to think our Prime Minister and his family are entitled to a summer holiday abroad?

[MeiMeiMeiMei]

Heaven knows I loathe the man's policies but surely he and his family are entitled to a week or two in the sun? A couple of nutters murdered an innocent man but he'd just be giving more publicity to their "cause" if he cancelled his family trip to Ibiza?

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claig, I really want to believe you about Gove's ambition to become PM, I really do. I just can't.

I enjoyed this article in today's Guardian about DC and his hols:

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/27/david-camerons-relaxed-style-downfall

Very good article, Suburban, with some very funny lines in there as well.

That is a funny article suburban, especially the bit about Dave's people saying he hasn't had a holiday since xmas, which kind of confirms that they are somewhat out of touch

I wonder if Andy 'common touch' Coulson would have approved that. I doubt it, but he's otherwise engaged atm.

Oh, and Govey kept banging on about how Education Secretary was the bestest job in the whole wide world and the pinnacle of his humble ambitions until William Hague was in trouble a few years ago and then he seemed very keen on giving the Foreign Office a bash.

Hague's kept his job and it's back to Latin prep for Govey.

For now.

This thread title has been annoying me and I've just put my finger on why. It's the use of 'our'.

I don't think of DC an 'my' anything, he is a person in a job which is harming people and not doing much else for most at the moment.

I genuinely don't give a stuff whether or not he has a holiday, I do not care about anything in his personal or family life. It is none of my business, and whether or not he is entitled to anything is not something I want to concern myself thinking about. In fact it slightly enrages me that I have to think about him at all, in any capacity.

I forgot. The Times was one of the papers who reported that 'swivel eyed' slur that Andrew Feldman didn't say. Oh no, siree.

And Govey used to work for the Times. And Mrs Govey writes fetchingly about lipstick for them.

limitedperiod, I can't get the picture out of my head that there is a Mrs Govey. I've been kind of thinking of him as a one-off, and not in a good way.

Next you'll be telling me there are little Goveys and I will have to book myself in for some brain bleaching.

No doubt you've heard of asexual reproduction, suburban?

They taught it at my school, which was one of those fast-disappearing grammar schools where ordinary young people from humble backgrounds were encouraged to ask unsettling questions.

Not for the first time I wonder if Govey is wise to try to resurrect them

I think it is right that he takes time off with his family. But he should be boosting the UK economy by going to Skeggy.

Omg, limitedperiod, you mean like a Hydra?

Like, a little bud appears on his shoulder, then gets bigger and then turns into another Gove?

Noooooooooooooo!

Wednesday's murder was horrific. However, the PM being away for 3 days is the least of my worries regarding what is or isn't being done about it.

Most Muslims are normal, rational people and therefore are appalled and disgusted over what happened. But of course, like the rest of us she normal people, their voices carry little weight and a certainly not newsworthy. What I'd like to see is the all the Imans out on the street sending a clear message of 'not in our name'. After quite a few hours and much coaxing the local mosque did issue a statement saying they condemned the murder but I'd like to see them out earlier and the statement being clearer. Big bold statements making clear that these people are not good Muslims and are certainly not doing God's work. That they are actually an affront to Islam and that decent Muslims wish not to be associated with them.

THIS is what the country needs to hear and this would go a lot further to quell racial tension that DC cancelling his weekend away.

Sorry for typos

You're trying to upset me now suburban by making me think of this

I'm going to ignore it and eat my custard doughnut.

gotanygrapes people have done that.

If other people don't want to listen, there's not much they can do about it.

I don't have a huge problem with him sneaking off for a break.

I do think he is a crass, insensitive idiot if he can't see that carefully staged photos of him attempting to look like a normal person on holiday, but with both of them all dolled up in Tory navy blue and perfect make up (well Sam anyhow for that bit!), doesn't infuriate people. By all means slip off the radar for a bit, but don't ram it down people's throats and expect them to, I dunno, admire you for it, or your great casual style, or something.

I think they are so out of touch it's almost comical tbh.

Agree with OP. Not his greatest fan but he did come back early from summit, visited the community. He is entitled to family time. Government has not ignored the issue. Not his worst crime...

Limitedperiodonly, not as clearly or as loudly as I would like and I think needs to be said. DH worked with a Muslim guy who said after prayers the other guys were all saying how awful it was and how they were worried what it would lead to. He also said he would have liked the iman to have made it very clear for the benefit of all the teenagers that such acts were unacceptable and against Islam. That is what he has told his teenage sons. So even Muslims would like clearer messages given out if for no other reason than to show the wider community that mainstream, law abiding Muslims are just as appalled as the law abiding non Muslim community. We need these messages given out loud and clear to help prevent mindless acts of retaliation carried out by equally disaffected youths from non-Muslim communities.

gotanygrapes much further up this thread I explained about my law-abiding father who was born a Catholic in Ireland a long time ago when it used to be part of Britain. It was, in case you didn't know. But I'm sure you're going to say you did.

He fought in World War II as a British soldier, though still believed that Ireland should be for the Irish. That view is possible without wanting to cause bloodshed.

He's dead now and I'm middle-aged and wear a poppy every November.

As I said earlier, during the '70s he got quite tired of the hard of thinking who couldn't understand why he didn't want British soldiers to be murdered by the IRA, what with him once being one of them. Much less British civilians, because that would have been his wife and children.

I imagine that law-abiding muslims feel much the same way.

I am indeed going to say I knew that as both sets of my grandparents were Irish Catholics!
Your father's view sounds very much like that of my grandmother. Her father was actually a member of the original IRA before it became what we know it to be day. In those days it was all about gun running for members fighting against British occupation. My grandmother often talked about her disgust at the modern IRA who attacked and bombed innocent civilians and she swore blind that her father and his contemporaries would be appalled too. To her, they saw it as soldiers fighting soldiers not children and innocents being murdered whist out shopping. Her husband, my grandfather, born in Waterford, also fought for the British during the war. He saw hitler as a far bigger foe than the British.

This was before independence at the beginning of the 20th century.

Through your grandparents you understand how loyal people can be to their adopted country.

So why do you doubt the loyalty of the majority of people born in Britain to probably British parents and possibly grandparents?

Oh I don't at all doubt the loyalty or integrity of the overwhelming majority of Muslims. I also think most Muslims were appalled simply due to human decency.
However, I do think religious leaders within the Muslim community could have done a lot more to send a clear message that such acts are against the teachings of Islam. Make it clear that the perpetrators of such crimes and not martyrs but rather are either mentally ill or vicious thugs.

I believe most people don't have much difficulty being against murder or even hurting anyone.

The murder of Lee Rigby might be seen by some people as soldier-on-soldier. Sometimes people justify actions for political aims because the dead are soldiers and they're sentimental old ladies or young fired-up men.

Does that make it right? I suppose that depends what your view is.

But, to address your point, what's the Muslim community as opposed to the Christian community? What would you have these diverse people do, given that you agree that most of them would condemn this?

There are a lot of people who call ourselves Christian. We don't all have the same ideas. As a Roman Catholic, should I stick up for a Protestant? That would surely damn me to Hell.