UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 09:08:16 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  International General Discussion (Moderators: afleitch, Hash)
  UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero
« previous next »
Pages: 1 ... 193 194 195 196 197 [198] 199 200 201 202 203 ... 233
Poll
Question: What should the title of this thread be
#1
BomaJority
 
#2
Tsar Boris Good Enough
 
#3
This Benighted Plot
 
#4
King Boris I
 
#5
The Right Honourable Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero
 
Show Pie Chart
Partisan results

Total Voters: 37

Author Topic: UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero  (Read 283620 times)
brucejoel99
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,449
Ukraine


Political Matrix
E: -3.48, S: -3.30

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4925 on: June 21, 2022, 05:06:59 PM »

If the SNP does go ahead with it's "advisory referendum", then would the unionist response be to boycott it ?

Yes, of course.

I'm sure it will go every bit as well as the Catalan one did.

The Spanish government response was to beat up people putting pieces of paper in boxes. I imagine the police in Scotland are more civilized.

Can imagine a scenario where Johnson makes the most of it though by stripping Scotland of devolution.

I'd love to see him try. Absolutely love it.

"As the Minister for the Union, among my portfolios, I've done all I can to win Scotland over. Now, the only option I have left to fulfill my mandate to maintain the Union is to use my Brit powers to regenerate Dr. Who-style into Mariano Rajoy."
Logged
Torrain
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,990
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -1.42, S: -0.52

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4926 on: June 22, 2022, 06:40:18 AM »
« Edited: June 22, 2022, 06:45:11 AM by Torrain »

Been a pretty standard PMQs, with a couple of lively moments:

Johnson has deflected allegations he pushed for Carrie Johnson to get a job with charities run by the Royal Family, and the Foreign Office. He seems a bit low-energy on the whole. Using new material on the strikes, but just seems tired. Guess he’s still in recovery from surgery.

Starmer on stronger form this afternoon. Drew a nice contrast between the Tory Wakefield candidate and Johnson, both of whom have faced confidence votes, and now look electorally shaky. Some stronger lines on Johnson’s inaction on the strikes, and using some embarrassing civil service quotes about workers pay against the government.

Grant Shapps is on the frontbench - and looks shattered. Man looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.

Ian Blackford audibly heckled as he stood up for the first time. Blackford’s reception in the chamber is rarely warm, but seems particularly poor today. Hopefully, he’s facing some pushback for his defence of Patrick Grady.
Logged
CumbrianLefty
CumbrianLeftie
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,601
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4927 on: June 22, 2022, 09:42:23 AM »

Criticism of Starmer over the strikes may have been a tad overdone, given that polling now appears to show he is close to median public opinion on the issue.
Logged
afleitch
Moderator
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 29,833


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4928 on: June 22, 2022, 09:46:04 AM »

Criticism of Starmer over the strikes may have been a tad overdone, given that polling now appears to show he is close to median public opinion on the issue.

Yeah, the working age public seem pretty supportive.
Logged
afleitch
Moderator
Atlas Star
*****
Posts: 29,833


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4929 on: June 22, 2022, 09:54:09 AM »

Also polio has been detected in London sewerage. So there's one for the bingo card.
Logged
Alcibiades
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,851
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -4.39, S: -6.96

P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4930 on: June 22, 2022, 10:10:13 AM »
« Edited: June 22, 2022, 10:15:54 AM by America Needs Dionysus »

My great grandfather was a Tory who basically came from the pages of Remains of the Day, given he was a footman of some sort who strongly identified with the house he represented. His wife was a radical leftist who forced him to resign to take up a respectable working mans job in a factory, to which he did, but he would always show up to work in the spats etc that he did in service. For her part, although she was involved in radicalism, his wife apparently never voted either because she didn't care about electoralism or even because she was ambivalent to women's suffrage.

There was supposedly a tale in my family (which originally hails from a very humble Staffordshire background) that a female ancestor of mine, while working as a lowly domestic servant to some great family, had been impregnated by the lord (naturally he would never have acknowledged such a baby, lending the story its unfalsifiable allure) and that consequently we were of aristocratic blood. The rumour is highly unlikely to be true, but despite its scurrilous nature was flaunted with great pride by a number of individuals in the family! Certainly goes to show the complex nature of such class identities.

I actually know disappointingly little about the English side of my family’s politics, despite them coming from one of the 20th century’s most politically infamous towns (no points for guessing which based on the county mentioned above!).
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4931 on: June 22, 2022, 10:22:29 AM »

I actually know disappointingly little about the English side of my family’s politics, despite them coming from one of the 20th century’s most politically infamous towns (no points for guessing which based on the county mentioned above!).

Very much a place to stress the links to one of the greatest cricketers to have ever lived - S.F. Barnes - rather than its unique and special place in political history.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4932 on: June 22, 2022, 10:26:50 AM »

On the matter of Great Grandparents and politics, it always amuses me to recall that Grandad's parents (DMA, ILP and Primitive Methodist) will both have voted against Anthony Eden when he stood at Spennymoor in 1922 and produced some of the most ill-advised leaflets in the history of British election literature: he stressed that he personally knew most of the major coal-owners in the area, apparently quite unaware that this came across as a ham-fisted threat!
Logged
Torrain
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,990
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -1.42, S: -0.52

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4933 on: June 22, 2022, 10:58:29 AM »
« Edited: June 22, 2022, 12:42:51 PM by Torrain »

Also polio has been detected in London sewerage. So there's one for the bingo card.

This is actually quite an interesting case. We typically find a few traces of polio in the sewage system each year, but this represents a genuine cluster.

The UK has used inactivated (dead) polio vaccination since 2004 (which is 100% safe, but slightly less effective), but the live-attenuated vaccine is still in use through much of the developing world. While the live-attenuated vaccine has a number of benefits in the field, and produces a stronger immune response, it is prone to reverting to virulence, capable of causing symptomatic infection. Contamination of water with faeces from the recently vaccinated (known as vaccine-derived polio) actually produces a significant portion of the world's polio cases each year now - and have reinforced the importance of sanitation worldwide. Rural Africa in particular has an ongoing issue with reactivated polio.

This is the case here - the government report shows that the virus has been sequenced, and been found to be a Poliovirus Type 2 strain. This is significant because of the three strains of polio, Type 2 and Type 3 are extinct in the wild, and only infect individuals through vaccine reactivation (Future vaccines may exclude these, only including Polio 1 in the future).

So in all likelihood, the virus has been unwittingly imported in the digestive system of a recent arrival following their vaccination abroad, and then been shed in North London. Whether the other cases were similar, or community transmission to local unvaccinated individuals is unclear.

NOTE: vaccine-derived polio is only a threat to those who have not had a full polio vaccine schedule. Everyone who  got the normal vaccine schedule as a kid should  be fine.
Logged
TheTide
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,593
United Kingdom


Political Matrix
E: -1.03, S: -6.96

P P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4934 on: June 22, 2022, 11:49:30 AM »

I actually know disappointingly little about the English side of my family’s politics, despite them coming from one of the 20th century’s most politically infamous towns (no points for guessing which based on the county mentioned above!).

Very much a place to stress the links to one of the greatest cricketers to have ever lived - S.F. Barnes - rather than its unique and special place in political history.

So great that he got into Richie Benaud's all-time XI.
Logged
Wiswylfen
eadmund
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 510


Political Matrix
E: -2.32, S: 4.17

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4935 on: June 22, 2022, 04:01:24 PM »

On the matter of Great Grandparents and politics, it always amuses me to recall that Grandad's parents (DMA, ILP and Primitive Methodist) will both have voted against Anthony Eden when he stood at Spennymoor in 1922 and produced some of the most ill-advised leaflets in the history of British election literature: he stressed that he personally knew most of the major coal-owners in the area, apparently quite unaware that this came across as a ham-fisted threat!

My great-great-grandfather worked at Spennymoor before finally moving up to Tyneside. Around twenty years before then though.
Logged
GoTfan
GoTfan21
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,576
Australia


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4936 on: June 22, 2022, 05:47:45 PM »

Apparently word is that Labour MPs who stood on the RMT picket line are going to be desciplined.

Ironic. A Labour Party is punishing MPs who stand with labour.
Logged
nicholas.slaydon
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,088
Ukraine


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4937 on: June 22, 2022, 11:42:21 PM »

Apparently word is that Labour MPs who stood on the RMT picket line are going to be desciplined.

Ironic. A Labour Party is punishing MPs who stand with labour.
It's disgusting is what it is.
Logged
Cassius
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,591


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4938 on: June 23, 2022, 03:46:06 AM »

Parody worthy opinion piece for Ed Davey on the strikes in yesterday’s Grauniad. Recommended reading for a good laugh.
Logged
Blair
Blair2015
Atlas Politician
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,816
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4939 on: June 23, 2022, 04:54:03 AM »

Apparently word is that Labour MPs who stood on the RMT picket line are going to be desciplined.

Ironic. A Labour Party is punishing MPs who stand with labour.
It's disgusting is what it is.

Well it’s only partly true- members of the frontbench might get told off. If you’re on the frontbench you have to do whatever stupid thing the leader wants you to do, or in this case- doesn’t want you to. MPs were at one stage shocked to discover they couldn’t break the whip on votes and remain!

I don’t support it but it’s not as if the Labour Party has an unblemished history on this- Attlee used ex-soldiers as strike-breakers
Logged
Blair
Blair2015
Atlas Politician
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,816
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4940 on: June 23, 2022, 04:56:07 AM »

Parody worthy opinion piece for Ed Davey on the strikes in yesterday’s Grauniad. Recommended reading for a good laugh.

It’s peak 2007 Lib Dems. People have forgotten how annoying they can be for Governments.
Logged
Secretary of State Liberal Hack
IBNU
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,877
Singapore


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4941 on: June 23, 2022, 05:41:28 AM »

Parody worthy opinion piece for Ed Davey on the strikes in yesterday’s Grauniad. Recommended reading for a good laugh.
What's wrong with it ?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/johnson-shapps-rail-strike-transport-
Logged
CumbrianLefty
CumbrianLeftie
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 11,601
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4942 on: June 23, 2022, 05:46:42 AM »

Apparently word is that Labour MPs who stood on the RMT picket line are going to be desciplined.

Ironic. A Labour Party is punishing MPs who stand with labour.
It's disgusting is what it is.

Well it’s only partly true- members of the frontbench might get told off. If you’re on the frontbench you have to do whatever stupid thing the leader wants you to do, or in this case- doesn’t want you to. MPs were at one stage shocked to discover they couldn’t break the whip on votes and remain!

I don’t support it but it’s not as if the Labour Party has an unblemished history on this- Attlee used ex-soldiers as strike-breakers

The cynic suspects this was Starmer trying to appear "tough" to swing voters ahead of the byelection.
Logged
YL
YorkshireLiberal
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,511
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4943 on: June 23, 2022, 06:05:01 AM »

Oh fun, it's another collection of constituencies given a silly name, though at least this one isn't a "Wall".
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4944 on: June 23, 2022, 07:58:09 AM »

On the matter of Great Grandparents and politics, it always amuses me to recall that Grandad's parents (DMA, ILP and Primitive Methodist) will both have voted against Anthony Eden when he stood at Spennymoor in 1922 and produced some of the most ill-advised leaflets in the history of British election literature: he stressed that he personally knew most of the major coal-owners in the area, apparently quite unaware that this came across as a ham-fisted threat!

My great-great-grandfather worked at Spennymoor before finally moving up to Tyneside. Around twenty years before then though.

Mine lived in Willington, where all the men for about a century worked down (and were ultimately, one way or another though usually the slow way, killed as a result of doing so) Brancepeth Colliery, the pit heap of which loomed over the town like a stratovolcano.

When you consider the population of the area now it's crazy to think that there were enough people in that stretch of Durham for a full-sized parliamentary constituency, but there were. Not quite Abertillery* levels of 'a place that people left' but not so far off either.

*Where as it happens a branch on the other side of the family lived until the 1920s...
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4945 on: June 23, 2022, 08:04:08 AM »

Apparently word is that Labour MPs who stood on the RMT picket line are going to be desciplined.

Ironic. A Labour Party is punishing MPs who stand with labour.
It's disgusting is what it is.

Well it’s only partly true- members of the frontbench might get told off. If you’re on the frontbench you have to do whatever stupid thing the leader wants you to do, or in this case- doesn’t want you to. MPs were at one stage shocked to discover they couldn’t break the whip on votes and remain!

I don’t support it but it’s not as if the Labour Party has an unblemished history on this- Attlee used ex-soldiers as strike-breakers

The traditional Labour Party position on industrial action is not what a lot of people assume anyway. The line was always to prefer what used to be called class collaboration over class conflict and so to view strikes as regrettable things that should be avoided if possible.* Against that there was also an old tradition at the Left end of the Labour Movement (which partially overlaps with the Labour Party, but has only ever done so partially) which saw strikes in a more positive light, not as a sign that negotiation has failed but as way of forcing good outcomes at the point of production. Both positions, of course, still exist, are very well established and are perfectly respectable within their contexts. The unresolvable tension between the two positions has been a central theme in British Labour History for over a century now and quite famously led to the defeat of the 1974-79 Labour government.

*It has also always been the case that a) Labour politicians as a group are much less likely to be overtly supportive of strikes by non-affiliated unions than affiliated ones, and that b) the traditional Labour Party line was also always been to be very leery about strikes when they affected major parts of the national infrastructure: plenty of examples from Harold Wilson's tenure of this, though he actually tended to take a harder line than the position of benign neutrality that Starmer has taken over the rail strikes. Again this has often been a source of tension. There is nothing new under the Sun.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4946 on: June 23, 2022, 08:07:52 AM »

Now where things used to get really messy was that the CPGB (which had a massively outsized presence in the leaderships of many unions for the usual reasons) in practice, if not in theory, tended to take a similar line to the Labour Party, despite technically being on the left end of the Labour movement. The only practical difference between someone like Dai Francis and a Moderate Labour type was that Francis believed much more keenly in Democratic Centralism and drove a Trabant! Mind you, the CPGB also had its own issues with important members who disagreed and took the other position - Derek 'Red Robbo' Robinson for instance.
Logged
YL
YorkshireLiberal
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,511
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4947 on: June 23, 2022, 08:49:27 AM »

On the matter of Great Grandparents and politics, it always amuses me to recall that Grandad's parents (DMA, ILP and Primitive Methodist) will both have voted against Anthony Eden when he stood at Spennymoor in 1922 and produced some of the most ill-advised leaflets in the history of British election literature: he stressed that he personally knew most of the major coal-owners in the area, apparently quite unaware that this came across as a ham-fisted threat!

My great-great-grandfather worked at Spennymoor before finally moving up to Tyneside. Around twenty years before then though.

Mine lived in Willington, where all the men for about a century worked down (and were ultimately, one way or another though usually the slow way, killed as a result of doing so) Brancepeth Colliery, the pit heap of which loomed over the town like a stratovolcano.

When you consider the population of the area now it's crazy to think that there were enough people in that stretch of Durham for a full-sized parliamentary constituency, but there were. Not quite Abertillery* levels of 'a place that people left' but not so far off either.

*Where as it happens a branch on the other side of the family lived until the 1920s...

IIRC there were villages in County Durham which were basically designated by the County Council for abandonment and demolition.  Were some of those in this area?
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,563


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4948 on: June 23, 2022, 08:59:55 AM »

On the matter of Great Grandparents and politics, it always amuses me to recall that Grandad's parents (DMA, ILP and Primitive Methodist) will both have voted against Anthony Eden when he stood at Spennymoor in 1922 and produced some of the most ill-advised leaflets in the history of British election literature: he stressed that he personally knew most of the major coal-owners in the area, apparently quite unaware that this came across as a ham-fisted threat!

My great-great-grandfather worked at Spennymoor before finally moving up to Tyneside. Around twenty years before then though.

Mine lived in Willington, where all the men for about a century worked down (and were ultimately, one way or another though usually the slow way, killed as a result of doing so) Brancepeth Colliery, the pit heap of which loomed over the town like a stratovolcano.

When you consider the population of the area now it's crazy to think that there were enough people in that stretch of Durham for a full-sized parliamentary constituency, but there were. Not quite Abertillery* levels of 'a place that people left' but not so far off either.

*Where as it happens a branch on the other side of the family lived until the 1920s...

IIRC there were villages in County Durham which were basically designated by the County Council for abandonment and demolition.  Were some of those in this area?

Durham County Council's development plan used to designate some villages as category D, where new capital development was to avoided. There's a partial map at https://mattjamessmith.com/content/the-category-d-villages-of-durham

A quick glance suggests that relatively few of those were around Spennymoor and Willington, though, with the biggest concentration around Blaydon.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #4949 on: June 23, 2022, 09:29:06 AM »

Yes, there were a reasonable number in the area but not as many as in some other parts of West Durham. The tendency was for large pits (e.g. Brancepeth was one of the largest collieries in the county away from the massive pits on the coast and along the Tyne, this despite being sunk in the 1840s) and for sizeable towns to have grown up around them, and depopulation was centered on the towns. For instance, Willington UD had a population of about nine thousand in the 1920s and the equivalent area (Willington plus the village of Oakenshaw) comes to around about five and a half thousand. Some towns have lost even greater shares: Tow Law's population has halved since the 1920s.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 193 194 195 196 197 [198] 199 200 201 202 203 ... 233  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.073 seconds with 14 queries.