British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
Sorry about that. Maybe another solution would be for your grandads friends not to go round killing 6 million jews
Talking of which,
Discharging untested patients to care homes during the Covid-19 pandemic was "a form of genocide", a front-line doctor has said.
Words have no meaning
The allies knew about the deportation of the jews. They knew everything and did nothing. That was ofc well before the start of war. Why did the allies not respond and say anything, I mean do anyhting?
The allies were the brits and the US.
The idea that the british establishment were particular anguished about the plight of Jewish people in germany is laughable I'm afraid to say. more likely to think it's an interesting approach than to be appalled.
The allies knew about the deportation of the jews. They knew everything and did nothing. That was ofc well before the start of war. Why did the allies not respond and say anything, I mean do anyhting?
The allies were the brits and the US.
You don't seem to know about Hitler courting the UK establishment before the war (and even having a romance of sorts with one if its darlings), which paid off in terms of support he cultivated from royalty and media barons alike.
More Truss insanity
Truss is far from done.
We're in the period similar to the usa where many thought it would be fantastic if the republicans went bat **** crazy becausee then they could never win! Truss is cosying up to bannon, farage, trump etc (google her in the usa if you have the stomach). She is also still very poopular with the tory membership and she is now selling a grievence with the state- it is very dangerous.
I agree it's dangerous for the future when the electorate sees proof that PM Starmer is vacuous and won't improve services. Starmer is so utterly hopeless he doesn't even sense the danger.
You don't seem to know about Hitler courting the UK establishment before the war (and even having a romance of sorts with one if its darlings), which paid off in terms of support he cultivated from royalty and media barons alike.
No, I didnt know this. I kinda knew that he had backers and sympathtizers in the UK like he had in the US but thought not as many as in the US with backers like Ford.
didnt know he had a realtionship with a brit. there could even be a child of him living in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Mitf...
The idea that the british establishment were particular anguished about the plight of Jewish people in germany is laughable I'm afraid to say. more likely to think it's an interesting approach than to be appalled.
thanks. so they hated the jews in london and the UK? why did they dislike them?
More not giving a **** than hating
ok thanks.
Winston Churchill was outraged though and made a public announcement in a speech condemning the murder of the jews.
Initially Churchill main concern about Germany was they would take our God given rightful possession of India from us.
Most of the ruling class made churchill seem decent by comparison
WW2 allowed britain to redefine itself but it took a very very bad guy to make the british empire the hero in the story
Initially Churchill main concern about Germany was they would take our God given rightful possession of India from us.
Most of the ruling class made churchill seem decent by comparison
WW2 allowed britain to redefine itself but it took a very very bad guy to make the british empire the hero in the story
The British empire wasn't bad for historical standards, it's only bad under a radical, a-historical, anti human standard of "everyone loves every human being" which runs contrary to every biological fiber of **** sapiens sapiens
I'm not advocating for any other empire as better although obviously I recall what the romans did for us. Certainly helped the good old british empire to go out on such a moral high - not sure any other empire managed that.
The British empire wasn't bad for historical standards, it's only bad under a radical, a-historical, anti human standard of "everyone loves every human being" which runs contrary to every biological fiber of **** sapiens sapiens
It was pretty bad even by historical standards. Facilitating the Transatlantic trade of ~12 million Africans and the invention of concentration camps in Southern Africa, for instance, were gross, as were some of its acts in India and East Africa.
On the other hand people point out that Belgium and Holland were also guilty of atrocities, France has a lot of Algerian blood on its hands, and that he full extent of the UK's barbarity is mainly a function of the scope of its Empire, which itself was merely a function of being an island with a huge navy, and that therefore it's daft to suppose that any other nation in the same circumstances would have behaved much better at that time (see the earlier Spanish Empire for examples).
So you can take whatever view you want.
The only saving grace I can find is that, having realised that the Empire game was well and truly up after rebellions in India and Kenya, the Brits attempted managed withdrawals in Africa rather than running off without their toys as France did which left newly-independent countries with grinding shortages of qualified professionals (teachers, medics etc). Adverts were placed in newspapers here for qualified people to spend some time in such colonies in the run up to independence to try to smooth the transition as much as possible, and many people here took up the opportunity in the 1950s to "give something back" for a few years and experience a very different world, including my own parents.
I'm not advocating for any other empire as better although obviously I recall what the romans did for us. Certainly helped the good old british empire to go out on such a moral high - not sure any other empire managed that.
I’ve always found it slightly silly when people try to categorise the British Empire as good or bad in a binary way. It clearly did some good things, and also clearly did some bad things. I don’t know why some people struggle with that.
The British empire wasn't bad for historical standards, it's only bad under a radical, a-historical, anti human standard of "everyone loves every human being" which runs contrary to every biological fiber of **** sapiens sapiens
Some things that happened under British Empire were bad by any reasonable standard though.
Braverman wring about "ghettoised" Brita...
In Friday’s Telegraph, Suella Braverman declared Britain was “sleepwalking into a ghettoised society”, arguing that ours is not a country “where different faiths and races [coexist]” peacefully. Her words imply Britain is ever more segregated, but is that true?
The 2021 census lets us test her claims, and luckily recent research has used it to document changes since 1991. In the Britain we actually live in, not the bleak place Braverman paints, residential segregation along ethnic lines is eroding decade after decade. As Britain has become more diverse (74% of the population of England and Wales was white British in 2021, down from 87% in 2001), so have far more places within it.
We simply don’t have any big cities with the kind of segregation seen in, say, New York or Chicago
This isn’t just because the ethnic minority population has grown. All ethnic groups have become less geographically concentrated over time. Segregation is down not up. When people talk about ghettoes they are normally referring to some of our cities where the white British population has become a minority. But, with some exceptions, such as Leicester, these places are actually among the most ethnically diverse, because so many different ethnic groups call them home. We simply don’t have any big cities with the kind of segregation seen in, say, New York or Chicago.
The UK is far from perfect. But those trying to smuggle US-style culture wars across the Atlantic in the name of patriotism need to realise that you can’t be a patriot if you’re not at peace with the more diverse, and less segregated, country we are now.
It was pretty bad even by historical standards. Facilitating the Transatlantic trade of ~12 million Africans and the invention of concentration camps in Southern Africa, for instance, were gross, as were some of its acts in India and East Africa.
On the other hand people point out that Belgium and Holland were also guilty of atrocities, France has a lot of Algerian blood on its hands, and that he full extent of the UK's barbarity is mainly a function of the scope of its Empire, which itself was m
Belgium was "worst ever in history" or close to that at least for a specific dynamic (treatment of natives in a colony).
Arabs facilitated slave trade for longer and for more people (as a % of human beings living in the areas they were around at the time). Romans as well. Slavery isn't bad historically, the totality of empires had it in human history, can't blame the English for it in any way or form.
France was notoriously "one of the best ever" for colonial management, surpassed only by the Netherlands (wrt how they treated natives).
I'm not advocating for any other empire as better although obviously I recall what the romans did for us. Certainly helped the good old british empire to go out on such a moral high - not sure any other empire managed that.
The Roman empire was possibly the best thing to ever happen in human history after we discovered agriculture, if that's your standard ofc the British empire looks bad.
It was pretty bad even by historical standards. Facilitating the Transatlantic trade of ~12 million Africans and the invention of concentration camps in Southern Africa, for instance, were gross, as were some of its acts in India and East Africa.
On the other hand people point out that Belgium and Holland were also guilty of atrocities...
Britain also abolished the Atlantic slave trade and fought an actual naval war against it. Portugal transported more enslaved Africans than any other country, and as to who 'facilitated' the trade, it was the West Africans who, as was their ancient custom, rounded the people up, shackled them, put them on the death march to the slave ports (with a 20% death rate, at least as high as on the ships of the infamous Middle Passage, if not higher) and sold them. Until the 20th century, ownership of slaves was an important status indicator for upper-class West Africans. And West Africans still practise slavery -- with children on cocoa plantations and adults sold as domestic servants to Arabia and sometimes Europe.
