Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Paddington Bear]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rchaeology

Kemi Bad Enoch remains a fucking moron I see.

Hard to draw a link to health services, but studies like this end up discrediting academia in general. See also the Cort metallurgy debate, and whilst it’s older a historian insisting that Anglo Saxons having the moniker ‘the black’ meant that they were highly diverse.

We’ve wildly overproduced academics.

[petej]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rchaeology

Kemi Bad Enoch remains a fucking moron I see.

Hard to draw a link to health services, but studies like this end up discrediting academia in general. See also the Cort metallurgy debate, and whilst it’s older a historian insisting that Anglo Saxons having the moniker ‘the black’ meant that they were highly diverse.

We’ve wildly overproduced academics.

Working incredibly hard to draw any link to health services. Genetics and overall health (from environmental/living conditions) is obviously a variable so not a surprise or news story. Worth considering is also intentionally vague and you could also say feel free to ignore. Politicians seem so simplistic and everything is black and white.

On the academic stuff in my area of materials there is an incredible amount of pisspoor papers. Designing experiments and running comprehensive testing is a dying skill in academia and industry (aerospace, nuclear power, power generation).

[_Os_]

YMX what would you say if Starmer answered with something along the lines of "the working class are those who have the surplus value of their labour extracted from them who do not own the means of production", or something like that?

My guess is you would respond with something along the lines of "fuck me this man is a raging commie! ".

I'm a bit suspicious of Starmer, but it's a question he cannot answer. Give a real answer and he's a dangerous revolutionary. Give a fake answer where he just describes how working class is now understood by most people in the UK, and it sounds meaningless because the common understanding of working class in the UK is meaningless. Multi millionaire business owners will tell you they're "hard working" and therefore "working class".

As I said above, it’s he that is pushing this working class distinction in his propaganda. If you are batting a phrase around, you must expect to be asked about it.

His response was dribble.

Get used to it sunshine
The corrupt cunts you appear to support and their paymasters are soon going to be out of power.

That's the crux of it, they're heavily corrupt. It's there from the lowest council level to the top of government. I would also class the obscene waste like Sunak's helicopter rides as a form of it.

Any South African on the thread will agree that if corruption isn't stamped out immediately asap, then that endorsement will mean it grows. The final destination is politics becoming entirely about ending corruption, it's impossible to do anything if every government action means the feeding trough comes out. I wonder about the crazy costs of doing anything (like building infrastructure) in the UK compared to Europe, contractors connected to the Tories and charging obscene amounts seem to be a growing feature.

A lot of people should be prosecuted and jailed. Labour have said the PPE stuff is going to be looked at. It'll be very bad if nothing happens over concerns it'll make the UK look bad due to the scale of it and the belief it will not happen again, the large scale and multiple high profile players means real action probably needs government approval. Not acting opens the possibility of much larger corruption later by the same people who went unpunished.

[Paddington Bear]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rchaeology

Kemi Bad Enoch remains a fucking moron I see.

Hard to draw a link to health services, but studies like this end up discrediting academia in general. See also the Cort metallurgy debate, and whilst it’s older a historian insisting that Anglo Saxons having the moniker ‘the black’ meant that they were highly diverse.

We’ve wildly overproduced academics.

Working incredibly hard to draw any link to health services. Genetics and overall health (from environmental/living conditions) is obviously a variable so not a surprise or news story. Worth considering is also intentionally vague and you could also say feel free to ignore. Politicians seem so simplistic and everything is black and white.

On the academic stuff in my area of materials there is an incredible amount of pisspoor papers. Designing experiments and running comprehensive testing is a dying skill in academia and industry (aerospace, nuclear power, power generation).

An awful lot of history papers (the Cort ones included) are exceptionally poorly referenced, some to the extent that they are either prepared by someone who is incompetent or deliberately dishonest.

[Hal Jordan]

Rwanda latest: Even if they try to fly people out of the country, no airline is willing to take the reputational damage. When the Home Office asked providers to sign contracts to get planes ready help the human trafficking scheme they all refused.

Some cunts will step up, I'm sure.

[tabascoboy]

Rwanda latest: Even if they try to fly people out of the country, no airline is willing to take the reputational damage. When the Home Office asked providers to sign contracts to get planes ready help the human trafficking scheme they all refused.

Some cunts will step up, I'm sure.

An article said they plan to use RAF Planes, the same paper also reported that Boscombe Down, north of Salisbury, is intended to be used as the airfield for flights.

Seems like a really good use of this resource #irony and The Times reported that the MoD doesn't actually want to get involved

[Calculon]

Hard to draw a link to health services, but studies like this end up discrediting academia in general. See also the Cort metallurgy debate, and whilst it’s older a historian insisting that Anglo Saxons having the moniker ‘the black’ meant that they were highly diverse.

We’ve wildly overproduced academics.

Working incredibly hard to draw any link to health services. Genetics and overall health (from environmental/living conditions) is obviously a variable so not a surprise or news story. Worth considering is also intentionally vague and you could also say feel free to ignore. Politicians seem so simplistic and everything is black and white.

On the academic stuff in my area of materials there is an incredible amount of pisspoor papers. Designing experiments and running comprehensive testing is a dying skill in academia and industry (aerospace, nuclear power, power generation).

An awful lot of history papers (the Cort ones included) are exceptionally poorly referenced, some to the extent that they are either prepared by someone who is incompetent or deliberately dishonest.

Probably also from the pressure of “publish or perish”, which has been around for ages but maybe getting worse. Quality is bound to go down.

[ASMO]

She is a moron, but the researchers did make an explicit link to the present day according to that article. Makes me feel dirty to say, but I don't think she's wholly out of line in saying that research drawing a fairly tenuous and speculative gap, however couched in qualifications, between minority treatment then and now could be fairly inflammatory.

Of course, if she'd said nothing, this likely would have passed entirely without notice.

By examining five features of the skulls and comparing these with a forensic databank covering modern and historical global populations, it estimated the likely heritage of people who died and found that those of African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths.

While stressing the need for caution given the sample size, the authors said the results suggested there was value in considering structural racism in such research, likening this to the higher death rates for people from some minority ethnic groups during Covid.

Stuff like that just reminds me why I didn't get on with the archaeology modules I had to do at uni when my first and second choice history modules were over-subscribed. It always felt like people groping around for a story to tell based on minimal evidence, combine that with the need to prove novelty of research avenue... I much preferred more modern periods where there was a greater written evidence base to get your teeth into.

The popular story to tell seems to be that England in the Middle Ages was racially diverse and full of non-whites.

Linked in that article:

Research has previously demonstrated that, far from being a homogeneous white society, medieval England – and its capital – had considerable diversity.


I suspect this is at least partly driven by the desire to combat white supremacist views that black people can’t be English or British. It does seem potentially counter productive though. Genuinely racist people are not going to believe that England in the Middle Ages was racially diverse, and to be fair, it is bollocks. Also, it does somewhat imply that the reason non-whites should be considered English or British is because there were non-whites in medieval England, rather than because they hold British citizenship. As far as I’m concerned if you hold a British passport, you’re 100% British whether you can trace your ancestors back to the time of Alfred the Great or if you’re Shamima Begum, who was treated disgracefully in having her citizenship revoked - don’t care what the Supreme Court says, also it’s a pretty obvious case of racism.

the authors said the results suggested there was value in considering structural racism in such research, likening this to the higher death rates for people from some minority ethnic groups during Covid


Also highly dubious about this. From what I’ve heard identity in the Middle Ages in England wasn’t based on racial identity but rather on your place in society and religion. So, a noble Christian Ethiopian would have been treated just fine but a peasant Muslim white would have a very hard time of it.


Interesting that the article is published in a book called “Bioarchaeology of Marginalized People”.

i am struggling to see the significance of those, so fucking what, a disease we had no control over impacted some ethnicities more than others, this has been going on forever, sickle cell being a case in point.

[SaintK]

.......and another one under investigation!

The Conservative MP Miriam Cates has been placed under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog, PA Media reports.
The backbench MP is facing claims that she has caused “significant damage to the reputation of the house as a whole, or of its members generally”, according to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, who lists active investigations on his website.
It is not known what the investigation relates to.

[sockwithaticket]

She is a moron, but the researchers did make an explicit link to the present day according to that article. Makes me feel dirty to say, but I don't think she's wholly out of line in saying that research drawing a fairly tenuous and speculative gap, however couched in qualifications, between minority treatment then and now could be fairly inflammatory.

Of course, if she'd said nothing, this likely would have passed entirely without notice.

By examining five features of the skulls and comparing these with a forensic databank covering modern and historical global populations, it estimated the likely heritage of people who died and found that those of African heritage were disproportionately more likely to have died from plague than people of European or Asian ancestry, compared with non-plague deaths.

While stressing the need for caution given the sample size, the authors said the results suggested there was value in considering structural racism in such research, likening this to the higher death rates for people from some minority ethnic groups during Covid.

Stuff like that just reminds me why I didn't get on with the archaeology modules I had to do at uni when my first and second choice history modules were over-subscribed. It always felt like people groping around for a story to tell based on minimal evidence, combine that with the need to prove novelty of research avenue... I much preferred more modern periods where there was a greater written evidence base to get your teeth into.

The popular story to tell seems to be that England in the Middle Ages was racially diverse and full of non-whites.

Linked in that article:

Research has previously demonstrated that, far from being a homogeneous white society, medieval England – and its capital – had considerable diversity.


I suspect this is at least partly driven by the desire to combat white supremacist views that black people can’t be English or British. It does seem potentially counter productive though. Genuinely racist people are not going to believe that England in the Middle Ages was racially diverse, and to be fair, it is bollocks. Also, it does somewhat imply that the reason non-whites should be considered English or British is because there were non-whites in medieval England, rather than because they hold British citizenship. As far as I’m concerned if you hold a British passport, you’re 100% British whether you can trace your ancestors back to the time of Alfred the Great or if you’re Shamima Begum, who was treated disgracefully in having her citizenship revoked - don’t care what the Supreme Court says, also it’s a pretty obvious case of racism.

the authors said the results suggested there was value in considering structural racism in such research, likening this to the higher death rates for people from some minority ethnic groups during Covid


Also highly dubious about this. From what I’ve heard identity in the Middle Ages in England wasn’t based on racial identity but rather on your place in society and religion. So, a noble Christian Ethiopian would have been treated just fine but a peasant Muslim white would have a very hard time of it.


Interesting that the article is published in a book called “Bioarchaeology of Marginalized People”.

I didn't want to delve too deeply into it because it is a load of bollocks, but, yes, some quarter of academia seem to think it's their mission to find historical legitimacy for current levels of societal diversity. You can, if you look very, very hard at a handful of the larger port towns and cities, find evidence of black people living in England going back some way, but they were never anything more than a negligible proportion of the population until Wind Rush. Even today decades on from that and with subsquent waves of migrants, including many directly from Africa, census data indicates black or black-mixed people are only around 5% of the population. As you say, I'm not sure who the audience for that is because racists won't pay attention or care and counter-narratives rooted in fact are widely available for everyone else. Not to mention that the manipulation of fact for an ideological agenda is something they would very much criticise if taken in different directions. Misinformation and distrust in experts is a massive societal problem that really reared its ugly head during the Brexit referendum and seemed to become even more acute during the covid pandemic. We don't need to give those who are anti- fact and truth any legitimate basis for questioning experts or examples they can point to as somewhat supporting their scepticism.

[sockwithaticket]

.......and another one under investigation!

The Conservative MP Miriam Cates has been placed under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog, PA Media reports.
The backbench MP is facing claims that she has caused “significant damage to the reputation of the house as a whole, or of its members generally”, according to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, who lists active investigations on his website.
It is not known what the investigation relates to.

I'm a bit too young to really remember the end of Major's government, but I'm aware that iteration of the Tories earned a rep for sleaze and corruption. Are the current lot even worse?

[Paddington Bear]

She is a moron, but the researchers did make an explicit link to the present day according to that article. Makes me feel dirty to say, but I don't think she's wholly out of line in saying that research drawing a fairly tenuous and speculative gap, however couched in qualifications, between minority treatment then and now could be fairly inflammatory.

Of course, if she'd said nothing, this likely would have passed entirely without notice.



Stuff like that just reminds me why I didn't get on with the archaeology modules I had to do at uni when my first and second choice history modules were over-subscribed. It always felt like people groping around for a story to tell based on minimal evidence, combine that with the need to prove novelty of research avenue... I much preferred more modern periods where there was a greater written evidence base to get your teeth into.

The popular story to tell seems to be that England in the Middle Ages was racially diverse and full of non-whites.

Linked in that article:

Research has previously demonstrated that, far from being a homogeneous white society, medieval England – and its capital – had considerable diversity.


I suspect this is at least partly driven by the desire to combat white supremacist views that black people can’t be English or British. It does seem potentially counter productive though. Genuinely racist people are not going to believe that England in the Middle Ages was racially diverse, and to be fair, it is bollocks. Also, it does somewhat imply that the reason non-whites should be considered English or British is because there were non-whites in medieval England, rather than because they hold British citizenship. As far as I’m concerned if you hold a British passport, you’re 100% British whether you can trace your ancestors back to the time of Alfred the Great or if you’re Shamima Begum, who was treated disgracefully in having her citizenship revoked - don’t care what the Supreme Court says, also it’s a pretty obvious case of racism.

the authors said the results suggested there was value in considering structural racism in such research, likening this to the higher death rates for people from some minority ethnic groups during Covid


Also highly dubious about this. From what I’ve heard identity in the Middle Ages in England wasn’t based on racial identity but rather on your place in society and religion. So, a noble Christian Ethiopian would have been treated just fine but a peasant Muslim white would have a very hard time of it.


Interesting that the article is published in a book called “Bioarchaeology of Marginalized People”.

I didn't want to delve too deeply into it because it is a load of bollocks, but, yes, some quarter of academia seem to think it's their mission to find historical legitimacy for current levels of societal diversity. You can, if you look very, very hard at a handful of the larger port towns and cities, find evidence of black people living in England going back some way, but they were never anything more than a negligible proportion of the population until Wind Rush. Even today decades on from that and with subsquent waves of migrants, including many directly from Africa, census data indicates black or black-mixed people are only around 5% of the population. As you say, I'm not sure who the audience for that is because racists won't pay attention or care and counter-narratives rooted in fact are widely available for everyone else. Not to mention that the manipulation of fact for an ideological agenda is something they would very much criticise if taken in different directions. Misinformation and distrust in experts is a massive societal problem that really reared its ugly head during the Brexit referendum and seemed to become even more acute during the covid pandemic. We don't need to give those who are anti- fact and truth any legitimate basis for questioning experts or examples they can point to as somewhat supporting their scepticism.

Projecting current political debates onto history is nothing new. So many people doing it with such limited IQ, and then getting institutional support when they’re proved to be making shit up, does seem a little less precedented.

Besides, what a shit example the Black Death would be, given it wiped out what a third of the English population?

[Stranger]

.......and another one under investigation!

The Conservative MP Miriam Cates has been placed under investigation by parliament’s standards watchdog, PA Media reports.
The backbench MP is facing claims that she has caused “significant damage to the reputation of the house as a whole, or of its members generally”, according to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, who lists active investigations on his website.
It is not known what the investigation relates to.

I'm a bit too young to really remember the end of Major's government, but I'm aware that iteration of the Tories earned a rep for sleaze and corruption. Are the current lot even worse?

Much

[_Os_]

Research has previously demonstrated that, far from being a homogeneous white society, medieval England – and its capital – had considerable diversity.


I suspect this is at least partly driven by the desire to combat white supremacist views that black people can’t be English or British. It does seem potentially counter productive though. Genuinely racist people are not going to believe that England in the Middle Ages was racially diverse, and to be fair, it is bollocks. Also, it does somewhat imply that the reason non-whites should be considered English or British is because there were non-whites in medieval England, rather than because they hold British citizenship. As far as I’m concerned if you hold a British passport, you’re 100% British whether you can trace your ancestors back to the time of Alfred the Great or if you’re Shamima Begum, who was treated disgracefully in having her citizenship revoked - don’t care what the Supreme Court says, also it’s a pretty obvious case of racism.

I have no interest in looking more deeply into this than what's on this forum. But that looks like a hole in one to me. Measuring skulls with callipers to determine race isn't real science.

It looks like an attempt at gaining historic legitimacy for the UK's current demographics. In 1350-1400 London wouldn't have been particularly important, Paris/Genoa/Milan/Naples/Granada/Venice were all larger cities in Europe and there were larger cities than all those in Asia. London and England/Britain only gained importance from the 17th century onwards with the colonial era, it was a backwater before and probably a bit of a shithole. In 1350-1400 London wasn't at the heart of an empire or former empire, wasn't a big player in a global trading network, and wasn't even part of a British Isles that was widely using (standardised) English. I have no clue why London would have a racially diverse population at that time.

It looks like myth making to me. It sounds similar to the total rubbish about whites being in South Africa before blacks. It's not the first time I've seen it, usually the focus is on the Romans, which at least looks possible. But the ancient world isn't the modern world, people moved around the Mediterranean a lot. Carthaginians were Phoenician, Egyptians were often Greek, there were North African Roman colonies. What this means is often lost on modern people, a good example is the outrage when a Hollywood film doesn't cast a black woman as Cleopatra (who was Greek). The expectation is that if there's a record showing a Roman unit from North Africa was stationed in Britain, then those people were definitely black Africans. I'm sure you're as amused as I am Calculator, in 2000 years our people will be a black African tribe armed with nuclear weapons.

I don't see any of these claims going away. Probably a decent book in listing debunked claims and claims without real evidence, an anthology of the Cheddar Man phenomena.

[sockwithaticket]

Hotep-ism and the more broad American, particularly black American, mission to subsume North African history into that of black Africa is a bizarre thing to stumble upon from time to time. If any group of people should know and respect the evil of a people having their history erased...

Film representation is a 'battleground' that most commonly leaks into broader public consciousness and obviously black Cleopatra in that stupid Netflix 'documentary' is one of the more recent examples, so is supposed outrage at Gal Gadot being lined up to play her because she's 'too white'. Years and years ago the Night At The Museum filmmakers were accused of whitewashing for casting Rami Malek - an actual Egyptian - as a Pharoah.

The last thing we want is that leaking over here. Occasionally you see it, like the stunt-casting of Anne Boleyn as a black woman for a recent Channel 5 Tudors drama. A counter-factual, what would it have been like back then if Henry VII had married a black woman, might actually have been a somewhat interesting angle rather than another typical dramatic retread of that time period, but, no, it was just an ostensibly factual (in as far as these things ever are) retread, but Anne Boleyn is black now.

[Paddington Bear]

You only need to look at the surviving structures from the English medieval period to see that this was no backwater, it was a wealthy and well run society. And this is accounting for all that was lost in the dissolution of the monasteries.

[sockwithaticket]

I have no interest in looking more deeply into this than what's on this forum. But that looks like a hole in one to me. Measuring skulls with callipers to determine race isn't real science.

It looks like an attempt at gaining historic legitimacy for the UK's current demographics. In 1350-1400 London wouldn't have been particularly important, Paris/Genoa/Milan/Naples/Granada/Venice were all larger cities in Europe and there were larger cities than all those in Asia. London and England/Britain only gained importance from the 17th century onwards with the colonial era, it was a backwater before and probably a bit of a shithole. In 1350-1400 London wasn't at the heart of an empire or former empire, wasn't a big player in a global trading network, and wasn't even part of a British Isles that was widely using (standardised) English. I have no clue why London would have a racially diverse population at that time.

Such as it was, it'd mostly be random sailors picked up and dropped off over time.

I think you're slightly underselling England's pre 17th century importance. Perhaps not such a global power, but as a regional one in Western Europe we were at the heart of an awful lot. The 100 years war was something of a significant conflict and for several decades England owned almost half of France. Henry VIII really cranked the bellows on the Reformation in its nascent stages and we spent most of the 1500s following his reign with Spain, the regional power as the home of the century's Holy Roman emperors, either trying to fuck (/marry into our Royal family) or fight us.

[Insane_Homer]

https://news.sky.com/story/tory-mp-miri ... g-13033359

Conservative MP Miriam Cates is being investigated by the parliamentary commissioner for standards over claims she has caused "significant damage to the reputation" of the Commons and its members.

The probe was confirmed on the watchdog's website, though details of the allegations have yet to come to light.

Ms Cates is among eight MPs currently being investigated by standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg.
...
Others include deputy speaker Dame Eleanor Laing, Conservative Sir Bernard Jenkin and the Reclaim MP Andrew Bridgen

[_Os_]

You only need to look at the surviving structures from the English medieval period to see that this was no backwater, it was a wealthy and well run society. And this is accounting for all that was lost in the dissolution of the monasteries.

Any fictional migrant would've travelled through wealthier places with larger cities to reach Britain, the route would've been something like Cairo>Venice>Genoa>Paris all larger than London, then onto London for reasons unknown. During that time there's constant involvement of the French in England, and the final outcome of the 100 years war (Plantagenet defeat) is a leading cause for the Wars of the Roses (Plantagenet's lose control over the houses of York and Lancaster). I'm compacting a lot into not much space, but if England is doing exceptionally well in this time it's odd that it's basically fighting in a French civil war (this usually happens when vassals are used in the civil war) on the losing side, and then having a civil war amongst the English in the aftermath.

Meanwhile somewhere like Venice is made from brick and stone, hence the entire city being a world heritage site. In the UK castles and cathedrals made of stone survive (it's usually individual buildings that are world heritage sites in the UK), not so much the buildings surrounding them most people were living in. Winchester/York/Durham/Oxford are a lot of things, but they're not large. It seems unlikely to me an African peasant in those times would've got on the internet, seen the living conditions of peasants in England being approximately the same, and decided to save up for the airfare (I know you don't actually dispute this part).

[Hal Jordan]

.......and another one under investigation!

I'm a bit too young to really remember the end of Major's government, but I'm aware that iteration of the Tories earned a rep for sleaze and corruption. Are the current lot even worse?

Much

Indeed, fairly run of the mill hanky panky and causal brown envelope stuff, nothing like the industrial levels of corruption and vile behaviour the current lot engage in on a daily basis.

[C69]

If Michelle Moan goes down I wouldn't be surprised if she takes a few down with her.
She seems to be being thrown under the bus by Ministers ATM so let's see the sparks fly.

[_Os_]

I have no interest in looking more deeply into this than what's on this forum. But that looks like a hole in one to me. Measuring skulls with callipers to determine race isn't real science.

It looks like an attempt at gaining historic legitimacy for the UK's current demographics. In 1350-1400 London wouldn't have been particularly important, Paris/Genoa/Milan/Naples/Granada/Venice were all larger cities in Europe and there were larger cities than all those in Asia. London and England/Britain only gained importance from the 17th century onwards with the colonial era, it was a backwater before and probably a bit of a shithole. In 1350-1400 London wasn't at the heart of an empire or former empire, wasn't a big player in a global trading network, and wasn't even part of a British Isles that was widely using (standardised) English. I have no clue why London would have a racially diverse population at that time.

Such as it was, it'd mostly be random sailors picked up and dropped off over time.

I think you're slightly underselling England's pre 17th century importance. Perhaps not such a global power, but as a regional one in Western Europe we were at the heart of an awful lot. The 100 years war was something of a significant conflict and for several decades England owned almost half of France. Henry VIII really cranked the bellows on the Reformation in its nascent stages and we spent most of the 1500s following his reign with Spain, the regional power as the home of the century's Holy Roman emperors, either trying to fuck (/marry into our Royal family) or fight us.

The modern national identities of England and France probably started with the outcome of the hundred years war, it's easy to imagine they would've been different had the outcome of that war been different. Do you think the Plantagenets were more French who owned England, or more English who owned part of France? Their home language was French at the start of the hundred years war, before they lost their French lands. Richard the Lionheart spoke French and probably spent most of his time in France.

England's contest with Spain was about religion, but also control of the wealth coming from the new world into Europe (think of Elizabeth I's privateers). Spain and Portugal had global empires by the end of the 16th century, England did not, instead England raided them. Losing that contest would've meant England being as poor as Spain and Portugal later became. And that really gets into the point I was making.

[Paddington Bear]

You only need to look at the surviving structures from the English medieval period to see that this was no backwater, it was a wealthy and well run society. And this is accounting for all that was lost in the dissolution of the monasteries.

Any fictional migrant would've travelled through wealthier places with larger cities to reach Britain, the route would've been something like Cairo>Venice>Genoa>Paris all larger than London, then onto London for reasons unknown. During that time there's constant involvement of the French in England, and the final outcome of the 100 years war (Plantagenet defeat) is a leading cause for the Wars of the Roses (Plantagenet's lose control over the houses of York and Lancaster). I'm compacting a lot into not much space, but if England is doing exceptionally well in this time it's odd that it's basically fighting in a French civil war (this usually happens when vassals are used in the civil war) on the losing side, and then having a civil war amongst the English in the aftermath.

Meanwhile somewhere like Venice is made from brick and stone, hence the entire city being a world heritage site. In the UK castles and cathedrals made of stone survive (it's usually individual buildings that are world heritage sites in the UK), not so much the buildings surrounding them most people were living in. Winchester/York/Durham/Oxford are a lot of things, but they're not large. It seems unlikely to me an African peasant in those times would've got on the internet, seen the living conditions of peasants in England being approximately the same, and decided to save up for the airfare (I know you don't actually dispute this part).

Look I think we’re in agreement with a lot of stuff on this, it just isn’t fair to describe Medieval England as a backwater shithole. The fact that it isn’t true is all the more impressive given the ubiquity of war during the time period. Lincoln Cathedral was the tallest building in the world around this time, it’s size, the ornate design inside an out etc is a projection of power and wealth. It’s far from alone.

It’s also worth pointing out a hell of a lot of medieval England has been demolished in a way that didn’t quite happen in Italy for various reasons.

England wasn’t the centre of the universe, but it was a remarkably cohesive, well run state of its period. English peasants had *comparatively* decent earning potential, diets, living conditions and levels of freedom. To even stand toe to toe with the French crown (France being much larger and populous than England/Britain until the industrial revolution) was a demonstration of this.

[Insane_Homer]

If Michelle Moan goes down I wouldn't be surprised if she takes a few down with her.
She seems to be being thrown under the bus by Ministers ATM so let's see the sparks fly.

IMG_20231218_151128_562.jpg (87.86 KiB) Viewed 2356 times

[GuLi]

I just watched this interview of Dominic Grieve. No real hot topics, but an interesting ex-insider's view, to me.

[Hal Jordan]

If Michelle Moan goes down I wouldn't be surprised if she takes a few down with her.
She seems to be being thrown under the bus by Ministers ATM so let's see the sparks fly.

IMG_20231218_151128_562.jpg

Cutting each other's throats.

You hate to see it, they were all such good chums.

[tabascoboy]

"We hold all the cards" #12075648

Biden ditches trade deal talks with Britain

Joe Biden has shelved plans for a pact with Britain that could have paved the way for a full post-Brexit trade deal.

The US president has decided not to move forward with a “foundational” agreement prepared by the US Trade Representative’s Office, which would have included negotiations over 11 areas of trade and regulation, following opposition from his party in the Senate.

Senate Democrats argued that the agreement would not have provided sufficient protection for American workers, Politico reported.

The UK’s hopes for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US date from before the Brexit referendum, and faced an early setback when Barack Obama told voters that Britain would go to “the back of the queue” for a deal if it left the EU.

But despite US support for an FTA in the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency in 2016, the chance of a deal has now fallen to “zero” under Mr Biden, the Government believes.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/ ... h-britain/

[Insane_Homer]

IMG_20231218_180146_336~2.jpg (159.49 KiB) Viewed 2237 times

[C69]

IMG_20231218_180146_336~2.jpg

Yip told you so. She will be pissed off at losing her HOL place.
She won't give a toss about throwing Rishi under the bus.
Btw I would...

[sturginho]

IMG_20231218_180146_336~2.jpg

Yip told you so. She will be pissed off at losing her HOL place.
She won't give a toss about throwing Rishi under the bus.
Btw I would...

They won't kick her out of the lords will they? (Is it even possible to do so?)

[C69]

IMG_20231218_180146_336~2.jpg

Yip told you so. She will be pissed off at losing her HOL place.
She won't give a toss about throwing Rishi under the bus.
Btw I would...

They won't kick her out of the lords will they? (Is it even possible to do so?)

Criminal investigation first. Lots of bodies are going down the river. She literally thinks she did nothing wrong and said she others in the Lord's did just the same.

[fishfoodie]

IMG_20231218_180146_336~2.jpg

Yip told you so. She will be pissed off at losing her HOL place.
She won't give a toss about throwing Rishi under the bus.
Btw I would...

They won't kick her out of the lords will they? (Is it even possible to do so?)

Yep !, peerages are revocable by Act of Parliment, which is just as well considering the scum the blonde blubber mountain handed them to.

[Insane_Homer]

Oopsies

Screenshot_20231219-122208.png (849.51 KiB) Viewed 2037 times

[SaintK]

Yep..........like rats in a sack

[sturginho]

[tabascoboy]

Well I am sure this would be no setback to our glorious leaders, Rwanda is a safe country and all...

Tshisekedi: I am Going to Declare War on Rwanda

The UN recently warned that rising regional tensions between the DRC and Rwanda were increasing the risk of direct military confrontation that could involve Burundi

Tshisekedi’s direct threat against Rwanda underscores the fast-deteriorating relations between the two countries.

“Paul Kagame can play with everyone, but not with Félix Tshisekedi,” said Tshisekedi.

Bintou Keita, Special Representative of the Secretary-General to DRC, recently warned that “the restive North Kivu province has witnessed a further deterioration in the security situation, with rising regional tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, increasing the risk of direct military confrontation that could involve Burundi.”

[lemonhead]

Was a time when I'd see it this way but right now, these grifting twats still run the country and running the clock down right to the end.

Sincerely wish they'd just feck off the stage.

[tabascoboy]

Another one gone!

Peter Bone MP loses seat as recall petition triggers by-election

MP Peter Bone has lost his seat after a recall petition, meaning a by-election will be held early next year. The recall petition was held after he was suspended as an MP over bullying and sexual misconduct allegations, which he denies.

Mr Bone turned Wellingborough in Northamptonshire into a safe Tory seat after becoming its MP in 2005. But the by-election will be seen as a tough test for Rishi Sunak, with the Tories trailing Labour in the polls.

Mr Bone was suspended from the Conservative Party, after having the whip removed, and was sitting as an independent.

A suspension of more than 10 days - if passed by the House of Commons - triggers a recall petition.

Last month, an investigation by Parliament's behavioural watchdog, the Independent Expert Panel, found Mr Bone broke sexual misconduct rules by indecently exposing himself to a staff member during an overseas trip.

It also upheld five allegations of bullying, including verbally belittling the member of staff, physically striking him and throwing things at him.

Mr Bone appealed against the investigation's findings, arguing it had been flawed. However, his appeal was dismissed.

[C69]

I suppose there will be another by election with the dishonest cunt from Blackpool South.
Roll on for a GE. If Farage wanted to he could destroy the Tory Party.

[sturginho]

Was a time when I'd see it this way but right now, these grifting twats still run the country and running the clock down right to the end.

Sincerely wish they'd just feck off the stage.

Of course, same here, I'm just hoping that them openly admitting how corrupt they are might finally start to move the needle in the polls