UKH

How many people are now ashamed to be English? I'm not including the Scots/Welsh/Irish amongst us because you have at least something to be proud about.

After the nationalistic clusterf#ck of Brexit, the mass murder policies enacted for the COVID response and now the N.Korea policing bill, I for one am truly, deeply ashamed to be English.

Andy F

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Ashamed of many English people and actions in England's name... Yes. Ashamed of BEING English? Of course not. Not much I can do about it.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm not ashamed of being English because in the same way I'm not proud to be English, its an accident of birth and nothing I've ever had any say over.

I've also met enough people from around the world to know that the (government) actions of a nation doesn't define the character of (all) their citizens. 

I'm ashamed of our government, that goes without saying.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

So not draping yourself in Union Jacks or Flags of St George? We've got so much to be proud of.....like contemplating sending asylum seekers to Moldova, Morocco or Ascension Island.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

After listening to Ursual von de Leyen nationalistic speech on the subject of Vaccines I would not be feeling to proud to be German or a member of the EU at the moment. There you go, thread polarised, check in 4 posts, your move.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

O

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm not ashamed of being English at all.  Ashamed of the politicians populating westminster and holyrood..... certainly. 

In reply to J1234:

Oooh, the EU has made a mistake with the vaccine. Big wow.

What about the endless list of disasters by the current government. £37B on track and trace, the borderline fascist police bill, the stunning cronyism of the PPE scandal, the disaster of brexit and the nationalistic flagshagging it's encouraging, the constant lying by every cabinet member etc.

This country and government is the worst it's been in my near 50 year life.

Andy F

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm just proud and feel lucky to call anywhere my home and my origin. Many people don't even have that.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I think it's a fairly big wow for the tens, probably into the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who will die as a result of the EU's vaccine fiasco which seems to lurch from one self inflicted disaster to another.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

EU Colonialism to Queen 3 https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/14039-eu-accused-of-neo-colonialism-in-india...

In reply to Andy Farnell:

English exceptionalism, even in the form you're experiencing, is never a good look.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I agree completely about the government, but do you seriously believe this country and the attitudes of the public are worse than they were in the 70s and 80s?

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Credit where credit is due the vaccine rollout has been pretty successful. Does it balance out the government's other failings? No chance ,but even a broken clock gets it right twice a day.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I don't see that. I got my vaccination today, the AstraZeneca one. I wouldn't have done anywhere else in Europe. My elderly relatives had theirs back in January, when most of Europe still hadn't got around to approving it for use. During the pandemic they've been able to access emergency hospital care, including a non-covid ICU stay, without problems. I've been able to work all through the pandemic, so have most other people I know. So, to be honest, I'm glad I'm English and British. I'm not really into being "proud" but I see no reason to be ashamed. And I'm glad Boris is running things and not Macron or Merkel. 

In reply to Ridge:

specifically, yes

the public voted 66% (I was one of them) to be in Europe in the 1970s.

the public now voted marginally to leave after a campaign of lies and still say this is democracy

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm British.  I've never identified as English.  

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Off you go then. 

In reply to marsbar:

to coin a phrase, "Me too".

In reply to Ridge:

You seem to have jumped 30 years there mate. I'd say attitudes that I come across are *returning* to where they were in 1985, and that is definitely cause for sadness, because the trajectory is backwards. 

In reply to wurzelinzummerset:

So let's see. Apart from vaccine rollout (credit where credit's due, the NHS has been great), which of your other points do you think the UK has done better than either France or Germany, the countries you've chosen as comparisons. Due to entirely avoidable and frankly unforgivably callous government mismanagement, the UK has suffered a higher covid death rate than both of them. One success and all the previous crimes are conveniently forgotten?

In reply to Andy Hardy:

Maybe you are correct there, but that is a symptom, the cause being increasing inequality in our society. 

In reply to J1234:

I think, unless we (somehow or other) fix FPTP we are totally screwed as a nation. We are effectively living in a 1 party state, and that party is owned by rapacious, amoral, capitalism.

In reply to marsbar:

Try asking someone from Scotland or Wales that question and see what they say.

In reply to J1234:

Which in itself is another thing to be ashamed of. The fact that we're one of the richest nations on earth and yet we have some of the worst inequality. That regions of the UK have such high levels of deprivation. That when faced with rebuilding after the financial crash our choice was to take money from the poorest instead of from the better off.

In reply to john arran:

I don't believe it was "callous government mismanagement". Also, I think you're premature to compare deaths in that way and furthermore even if you do so it isn't very useful. You might be better comparing deaths, for example, in cities in each of those countries with a similar population density and demographic. Whatever you do, lots of people are dead in all European countries.

My last sentence was designed to be a bit provocative, as I know how many Boris-haters there are here, but the truth is that all the leaders are constrained by the politics of their own country in how they act.  So, Boris has to keep in mind the nutters on his back benches which may have delayed the lock downs, and Macron has to keep in mind how sceptical his population are about vaccines which has delayed the vaccine roll out. Perhaps, more accurately, I'd have said I'm glad it's Boris and not David Davies or Jacob Rees-Mogg. 

On the subject of "callous government mismanagement" I think some people need to look a bit closer at their own actions before blaming it all on the government. The reality is that a lot of people haven't been following the rules.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I think it was a French general (WW1?) who said that, in the end, Britain is an island and France the cape of a continent. It's odd how people get so worked up about national identities when we're all so genetically mixed and just happen to inhabit a particular patch of earth. I do like my patch and wouldn't want to live elsewhere. I'm not proud or ashamed of an accident of fate though.

In reply to marsbar:

I’m Scottish. I’ve never identified as being British. Along with over 60% of Scots apparently and 75% of young Scots. 

Being British is a peculiarly English thing, generally speaking.

In reply to climbingpixie:

 

Don’t fall for that nonsense about us being the 5th richest nation on earth. I saw a sophisticated analysis of this taking into account lots of factors which that statistic ignored and we came out at 23rd, I think it was.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm not proud of being English. Every day I watch people buy the Mail and the Express with their little England front page and I feel genuinely embarrassed by the insularity. 

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I've a growing sense of pessimism about the direction England (and the countries under it's rule within the UK) is heading, the proposed restrictions on our rights to protest, the increase in WMD's, the reduction in overseas aid, the falling exports to the EU hitting GDP, the government giving the appearance of not caring to adhere to environmental protections, and the jingoism over the vaccine success. Which is additional to the effect of covid19 on the economy, and the historical pattern of intolerance increasing during harsh economic times. This doesn't feel like the decent country I felt I'd grown up in.

Where are we heading to....?

In reply to Graeme G:

The census gives you the option to identify as British or English etc. 

Unless you really are ashamed of where you come from, wouldn't you be as specific as you could be? Actually I am Devonian and proud (can drive a tractor,  know that cream goes on first etc) so if the form gave me that option,  I would have ticked it!

In reply to climbingpixie:

I know many people in the remain camp who are happy to throw around the racist/xenophobe word, however they live in middle class enclaves fenced by property prices, and never come into contact with the clash of cultures that people lower down the socio economic scale come into contact with every day. We live in a society with many fracture lines, financial, educational and of opportunity  and from my observation things are getting worse.

In reply to Timmd:

youtube.com/watch?v=yqLLDZvbG-U&

In reply to arch:

I know.  

In reply to J1234:

Yes. Racism historically came from the top down, with working class areas being more likely to look after slaves who'd escaped. I've always been careful not to tar Brexiters are racist of xenophobic, mainly because life is full of mixtures of people within groups, but also because a well travelled and open minded relative was pro Brexit, without getting around to vote. They seem to feel the EU isn't very left wing in it's economic policies, and lacking a certain element of democracy. I was always quite content with EU membership however, 96% or a little bit more of the times we voted, things went our way, we had other countries who were similarly minded, and it was economically beneficial for us.

In reply to Andy Hardy:

We certainly need change, but I cannot see it happening in my lifetime, the people who are benefitting will resist as for the people at the bottom to come up will mean that some at the upper end will have to come down, thats human nature. Sadly change seems to come about explosively, possibly as AI starts to threaten  lower and middle class occupations in the white collar sector change will come, but what do I know. As a person with an interest in the social sciences I do find it fascinating but I fear for the world of my Grandchild

In reply to Graeme G:

You seem to suggest that 40% of Scots feel themselves to be British hardly then peculiarity English?

The approach of English People to British identify is complex, and a bit counter-intuitive - remainers more likely to feel British, leavers more likely to feel English....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44306737

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Britain is a country lost and I genuinely have no idea how we dump our albatross of empire and world war wins. Until we do we're a menace to ourselves and others.

Jk

In reply to Dave the Rave:

That's the shitness which is present now, the EU isn't as 'off-you-go-able-to' thanks to the people who voted to leave, with them being the people more likely to say that. 

In reply to Wainers44:

My family are from lots of different places.  I could pick the county I was born in, but I don't live there.  I don't feel English and it says British on my paperwork.  

In reply to Timmd:

EU membership works for me, but I will never forget at a tutorial one of my lecturers telling us how he had done an study on the Oldham riots, and most of the class assumed that racism was behind it, Social Sciences courses are very left of centre, and he said not at all, it was dis orientation, the people in those communities where no more racist than anyone else, however as immigrants moved in, the changes dis orientated people and made the fearful. Like I say its easy being a right on remainer in a middle class enclave surrounded by people that you understand, try it in a run down post industrial area surrounded by people speaking and dressing in way alien to you, not quite as easy.

In reply to J1234: That sounds likely, about the sense of disorientation, it can be that one isn't racist, and just has (the sense of) problems with another community which is of a different race, too, though it depends, of course. I think that where there are crime issues related to a certain community, it's not helpful for people to say 'That's racist' if it's a white person saying it who lives close by, because sometimes there will be, just because of certain socio-economic factors having an effect, like they would do on a white community 10 miles up the road (the same drivers towards crime have their effects irrespective of skin colour, that is). I think it only plays into the hands of the intolerant types wanting to get into politics, since they can go along and say 'Nobody listens to you, but we will do'. 

If it wasn't for the bigoted types existing in the first place, it might be easier for people to be comfortable with talking about any problems which exist, and for dialogue within society to be had.

In reply to Timmd:

About 3 years ago I was on a delivery to the west of the Trafford Centre and called in a Lidl, everyone was white, however everyone seemed to be speaking in a Language I could not understand. It was rather disconcerting to feel a stranger in the land I was born in. People tend to confuse immigration with race, but immigrants around the country are different, where I live they are from the Indian sub content but elsewhere they maybe from Africa , Asia, Europe (Poland, Romania etc) and the people with the money move out to where they feel comfortable, but others are trapped and have to deal with it. 

In reply to J1234: Sharrow in Sheffield seems to approach that in quite a positive way, they have a festival and a lantern carnival, and other community events in which people from different backgrounds come together. I think it's one of the poorest, and most diverse neighbourhoods in the city. One gets the sense that people care enough to make things work, the desire for that is present in the school as well, from what I've read and heard about it.

In reply to marsbar:

Well me too really.

If there was a box that said born in Exeter but origin....

Part Irish, married into a family of german Jews who did a runner just before it all got "complicated " (largest understatement of the last century), with a grandad called "Jock" (clue) then I would tick that!!

In reply to Timmd:

I think it’s more the pandemic which would stop people? We’ve been at the fore front of vaccination and most have pulled together in observation of lockdown rules. England is Great. Let’s respect being English and Great British. I love Great Britain. It should be a marketing plan.

In reply to J1234:

How do you work that out when heavily leave voting constituencies tended to have the lowest levels of immigration, much lower than average?

In reply to Graeme G:

That's percentages for primary identity. Most people manage to identify with more than one identity

Not really - most Scots also feel British too

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-44208691

In reply to Timmd:

Of course, I'm sure lots of them weren't. It's probably just a weird coincidence that all my extended family members who voted for Brexit are the racist ones.

In reply to Andy Hardy:

It was in response to the OP's 'worst in nearly 50 years'.

Backwards quite possibly, but not yet worse. 

In reply to Timmd:

I live 100 mtrs from a mosque and near it you could buy a house for £80/90K and 200 mtrs from the wealthiest middle class area, a house at that end of my road has just sold for £1 Million, and I see no integration or mixing. I was chatting with the secretary of the mosque recently, a Barrister, and he said to me that only recently has he come to realise how dis concerting his asian community is to the indigenous white community.

My recomendation is everyone should have Tea and Biscuits, you cannot hate a person you have shared a packet of Custard Creams with.

In reply to J1234:

I agree about disorientation - the loss of industry, changes in social norms and status, communities becoming more disparate. What I don't buy is that this is an actual reaction to immigration so much as a reaction to the constant denigration and victimisation of migrants in the media. If your life is shit and someone tells you it's not your fault, it's because Pavel took your job then you're probably going to have beef with the EU.

In reply to arch:

I'm Edinburgh, Scottish, British and European but most of all I'm myself.

We all have overlapping identities and if anyone isn't aware of that they need to reflect on their identity a bit more carefully really.

In reply to climbingpixie:

Take Cornwall for example, the immigrants are rich people, possibly from London(?), changing the social mix and making houses unaffordable for locals, change and dis orientation, social inequality, race has no part.

In reply to climbingpixie:

There is  also the factor that no one wants to accept that their life is shit because they messed up, so blaming someone else is convient, and this has been played on by politicians for years, falling foul of Godwins law, look at the facists in the late 30s using the Jews as a focus . Its all complex and interwoven, however I do think we have an equality issue in the UK;

In reply to climbingpixie:

If somebody is racist or xenophobic, they're bound to have voted Brexit, but it doesn't mean that all Brexiters are either or both of those. A lefty friend I have (who happens not to be racist) was talking in the pub pre-covid about how there's a lot of reasons for leaving the EU which had nothing to do with what was in the leave campaign, with what she had in mind being economic policies, rather than what Baroness Warsi called the racist tone of the official Vote Leave campaign.

In reply to Wainers44:

Change the Jews to Russian and the rest is much the same for me.  So I don't feel English.  But I haven't stayed in one place enough to pick that either.  

In reply to J1234:

But in the context of brexit it wasn't about the Londoners buying the houses, it was about the Spanish and French pinching the fish and the Eastern Europeans pinching the jobs.

Well that was the rhetoric whipped up by the lets bale out brigade. The people brought it.

Sad thing is that the fish will still be caught by the foreign boats for years (plus the cornish landed fish has lost a chunk of its market), and many of the local producers are struggling for labour as the locals simply don't want to pick daffodils etc.

Now covid means that Cornwall is the most in demand housing market in the land. Just great.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Fuxake.

Scots have nothing in particular to be proud of and you have little to be ashamed of.

Most of us vote the same way as our friends and neighbours and share the same paradigms mainly because it saves thinking about stuff too hard. That other parts of the UK voted differently to the way your bit did is not down to people being smarter or having a better outlook on life after careful personal deliberation, it's just because it is. 

You may also want to reflect on the fact that social attitudes and politics are different in different parts of England. Voting intentions in London are closest to those in Scotland and furthest from the home countries.

In reply to J1234:

Sorry, you might have to explain that one again. I'm not following how Londoners moving to Cornwall relates to the fact that the leave vote is heavily negatively correlated with diversity of communities.

In reply to Wainers44:

Was it, are you sure, what people say and what they say are not always the same.

Now you maybe getting to the truth.

In reply to J1234:

I don't disagree that we have an equality issue. Unfortunately we also have a government who don't give a shit about inequality, who actively created it during the austerity years, and who are quite happy for the rightwing media narrative to blame it all on migrants.

In reply to climbingpixie:

Sorry I have to go now. An interesting conversation.

In reply to climbingpixie:

It’s a be careful what you wish for issue for me. Our armed forces are mainly made up of  folk from broken backgrounds and inequality  and are a little messed up before they start. Look how good we’ve been. We probably would have had a different language if people had just moaned about inequality and also no choice in brexit. Behave.

In reply to Dave the Rave:

I'm sorry, are you saying we should maintain our current social inequalities because it's better for armed forces performance?

In reply to J1234:

Eh? Having seen the build up to us pressing the big red "whatever you do don't press this" button,  on good old Spotlight, it was clear what the key issues were. If you watched the series on the cornish fishing industry recently you will have seen how totally mislead many now feel.  All too late.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm not ashamed to be English at all.  England is a beautiful, interesting and hugely diverse country with lots of great people in it.

I wouldn't use the term *proud* of it either, but that's because I take pride in things I have achieved or chosen, not in things that have happened to me without any of my input or effort.  As I was born here I did not choose my nationality.

I am however strongly of the view that the Government and its "populist" following does not speak for me and I completely reject any association with it.  If I was American I would have felt the same about Trump vs. America itself.

In reply to Timmd:

I live five minutes walk from Sharrow and while it is rather deprived, it is also diverse, with a thriving local culture and community. I am glad to see it. Multiculturalism is our future and we need to embrace that. Being British for me is about saying "people who come from other places and want to live here and join our communities are welcome." I am under no illusions about the problems of racism and anti-immigration we face, but we are at least having a conversation about it and trying to move past.

There's a lot about the UK at the moment to be ashamed of. There's a lot of British people doing a lot to be proud of too mind you. And I also think that if you want to make a country do better, on some level you have to believe it deserves to do better and that's why I am on some level "pro-UK" although I am not what you would call classically patriotic, I don't support the monarchy, don't sing the anthem etc.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

The last five years have certainly changed my view of the people of the country in which I was born and live. It is not the place I thought it was; that has been an upsetting revelation.

In reply to captain paranoia:

What have the people done to upset you so much?

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm English. I'm British. Until recently I was also an EU citizen. Identities are fickle and can change.

The current government is pile of shite. Does that overshadow the entirety of English history, our cultural positives in the arts, music and science? The English language is arguably the most widely used worldwide, these are things to be celebrated.

Do we need to do better, yes, of course we do. But am I ashamed of being English, absolutely not.

In reply to Andrew Wells:

I'm really struggling with this. I just feel so hopeless about our future at the moment. We've got a government who thrive on deceit and division but who are surging ahead in the polls, an opposition who are scared of their own shadow but are still labouring under the illusion they can win under FPTP and an incipient but thriving culture war to get us all screaming at each other whilst our rights to protest or to challenge the executive are whittled away. And this is all set with the backdrop of the threat of climate change, which, despite all the fine words and international agreements, we're currently still on track for a worst case scenario outcome. I'm so glad I haven't had kids, I couldn't imagine lumping innocent children with the future we're on track for.

In reply to climbingpixie:

We have a lot of shit people. But we also have other things too. Every day we see the hard work of health and social care professionals and their genuine attempt to help people. And we see the work we are doing in universities, the science and the art we produce, the genuine freedoms we have, the people who are trying to build communities, the celebrations of multiculturalism, the quality of education compared to what it was...

I think that there is a lot wrong with this country. But there are a lot of people who are also working incredibly hard to make it a better place. And I think that we do need to have good honest looks at ourselves and things like the inequality we allow while some communities are just left behind, the history we often view through very rose tinted glasses, the facts about race and gender and so on that we are struggling to really come to terms with even before we try to resolve them... but I think that we do deserve better and we can do better and we will do better. It's less pride, and more... a sense of hope I suppose, and also an acknowledgement of the efforts of others. And remember that while we vote for our government, we aren't our government.

EDIT: I should say I am not denigrating your sense of upset or suggesting you are wrong or anything. Can certainly appreciate what you are saying. Just my own view.

In reply to captain paranoia:

It’s always been the same mate. You just need to get on with what you’ve got.Let’s not be too naive, eh?

In reply to MG:

Check the census data (link not working at the mo).

61% Scottish only

18% Scottish and British 

8% British only

In reply to Andrew Wells:

FTFY 😉 

In reply to Dave the Rave:

I don't think so. But maybe I've just had the scales removed from my eyes. Whichever, it's disappointing.

In reply to climbingpixie:

Not really. I’m saying that inequalities aren’t always bad for the country and those that have had the shittier end of the stick have done something positive for others and aren’t moaning about their lot. The grass is always greener and all that.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Without being too boring, it started for me with Harry Enfield and his ‘loadsa money’ plasterer. 

In reply to Graeme G:

Don't know about you, but I'm British. You might see yourself as Scottish and that's your business, up to you.

But don't worry, there's plenty of shit things about Scotland for you to be ashamed of too. And plenty of good things to take pride in, should you want to.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

To me, being proud needs to be linked with something I have done or been involved with, like my children. 
 

I spend most of my time with people from Sudan and Eritrea and Afghanistan and.....and they are more proud of their country than we * are of ours.  We have a brilliant education system and democracy and wealth and health.  That’s why so many folk want to come here.  

* substitute England/ish,  Scotland etc.

edit: and Comic Relief, which whilst many naysayers will harp on about ‘we shouldn’t need it blah blah blah’, we always will and it shows we care.  

In reply to climbingpixie:

Get where you are coming from but: “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

English/UK bad at eco stuff but in most other things, massive parts of the world are f*cked compared to us and we are in a privileged position to make a difference. 

In reply to Andrew Wells:

Yeah, but on balance, England def seems to be winning in the ‘shame’ race at the moment. No?

In reply to Andrew Wells:

I'm glad it's not an impression that just I have of Sharrow, I mention it being rather poor, because I think it's a testament to the area that it's cohesive in nature at the same time. It's harder to be nice when life is harder.

I think I'm probably the same, the things which depress me about the UK, do because I want it to be better.

In reply to Graeme G:

When you say "England" what do you mean?

In reply to MonkeyPuzzle:

Not Scottish...

In reply to Wainers44:

There’s also an ‘other’ option which you can tick and then type what’s relevant to you. I didn’t try Devonian but I was able to put European as the answer to that question, so you probably would have been able to.

In reply to Dave the Rave:

Well, that's the premise of capitalism - in order to progress you must have winners, and in order to have winners you must have losers .

Personally, I think we could do better.

In reply to Ridge:

I think the world hating brexit fans of little England are just as bad as the 70's and 80's, but now they have a government and national press that supports their extremist views. And this is what the world sees. Our little England, once great, now a hollow shadow of its former glory.

Andy F

In reply to Dave the Rave:

Typical response from a brexidiot.

Andy F

In reply to Andy Farnell:

On the vaccine front.... The UK is way down the league table of European countries to have full vaccinated people - that is had 2nd jab

In reply to Andy Farnell:

While your tone of response may not be the most helpful, it's nonetheless amazing how often this 'if you don't like it, leave' response is churned out. I suspect that those doing so have no idea how moronic it sounds to anyone who's actually put more than 2 seconds of thought into it. Mainly, such a response implies that even the slightest qualms or discontent with current arrangements cannot or should not be aired, regardless of how unreasonable they may be. And that's not to mention the fact that for most people, the only guaranteed option for relocation outside of the UK that they're proposing people take, has just been removed, to zero benefit and with zero compensation!

In reply to FactorXXX:

The same question applies to "Scottish", I guess. How does one confer shame onto a concept?

I'm English and have some personal traits I could probably change although "shame" would be pushing it. I voted against this government if that's what he means but even if I hadn't I don't think I'd be responsible for everything they did whether I agreed with it or not.

More people voted for other parties than the Tories but FPTP delivers majority governments that way. If we used a PR system and the same number of votes delivered a totally different government do we still have to feel shame or is it dependent on voting system?

He can't mean the land itself, as that just kind of sits there with no choice of what happens on it.

Do we get tainted by the actions of our worst and if so is that in anyway mitigated by the actions of our best?

Do the arseholes sometimes raised to prominence in our media to sell papers/views/clicks have to be taken as representative of England? Does that include 2021 Morrissey but not 1986 Morrissey?

In short, I can't think of a way in which he's not talking out his hoop.

In reply to Wainers44:

The form gives you the option to write that in.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

What's stopping you going to Scotland Wales or N.I. ? Although the SNP is hardly covering itself in glory at the moment and I suspect many Scots feel ashamed to be Scottish.

Al

In reply to john arran:

Especially when it comes from an MP.

Lia Nici MP on Twitter: “Of course if people are not proud to be British, or of our flag or Queen, they don’t have to live in the UK. Perhaps they should move to another country they prefer?”

The irony being that this assumes the ‘other country’, wherever that happens to be, has an open door policy on immigration, something that she’s happy for other countries to have, just not this one.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'd be ashamed if I was dumb enough to let my politics compromise my perceptions of my own nationality.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

One extra thing that you might want to feel ashamed about, is that you shamelessly exercise your freedom to publish hysterical critique of your nation whilst at the same time making comparison of its government to that of North Korea... as if you have any concept of the level of oppression there.

Shame on you!

In reply to Andy Farnell:

People of England, I did think for a time that you were starting to come round to a philosophical position that properly embraced civilisation in a 21st century sort of a way. A way in which you could understand your place in the world, be proud of that place and what you can contribute from that position, and embrace the same political spectrum that has made many of your neighbours the safest and most prosperous countries in the world. 

But no. 

Instead, you have decided to really f*ck this up. 

Please, please, get a grip of yourselves. 

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Remind me which inept, corrupt government rules Scotland, Wales and NI? Oh, the same one response for 'getting brexit done (in the worst possible way)' and the highest number of COVID deaths per capita in the world. Why on earth would any sane person support them and what they have turned this country into? It's now more divided than it had ever been, more broken, isolated and impotent. All because FPTP allowed a minority to vote in the most right-wing government in living history.

Great Britain? Broken Britain is closer to reality. Thanks to brexit and the flagshagging Tories, this country will, in all probability, never be great again. At least not in my lifetime.

Andy F

In reply to Andy Farnell:

You've been duped into being a willing volunteer in the culture wars which are actually a conspiracy to instigate a bloodbath to honour Wodan.

This post is in part true and in part a spoiler to a Neil Gaiman novel and I'm pretty happy with it.

In reply to john arran:

But he's not talking about "the slightest qualms or discontent" he seems to be publicly expressing a deep loathing of everything English so it would be naive to not expect a rigorous kick back from an English based forum.  In any case I don't see a problem with the concept of leaving a place or a situation if it causes you such discomfort, that's a perfectly logical and valid response. Simply moaning and complaining looks like wallowing in self pity. If you don't like a thing do something about it.

Al

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Thanks for keeping us entertained during these difficult times. While our options are so limited, the sight of a grown man soiling himself in public is better than nothing.

Encore! Encore!

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

It really doesn't matter what level of discontent is experienced, the idea that you should not be able to express it is simply wrong. Sure, it would be better were people to describe concrete suggestions as to how things could be improved, but that should not be a prerequisite in expressing one's frustration with any current state of affairs.

Our democratic freedom is underpinned by our freedom to speak out, to demonstrate, and to work actively towards change. Implying that the only real option for those not happy with perceived wrongs in our society is to up sticks and leave is quite simply undemocratic (as well as moronic).

In reply to hokkyokusei:

That will teach me to read stuff properly...!

In reply to john arran:

Of course he can express his feelings, I never suggested otherwise but that doesn't stop it sounding like self indulgent whinging. I also never said he should move,  I simply ASKED why he didn't. If I felt as strongly as he appears to I would.

In reply to EdS:

That's because getting out as many first doses as possible is saving thousands more lives than the small extra benefit of giving second doses to people for whom the first dose will already prevent death or serious illness whilst leaving millions unprotected.

Surely you'd gathered that by now? Or are so so enthralled by the imbecilic nonsense being spouted by Macron, Von der Leyen etc that you're blinded to the obvious success of the UK's first dose priority strategy?

In reply to pec:

You clearly believe the lies spouted by the Tories. The same government responsible for the worst pandemic response in Europe. As you well know, the first dose is not fully vaccinated. The only reason we had to roll out the vaccine so quickly was because we had the highest per capita death rate in the world due to this governments inept policies.

But,  pointing the finger at someone else is a typical Tory/Nazi action.

Andy F

In reply to john arran:

Too true. But in the 'olden days' we did have the option of 'leaving this behind' and striking out for a better life. Since the war, millions have left the uk for the colonies including Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Africa.

This 'better life' for many was spectacularly better, not just in the simple things like sunshine, defined status jobs and access to servants, but also that they got to live in societies with more rigid norms and structures, many of which were based on race along a continuum from Australia's utter contempt for their aboriginal minority to Rhodesia and South Africa's legal or de facto racial segregation of their majorities.

In the last 25 years or more, we have seen a massive return of ex-pats from some of these countries. I can't find a definitive number, but it must be in the many tens of thousands. Many that I have met, are clearly not 'happy' with the way their lives have panned out. They now see the UK as being blighted by the same issues they fought so hard to resist in their colonial days. They literally pine for a return to where 'everyone knew their place' and men could be men, etc.

I'm one of those who too finds the changes in the UK recently as sad as they appear inexplicable. I can't help feel though, that the return of all these mis-contents sitting around and moaning in the golf club bars and on their ex-pat facebook groups has been a huge bolster to similar sentiments which have undoubtedly always existed here.

So be careful about telling people to 'clear off if they don't like it' - you might rue the day they decide to come back!

In reply to Andy Farnell:

If you want some idea about the collective character of a democratic nation, look at its popular media, what it chooses to report on - and more to the point, what it doesn't. Then look at its electoral system. If any or all of that is not synonymous with a functioning democracy, then feeling ashamed of one's own country is not really surprising.

In reply to Wainers44:

Filed myself under British but made quite sure I made the point by also identifying myself as "European" when I filled mine in yesterday. I know. "You lost. Get over it. Treachery!! Etc." 😁

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Aka “love it or leave it”. 
 

The political theorist Jonathan Haidt describes authoritarians as people with a longing for “oneness and sameness” - those who need everyone to respect common authority and to profess shared values. The current spasm of the U.K. right wing, demanding fealty to the flag, the demands for the “shredding” of reports that say things they don’t like, the need to police the foreign, etc, all fits on very well with this description.

”Love it or leave it” is a classic “oneness and sameness” response to an expression of anger and disgust at the things that are supposed to be sacred.

In reply to seankenny:

Just as well it wasn't me who said that then isn't it?

In reply to wurzelinzummerset:

That's a terrible argument.

The govt has the responsibility of making the right policies to control the pandemic, trying to ensure that society can cope, by preserving the NHS, minimising the number of deaths, and minimising the economic impact.

An individual has the responsibility of following the rules. There is nothing an individual could do - not even having a massive house party even though they've got symptoms - that could cause anything like the same impact as govt getting the policy wrong. 

The responsibilities are completely different in character and magnitude, so what you're doing looks like a weak effort to deflect blame from the gvt, which is where responsibility lies.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Why because of a Tory smear campaign, endorsed by a right wing media?

In reply to Andy Clarke1965:

Sorry I do not understand the question. You seem to be saying that a statement, that I did not make, was influenced by a Tory smear campaign and a right wing media? That doesn't make any sense.

In reply to ali k:

Lia Nici MP on Twitter: “Of course if people are not proud to be British, or of our flag or Queen, they don’t have to live in the UK. Perhaps they should move to another country they prefer?”

Private Eye cartoon. Official  at emigration. "No. It's turned into a shitehole is not a valid reason for leaving the country"

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

“Oh you don’t like it, what’s to stop you leaving?” is simply a nice middle class way of expressing the same sentiment. An endorsement of the idea, if you like.

The authors of this theory reckon about a third of voters fall into this category. From your posting history and political stances, I strongly suspect it includes you.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Reading that I'm wondering if you actually know of the brilliantly diverse and talented who live here?

In reply to seankenny:

I didn't say that either. Please refrain from mis-quoting me.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

“What's stopping you going...?” You are absolutely insinuating that if he doesn’t like it, leaving is something he should be considering. I mean, that reply to Andy’s lament is not something that would ever pop into my mind, why should it even be on the table? It is the kind of thing that nationalists, even nice cuddly middle England nationalists, like to throw out there. 
 

In reply to Rog Wilko:

This is a confusion that's rather too prevalent. If you take total wealth (GDP) ignoring population differences then we're 5th or 6th depending on when you ask, and have been for many years: In order it's USA, China, Japan, Germany, UK or France. If you look at GDP per head (nominal or PPP) then we're in the 20's behind numbers of smaller rich European counties (Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland etc) and behind Canada and Australia and some rich mini-states such as Singapore and Qatar. On that measure we're well ahead of China. It's this second measure which is the more relevant if you're talking about our ability to address poverty, and I agree we don't do well.

The same confusion is prevalent when looking at COVID stats. We're told that the UK has the worst total death toll in Europe, which is true, but it's better per head of population than some smaller countries such as Belgium, which is the relevant stat, and worse than some larger non-European countries often cited as coping badly such as USA and Brazil.

Martin

In reply to Martin Hore:

In what way is being the 25th richest nation not being a rich nation?

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Please stop being so cheerful and so optimistic

Mind you, things are bad. I threw a teabag at the bin this morning and it missed

In reply to Jon Stewart:

It's not an argument, it's a two sentence thought at the end of my reply. From what I've seen many firms "covid secure" environments seem to be designed to optimise the airborne transmission of viruses, and a large minority of the population completely ignore things like social distancing and taking basic common-sense precautions, some even taking a perverse pride in doing this. And I don't agree with you on the impact that has had. Across the population that sort of non-compliance can make the difference between the expansion or contraction of cases of covid; and compliance, or future lack of compliance, is something the government will have had to factor in to any decisions. You could get to a point where more and more people increasingly ignore restrictions and lockdowns become less and less useful if you don't carefully manage how they are used. So, maybe they haven't optimised their use, it's easy to say with hindsight, but I don't believe they haven't tried to do what they believe is best within all the constraints imposed on them, and yes some of those constraints are political and probably don't sit too well with people on the left.

In reply to seankenny:

Again out of context, edited and not at all what I was saying. 

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

In reply to seankenny:

You are a troll and I claim my £5.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Really? I’ve made a coherent argument that you’re part of a social group predisposed to certain behaviours and attitudes, based not just on this thread but many other posts. 
 

It’s telling that you quibble about being misquoted rather than making an argument that you’re not an authoritarian. I mean, why do you reach for the “leave” button in this particular case?

In reply to seankenny:

OK I'll bite.  What social group is it that I am a member of?

It's not a quibble.  In some contexts it could be considered malicious slander.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

I’ve explained it above. It’s almost like you’re being outraged without any sense of what it is that you’re being outraged about. Very now!

In reply to seankenny:

I'm outraged at being mis-quoted and mis-represented in order for you to imply that there is something disagreeable about me. It also offends me.  If you cannot see that is the effect you are having I suggest that you take some English classes along with a few lessons in empathy. 

In reply to seankenny:

Why don't you leave him alone.? You're the one coming across like a bullying troll.

In reply to wurzelinzummerset:

I haven't seen a lot of covid malpractice personally (although I'm personally involved in a "balls to covid, let's bend the rules and sell as much as we can in a high risk environment" industry - sanctioned by gvt). The gvt has the job of regulating industry - being clear about what's needed, providing support to enable it, enforcing the rules where they're disregarded. The gvt can be effective or ineffective at creating a covid-safe-as-realistically-possible business environment. There will always be a few lazy bastards who won't comply because they can't be arsed and won't get caught because the chances are too low, but we shouldn't be in the situation where these businesses are driving the cases - that's a failure of regulation.

Absolutely. And Cummingsgate is the classic example of how they stuffed it up. 

Remember this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfrThV6DJu4&ab_channel=Vevivo

If you want people to comply with your rules, you've got to command a position of competence and authority, or you're stuffed. When Boris announced to the nation that he'd been shaking hands with covid patients, just like when Trump suggested injecting bleach, he showed us that he was in an awful long way over his head. And here we are...

I'm surprised that it's only people on the left that the horrific pig's breakfast that's been made of the pandemic from start to finish "doesn't sit well" with. In what sort of universe it is acceptable to pander to complete lunatics who are advocating for the destruction of society, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, and the obliteration of even more livelihoods?

The fact that we are even discussing this on partisan lines makes no sense. All the "lives vs. livelihoods" bullshit has been exposed as nonsense, and the pandemic presents only practical problems. Whether you're left or right, you want the same thing: minimal impact from the pandemic in both health and economic terms, which are entirely yoked together. And so all that's required is competence.

It's completely beyond the limits of my imagination to have lived through the last year and be left thinking "yeah, they did alright - but I guess some on the left won't see it that way".

In reply to Gone for good:

I thought seankenny had a point about suggesting somebody who doesn't like England might move somewhere else, not being an agreeable thing (while being the kind of thing Leave voters might say - and have done), but I'm not sure about the casting of aspersions beyond that, seankenny knows nothing about Al Randell.

In reply to Timmd:

And I would agree with that sentiment. That is the problem. 

If I quoted you as saying "somebody who doesn't like England might move somewhere else" which you undoubtedly did because I cut and pasted it, how would you feel.

Al

In reply to Gone for good:

I have quoted his exact words and explained what I think the background to that is. Al is free to engage or not as he sees fit, but complaining I’ve misquoted him is a little rich. (Actually Al has admitted many times he is compelled to engage, so yanking his chain is probably a little mean on my part, but whatever, love it or leave it is a shitty attitude.)

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Ashamed and dislike are miles apart tho, that’s the thing. I’m making assumptions it’s true, but they are based on what you’ve said, both now and in the past. 

In reply to john arran:

Well said, John.

In reply to seankenny:

Edited quotes without context, as I have just demonstrated, are meaningless and when used as you do demonstrate either extreme stupidity or maliciousness. 

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Perhaps you'd like to explain why the European approach of delayed approval, slow rollout, leaving millions with no protection at all whilst giving some people the marginally higher immunity of a second dose, constantly undermining public confidence in vaccines with irresponsible rhetoric, threatening vaccine 'wars' with other countries, threatening to seize control of vaccine producers facilities, authorizing police raids of vaccine manufacturers plants and constantly attacking the only company in the world who is making a vaccine available to developing countries for no profit is a better approach than the UK's.

I'd prefer it if you gave some scientific reasons to justify your reasoning rather than some self loathing bile.

Christ, you've really got some issues haven't you.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

I quoted the whole of your post, so I’m a little unsure of where this editing comes from. As for the context, the context is you’re a right wing Brexiter, and there is a streak of authoritarianism in that political movement that has been noted by many conservatives as well as those of us that are more left wing. 
 

If that’s incorrect then please do put me right.

Edit: I notice you’re outraged at being described as an authoritarian. Why is that? What is so bad about a need for order and conformity?

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Ashamed at our politicians, the Royal family and the big land owners.  But proud of the working class or at least used to be.

In reply to guffers_hump:

Working class is the flip side of the 1% maybe something to be proud of in the past when it meant a unified struggle for emancipation, dignity and the NHS not so much to be proud of now.

In reply to jethro kiernan:

There were always Alf Garnetts!

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I’m proud to be English because I’m proud of the beautiful country we live in. We have stunning places in close proximity to major towns and cities, we have quaint country towns and villages, we have fantastic high streets with numerous individual shops and cafes, we can walk and cycle along footpaths and bridlepaths freely and safely. 

Yes we also have run down areas and places with high crime rates and unemployment and deprivation. We have a crap government and many racist and bigoted folk too, but, and it’s a big but, we have a country that’s safe.

We often become blinkered by all the negative issues we see day to day but in the scheme of things we live relatively safe lives.  Those poor buggers who live in countries blighted by war and famine, dictatorial leaders or chaotic anarchic societies would love to live in a country such as England. 

It was a the luck of the draw that I was born English and I am proud of that fact. ( I would love to be a permanent resident of Canada though to see my kids, but I’m still proud of being English. ) 

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

I generally keep out of the UKC 'personal back and forth', but he was suggesting things about you which he isn't placed to know. 

I think one can make the mistake of projecting more onto what is written than is warranted, it's something to remember to try and avoid it.

In reply to seankenny:

Please re-paste where you quoted ALL of my post.  I must have missed it. All I saw were edits and out of context editing. Are you sure you are not confusing me with some one else's postings?

If you do and it proves what you are saying I will be the first to apologise. Perhaps you are misinterpreting what I said. I would never tell anyone that if they did not like the way things were they should leave. I've also said that before but you seem to have disregarded that.

In reply to didntcomelast:

"Better than Yemen," always seems such a bloody low bar to me, but it always comes up on these threads. Is that really what our pride amounts to? It's like we are avoiding unflattering comparisions with other countries in north western Europe because we're scared we shall be found wanting.

As for being proud of the countryside, I mean really? It's bloody lovely, but there are some really grim places with absolutely amazing scenery: I interviewed an Afghan woman about giving birth onto some dried mud they'd scattered around the floor of their hut, she nearly died but there was a lovely view out of the door. I'd argue that nationally, we aren't that proud of our countryside - for many years we were the dirty man of Europe - we only pretend to be when it's convenient.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Hi Andy. I voted to remain. I struggled to make my mind up but went with a gut feeling. I lost. Now I’m just making the best of it. I’ve nothing against anyone who voted either way. It is what it is. It won’t change for a while so people’s options are to either make do with the decision, or to leave?

In reply to Ciro:

Im no capitalist.

We could even up the balance for those that need and want it, but amongst them you will find a good percentage who are quite happy with their lot. 

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I'm ashamed to live in a country that elects Johnson as PM, and allows him to appoint ministers like Patel, Hendrick, Schaps and Raab. Ignorant, corrupt and thick. Apparently we voted for them.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

That's not worth being ashamed about really though?

The shame comes if we haven't learned the lesson that a shockingly inept opposition, lead by an unelectable professional protester will allow a lying bunch of incompetents to sneak in while our guard is down.

Once, stupid, let it happen again, shameful. 

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Me:

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

You:

In reply to Andy Farnell:

What's stopping you going to Scotland Wales or N.I. ? Although the SNP is hardly covering itself in glory at the moment and I suspect many Scots feel ashamed to be Scottish.

Al

I admit I played fast and loose with the truth - I missed out your signature.

Now let's look at what else you've written.

You: "I would never tell anyone that if they did not like the way things were they should leave."

Also you: "But he's not talking about "the slightest qualms or discontent" he seems to be publicly expressing a deep loathing of everything English so it would be naive to not expect a rigorous kick back from an English based forum.  In any case I don't see a problem with the concept of leaving a place or a situation if it causes you such discomfort, that's a perfectly logical and valid response."

To me this looks awfully like: "Yeah, you should consider leaving, though I'm not going to tell you to. Just consider it."

Would you have told, say, the Suffragettes, or the Chartists, or the Parliamentarians, that leaving would be "a logical and valid response" to their deep disgust, disappointments and unhappiness at what they saw in their country?

Now you're going to complain that's selective editing of your words, but I'm just taking what you say in its totality. I'd never suggest Andy should leave the country if he doesn't like it - to me it's a ridiculous response, not logical at all. Should every Black Lives Matter campaigner consider leaving the US? Should every Russian who hates Putin leave Russia?

In reply to Timmd:

The way I see it I have 3 choices.

1. Defend myself against what I see as an unjust, unwarranted, unsubstantiated, malicious posts.
2. Fight fire with fire, but that just lowers me to his dismally low level.
3. Ignore him and respond to posts as if he does not exist.

The latter is beginning to look like the best and only option. The man is either a moron or a bully.  Or both?

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

This seems to be a post where he copied and pasted your entire post:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/ashamed_to_be_english-732479?v=...

You asked "What's stopping you going to Scotland Wales or N.I. ?", and made some comnent about the SNP.

He interpreted that to be a form or "if you don't like it, why don't you leave?". Which seems a pretty fair interpretation. It's what seems to have triggered this little spat, where you haven't made an attempt to correct that interpretation.

In reply to Graeme G:

I will be honest with you; I don't think about things in terms of a "shame race" because such a concept is laughable.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Life's probably too short to get caught up in UKC hoohar.

In reply to seankenny:

You will have to do better than that. 

My comments regarding Scotland was a response to someone who had said that any chances of leaving England had been spoiled by brexit i.e. you took it out of that context.

"To me this looks awfully like:"

There in lies your problem. You insist or your interpretation despite my correcting you and quoting, at least twice, that I was NOT and WOULD NOT propose that people should leave. Why are you experiencing difficulty accepting that?

You have made your mind up that I am an unpleasant person and you jump at any and every opportunity to try and prove your point.  I believe you said as much some months ago but despite my efforts to change your mind and my being very conciliatory in that regard you insist and continue in your usual unsympathetic, bullying and personally offensive manner.

I really think it's time you let bygones be bygones.  Get rid of your inaccurate misconceptions about me and lets start again. I'm really not the ogre you make me out to be.  What do you say? Lets put it all down to poor communication between us.

In reply to captain paranoia:

FFS I have twice explicitly stated that I did not and would not tell someone that they should leave the country and I will yet again state that I do NOT condone or agree with that sentiment.

What the hell is the matter with some of you people? Can you not read?

Sorry for the tone but I am getting somewhat exasperated by all this.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

Thanks for the clarification. I read the entire (tedious) exchange, and all I saw was you complaining you had been partially quoted.

In reply to Timmd:

But here’s the offending paragraph:

“The authors of this theory reckon about a third of voters fall into this category. From your posting history and political stances, I strongly suspect it includes you.”

I’ve made it quite clear that this is a hypothesis I’ve made about Al and why. I’ve never made any claim to “know” this about him, rather that based on the evidence, I think that’s his socio-political outlook. We do this about fellow humans all the time. After all, Al has decided I’m a moron, based entirely on my posts, and I always wonder about the bedside manner of Tim, MD.

The question is, why am I unconcerned about that, whereas suggesting Al is a political authoritarian is a deep insult. 

In reply to seankenny:

After all, Al has decided I’m a moron, based entirely on my posts.

Guilty, I can draw no other conclusion based on your outright refusal to accept my clear, explicit declarations.

That's because I have a degree of empathy for other human beings but you seem to relish riding roughshod all over my feelings despite my telling you, on a number of occasions,  I found your comments offensive. I don't care what you think about me but I do object to you publishing such feelings on a public forum.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

So you make a quite clear point: don’t like it, leaving’s a logical option. I merely say this is typical of a certain attitude which is common in wider society and especially amongst people of your political leanings. You then make a big hoohah and decide you didn’t mean that after all. Well, okay. 

But you’ve not got to the crux of the matter - what is so bad about wanting conformity, security and strong leadership? Why do you think an authoritarian disposition is such an insult? 

Uh huh. 

In reply to seankenny:

You’re a bully. 

In reply to Wainers44:

astonishing that you blame other people for the success of the evil

In reply to wercat:

Who was I blaming? Did I say it wasn't my fault?

In reply to Wainers44:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

Yup, my fault. BTW what did you do Mr Werecat?

In reply to seankenny:

I have no problem with conformity, security and strong leadership.  That's why I'm a conservative, with a small c.  Authoritarian has quite different connotations,  but I'm sure you know that.

Well there you go but again selective snippets.  You might however wish to consider your position when others accuse you of being a bully which is of course the ultimate form of authoritarianism.  So it looks like you are the authoritarian and not me.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

I’ve been perfectly civil throughout. I’ve merely asked - because it is a good and I believe illuminating question about our country and its future - as to why being labelled an authoritarian is so upsetting. I’ve been called a troll, a bully and a moron, all for asking a simple question. Compare to Al’s outpourings of bile and invective.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

There you see, wasn’t so hard was it. Now, do you think unity is an important aspect of conformity, ie it’s good to be the same and to be united?

Yes, I’m probably an awful person. Do you see me as an authoritarian in the mould of the Nazis, or am I more a 1939 Soviet? Or perhaps something altogether more exotic, a Year Zero kind of guy?

In reply to seankenny:

I don't know if you are an awful person, I suspect not but I do feel like I have been bullied by you as do others apparently so you may wish to take stock of that.

Shall we start over?  If you believe  I have initiated any bile and invective I apologise but I doubt you can prove that.  Defensive bile and invective? Probably. 

Are you willing to forgive and forget or are we destined to be forever at each others throats?  I really would prefer it to be otherwise.

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

 

When they go low, I go lower is certainly a creed to espouse. 

I’d rather you just answer my questions. After all, you have done so, just by calling me a moron etc etc along the way, so why waste all that time and effort being rude?

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I think you're turning into a brexiteer 😉

They hark back to a golden age, where all children were well behaved and polite, everyone left their doors unlocked because crime didn't exist, the world trembled in awe at the might of Brittania, and dusky hued people knew their place and pledged allegience to the Queen...

A golden age that never existed. This country, in terms of importance, has been in decline for well over a hundred years. Even in it's supposed glorious Victorian age it was pretty much all grinding poverty and widespread child prostitution outside the more genteel areas.

This country has never come to terms with its place in the modern world, we're still fixated on WW2, and we're polarized on that. We're either the saviours of civilisation or a bunch of babykillers flattening German cities for fun, depending on which mythology you buy into. We need to move on.

For what it's worth I agree about this government, it's an absolute disgrace and the worst I can remember, and that includes Thatcher. However it's pointless bemoaning we're not great, we never were, at least not in my lifetime.

Rather than bemoaning a status we never had in my lifetime, I prefer to look forward. How can we get better than we are?

In reply to seankenny:

Not without a commitment to a clean start otherwise we are simply subjecting all the other poor posters to what appears to be our personal war.

I have reached out, on a number of occasions in a conciliatory manner, the ball is now in your court.

In reply to seankenny:

Sorry, but I’m proud of this country and it may be small and insignificant but it’s where I came from and it’s my home.

In reply to didntcomelast:

It’s my home too and I’m proud of many things about it. It’s not at all insignificant. I just think that to say “well, we don’t live in a dictatorial conflict zone” is, given our history and our wealth, an extraordinarily low bar to judge our society by. It’s that kind of mentality that allows our leaders to get away with being rubbish. We should be asking why our educational standards aren’t as good as Finland, why our poor areas are the poorest in NW Europe, why our health outcomes aren’t more like Japan. 

In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

I’d have taken you more seriously if you’d written “the balls now in your court, moron”, but perhaps consistency is over rated. 
 

Anyhow, conformity is an important part of your conservative vision. How should that manifest itself in practice?

In reply to seankenny:

Just had a look at study in 2019, 14% of the U.K. population some 9.5million people was made up of people born outside the U.K.  the majority of those live in London, England. The majority of those actually don’t come from dictatorial conflict zones so the bar must be higher than you suggest as we are attractive to many people from stable developed countries. Something about England must be attractive to them, perhaps we are so used to what we have we don’t see it as others do. Remember the fact the grass is always greener on the other side usually is because it’s had more sh1t dumped on it. 

In reply to didntcomelast:

Hold on. You wrote: “Those poor buggers who live in countries blighted by war and famine, dictatorial leaders or chaotic anarchic societies would love to live in a country such as England.”
That’s your bar, not mine... it just always gets trotted out as a reason to be chuffed about the U.K. and I find it unconvincing. That’s all. 

In reply to Ridge:

Excellent post. 
 
The other side of the coin is that most people do not really understand that their lives are considerably better than previous generations. 

In reply to neilh:

In some ways they are better.

In some ways they are worse.

This is a markedly modern phenomenon though. The last 20 years have really seen the first generations in the UK who are arguably worse off than their parent's generation. Look at home ownership for people in their 20s, level of personal debt, the value of people's pensions. 

People have easier and cheaper access to say, electronics and information. But people don't necessarily have better employment prospects. It is complex.

In reply to seankenny:

I think the vast majority of people would like to live in their home countries, people generally  move because of an inequality of opportunity, a Mexican, Pakistani, Pole, Syrian or whatever would generally prefer to stop in their eponymous country, problem is us in the Global North tend to keep things nice close to home, but go and bugger it up in their homelands, and then the rub is, we get angry when they want to come to the global north, unless obviously there is something in it for us, like stealing trained nurses. The pull factors of the Global North to migrants are IMHO not as powerful as the push factor as a Western Drone strike on your town in Afghanistan, or an EU factory trawler off Senegal pillaging fish or climate changed caused by pollution in the Global North buggering up the job in the Global South.

So if Andy Farnell feels like being ashamed, possibly it should be of being a citizen of the Global North.

In reply to neilh:

Trouble is, we're used to the idea of social progress, and we've seen it go into reverse. First, we've seen the economy fail, so subsequent generations are poorer than their parents. Then the icing on the cake is seeing the progress in social attitudes go into reverse.

So, by the relevant standards, our own standards of our own lifetimes, the country has turned into a shithole. 

In reply to Andy Farnell:

What mass murder policies would those be then? Maybe direct your view to the Jeremy Vine Show?

In reply to Andrew Wells:

Nor do I. It’s just quite interesting how much traction ‘shame’ is gathering in England. And it’s related fallout eg Laurence Fox agenda

In reply to Andy Farnell:

A good thread and interesting reading with a good range of views.
There have been a few threads recently with people praising the government for the vaccine roll out . My take is that the success , and it is incredible , is down to to the NHS being  left to it . If they d have made a b£&llks up of it then it would not have been the governments  fault , sh1t rolls down hill etc . Because it’s been a success then of course “!look at what we ve done “ . It seems more and more we are governed by people ( of both flavours ) who don’t take responsibility for what they’ve done until it’s a success , whilestb  always lining up somebody else to take the fall when it’s not . 

And to answer the OP , no I’m not ashamed to be English , I’m ashamed of what some  English people do but I m struggling to think of a nation that doesn’t have a significant minority of its population that behave in a way I would be ashamed of . I was thinking maybe Norway or Iceland but no , they don’t pass . 

In reply to mike123:

I don't think we can say the success is attributable to the NHS and not to the government. Surely both, to differing degrees? I know it's cool to say the government cannot get anything right ever, but they have got things right in this (e.g. furlough to keep people at home to generate opportunity to roll out vaccines before numbers got totally horrendous). I am not saying the government have not made mistakes here. It's an unprecedented pandemic, and we've become a nation of armchair experts on pandemics, viruses, vaccines, global health and crisis management with the benefit of hindsight. If we are all such experts in what the government should have done to rapidly get rid of coronavirus, why aren't we all working in pandemic control, virology, vaccine development, the WHO and international crisis response management?

In reply to nickinscottishmountains: I tend to agree with you that know body  knew what to do in the face of a pandemic and as such whoever was in charge would have probably done no better . However I do stick by my original comment about the vaccine program . 

In reply to mike123:

 

I think that’s not quite right. We did actually have an idea what to do in a pandemic (they have occurred before, just not here) and whilst every government would have made mistakes, that’s very different from saying other leaders would have been no worse.

This review of a book by Sunday Times investigative journalists is worth a read: https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/11/failures-of-state-review-neve...

Here’s a quote: “Three times it was screamingly obvious that the public would have to stay at home if the virus were to be reined in, and three times Johnson waited and waited: in March, in September and again this winter. The authors cite Imperial College modelling, which found that over the course of the combined 68 days that Johnson hesitated before imposing those three lockdowns, the number of infections that spread across Britain totalled 4.5m. “On each occasion, he had been advised to act immediately.” “

I appreciate that “they’re all the same” and “no one knew” is way more comforting than “we are ruled by cowardly incompetents who let us die because they couldn’t understand the problem facing them”. So as you were, and sleep like innocent babes.

In reply to seankenny:

Once might be excusable, 3 times has a much darker edge to it.

In reply to Andy Hardy:

Indeed. Tho worth remembering that some previous crises, say the Falklands or the financial crash, only gave leaders one chance. 

In reply to Andy Farnell:

This is the sort of miserablist hysterical self loathing bollocks you read in the Guardian every week where there seems there is a queue of opinion writers and BTL pundits here who have no problems spewing out hatchet job pieces that seek to mock, shame or embarrass anyone who holds even the slightest regard for England, it's culture, it's history or the country's sense of national identity. Sure, such views will get you a load of Pavlovian upticks but outside of that echo chamber very few people are 'ashamed' of being English, that does not make them chest thumping Brexiteers or Daily Express readers or that they are incapable of being critical of the governments piss poor response to the pandemic. The UK's counties and towns, it's tribal origins and histories, it's celebrations and traditions, accents and music and food and rivalries and every quirk of culture should be admired and celebrated, and if we were talking about any other nation the left would be doing just that. But instead we get sneering because a minister had the audacity to have the nation's flag on display behind them on a TV interview, something completely normal in most other countries.  I'm not even English but it did not take long for me to see the contempt many on the left have for their country and many of the people in it yet curiously they expect them to vote for their party having just taken a shit on their proverbial lawn. 

In reply to Cú Chullain:

Here here.

The OP smacks of Brexit England is shit and Europe is Utopia.

If anyone should be ashamed, it's Europe.  Take a look at the plight of the Eastern European  Romanis. There is nothing in the same league in Britain to what they are suffering.

In reply to 

Any particular countries ? Geographically we are Europe.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

Did you actually watch the clip or did you lift that straight from Guido Fawkes or one of the other Tory mouthpieces? I remember when the English used to be known for their sense of humour but the po faced rightwing response to some gentle ribbing about the  government's current penchant for prominent displays of patriotism has been pathetic. If it was people on the left complaining they'd be (rightly) derided as snowflakes but when it's the other way round it's apparently serious enough to merit a letter from various MPs to Ofcom.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

Its culture. Its history. Its awkward and difficult to spell language that is one of the central aspects of that culture and history. Sorry, mocking shaming and embarrassing you, because the last time I checked, ripping the piss was something we English rather enjoyed.

That seems rather slavish, and spells the death knell for loads of humour which rips the piss out of the idiotic aspects of our culture. This kind of attitude strikes me as spectacularly un-English. But what would I know, I'm left-wing so my idea of patriotism isn't really patriotism, is it?

He was an idiot attempting to use patriotism to cover up for his government's serial failures. Asking us not to be sarcastic at idiots? Deeply un-English, but again, what would I know?

You've defined unpatriotic purely in terms of the attitudes held by people you don't like. You don't get to define the acceptable ways for me to feel pride in my country.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

 I'm not even English. 

Which minister had the English flag on show? I must have missed that?

In reply to climbingpixie:

Why would I lift anything from Guido Fawkes or the Telegraph? (And by the way I did not vote Tory last time out). I'm perfectly capable of articulating my own views. Yes I have seen the clip, as a stand alone event a couple of BBC presenters gently taking the piss is not the pressing issue, it's the wider narrative from the left that being vaguely patriotic is seen as something to be embarrassed about or fair game to be mocked. Even Starmer recognise this after the collapse of the red wall. Strangely waving Palestinian flags at your party conferences while one of your own MPs tweets sneering  'white van' man derogatory remarks on social media is not a vote winner. As alluded to above, travel around Europe and every public building, square, memorial etc will have that nation's flag perched on top of it, nobody bats an eyelid.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

I think you've missed what's going on with the way the gvt are using the flag in their media appearances - looks like you've been suckered by a particularly unsophisticated con. The gvt are in a very weak position, having flirted with eugenics in their initial approach to the pandemic, then been forced to reject wholesale the libertarian and fiscally prudent ideology that their base support, out of necessity. What the hell can these pieces of shit tell us they stand for? What's left for them to say?

Draping themselves in Union Jacks is a very, very cheap trick, one which no one with a modicum of dignity should fall for. I'd go a step further than sneering and go full Paul Heaton: "I'll crap into your Union Jack, and wrap it round your head".

In reply to Jon Stewart:

I think that you have missed the ambivalence of your average Brit. They couldn't give a shit about being English or British or have great pride in our glorious  nation. A few flags wafting in the wind? No one gives a f*ck pal.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

But it's not about being patriotic, it's about appearing patriotic. One could almost call it virtue signalling. Come on, prior to this administration how often did you see ministers draping their offices in flags or mounting portraits of the queen? That's what people are taking the piss out of.

I don't think they're good things either. But I don't think it's an either/or here. I think it's possible to be patriotic and want your country to do well without feeling the need to shag either the union jack or the Palestinian flag.

In reply to Maggot:

Recent history suggests otherwise.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

What on earth does virtue signalling waving a flag around has to do with patriotism?

Being patriotic isnt about waving a flag around and turning up at armistice day pretending you give a shite and then f*cking off to a nice dinner.  Its about ensuring those troops are properly funded in terms of equipment (as in useful stuff like good body armour and not vanity projects) and, if they get injured serving the country, ensuring they are cared for without needing charity.

Its not about deciding on a version of history which suits you and then sticking to that and declaiming that anyone who dares disagree is unpatriotic.

Its about when, if you are a minister, you take actions to help the country and not people who have donated large sums recently to your party.

Its about actually bothering to be a citizen of the country you own papers in which frequently accuse others of being unpatriotic.

Its about protecting peoples lives and not avoiding lockdown to allow cheltenham to go ahead.

In reply to mondite:

It's not our nationality that shames us it's what we do and what others claim to do in our name that can.

In reply to Cú Chullain:

Exactly this. The guardian is my online news source of choice but it seems to be an ever increasing negativity amplifier. Yes, the government is crap, yes, we need a fairer society but they need to give it a rest on the constant identify politics. All the articles starting with: "Why aren't there more spaces/ films/ historic paintings of (insert vanishingly small minority)?" are getting pretty boring.

All the bollocks about flags at the moment... I'm not a flag waving nationalist but if someone has a flag in their home or out in their garden, so what? I see waaaaaay more French and Norwegian flags (these stick out the most in my holiday memories). The guardian's anti flag agenda is counter productive in promoting the sort of changes they're after. The union flag is an amazing brand, they're aren't many national flags you can print in any colour and still recognise it instantly. Granted the English flag is a bit bland, but still nothing to be ashamed of.

If anyone can recommend an alternative non-brexit supporting news source, let me know!

In reply to Kalna_kaza:

Is it? Genuine question.

I’ve always thought it’s a bit shit. Really ugly. Don’t know why, just never liked it.  Maybe as an identifiable brand? But not for me, I avoid Made in UK whenever I can.

In reply to Graeme G:

Really? You actively avoid homemade/homegrown stuff? Or do you only avoid it if the producer tells you it's from here? But if they didn't tel you it was from here how could you avoid it? Which utopia are you happy to buy from? 

In reply to Graeme G:

I think there might be a bit of Scottish chip on shoulder at play here... 

In reply to Graeme G:

I think so. As a brand it is both distinctive and instantly recognisable. Similar to the VW logo, you know straight away what it is and has an iffy past. 

It never ceases to amaze me when I see it printed on some clothing you might buy on the high street, but in other countries. Less prevalent than the US flag, but it's up there in fame compared to almost any other flag.

I think most non-brits probably think of the queen, big Ben and red phone boxes when they see the union flag rather than Gavin Williams or some other cabinet goon talking crap on a tepid news interview.

Fair enough, Your choice.

Really? Given vast swathes of manufacturing has been outsourced to various parts of Asia over the last 50 years the bulk of what's left is at the higher quality and value end of the spectrum. 

If it's a political rejection then you're soon going to run out of countries which are both 100% "ethical" and produce what you want.

In reply to FactorXXX:

Just a bit. 

In reply to Cú Chullain:

Let me quantify. I was, despite football hooliganism, the many poor governments (mostly, but not always Tory) and outdated colonialism, proud to say I was English.

Proud of our contributions to science, maths, literature, history and culture.

But, as a result of the racist, isolationist and horrifically nationalistic attitude of brexit and right wing press, combined with the superiority complex of the current inept, blatantly lying and authoritarian government have reduced this once outward looking country into a shadow of its former glory.

Andy F

​​

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Regardless of whether you're talking about England specifically or the UK as a whole, I think the idea of "former glory" is a bit of a joke. Unless by "outward looking" you mean "willing to send the Navy around the world and take over other peoples' lands normally with violence and always for profit."

I'm a Labour party member, I work in the public sector, I spent much of my adult life living and working in another European country, and my partner and 2 of my 3 kids are not British citizens because of UK citizenship laws - so I have NO love for our current government. But short of what? - a couple of years from 1997 when the Blair government was ramming money into education and the NHS and trying to abolish the House of Lords but hadn't yet decided to join the US in invading Iraq - I don't see much former glory.

In reply to TobyA:

Advances or creations in medicine (vaccines, operations), technology (TV, telephone, internet), science (Newton, Hawkin, Rutherford), sport (football, rugby, cricket, distance running) have made us massively important on the world stage.

But since Tim Berners-Lee, has any Britain actually added anything on a world scale?

The last 30 years, apart from as you said the added money into the NHS (and education) have been an absolute shambles. We should be embarrassed.

Andy F

In reply to Andy Farnell:

Off the top of my head.

Some of the cloning work eg Dolly is likely to have significant impact.

Deepmind may end up being significant, likewise Graphene

In reply to Andy Farnell:

That's not that much compared to 400 years of rapacious imperialism though is it. Cricket..!? It's not really much compared to the genocide of numerous Australian Aboriginal nations or the Bengal famine is it?

In reply to Kalna_kaza:

VW an iffy past? If you're talking about dieselgate it's a case of " apres eux le deluge".

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Seriously? 

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I moved to this village in 2007. One of my first proper nights out was the semi final of the world cup when England beat France 14-9.
I was wearing an England shirt sitting in the village square with 200 french men. They forced me to stand up for GSTQ and gave me a round of applause.

Nowadays I avoid at all costs trying to tell someone my country of origin because of the sheer embarrassment. My only UK immigrant friends here are Northern Irish, Scottish or have already got French nationality.  I'd love to be like them and be able to show a bit of pride again.

E

In reply to Enty:

On a personal level, I really feel for you guys. Seriously, WTF? Just when you think he can’t get any worse!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56504546

Pretty obvious to post this.

youtube.com/watch?v=VVxYOQS6ggk&

edit: also need to add this. What a field day.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/mar/24/festival-of-brexit-first-ev...

In reply to Enty:

TBH I'd have been embarrassed to wear an England shirt well before 2007 after the antics of the fans.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I mean, the vaccine that most of the world will be using to get out of the current pandemic was designed in Oxford and the UK is one of the biggest funders of Covax.

We aren't just unmitigated shits. But what a lot of people seem to ask is "why don't we dominate technological advances like we once did" well because we are 66.65 million people not over 300 million or over a billion and slowly that is starting to turn us into a "normal" country rather than the remnant of the biggest Empire in the history of the world. And that's fine! 

We are caged by our history in this country. Obsessed with it. We only look back. Well I say; f*ck that. What's the future? What can we do? And the answer is; we can do a lot! 

In reply to Andy Farnell:

First sms was sent on uk GSM network 

First dna database

Dolly the sheep

Graphene

Raspberry pi

Quite a lot of the Mars lander components were uk developed.

Quite a lot of new carbon fibre technologies came from uk aerospace and even F1 racing. 

Even First laptops and a predecessor to the ipod were started in the uk. 

You could also argue what have uk educated people gone to develop elsewhere? 

Edit. I'll add in CERN which has a large uk influence and proved higgs (definitely uk), they also made a potentially ground breaking discovery yesterday. Plus uk based fusion research. 

Edit edit; Dyson! The world's noisiest and least effective hand dryer ever. 

In reply to Andrew Wells:

I’m always impressed that Thatcher said pretty much the same thing. Where did it all go wrong? The Tories of a supposedly bright new future are now stuck in the past.

I agree the UK is a shed load better than most countries in the world. Just sad it’s not significantly better.

In reply to Andrew Wells:

Exactly. Even people who claim to be ashamed of the country and everything about it seem to have bought into the delusion that we should be the greatest nation on earth, and "Everything was better in the past".

Nostalgia is fine, but it's not what it used to be...

Time to move into the end of the 20th century at least (we probably couldn't cope with the 21st just yet).

In reply to Blue Straggler:

I'm not sure if you're denying the involvement of others or being sniffy about my French.......

In reply to Tom Valentine:

It's neither. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Go on, then.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

I think you need to travel  around the globe a bit more, your views are shall we say juandiced and indicate to me you need to broaden your horizons and get out of the UK.Your views are far too English based and narrow. They remind me of a notherners view of what southerners think the north looks likeso to speak.

In reply to TobyA:

The Nuremburg Articles?  There was a major British contribution of a kind that we should try to emulate more.  Obviously out of scope historically

In reply to Ridge:

Are you some kinda of unpatriotic lefty?

In reply to wercat:

Of course there is vast amounts of 'stuff' that the UK (or England) has done that has been 'good', I was being rather trite. My point is that some golden era where we weren't as sh*t as we are now simply isn't true. For the vast majority of people things were worse in the past.

In reply to neilh:

Having spent much of my time in France in recent years but also travelled numerous times for work to other countries in other continents, my experience is that almost nobody I have met has been anything other than amazed at what the UK is currently doing to itself, mainly due to the Brexit vote and the way in which it has been forced through, but the handling of the pandemic that led to the highest death rate in the world is another major point of horror. All I can do is agree with them and meekly disassociate myself from the behaviour of the UK government. In fact, the only foreign people I have met who had a different view were a couple of French communists, who had naïvely decided that anything at all must be better than EU membership, a bit like red wall voters in the UK. I'm not seeing any benefits to those voters so far or even on the horizon.

In reply to john arran:

To be fair we're not actually top of the death rates https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths-worldwide-pe...

I'm not saying fifth isn't bad, but we've got to make more of an effort if we want that top spot.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

Not any more, no, but we were at one point, for quite a while I seem to remember, throughout a time when many people were keeping quite a close eye on such things.

In reply to john arran:

We will just have to agree to disagree.

In reply to Ridge:

Rugby?

E

In reply to neilh:

I've been out of the country for 18 years. I travel through France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and occasionally Belgium.

Seriously, the first time I meet someone non-English and say where I'm from, they crack a stupid English joke.

In about 15 minutes I'll be out on my cycling club run. I can guarantee you there will be Johnson / Brexit piss taking.

E

In reply to TobyA:

'For the vast majority of people things were worse in the past.'

In material terms yes of course - I was there! In terms of belief in progress, a belief in the rule of law, a belief in the probity of government - I'm not so sure. Even Private Eye wouldn't have had the nerve to propose a clown like Bunter as PM, or his appalling cabinet of 2nd raters recruited only for their loyalty to him. The likes of Patel, Raab, Schapps, Jenrick are beyond parody, with their corruption, illegality, and incompetence. 

In reply to Enty:

I understand that and from a pro Europe view point I agree. But if you travel round Asian countries they have a completely different perspective, and even in the USA/Mexico it is the same.Outside the EU people really do not have any understanding of the concept and ideas.And if you sit down with Americans and talk about it it is a real eye opener.

It all depends of course on the bubble in which you operate,who you meet and whether their lives are impacted by it. To most its completely irrelevant.That can come quite a shock to people within the EU and UK who tend to think they are more important than anyone else.It certainly woke me up when I first encountered it.

( are you cycling with Simon W today, I know he was out yesterday )

In reply to Enty:

Ah, sorry. Football.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Presumably not 100 years ago let alone 400!

But in post-war British politics, I think it was much more that the establishment just protected their own more successfully than now. It was into the 80s that we had proven child rapists serving as senior politicians as just one example.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

... or you could say you are proud to live in a country that still respects democracy and has been one of leading countries in terms of vaccine development against Covid.

Or at the very least a country where you are not in danger of being blown up or starved. Go to North Korea and see how much you like it. I find your whining a little pathetic.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Here are some clues

Volkswagen = "peoples' car".

State-owned company was created in Germany in 1937.

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Got it. Plus the fact that adolf approved Porsche's design, I suppose.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

It's all a bit cloudy but people do like to make the association. 

The Mercedes museum in Stuttgart is "hilarious" on this. If you go around the museum you would be forgiven for thinking that there were never any other vehicle manufacturers at all, Mercedes doesn't acknowledge any, apart from a French company which Mercedes always beat in races in the first decade of the 1900s, and Volkswagen, in the "guilt" years - the museum basically acknowledges that it was FORCED to have some association with the Nazis because obviously the best cars were Mercedes which is why you see all those photos of Hitler etc in Mercedes, but "hey we weren't FULL EVIL like Volkswagen"

I mean they don't put it exactly like that but that is what they mean. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Oh dear! BMW hardly covered themselves in glory either, I've just discovered. 

During WW2 they put car production on hold and concentrated on aircraft engines instead, relying mostly on forced labour brought in from concentration camps, this against the wishes of their then director.

Bearing in mind I only just came across  that in  Wikipedia, I think it warrants further reading.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

TBH there won't be a German company that was active in the 30's and 40's that doesn't have a history of concentration camp and slave labour and links to people who drank bottles of Fanta in their nice Hugo Boss uniforms.

In reply to Richard Horn:

'you could say you are proud to live in a country that still respects democracy '

My confidence in that has taken quite a battering over the last 5 years, and if you had any sense you would step back a moment and maybe critically review how 'democratic' some of the largest decisions of my lifetime have been.  Somehow we have got into a situation where not only can the government force through policies that the majority of the population don't support - like Brexit - there doesn't seem any prospect of them being removed; not because of 'democracy' but because of FPTP and gerrymandering electoral boundaries. What representation to Greens, LibDems or even LP members get nowadays?  How committed is Pritti Patel to the rule of law - judging from her own behaviour, not very.

None of us can know how fragile democracy is; it seemed to take quite battering in the US in the last 4 years, with armed militia overturning the decisions of elected representatives and getting away with it; and still within living memory states that were supposed to be democratic were overwhelmed  by dictatorships. There are signs that is happening even within the EU today, Poland and Hungary... We have no grounds for saying it couldn't happen here other than it hasn't ... yet. 

Call that whining if you like, I'd call your attitude complacent.

In reply to Ridge:

probably so. It just gave me a bit of a jolt to read it.

Ford also implicated in Germany but I don't suppose that would bother old Henry with his attitude to Jews.

In reply to Richard Horn:

my faith in democracy in this country has been shattered since I discovered the basis on which major constitutional reforms are now handed over to chance on the day and subject to major subversion of the vote.

Like an adversarial legal system the result (rather than justice in court or, in the case of the constitution, what is a sensible result) depends on the campaign and tactics - clever/expensive lawyers against indifferent lawyers, dishonestly waged campaign using infokrieg as unfamiliar to the other side as the tactics developed in Germany from the 1920s onwards were to the allied generals in 1940.  Might or innovation in argument is not right and this was rendered effective because not one politician was grown up or educated enough to know that the constitution cannot be overturned by marginal results if a state has any pretension to be an advanced modern democracy.

This is based on personal history of being an informed voter since 1974 and having some knowledge of constitutional law.

comprendi?

In reply to Blue Straggler:

and recreated/revived from ruin in post war Germany under the management of a British Army officer

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Apparently the Nazis found IBM tabulating machines quite useful as well.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

there is an interesting display in the Deutschesmuseum if IBM equipment used by the Nazis as well as some early electromechanical Zuse computers from the 1930s/1940s

In reply to wercat:

Going back to BS comment about VW's iffyness, one Wikipedia article has them responsible for producing the V1. 

We all know they made the bug but it's a revelation to me that they also produced the doodle bug.

( I always thought it was Fieseler but who's to say that Fieseler wasn't connected to VW somehow?)

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Could account for why they had the brilliant idea of putting the petrol tank in the front of the Beetle, that made them pretty lethal too. 'Unsafe at any speed' as Ralph Nader had it. 

In reply to Richard Horn:

What Andy Farnell has recognised and you haven’t is that we are taking steps along the road from a country proud to respect democracy towards one like North Korea.

Baby steps, and there’s no implication that we’ll go all the way along the path.  But it’s clearly worrying.

One of the signs - jingoistic nonsense along the lines what you’ve said about North Korea.  The fact there is much worse out there does not excuse us from not being the best that we were, and the best that we can.  It should scare us by showing us how far we could fall if we don’t constantly strive for democracy.

In reply to wintertree:

I thing I was more trying to imply we should be aiming for the polar opposite of North Korea. I didnt like the Brexit result but I now believe ignoring it or trying to reverse it would have been more damaging, its about placing trust in democracy even when you dont like the result. Democracy is fragile, and I really am not following how people think they are helping by saying they are ashamed of England (but not Scotland or Wales) for going through a democratic process - surely by doing so you are only undermining democracy and assisting in making the baby steps towards dictatorship that you are talking about. The EU explicitly said it wanted to hurt the UK to make an example of it, to dissuade other countries from doing the same - how is that a promotion of democracy?

In reply to Richard Horn:

I think the EU is a tuning to preserve the EU - that’s not anti-democratic.

As for jingoism - I prefer Mafecking myself.

In reply to Andy Farnell:

The UK has arguably the most successful university research output per capita in the world. It's something in which we are genuinely world class and have been for a long time. It's at risk due to the severe impact of brexit and the governments less than ideal support.

In reply to Timmd:

Well, recently and in initially, I thought we were going back to the 1970s, but now I realise the plan from the top is a combination of the worst times around the 1930s ( as an after thought even 1922 sociopathy) and for our children it looks like 19thc London, Merthyr or Glasgow as they develop ‘flexible’ workforce or should we say 

replaceable on min wages competitive disadvantaged workforce. And not even a bridge to Northern Ireland from a fearful man who has caused such distress amongst families in the pandemic by a well thought out plan of euthanising. So glad, he as yet hasn’t got me or mine.