In case anyone thinks I'm not impartial, I'm not at all impressed with the way the Tories are dealing with Brandon Lewis's apparent pairing deception. "Mistake" doesn't answer it. Dirty dogs at play
I was only having a laff Goldie. Does one’s background preclude one from joining the metropolitan elite, regardless of education, profession, wealth, personal tastes etc? Perhaps I have been giving myself airs I cannot justify as the son of parents who both left education at 15. but at least we will have grounds to kick them out when our inept and underfunded immigration services eventually catch up with them, presumably when they try and claim a pension.
Jacob R-M would agree with you. You can hardly blame Raab for winning a place at Oxford. I've always been impressed with him and think he'll do well in his new role.
I know you were, Stan, but you raised a fair question. Your parents' example shows just what a great opportunity we have had since, to go on to further education. My own father had a pretty rocky education in various state schools around London (my grandparents moved several times with my grandfather's job) and then in a small Welsh village school after he was evacuated to the family farm. He had enough about him to become a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm in 1944, something my mother's brother (who went to Cambridge) tried and failed to do!
Now I’m confused. It seems that if we cannot find an agreed ‘backstop’ for the Irish border soon we really will crash out of the EU next March, no transitional period, nothing. Presumably, because this is part of the exit agreement, we would also not pay what we have agreed we owe and not feel obliged to offer EU citizens living here any rights. Get your skates on Dom, if we are going to have a hard Brexit at least let’s have a managed one. EU govts stepping up preparations for a no deal Brexit, Dutch recruiting thousands more police and customs officials to make sure Rotterdam port keeps moving. As I noted earlier in this thread, our govt said it was going to do this, but HMRC numbers have actually declined.
Now now WLW I think you’ll find THAT story and the one about Mushy peas are based on fact as is the one on certain flavours Crisps and on various other foodstuffs and please don’t assume I’m a moron who has been fooled by the daily fail, I get my news ( notable events weather sport ) via euro news, Al Jazeera and France 24 not the Biased British broadcasting and manipulated tabloid press thank you very much.
Just to set the matter straight about bananas (no pun intented). Commission regulation 2257/94 decreed that bananas in general should be ''free from malformation or abnormal curvature''. Those sold as ''extra class'' must be perfect, class 1 can have slight defects and class 2 can have full scale ''defects of shape''. Nothing is banned under the regulation, which sets grading rules requested by industry to make sure importers - including UK. wholesalers and supermarkets know exactly what they will be getting. Bananas have always been classified by quality and size for international trade and before the EU. came into existence the British government was involved in such regulation - the EU. has spared us such a chore. Just to set the matter straight. But, as Bojo said when a journalist, ''Never let the truth get in the way of a good story''.
Here you go. Believe whatever you like. https://news.sky.com/story/the-top-10-european-union-myths-debunked-10404440 The EU has debunked another 390 of these bits of drivel spewed out by elements of the British media. Prawn cocktail crisps was a favourite of Boris Johnson, even though they were omitted from a list because the UK government forgot to include them and as soon as the EU was informed they were added. Most of these things are about safety and standards. If you go into any grocery in France, Spain or Italy you will find odd shaped and coloured vegetables and fruits of all sizes. They tend to taste a lot better than the standardised shrink wrapped stuff you get in British supermarkets, but the retailers here have decided we want identical tomatoes, not tasty ones.
I find it absolutely disgusting that the EU impose all these laws/orders on us that our own government can veto. The list is beginningless!!
Poetry Corner Students at Manchester Uni have erased the poem If by Rudyard Kipling which was painted on the wall of their Students Union, and replaced it with one by Maya Angelou. I don’t think that they object to the poem If itself, but rather the author. If, which distils the essence of the British stiff upper lip, in fact, has got an interesting background, written in honour of a British mercenary, Leander Starr Jameson (its worth reading his wiki entry) who led a raid on Boer Transvaal, probably contributing to the second Boer War, and who was punished (and pardoned) by the British government. Kipling himself of course is a handy symbol of all that was ‘wrong’ with the British Empire. Some of his work is patronising to non Europeans at best, racist at worst - in today’s terms. I find a lot of it kind of cheesy, but it’s interesting in historical terms and his story The Man Who Would be King is great. I can only assume that whoever decided to write the poem on the wall of the Union did so in complete ignorance of who wrote it and how it might be felt inappropriate by some. I can certainly understand that some students would be made uncomfortable by it, and it should probably never have been there in the first place (bit different to the Rhodes stuff). However, some of the arguments they were putting forward were the exact opposite of the understanding they were asking for, an attempt to blank out a bit of history and all the context around it, unless they can use it to somehow bolster their feelings of injustice and victim hood. The rights and wrongs of Empire aside, the intellectual calibre of some students makes me despair.
I have just got home and tired but the last 3 pages look really tasty to comment on (by all). Will have to leave it tonight as I want to watch This Week with my old mate of 25 years Michael 'Porthole' Portillo. Shame he is not a QPR fan.
Once again you have to resort to being the class clown, taking the proverbial piss out of everything somebody says and trying your hardest to make them look stupid and make yourself look smart, me personally I will remember what my dad says about such folk.......... “ Never underestimate the stupidity of a complete f****ing moron “
