UK Politics - Weeny, Weedy, Weaky

[EnglishEdward]

The Tories have after all their own national anthem: Land of Hope and Glory !

The conservative party does not own it. I am undecided as to my favourite:

Rule Brittania
Land of Hope and Glory
Old Langs Ayne
The National Anthem
Jerusalem

I am not sure I have got this right, but it looks like Ben and Marc Warner were the data scientists behind Cambridge Analytica, then the Vote Leave Campaign, have been awarded at least seven government contracts worth almost £1m in the space of 18 months, then they were given jobs on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and are now in charge of the COVID tracking app that gives all your data to the government so probably will not work.

I can understand that many hope that application won't work.

Neither George Orwell nor the East German Stasi could dream of
a technological system so ubiquitous that it would, at little cost in live
human monitors, tell the government where its subjects are at all times.

If it does work, the government won't give it up, even if the impact of
Covid 19 fades as people die, catch it or recover or have partial vaccine.

 

[Hrothbern]

The conservative party does not own it. I am undecided as to my favourite:

hm

we are back at the topic of out-group favoritism

If I believe this article of the NewStatesman
BTW did you know that Vera Lynn, the great performer for Land of Hope and Glory, did work hard to get her cockney accent upped to some more convenient posh English ?
On the request of the BBC she poshed up her accent which took her off air for 18 months

How Dame Vera Lynn was told to “posh her accent up”
Radio 2’s 100th-birthday tribute reveals how Lynn was forced to change her voice.

But how did the cockney daughter of a plumber from East Ham end up singing with received pronunciation?
The answer, as ever in Britain, is class. Lynn had no formal musical training, and as she had been performing in working men’s clubs from the age of seven, she was considered closer to a musical-hall crooner than a “proper” singer

The BBC, for which she made her hugely popular radio show Sincerely Yours, requested that she take elocution lessons to “posh her accent up” and even at one point took her show off air for 18 months. “Everybody’s Sweetheart” wasn’t immune from snobbishness, it seems.
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2017/03/how-dame-vera-lynn-was-told-posh-her-accent

 

[EnglishEdward]

Back then regional accents were much more pronounced and anyone with a strong regional
accent would likekly have been incomprehensible to many of those from another region.

In terms of uniting the UK, BBC English was a good thing.

Anyway I prefer the crank theory that Vera Lynn started WW2 to get herself famous.

 

[Hrothbern]

Back then regional accents were much more pronounced and anyone with a strong regional
accent would likekly have been incomprehensible to many of those from another region.

In terms of uniting the UK, BBC English was a good thing.

Anyway I prefer the crank theory that Vera Lynn started WW2 to get herself famous.

She was for sure a clever girl who coming from humble background had firm ideas and actions to propel herself forward... including only singing songs that would not pose problems for the limited range of her voice in octaves (just over two IIRC)

 

[EnglishEdward]

In terms of WW2 music, my favourite is probably Glen Miller's band.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I am not sure I have got this right, but it looks like Ben and Marc Warner were the data scientists behind Cambridge Analytica, then the Vote Leave Campaign, have been awarded at least seven government contracts worth almost £1m in the space of 18 months, then they were given jobs on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and are now in charge of the COVID tracking app that gives all your data to the government so probably will not work.

And Agnew, a government minister, has shares in their company, Faculty. The new establishment is getting its feet under the table.

 

[Ferocitus]

In terms of WW2 music, my favourite is probably Glen Miller's band.

I preferred Fats Waller because My Feet's Too Big.
Sadly, the musicians strike during WW2 meant a lot of music wasn't recorded.

One of my favourite WW2 documentaries starring Burgess Meredith (later famous for his role as The Penguin in the 1960s campy Batman series) and Bob Hope.
Apart from trying to educate GI's how to behave in England there is an absolutely fascinating explanation of why black soldiers were being paid the same as whites.

 

[innonimatu]

As usual with things concerning international politics AEP at the telegraph (the only one worth reading there) has it right:

Under the terms, Britain must accept all rulings of the European Court (ECJ) - the same court deemed on Tuesday to be acting capriciously, ultra vires, and in breach of the Treaties, by the German Verfassungsgericht.
The German judges refused to be bound by the rulings of the ECJ. They warned majestically that member states are “Masters of the Treaties”. They said assaults against “the principles of democracy” by EU institutions acting beyond their powers will not be tolerated.
So we have the spectacle of a German court sweeping aside the ECJ’s assertion of supremacy yet Britain’s Supreme Court must obediently uphold all rulings in this strange neo-colonial limbo. It has become surreal.
I can understand why many - including Brexiteers - think the economic storm of Covid-19 renders a swift exit too risky. But there is no mechanical linkage. Indeed, there are powerful financial and diplomatic reasons to conclude otherwise.
[...]
A year ago it was the UK that was divided and in constitutional chaos. Today the tables are turned. The pandemic has ripped up open the eurozone’s North-South fissures, and indeed other West-East fissures. European solidarity is “a fairy tale” said Serbia’s premier after kissing the Chinese flag (the fool).
The refusal to help Italy with PPE medical kit in those first desperate days in February has had enormous emotional resonance. But it is the slower, more corrosive effects of the Covid aftershock that ultimately matters more.
Germany can borrow for ten years at minus 0.52pc. It can splash €1 trillion euros to keep its productive system whole and to pay for reconstruction. Italy must pay a risk spread of 250 basis points to fight the same shared shock. The southern states dare not spend enough to avert lasting structural damage. They will be left behind by the recovery.
Italians accepted a decade of EU-imposed austerity and surveillance on the implicit understanding that fiscal solidarity and a banking union would come later. Now that solidarity is desperately needed. It has not come. So what is the fundamental EU trade-off? It is no surprise that 53pc of Italians want to leave the EU or the euro or both in the latest CISE survey.
The EU-27 were superficially unified during the Article 50 saga. In this phase of the talks they have competing commercial objectives. The fissures could widen much further. A trade rupture and loss of a €94bn goods surplus with the UK would have asymmetric consequences and compound a crisis that is already existential.
It would be an economic shock for the UK as well but the political calculus is different. The country is not in a structural currency crisis. It is in an artificially-induced economic coma and will come out of that coma. Nor is it self-evident that ‘kitchen sinking’ Brexit costs along with Covid disruption would hit GDP harder than two more years of uncertainty followed by a fresh negotiating cliff-edge.
The US, Japan, and other trading powers would down pens and stop talking seriously to Britain the moment the Government agreed to extend the transition, and again locked into the EU’s trade and tariff system. The EU would have no incentive to agree anything quickly since the status quo suits it perfectly.
The British negotiating request is simple. As Michael Gove told the Commons, it is an “off-the-peg” free trade agreement along the lines of the EU deal with Canada, Korea, or Japan. It is a ‘skinny FTA’ with no tariffs or quotas but nothing special. This could be agreed quickly if the EU wants to agree. The complexity objection is a smokescreen.

But is the brexit endgame even a priority in UK politics right now? Simple inertia kills the EU attempts at keeping the UK submitted to its rules, no agreement no EU rules.

 

[Takhisis]

Back then regional accents were much more pronounced and anyone with a strong regional
accent would likekly have been incomprehensible to many of those from another region.

In terms of uniting the UK, BBC English was a good thing.

Actually accents were much more pronounced as a result of natural selection and there was an intentional (and as of yet ongoing, though less noticeable) drive towards ‘language levelling’.
I can get on ot the whole issue if you want but it might be an infodump; I studied it as part of the English curriculum back years ago in university.

 

[Takhisis]

But is the brexit endgame even a priority in UK politics right now?

Once again I have to answer you with the words ‘basic decency’ here. It's almost a weekly occurrence.

 

[Arakhor]

There is absolutely nothing simple about the British negotiating request, other than perhaps the people submitting it.

 

[AmazonQueen]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coro...er-to-please-stop/ar-BB13HSkK?ocid=spartanntp

Getting Trumpian now. We have higher deaths because we are world leaders in collecting statistics!

 

[Hrothbern]

Government promised 100,000 tests per day.
Then the miracle happened one day: 120,000 tests
After that miracle, the following days the tests went down to around 60,000 a day

What to do ?

yeah... let's get the attention away from that 100,000 and promise that the goal is now 200,000 per day in a couple of weeks.
Serial promiser, serial liar, ....

 

[Zardnaar]

Government promised 100,000 tests per day.
Then the miracle happened one day: 120,000 tests
After that miracle, the following days the tests went down to around 60,000 a day

What to do ?

yeah... let's get the attention away from that 100,000 and promise that the goal is now 200,000 per day in a couple of weeks.
Serial promiser, serial liar, ....

View attachment 554825

NZs beating UK by 50% in per capita testing.

Hi BoJo the great grandkids have grown up.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?utm_campaign=homeAdvegas1?

 

[EnglishEdward]

Government promised 100,000 tests per day.
Then the miracle happened one day: 120,000 tests
After that miracle, the following days the tests went down to around 60,000 a day

What to do ?

yeah... let's get the attention away from that 100,000 and promise that the goal is now 200,000 per day in a couple of weeks.

That is promising and measuring inputs not outputs.


Our ministers seem no better at procurement than the NHS civil service.

Shipment of 400,000 protective gowns from Turkey ‘deemed unusable’

A shipment of 400,000 gowns from Turkey has reportedly been
impounded in a warehouse after falling short of UK standards.

The personal protective equipment (PPE) was flown into the UK by the RAF last month
but has been held in a government warehouse near Heathrow, the Daily Telegraph said.

The paper said inspectors deemed the equipment to be faulty.

https://www.aol.co.uk/news/2020/05/...-protective-gowns-from-turkey-a-deemed-unusa/

I suppose it never occurred to them to ask themselves why the Italians (hit harder earlier) did not buy them
OR perhaps send out a suitable quality inspector in the RAF plane out to check them out before loading them.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Making Britain Great again
What a terrible price to pay, maybe its time to stop projecting/scapgoating the EU and take a long hard look at what is the real problem

It's no accident Britain and America are the world's biggest coronavirus losers
The similarities are striking, the conclusions unavoidable. Here in the UK, we comforted ourselves with the belief that while our own buffoonish rightwing leader had his faults, at least he was no Donald Trump. But in the end, Boris Johnson has managed to stumble over even this lowest of hurdles.
As the bodies pile up, the failure of the US and the UK will be somehow spun into victory. The triumphalism will intensify; that is certain. The only question now is how many will continue to believe it.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/10/anglo-american-coronavirus-crisis

 

[EnglishEdward]

The triumphalism will intensify; that is certain.

As far as I can tell, there is very little triumphalism in the UK.
So the Guardian article starts with a false premise, and is nonsense.

Nothing is learnt by reading articles that describe our Prime Minister as buffoonish.
There are lessons to be learnt but such diatribes obstruct that learning process.

 

[Arakhor]

Johnson's entire persona was to be a buffoon, because he (more or less correctly) figured that people would find it amusing. Nowadays, of course, he's finding it harder not to be a buffoon and still project some sort of level of authenticity or gravitas.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Johnson's entire persona was to be a buffoon, because he (more or less correctly) figured that people would find it amusing.

In which case the authors of such articles that refer to him as buffoonish are very neatly falling into his trap.

Nowadays, of course, he's finding it harder not to be a buffoon and still project some sort of level of authenticity or gravitas.

Yes, he is indeed trying the great stateman act.


A number of subtle mistakes were made. For instance the NHS was so concerned about overloading hospitals
it discharged many elderly recovering patients early into care homes in March. Most of them were not checked
for Covid 19. Some had acquired Covid 19 in hospital and it has now spread from them in old people's homes.

They would have been better kept in hospital a little longer, until the capacity was actually needed; and
then discharged via the new Nightingale hospitals that could have better served as a quarantine buffer.

Now I don't blame Boris in person. He was merely following the advice of the leading statisticians and scientists.
He must accept responsibility for following their advice, but then he is not a pandemics modeler or statistics expert.

My point is that articles lambasting Boris, or Hancock or Dominic Cummings, in diatribes obscures fault finding.

 

[Takhisis]

As far as I can tell, there is very little triumphalism in the UK.

Ah-ha…?