Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[Nearholmer]

Our other soft underbelly is Scots Nationalism, of course, with Welsh Nationalism waiting in the wings. Chisel us down into ever smaller pieces, until we have every individual standing in their own square foot (or tenth of a square metre) bit of soil, waving their personal flag.

[CKPR]

On 23/04/2024 at 16:46, Nearholmer said:

Our other soft underbelly is Scots Nationalism, of course, with Welsh Nationalism waiting in the wings. Chisel us down into ever smaller pieces, until we have every individual standing in their own square foot (or tenth of a square metre) bit of soil, waving their personal flag.

My family background is Scottish on my Nordic-identifying mum's side, and Anglo-Dutch on my dad's side, the latter via a diversion into the old Anglo-Irish aristocracy. On top of which, we're Northern and there's nowt we can do about that. Given all of this, I therefore regard myself as British and that's the end of the matter.

 

Then again, there was the time when I worked at a northern university and my colleague and I, who both regarded ourselves as just British, were so fed up of the micro-identities the university was determined to map us on to that she put her ethnic origin as 'Cymric-Niger' and I put 'Brigantian'. You guessed it, we actually showed up in the published dataset and I was asked to sit on the ethnic minority staff consultation & advisory group as I was the first Brigantian who had ever worked there... I politely declined, saying that I was sure that there must be others.

Edited April 24 by CKPR

[Caley Jim]

For the avoidance of doubt, I am a proud Scot and also pleased to have just received my new passport confirming that I am a British Citizen!

 

Jim

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Caley Jim said:

For the avoidance of doubt, I am a proud Scot and also pleased to have just received my new passport confirming that I am a British Citizen!

 

My Bishopbriggs uncle and aunt, both from south of the border, for many years never voted as their votes would have cancelled out - he Labour, she Conservative. But once the SNP became a significant force, they both started voting - he Labour, she Conservative...

[monkeysarefun]

I can wholly recommend the Southern Hemisphere,  we haven't  started a single world war and looking at  tripadvisor reviews, places south of the equator  generally get more stars.

 

And if you ignore much of Sth America and Africa, there are less dictators per  capita.

[CKPR]

5 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

I can wholly recommend the Southern Hemisphere,  we haven't  started a single world war and looking at  tripadvisor reviews, places south of the equator  generally get more stars.

 

And if you ignore much of Sth America and Africa, there are less dictators per  capita.

Yeah but enormous spiders...

[uax6]

I've always had a very difficult time when it comes to filling out forms which describe my Nationality. I was born in England, but I've never thought of myself as English, always as British, and to a certain extent I find myself cringe when the choice means I have to put English. 

 

Andy G

[Nearholmer]

I think that “English” as an identity has acquired a serious amount of toxicity, which means it’s very difficult for many of us to identify with it, which becomes very apparent in the lead-up to St George’s Day every year, and more so with each passing year. I’m afraid that to quite a large extent Englishness as an identity has been captured by petty nationalists, bonkers-past-golden-agers, xenophobes, and racists. 
 

If somebody holding a flag can tell me that said flag symbolises a genuine effort to live by a set of values that I can espouse, then I can “get behind it”, but right now we seem to have a choice between Britishness, which has been so sullied by the current government that it needs to be put through the washing machine several times, and Englishness, stained filthy with gammon-dripping. Britishness is, I think recoverable; Englishness, I’m less sure about.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 26 by Nearholmer

[GMKAT7]

Good morning folks,

 

Although my dad's family originated in Ireland and my mum's had a flirtation with Botany Bay, for at least three generations both sides were born and lived in England (Kent, then the Midlands).

 

Wherever it is possible I identify as English.

England is my football, rugby and cricket team.

 

I resent the distortion of 'English values ' by the Sun-toting gammons and agree that the likes of Tommy Robinson, et al give English a toxicity it doesn't deserve.

 

Cheers, Nigel.

[Compound2632]

Many years ago, at a student production of HMS Pinafore, the lead tenor was Welsh; throughout the chorus 'For he is an Englishman' he was frantically waving the Welsh flag.

 

I do think that any sensible person living in a country commonly known as 'yuck' is bound to have a rather sceptical view of nationalism. 

[alastairq]

When working{?} as a civil servant [ a loose description indeed]....I was tickled by the habit of the CS to regularly demand to know my ethnicity.

 

Usually came around every year or so [depending on which comic had pressed the wrong key somewhere in Cheshire, or Bath..and deleted everybody's personal records....?]!

 

I mean, to someone who spent the previous 25 years as a bus driver, the concept of being able to alter one's ethnicity at the stroke of a computer key was amusing to say the least. [Not having been or never likely to be, a desk wallah, I failed to understand the intricacies involved]

 

Even more amazing to my limited intellect was the fact that, in a job where I came under regular scrutiny from the security brigade, the fact that I had suddenly become Chinese seemed to escape them....

 

Nobody ever uttered a bean, when I completely changed my ethnicity every other year or so.....

 

The same when we had to fill in security forms now &  then.....

Most of us had real problems getting through the forms, which would not allow us to progress until the previous pages had been completed satisfactorily...

 

A real problem as most of us had parents who were long deceased.....but the format didn't recognise that fact [presuming, I suppose, we were all 20-somethings fresh from Uni?].......and that's where progression stopped....the forms demanded to know where our [deceased] parents lived...

 

Nobody had a postcode for the Pearly Gates...

[Edwardian]

RIP Duane Eddy

 

 

[SteamAle]

Alastariq, I too worked for the Service, in the MOD.

Being born and brought up in Cumberland I entered White Cumbrian. It was accepted as a White minority. Somewhere I have the paper copy they sent me recording the fact and I have always declared myself as a member of a White Minority ever since.

Remember though that Cumberland has been a part of Scotland, for longer than it has been in England. Now what nationality am I really?

[Edwardian]

RIP Richard Tandy

 

 

[wagonman]

As one who is ethnically and culturally part Scots, part French, part Irish ... and wholly English, I am constantly bemused by the desire to celebrate a Roman soldier of Cappadocian origin who probably never came within 2000 miles of this septic Isle.

 

If push comes to shove I just say I'm a Londoner.

 

 

 

Richard

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, wagonman said:

I am constantly bemused by the desire to celebrate a Roman soldier of Cappadocian origin who probably never came within 2000 miles of this septic Isle.

 

Ah, well, you see, he had the forethought to be martyred on Shakespeare's birthday. Takes some planning.

[CKPR]

On 02/05/2024 at 11:02, SteamAle said:

 White Cumbrian

White ? We're more of an overcast slate grey !

[alastairq]

10 hours ago, CKPR said:

White ? We're more of an overcast slate grey !

 I think the description ''hairy'' might be added to that?

[CKPR]

5 hours ago, alastairq said:

 I think the description ''hairy'' might be added to that?

Woolly more like !

[SteamAle]

Must be a herdwick then!

[Edwardian]

 

Once again indulging in what the admittedly batty magical thinking left of the Labour Party inelegantly dubs "flag-sh@gging", Labour Leader Drear Starmer greets a member of British Airways cabin crew the latest Labour MP.     

 

 

For those of you not blessed to reside on this fractured isle, this dearth of majesty, this seat of farce, this women is someone who knows all about the need to store baggage safely and who is about to demonstrate to Labour how to inflate a life vest.

 

This is Natalie Elphicke MP, Labour member for Dover. Until a few days ago, the Conservative member for Dover. A 2019 entrant, riding on the coat tails of Boris Johnson and part of his pro-BREXIT landslide*, she is not exactly one of your socially liberal, One-Nation caring types. 

 

By their works shall ye know them. According to the website theyworkforyou.com, plucky little Nats:

• Consistently voted against improving biodiversity
• Consistently voted against improving environmental water quality
• Consistently voted against improving air quality
• Generally voted against measures to prevent climate change
• Consistently voted against stronger fire safety measures
• Consistently voted against more proscriptive planning laws
• Consistently voted against landlords paying for the costs of building safety works
• Consistently voted for restricting the scope of legal aid
• Consistently voted against higher taxes on banks
• Consistently voted for more restrictive regulation of trade union activity
• Consistently voted against raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax
• Consistently voted for increasing the state pension age
• Consistently voted against reducing the maximum amount an individual may be required to contribute to their social care costs
• Generally voted against more powers for local councils
• Voted against a lower voting age
• Consistently voted for photographic voter identification at polling stations
• Consistently voted for making it easier to remove someone's British citizenship
• Almost always voted for stronger laws and enforcement of immigration rules
• Consistently voted for a stricter asylum system
• Voted for mass surveillance of people’s communications and activities
• Consistently voted for authorising criminal conduct by undercover officers and covert sources
• Generally voted against fewer obstacles for access to abortion
• Consistently voted against laws to promote equality and human rights

Labour chair Anneliese Dodds said the Dover MP was a "good, natural fit" for her party.

 

According to the New Statesman, as Steve Baker, the government’s Northern Ireland Minister and erstwhile champion of the Tory Eurosceptics, noted on Twitter: “I have been searching in vain for a Conservative MP who thinks themself to the right of Natalie Elphicke." So, Elphicke appears to align ideologically with Labour about as well as one body panel aligned with another on a British Leyland car. 

 

Did I mention baggage? Well, there's Charlie Elphicke, her hubby until 2021 and a former MP. He is also a convicted sex-offender. Kier's latest little helper notoriously tried to play down her husband's conduct on the basis that “Charlie is charming, wealthy, charismatic and successful – attractive, and attracted to, women”. Well, that's OK then. Unfortunately the courts were on "a mission" to do him down.  Our Natalie was having none of that, however, and was briefly suspended from the House of Commons in 2021 for trying to influence the trial.  

 

Her preoccupation, as MP for the beaches on which we will fight the invading hordes of criminalised asylum seekers, is, of course, immigration. This would seem to make her a perfect fit for the current iteration of the Conservate Party. Labour, on the other hand, were contemptible softies in denial of the existential threat represented by poor brown people who would rather die on the waves than risk becomming French; “When will the Left admit this is no refugee crisis…but simply illegal immigration?" Natalie asked in the distant past of 18 months ago.  “Don’t trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders” she added, just over a year ago.

 

Whether she felt Pritti Patel's "hostile environment" for immigrants was sufficiently hostile, surely she must have simpered contentedly through Suella Deville's ecstatic dreams of 'planes bursting with immigrants winging to Rwanda. And surely, then, Rishi Rich, the man set to make those deportation flights a reality by changing the legal status of Rwanda from an unsafe place to a safe one with the struck of a pen, deserve's her loyalty? 

 

You'd think so, and, last April, Mrs Elphicke evidently thought so. She described the government's Rwanda plan as "world-leading".

 

So what went wrong? 

 

Now she claims she fears legislation to revive the Rwanda plan would not stop small boat crossings. An absence of ecrement, Holmes, I hear you cry.  But this evidently came with the force of a revelation upon Elphicke, who seems to feel now that current Tory immigration policy is not bat-sh1t-crazy enough. Apparently Labour's now is. That scurrilous left-wing rag the Grauniad was tasteless enough to offer an alternative explanation for her defection; Elphicke was stropping out at being denied a cabinet job by Rishi.   

Almost as if they doubted the word of Labour chair Anneliese Dodds, many in the Labour Movement seem to be questioning whether Natalie Elphicke is any kind of fit for Labour's beliefs. Something of a squall is brewing. 

 

However, let's leave the last word to the brave woman at the centre of this storm, the Labour MP, Natalie Elphicke; Labour had "changed out of all recognition" since 2019," she said. My goodness has it!

 

* The act of collective suicide committed by the electorate in 2016 was deemed by them not to be killing the nation's wealth and credibility quickly enough, so Boris was elected to get that done. 

 

 

 

Edited May 13 by Edwardian
Spelling!

[CKPR]

One can only cling to straws about Damascene conversions, Jesus loving the repentent sinner, and...and well...ermm, that's about it really.

Edited May 14 by CKPR

[Compound2632]

Well, yes, having made the Act of Faith the process of catachesis can begin. She'll be singing the Red Flag by October.

[nick_bastable]

on the positive side I will not have to hold my nose to Vote as Dover have chosen a alternative prospect

[Adam88]

5 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Once again indulging in what the admittedly batty magical thinking left of the Labour Party inelegantly dubs "flag-sh@gging", Labour Leader Drear Starmer greets a member of British Airways cabin crew the latest Labour MP.     

 

 

For those of you not blessed to reside on this fractured isle, this dearth of majesty, this seat of farce, this women is someone who knows all about the need to store baggage safely and who is about to demonstrate to Labour how to inflate a life vest.

 

This is Natalie Elphicke MP, Labour member for Dover. Until a few days ago, the Conservative member for Dover. A 2019 entrant, riding on the coat tails of Boris Johnson and part of his pro-BREXIT landslide*, she is not exactly one of your socially liberal, One-Nation caring types. 

 

By their works shall ye know them. According to the website theyworkforyou.com, plucky little Nats:

• Consistently voted against improving biodiversity
• Consistently voted against improving environmental water quality
• Consistently voted against improving air quality
• Generally voted against measures to prevent climate change
• Consistently voted against stronger fire safety measures
• Consistently voted against more proscriptive planning laws
• Consistently voted against landlords paying for the costs of building safety works
• Consistently voted for restricting the scope of legal aid
• Consistently voted against higher taxes on banks
• Consistently voted for more restrictive regulation of trade union activity
• Consistently voted against raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax
• Consistently voted for increasing the state pension age
• Consistently voted against reducing the maximum amount an individual may be required to contribute to their social care costs
• Generally voted against more powers for local councils
• Voted against a lower voting age
• Consistently voted for photographic voter identification at polling stations
• Consistently voted for making it easier to remove someone's British citizenship
• Almost always voted for stronger laws and enforcement of immigration rules
• Consistently voted for a stricter asylum system
• Voted for mass surveillance of people’s communications and activities
• Consistently voted for authorising criminal conduct by undercover officers and covert sources
• Generally voted against fewer obstacles for access to abortion
• Consistently voted against laws to promote equality and human rights

Labour chair Anneliese Dodds said the Dover MP was a "good, natural fit" for her party.

 

According to the New Statesman, as Steve Baker, the government’s Northern Ireland Minister and erstwhile champion of the Tory Eurosceptics, noted on Twitter: “I have been searching in vain for a Conservative MP who thinks themself to the right of Natalie Elphicke." So, Elphicke appears to align ideologically with Labour about as well as one body panel aligned with another on a British Leyland car. 

 

Did I mention baggage? Well, there's Charlie Elphicke, her hubby until 2021 and a former MP. He is also a convicted sex-offender. Kier's latest little helper notoriously tried to play down her husband's conduct on the basis that “Charlie is charming, wealthy, charismatic and successful – attractive, and attracted to, women”. Well, that's OK then. Unfortunately the courts were on "a mission" to do him down.  Our Natalie was having none of that, however, and was briefly suspended from the House of Commons in 2021 for trying to influence the trial.  

 

Her preoccupation, as MP for the beaches on which we will fight the invading hordes of criminalised asylum seekers, is, of course, immigration. This would seem to make her a perfect fit for the current iteration of the Conservate Party. Labour, on the other hand, were contemptible softies in denial of the existential threat represented by poor brown people who would rather die on the waves than risk becomming French; “When will the Left admit this is no refugee crisis…but simply illegal immigration?" Natalie asked in the distant past of 18 months ago.  “Don’t trust Labour on immigration they really want open borders” she added, just over a year ago.

 

Whether she felt Pritti Patel's "hostile environment" for immigrants was sufficiently hostile, surely she must have simpered contentedly through Suella Deville's ecstatic dreams of 'planes bursting with immigrants winging to Rwanda. And surely, then, Rishi Rich, the man set to make those deportation flights a reality by changing the legal status of Rwanda from an unsafe place to a safe one with the struck of a pen, deserve's her loyalty? 

 

You'd think so, and, last April, Mrs Elphicke evidently thought so. She described the government's Rwanda plan as "world-leading".

 

So what went wrong? 

 

Now she claims she fears legislation to revive the Rwanda plan would not stop small boat crossings. An absence of ecrement, Holmes, I hear you cry.  But this evidently came with the force of a revelation upon Elphicke, who seems to feel now that current Tory immigration policy is not bat-sh1t-crazy enough. Apparently Labour's now is. That scurrilous left-wing rag the Grauniad was tasteless enough to offer an alternative explanation for her defection; Elphicke was stropping out at being denied a cabinet job by Rishi.   

Almost as if they doubted the word of Labour chair Anneliese Dodds, many in the Labour Movement seem to be questioning whether Natalie Elphicke is any kind of fit for Labour's beliefs. Something of a squall is brewing. 

 

However, let's leave the last word to the brave woman at the centre of this storm, the Labour MP, Natalie Elphicke; Labour had "changed out of all recognition" since 2019," she said. My goodness has it!

 

* The act of collective suicide committed by the electorate in 2016 was deemed by them not to be killing the nation's wealth and credibility quickly enough, so Boris was elected to get that done. 

 

 

 

 

I take it that you don't seem to like the woman.