearing masks was the supply issues a few months ago, when they were urgently needed for healthcare workers. Everyone should now be wearing a mask when leaving their house.
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
2 irons in the fire makes sense BUT -
We seem to have gone from the Great Man's "world beating app by end of May" to our current "hopefully something working by the winter" in quite short order.
It's bitterly disappointing.
The two-horse thing is starting to look a bit murky.
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
That's a surprise. It has been controversial ever since it was first sung. Particularly as it was first sung when black players (Offiah and Chris Oti) scored.
My understanding was that it started because his nickname was "Chariots Offiah", a nod to the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, due to his lightning speed.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, then started whilst Offiah was playing as a nod to this nickname.
So it was a song of respect. I don't think there's ever been anything malicious about it.
Did Offiah ever play Union for England?
No, he was named "Chariots", but I think that has nothing to do with the song, which as I mentioned earlier has been sung as a rugby song for many years. I suspect it was probably sung by public schoolboys (spirituals often sung by school choirs) who thought it fun to emphasise the word "coming" and with that certain lewd gestures. There will normally be a few drunken fans at Twickenham doing the full set of mimes with the song
Used to sing it on the bus on the way home from school away matches in the early seventies
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
2 irons in the fire makes sense BUT -
We seem to have gone from the Great Man's "world beating app by end of May" to our current "hopefully something working by the winter" in quite short order.
It's bitterly disappointing.
Paper and pencil. We do not really need a world class app to tell us Mr Smith who has a bit of a temperature came within coughing distance of Ms Jones, when pencil and paper tracing based on just a few questions will find the cluster at the Welsh chicken plant. If the app is ever ready, it risks drowning us in low-level data because as lockdown lifts, many people will pass close by hundreds of others every day.
Pencil and paper for the big wins. Where did you go? How did you get there?
I said the tracing app wouldn't work on the day it was announced. It wouldn't work technically, and it wouldn't work because a lot of people wouldn't approve of it on privacy grounds.
You and me both. Good to stumble on agreement with you, Andy.
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
What the journalists should be asking is why estimating distance (which BLE is basically crap at) is a show-stopper for the NHS, but apparently not that important for other countries.
A cynical person might think that the government wants a reason for being able to say "well it doesn't matter that we are late".
Probably the same answer as for the antibody tests - the UK waited until one was found that met the Proton Down criteria test.
Other countries went with much less sensitive test - so we had stuff like Swedish experts saying that x results meant 3x people had had COVID19 because the test was not sensitive enough.
The implication of what the government is saying is that the apps using the Google/Apple APIs aren't going to work. So all those other countries, like Germany, rolling out such apps are wrong to do so?
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
Is that a cricket term as a cricket term please? New one to me ...
Elderly man in viral Black Lives Matter picture is unmasked as IRA apologist and conspiracy theorist - and he blames 'Zionists' for 'targeting him online
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Those were dark days.
Even darker after 2001.
I thought we’d never win again.
Aye, you could understand a Labour majority of 179 in 1997, a Labour majority of 167 in 2001 was just mystifying to me.
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
That it caused a certain antipathy towards Nehru which led to the messy partition.
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
That it caused a certain antipathy towards Nehru which led to the messy partition.
"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day? Vera! Vera! What has become of you? Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?"
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
2 irons in the fire makes sense BUT -
We seem to have gone from the Great Man's "world beating app by end of May" to our current "hopefully something working by the winter" in quite short order.
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
2 irons in the fire makes sense BUT -
We seem to have gone from the Great Man's "world beating app by end of May" to our current "hopefully something working by the winter" in quite short order.
It's bitterly disappointing.
Paper and pencil. We do not really need a world class app to tell us Mr Smith who has a bit of a temperature came within coughing distance of Ms Jones, when pencil and paper tracing based on just a few questions will find the cluster at the Welsh chicken plant. If the app is ever ready, it risks drowning us in low-level data because as lockdown lifts, many people will pass close by hundreds of others every day.
Pencil and paper for the big wins. Where did you go? How did you get there?
I agree. The app is a bauble.
Making it even harder to understand the focus on it and the high profile promise by the PM.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Has anyone listened to the podcast in the header? It must be a difficult way of prompting discussion, as by the time people have listened to it, the thread will have changed
Yes I listened to it as soon as the thread started. It was excellent.
A number of journalists struggling to comprehend the fact they've been working on Google/Apple API all along 😂
2 irons in the fire makes sense BUT -
We seem to have gone from the Great Man's "world beating app by end of May" to our current "hopefully something working by the winter" in quite short order.
It's bitterly disappointing.
Paper and pencil. We do not really need a world class app to tell us Mr Smith who has a bit of a temperature came within coughing distance of Ms Jones, when pencil and paper tracing based on just a few questions will find the cluster at the Welsh chicken plant. If the app is ever ready, it risks drowning us in low-level data because as lockdown lifts, many people will pass close by hundreds of others every day.
Pencil and paper for the big wins. Where did you go? How did you get there?
"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day? Vera! Vera! What has become of you? Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?"
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
That it caused a certain antipathy towards Nehru which led to the messy partition.
I really don’t want to think about Nehru and Edwina and a messy partition.
"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day? Vera! Vera! What has become of you? Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?"
A very great life lost - she was a theme that embraced us all.
Just a thread, mind, but that's all it needs - a thread.
Pink Floyd, a name that must be controversial in the current climate, made an album which was pretty much a response to "We'll meet again", called The Final Cut - Requiem for a Post War Dream.
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
That it caused a certain antipathy towards Nehru which led to the messy partition.
No, I mean why would it make the HoW the HoM?
Queen's 'tears' over Duke of Edinburgh's 'brutal' behaviour
The Queen was reduced to tears by the Duke of Edinburgh’s “brutal” behaviour towards her when she refused to take his surname of Mountbatten, according to a new biography.
Sally Bedell Smith even suggests that the ten-year delay between the births of the Princess Royal and the Duke of York was the result of “Philip’s anger over the Queen’s rejection of his family name”.
Her book, Elizabeth the Queen, to be published in January, details the Duke’s deep-rooted irritation over the monarch’s decision to accept the advice of the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, by keeping the family name Windsor.
The Duke had wanted the Royal family to be known as the House of Mountbatten when the Queen came to the throne in 1952, and complained to friends that: “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children. I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba.”
Earl Mountbatten, the Duke’s uncle and mentor, believed the “delay” in the couple having any more children after the Princess Royal was a result of the Duke’s anger over the question of the family name.
Mountbatten and his colleagues on the spot deserve the blame, not the Government in London. But he was very good at dodging responsibility. One of those repeated public sector failures who are promoted again and again that Cyclefree highlighted the other day.
We should have used air power to pacify the bands of murderous men and deployed a hugely enlarged army before Partition. It would not have stopped bloodshed completely, but it probably would have saved most of the million lives. But we didn't, and a million or more died.
No, Attlee was to blame. The buck stopped with him.
Your second paragraph is quite right, though. The Labour government wasn't in the least bit interested in the practicalities of the timetable or the reality on the ground, they just wanted to be rid of India for ideological reasons (and to suck up to the US, ironically).
Mountbatten et al were given an impossible time table and basically no resources.
The no resources thing was because Britain was broke.
Air power - bombing civilians in India into behaving nicely? Well, that is one approach I suppose.
Mountbatten gave himself an impossible timetable, by accelerating the already challenging plan by a year. If anything, he needed more time not less. He never gave a convincing explanation as to why he did it either. (Or rather he gave six reasons, but they all sound like justifications).
Bombing and strafing groups of raiders destroying villages on the frontier - proved moderately successful in pacifying Afghan tribes in the 1920s. It will never fully substitute for ground troops, but it will disrupt their operations.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Nah, Raab's thick as mince, remember he only recently found out how close Dover was to Calais.
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
That it caused a certain antipathy towards Nehru which led to the messy partition.
No, I mean why would it make the HoW the HoM?
Queen's 'tears' over Duke of Edinburgh's 'brutal' behaviour
The Queen was reduced to tears by the Duke of Edinburgh’s “brutal” behaviour towards her when she refused to take his surname of Mountbatten, according to a new biography.
Sally Bedell Smith even suggests that the ten-year delay between the births of the Princess Royal and the Duke of York was the result of “Philip’s anger over the Queen’s rejection of his family name”.
Her book, Elizabeth the Queen, to be published in January, details the Duke’s deep-rooted irritation over the monarch’s decision to accept the advice of the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, by keeping the family name Windsor.
The Duke had wanted the Royal family to be known as the House of Mountbatten when the Queen came to the throne in 1952, and complained to friends that: “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children. I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba.”
Earl Mountbatten, the Duke’s uncle and mentor, believed the “delay” in the couple having any more children after the Princess Royal was a result of the Duke’s anger over the question of the family name.
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
That's a surprise. It has been controversial ever since it was first sung. Particularly as it was first sung when black players (Offiah and Chris Oti) scored.
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
That it caused a certain antipathy towards Nehru which led to the messy partition.
No, I mean why would it make the HoW the HoM?
Queen's 'tears' over Duke of Edinburgh's 'brutal' behaviour
The Queen was reduced to tears by the Duke of Edinburgh’s “brutal” behaviour towards her when she refused to take his surname of Mountbatten, according to a new biography.
Sally Bedell Smith even suggests that the ten-year delay between the births of the Princess Royal and the Duke of York was the result of “Philip’s anger over the Queen’s rejection of his family name”.
Her book, Elizabeth the Queen, to be published in January, details the Duke’s deep-rooted irritation over the monarch’s decision to accept the advice of the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, by keeping the family name Windsor.
The Duke had wanted the Royal family to be known as the House of Mountbatten when the Queen came to the throne in 1952, and complained to friends that: “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children. I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba.”
Earl Mountbatten, the Duke’s uncle and mentor, believed the “delay” in the couple having any more children after the Princess Royal was a result of the Duke’s anger over the question of the family name.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day? Vera! Vera! What has become of you? Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?"
Mountbatten's name is mud in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh.
The view is his focus was on making the House of Windsor the House of Mountbatten, which is why he allowed his wife to get boffed by Nehru, rather than ensure a peaceful partition.
Why would allowing his wife to do that, have that result?
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
That it caused a certain antipathy towards Nehru which led to the messy partition.
No, I mean why would it make the HoW the HoM?
Queen's 'tears' over Duke of Edinburgh's 'brutal' behaviour
The Queen was reduced to tears by the Duke of Edinburgh’s “brutal” behaviour towards her when she refused to take his surname of Mountbatten, according to a new biography.
Sally Bedell Smith even suggests that the ten-year delay between the births of the Princess Royal and the Duke of York was the result of “Philip’s anger over the Queen’s rejection of his family name”.
Her book, Elizabeth the Queen, to be published in January, details the Duke’s deep-rooted irritation over the monarch’s decision to accept the advice of the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, by keeping the family name Windsor.
The Duke had wanted the Royal family to be known as the House of Mountbatten when the Queen came to the throne in 1952, and complained to friends that: “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children. I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba.”
Earl Mountbatten, the Duke’s uncle and mentor, believed the “delay” in the couple having any more children after the Princess Royal was a result of the Duke’s anger over the question of the family name.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
On that basis he appears to think such prostration and subservience is appropriate to his wife and HMQ.
"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn? Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day? Vera! Vera! What has become of you? Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?"
A very great life lost - she was a theme that embraced us all.
Just a thread, mind, but that's all it needs - a thread.
Pink Floyd, a name that must be controversial in the current climate, made an album which was pretty much a response to "We'll meet again", called The Final Cut - Requiem for a Post War Dream.
Actually Pink Floyd was named by Syd Barrett after two Black American bluesmen, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
Has anyone listened to the podcast in the header? It must be a difficult way of prompting discussion, as by the time people have listened to it, the thread will have changed
Yes I listened to it as soon as the thread started. It was excellent.
Did they discuss IPSOS-MORI's personality ratings?
We should replace it with Tubthumping by Chumbawumba or Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Rugby Football Union is conducting a review into the singing of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by England supporters, admitting that many of them are unaware of its origins as a song about slavery.
England fans have previously been criticised for “cross-cultural appropriation of a US slave song” by academics, and the Black Lives Matter movement has brought renewed focus on its airing at Twickenham and matches abroad.
Maro Itoje recently described the background of the song as “complicated” and the RFU – aware that the lyrics are plastered all over Twickenham – is set to take action. The union told the Guardian it is reviewing the song’s “historical context” and acknowledged the need to educate supporters.
The RFU did not rule out urging supporters not to sing the song altogether at a time when institutions in England with historical links to slavery are coming under increasing pressure to act.
Sell-out crowds will not return to Twickenham in the short term but the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, is optimistic England could host up to 40,000 fans this autumn if the government relaxes its physical distancing rule to one metre.
We've only sung it for 30 years or so, black players find it complicated.
It can be replaced easily.
Do they, given it wasn’t first recorded until 1909? And do they all feel the same way? Is it really that sensitive or are people looking for something to be sensitive about, which is part of a wider malaise?
Is it not possible for an old song to take on new meaning, and for that to be welcomed?
I haven’t heard anyone complain about it until now.
That's a surprise. It has been controversial ever since it was first sung. Particularly as it was first sung when black players (Offiah and Chris Oti) scored.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
On that basis he appears to think such prostration and subservience is appropriate to his wife and HMQ.
I suppose we all have our views of what's weird.
Hartley Brewer is boasting that the clip of Raab's comments from her interview has 4m views and counting.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
So you'd never curtsey or bow for the Queen?
Good to have another republican on PB.
I would bow (as I'm male), and unhesitatingly so. It's what she and her court expects. I think we owe a lot to QE2. I'd also fight to the death for Queen and country. (I might run away mind - a different issue)
I would also vote for the abolition of the Monarchy.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
So you'd never curtsey or bow for the Queen?
Good to have another republican on PB.
I would bow (as I'm male), and unhesitatingly so. It's what she and her court expects. I think we owe a lot to QE2. I'd also fight to the death for Queen and country. (I might run away mind - a different issue)
I would also vote for the abolition of the Monarchy.
I’m intrigued. How do you fight to the death while running away?
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Those were dark days.
Even darker after 2001.
I thought we’d never win again.
Aye, you could understand a Labour majority of 179 in 1997, a Labour majority of 167 in 2001 was just mystifying to me.
Sadly Hague was the worst Tory leader since the Duke of Wellington, great orator though he may have been, plus Blair was still firmly occupying the centre ground in 2001
Spoke to a few red-wall-esque Northumberland Tories yesterday. They think the Government is completely clueless and shambolic. That doesn't mean they would vote for Starmer's Labour, but it certainly makes it more likely.
The Tories are going to have a hell of a job hanging on to both the red-wall voters as well as the traditional Tory shire voters.
Depends which bit of the "red wall" you mean. Bassetlaw where I live now is virtually indistinguishable from plenty of traditional rural Tory seats, only the coal mining link, and it was a very very strong link for ages, meant it continually voted Labour. It'll be Tory forever now, or damned near enough. It's probably the most vivd example of this sort of seat with places such as Blackpool South right at the other end of the scale (Slightly Deprived, urban northern town) far easier for Labour to take back.
Why will Bassetlaw remain Tory simply because it shifted massively to them in 2019? If it can swing so quickly , it can swing again!
You sound like plenty of Tories between June 1997 and early 2001.
Those were dark days.
Even darker after 2001.
I thought we’d never win again.
Aye, you could understand a Labour majority of 179 in 1997, a Labour majority of 167 in 2001 was just mystifying to me.
Sadly Hague was the worst Tory leader since the Duke of Wellington, great orator though he may have been, plus Blair was still firmly occupying the centre ground in 2001
A little unfair to William. And in stumbled the Quiet Man and it got much, much worse.
So long as the taxpayer isn't paying up front in the event that it doesn't work.
You can't have it both ways ... AstraZeneca have agreed to supply the vaccine pretty much world-wide, on a not-for-profit basis to combat the current pandemic. You can hardly expect them to also meet the actual cost of producing the cost of manufacturing the vaccine which is being paid for by the British and other governments. The alternative would be to spend many more months testing the vaccine to exhaustion until everyone was 100% satisfied that it was 100% effective, during which period possibly hundreds of thousands of additional deaths would occur. Is that really what you want?
“ Barnier has indicated a willingness to drop the demand that the UK continue to follow EU rules on state aid in perpetuity. He is also prepared to move position on the vital subject of fish. The EU had wanted the status quo to continue but there is now a growing acceptance that this isn’t realistic, even if the coastal member states are still reluctant to accept this. These small shifts show that the Commission now understands there must be genuine negotiation.”
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
So you'd never curtsey or bow for the Queen?
Good to have another republican on PB.
I would bow (as I'm male), and unhesitatingly so. It's what she and her court expects. I think we owe a lot to QE2. I'd also fight to the death for Queen and country. (I might run away mind - a different issue)
I would also vote for the abolition of the Monarchy.
I’m intrigued. How do you fight to the death while running away?
He didn't say he'd fight to his death.
'Carry on chaps, magnificent job, I'm right behind you.'
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
So you'd never curtsey or bow for the Queen?
Good to have another republican on PB.
I would bow (as I'm male), and unhesitatingly so. It's what she and her court expects. I think we owe a lot to QE2. I'd also fight to the death for Queen and country. (I might run away mind - a different issue)
I would also vote for the abolition of the Monarchy.
I’m intrigued. How do you fight to the death while running away?
Intention vs actual performance. Sometimes I'm brave, sometimes I'm not.
I cannot believe the Raab Game of Thrones blooper was not,deliberate. It is aimed at the membership vote in a who succeeds Boris election. I am worried that it took me so long to work that out.
Or he could have just been saying what he thinks.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
So you'd never curtsey or bow for the Queen?
Good to have another republican on PB.
I would bow (as I'm male), and unhesitatingly so. It's what she and her court expects. I think we owe a lot to QE2. I'd also fight to the death for Queen and country. (I might run away mind - a different issue)
I would also vote for the abolition of the Monarchy.
I’m intrigued. How do you fight to the death while running away?
The French do it sometimes, well the running away bit.
My understanding was that it started because his nickname was "Chariots Offiah", a nod to the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, due to his lightning speed.
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, then started whilst Offiah was playing as a nod to this nickname.
So it was a song of respect. I don't think there's ever been anything malicious about it.
But Martin Offiah never played for England in the proper version of rugby.
So it has no real link with the English Rugby Union team.
Why he never played for England at Union is another question.
Apart from Jason Robinson not many rugby league players are good enough to play union.
In those days, Offiah would have walked into the English union team, had it abandoned its absurd stipulation on amateurism years earlier. By the time it jettisoned the upper-class fatties in 1996, Offiah was in the twilight of his career.
Funnily enough I used to see him regularly - years ago I lived a few streets away from him in Ealing, where I assume he still lives.
Mountbatten and his colleagues on the spot deserve the blame, not the Government in London. But he was very good at dodging responsibility. One of those repeated public sector failures who are promoted again and again that Cyclefree highlighted the other day.
We should have used air power to pacify the bands of murderous men and deployed a hugely enlarged army before Partition. It would not have stopped bloodshed completely, but it probably would have saved most of the million lives. But we didn't, and a million or more died.
No, Attlee was to blame. The buck stopped with him.
Your second paragraph is quite right, though. The Labour government wasn't in the least bit interested in the practicalities of the timetable or the reality on the ground, they just wanted to be rid of India in a tearing hurry for ideological reasons (and to suck up to the US, ironically).
On the contrary Attlee was very interested in Indian self determination, from his early visit there as part of a commission on the subject.
By 1947 Indian independence was unstoppable, and gathering momentum. The only question was how quickly and gracefully we left. Stopping the intercommunal violence by the military was not viable, and as most regiments were sectarian, a significant risk of losing all discipline and joining in.
Comments
[ducks for cover...]
I mean as if I would be seen dead in Aldi.
Many at the top have very few in their professional and social circles. And they are painfully aware of this. So it only takes a handful of the most voluminous on the left, now, to object and those in authority assume this must have been a huge blind-spot of theirs, and they must be representative, and so they take immediate action accordingly.
It's ignorant, it's panicky, it's open to manipulation and it's not even true. The black people I've spoken to in my professional network certainly don't see this as a priority.
We seem to be focusing about 90% of our effort at present on trying to identify and expunge any contemporary cultural feature that might have the slightest link to slavery in the past, however tangential.
It seems to be the perfect definition of the wrong priority and almost entirely missing the point.
https://twitter.com/Brexit/status/1273656901448974336?s=20
Its like suggesting Lincoln must fall because he was involved with the slavery debate 🤦🏻♂️
A cynical person might think that the government wants a reason for being able to say "well it doesn't matter that we are late".
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, then started whilst Offiah was playing as a nod to this nickname.
So it was a song of respect. I don't think there's ever been anything malicious about it.
So it has no real link with the English Rugby Union team.
Then he'd waffle about anything but the question.
Other countries went with much less sensitive test - so we had stuff like Swedish experts saying that x results meant 3x people had had COVID19 because the test was not sensitive enough.
When interviewed only three months ago MartinChariotsOffiah (his twitter handle) sounded pretty happy about it, and said the song resonated with him:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-51646140
We seem to have gone from the Great Man's "world beating app by end of May" to our current "hopefully something working by the winter" in quite short order.
It's bitterly disappointing.
https://twitter.com/MattCartoonist/status/1273654464382144514
Rest in peace, Dame Vera.
I think he's done well overall in this though. He has too seen off the Pest that is Peston - So he needs a statue.
The latest
A hair stylist in Missouri was diagnosed with covid-19 in late May, and she ended up directly exposing 84 customers who had sat just inches from her face for up to 30 minutes each. She had symptoms, but wore a face mask; salons were one of the few places where people were required to wear them. Because of that, health officials say, none of her customers was infected. The result appears to be one of the clearest real-world examples of the ability of masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1273657109415165954?s=20
The fact that he bowled round the wicket does him no favours with a lot of people in those parts.
Pencil and paper for the big wins. Where did you go? How did you get there?
Now about white privilege ... no I can't face it.
Elderly man in viral Black Lives Matter picture is unmasked as IRA apologist and conspiracy theorist - and he blames 'Zionists' for 'targeting him online
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8432337/Elderly-man-pictured-young-activist-viral-BLM-image-IRA-apologist-conspiracy-theorist.html
Shocked to find the old anti-Semitic duffer is a mate of Jezza. And that the young anti-racist activist is also an antisemite.
But whatever. Glory days.
Remember how she said that we would meet again some sunny day?
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you?
Does anybody else in here feel the way I do?"
http://www.thewallanalysis.com/vera/
Making it even harder to understand the focus on it and the high profile promise by the PM.
Just the usual "Boris" bluster, I suppose.
It was excellent.
Just a thread, mind, but that's all it needs - a thread.
The Queen was reduced to tears by the Duke of Edinburgh’s “brutal” behaviour towards her when she refused to take his surname of Mountbatten, according to a new biography.
Sally Bedell Smith even suggests that the ten-year delay between the births of the Princess Royal and the Duke of York was the result of “Philip’s anger over the Queen’s rejection of his family name”.
Her book, Elizabeth the Queen, to be published in January, details the Duke’s deep-rooted irritation over the monarch’s decision to accept the advice of the then prime minister, Winston Churchill, by keeping the family name Windsor.
The Duke had wanted the Royal family to be known as the House of Mountbatten when the Queen came to the throne in 1952, and complained to friends that: “I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his children. I’m nothing but a bloody amoeba.”
Earl Mountbatten, the Duke’s uncle and mentor, believed the “delay” in the couple having any more children after the Princess Royal was a result of the Duke’s anger over the question of the family name.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/queen-elizabeth-II/8931553/Queens-tears-over-Duke-of-Edinburghs-brutal-behaviour.html
Churchill always believed it was Mountbatten's aim to turn it into the House of Windsor.
Bombing and strafing groups of raiders destroying villages on the frontier - proved moderately successful in pacifying Afghan tribes in the 1920s. It will never fully substitute for ground troops, but it will disrupt their operations.
https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1273620421162815488?s=19
And Jones has form
'Baby its cold outside'
There were a bewildering array of hand gestures...
He was obsessed with getting his seed into the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Physically somehow prostrating yourself is a very strange thing if you're trying to express your thoughts.
However if you (or anyone else) wishes to express respect in that way then, weird though it is, it'd be hard to disapprove.
There's a bit of a weird echo of subservience in this too.
Entirely as weird would be for me to raise my hat to you. I'd prefer that though.
Good to have another republican on PB.
Maximum respect.
I suppose we all have our views of what's weird.
I would also vote for the abolition of the Monarchy.
Same as Labour giant Nye Bevan - not to be confused with fellow Labour giant Ernest Bevin who is of course English.
“ Barnier has indicated a willingness to drop the demand that the UK continue to follow EU rules on state aid in perpetuity. He is also prepared to move position on the vital subject of fish. The EU had wanted the status quo to continue but there is now a growing acceptance that this isn’t realistic, even if the coastal member states are still reluctant to accept this. These small shifts show that the Commission now understands there must be genuine negotiation.”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-a-brexit-deal-within-reach/amp?__twitter_impression=true
The fee that Tiger King star Carole Baskin is supposedly considering to enter the jungle for the UK version of I'm A Celebrity this year? £350K.
'Carry on chaps, magnificent job, I'm right behind you.'
Funnily enough I used to see him regularly - years ago I lived a few streets away from him in Ealing, where I assume he still lives.
By 1947 Indian independence was unstoppable, and gathering momentum. The only question was how quickly and gracefully we left. Stopping the intercommunal violence by the military was not viable, and as most regiments were sectarian, a significant risk of losing all discipline and joining in.