Westminstenders: Just another DEADline

[RedToothBrush]

Today is the last scheduled day for talks with the EU.

We have til 30th June to ask for a transition extension. We won't.

That leaves us starring down the barrel of a no deal exit, when we still could be in a covid-19 crisis and the US may be in turmoil given recent events and the coming election...

It's not a pretty picture.

Show and highlight the change. Don't just remove the thing we don't like. Preserve the reasons and history of why the present reject the past. You show the past as well as give a modern day opportunity to reflect and remember why that had to happen.

RTB
If the statue had been contemporary to his life I might feel different.
But it was part of the "Our Island Story" high jingoism
and has no place on the streets of a modern city.
In a corner of a museum with proper labelling - yes
On the street - no

Delighted the statue has gone
Also pleased churchill has been called out for what he was

Don't just remove the thing we don't like.
Berlin wall ?

Just to make a point about the Bristol statue, I have very mixed feelings about it. I worry about attempts to erase certain individuals from our history because they have a history we find unpleasant and uncomfortable in a modern context.

To see scenes that you have only ever seen from afar - in other countries and cultures - suddenly erupt on the streets of Britain is both amazing and breathtaking by turns.

I wonder if 8 weeks of lockdown has built up an energy that can't be contained ?

My worries would be far more prosaic ... I really wouldn't want to see anyone hurt first. We can deal with the historical analysis and commentary at leisure.

For all the philanthropy - and you have to ask how much was prompted by a guilty conscience - it's worth remembering that if I stole a million pounds, then no matter what I spent it on, I'd go to jail. So why does Teddy Colston get a free pass ?

This counts as Non Violent Direct Action, beloved of peace and environment campaigners, and possibly even the Poll Tax refusers in their time. Many would accept this as legitimate as long as you are prepared to accept the consequences of your actions.

So it happened in public, and there is a lot of hand wringing. How much publicity did the Bullingdon boys get when they trashed College rooms doing ££ of damage? Not much, Daddy paid and it was hushed up.

I didn't know a lot about Colston, but felt glad that it was gone. And the fact that it's got Priti Patel frothing. Yes, well, Asians in Eastern Africa thought themselves a cut above the black population, and identified more with the white overlords.

Wonder if the school (s?) named after him will now change name?

Do you think someone has meddled with the school's Wiki page, or has it always said this, without any hint of irony?

It was founded in 1710 by the philanthropist, merchant, slave trader, and Member of Parliament Edward Colston as Colston's Hospital,

Wonder if the school (s?) named after him will now change name

At least of them have already. And the Colston Hall will be getting a new name too.

It helps to start a debate to see the bad with the good. You can't have a discussion about morality without it.

Should the statue be on the street? No.
Should it be in a museum? Yes.

Should that decision be made by public consensus / authority without the need for the public to pull it down? Yes.

That is part of the conversation. Why hasn't that happened in a country which we pat ourselves on the back for being so great?

Also the debate about philanthropy is one we should be having right now too? Sir Tom is the philanthropist of modern times in many ways. He got donations from some pretty high profile individuals... I think including the Royals. Why should we be fundraising for basic stuff for NHS charities in a modern era.

I just get annoyed at the he was bad, we should get rid of stuff without more debate on the past and the present and the continuing relevance of figures like Coulson as someone who has now somehow been consigned to history.

Has he?

From reading around a bit this morning, it’s interesting to see how much influence the Merchant Venturers seem to have in Bristol?

We've had a nightmare of a weekend. My MiL passed away, very suddenly, in the early hours of Saturday morning. Everyone is still reeling in shock. All the family members haven't been able to hug each other. I'm weirdly going through cycles of bone-shaking, crushing grief and almost hysterical levity (we dressed the cat in DD's baby T-shirt, for example, and all fell about screeching with laughter).

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1269260314547273729.html

#TheWeekInTory

1. The govt reduced the UK-wide coronavirus alert level on the advice of the “Joint Biosecurity Centre"

2. Matt Hancock revealed the “Joint Biosecurity Centre” doesn’t exist yet

3. Boris Johnson said he was “very proud” of the UK’s response

4. After previously telling us facemasks were essential, then not essential, then essential, then not essential, then essential, then not essential (6 U-turn) the govt said facemasks were, actually, essential

5. But not until 15th June. 2 weeks more of them being not-essential

6. And then NHS leaders revealed they hadn’t been consulted on any of this

7. The govt announced dentists were returning to work the following day

8. And then dentists said they also hadn’t been consulted about this, or even warned it was happening

9. The govt announced it was relaxing the lockdown nationally, because it said the R level (infectivity rate) had fallen as low as 0.7

10. Within 2 days the R level had risen back above 1 in much of Northern England, but the govt has not reintroduced local lockdowns

11. The gov justified relaxing the lockdown because we would have a “world-beating Test and Trace” in place by 1st June

12. And then the next day, the head of the Test and Trace programme revealed it would not be operational until Sept

13. The following day it was revealed an "urgent Test and Trace programme" was recommended by experts in February, but not acted upon until May

14. Boris Johnson announced he is personally taking charge of the coronavirus response, a mere 138 days since the first UK case

15. The head of Outbreak Modelling at Imperial College said he was shocked that Covid-19 was still “spilling out of hospitals and care homes”

16. It was revealed advice was given to the govt on 24 Feb that there should be “no discharges to care or residential homes”

17. The Italian Health Minister has reported that Boris Johnson had told him UK govt policy was Herd Immunity

18. The govt and Boris Johnson continue to deny the policy has every been Herd Immunity, even though Boris Johnson went on TV and advocated it

20. The most comprehensive World Health Organisation study to date found the risk of Covid infection doubles if the 2-metre rule is reduced

21. Then Boris Johnson went on TV to say he wants to reduce the 2-metre distancing rule as soon as possible

22. Matt Hancock tweeted that he was proud we reached a 200,000 test capacity

23. The next day he said he was proud of a lower 171,000 tests

24. If you get a nasal, throat and antibody test, that counts as 3 tests, even if it’s 1 person

25. So 171,000 tests = 57000 people

26. At that rate it will take 1,175 days to test the whole UK. That’s 3 years and 3 months.

27. And almost 75,000 tests had to be redone because of problems in UK labs

28. Boris Johnson repeated he was “very proud” of the UK government's response

29. The govt said it would not open playgrounds, because children from different families meet there

30. The govt said it would reopen schools where - yes - children from different families meet

31. 44% of England’s schools did not trust the govt advice enough to re-open

31. The govt announced people could now meet in socially distanced groups in gardens, but under no circumstances could anybody enter the houses of friends and family

32. The govt said homeless people should “move in with friends and family”

33. Parliament stopped digital voting, leading to a 1.3 km long queue of MPs, right down the road and into a local park, waiting 90 minutes to do one vote.

34. MP’s often vote 8 times per day. Under the new system, this means they will do nothing at all except stand in queues.

35. No provisions had been made for extra security, or to protect those vulnerable to Covid-19.

36. Within 24 hours a cabinet minister was ill and needed to be tested. He said he tested negative.

37. It was later reported around 1/3 of tests produce false-negative results.

38. Only 12% of Britons say Parliament needs to physical voting, and there have been absolutely zero instances of voting irregularities under the digital

39. The House Of Lords continues to vote using the digital system

40. The Minister for Mental Health objected to Pier Morgan's criticisms, and tweeted "could you please avoid wherever possible calling people 'completely mad'”

41. And then it was revealed some time earlier, she had called people on Twitter “window-lickers”

42. A Tory MP breached guidelines by going to a barbeque during the lockdown, attended by the deputy chairman of Spectator, the Brexit Party chairman, and journalist Isabel Oakeshott.

43. All three of these defended Dominic Cummings, who is, incidentally, still not sacked

44. The govt criticised Chinese food standards and lack of transparency, which it said first caused, and then exacerbated coronavirus

45. And then the govt voted to lower UK food standards, and refused to publish a report on excess coronavirus deaths

46. In Jan the Environment Secretary said “we will not be importing chlorinated chicken, we will not be importing hormone-treated beef” as part of any future trade deal

47. The govt said it would import chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef as part of a US trade deal

48. In a single day the UK had 359 Covid-19 deaths, which was 45 more than the other 27 EU countries combined.

49. Boris Johnson, joint-leader of the Brexit campaign, announced he would start a “charm offensive” to get EU workers to return to the UK

50. Sir Paul Nurse, former President of the Royal Society, described talking to ministers about coronavirus as “like talking to a blancmange”

51. Boris Johnson said for a 4th time he was “very proud” of the UK govt's response

52. We still have 24 hours of the week to go

People saying that they are trying to erase history are wrong. Stalin's statues were pulled down pretty smartly after his death. Stalingrad was renamed Volgagrad. We haven't forgotten Stalin. In fact, we probably know more about his behaviour now than people did then.

Now we are having a debate, and it's taken the public taking the matter into their own hands to initiate this.

So sorry to hear your news elements.

Your week in Tory is amazing. In both senses of the word.

Even before the marches at the weekend, ds was complaining that some people now want to change the names of Glasgow streets due to their connotations with slave owners. He thought because of that they should stay up and said if you try and take away the past, people won't know what is right or wrong. His view was that we should teach people about the history so people can know Glasgow is what it is because of an unbalanced past.

I agreed with him and said that changing the names of the streets (eg Buchanan Street, Glassford Street, Ingram Street, which were named after the so called "Tobacco Lords", but there is also Jamaica Street) only serves to airbrush the city's history and the wealth upon which it was developed.

Statues I think are probably best in museums with explanatory notes.

Should that decision be made by public consensus / authority without the need for the public to pull it down? Yes.

That is part of the conversation. Why hasn't that happened in a country which we pat ourselves on the back for being so great?

From what I've picked up that conversation has outlived 3 reformations of Simon and Garfunkel. Call me cynical, but if it was left to the "proper authorities" then your grandchildren and my grandchildren would probably be discussing whether it should be removed 30 years hence. If the suffragettes - who we now celebrate - had done as they were told, we'd still be waiting for votes for women. We'd still be waiting "for the right time".

The UKs democracy - as it was - has had a bruising few years, and there have been a few instances all telescoped into a short timeframe that have shown how broken it is. After all, there were dire warnings about violence on the streets if Brexit didn't happen for a start. Warnings that were amped up to the max by a press that can now cover the consequences of that threat.

Whatever happened to that six million plus signature petition ?

Yeah, democratic protest, yeah right.

Also the debate about philanthropy is one we should be having right now too? Sir Tom is the philanthropist of modern times in many ways. He got donations from some pretty high profile individuals... I think including the Royals. Why should we be fundraising for basic stuff for NHS charities in a modern era.

Replace the Colston statue with one of Sir Tom ?

If nothing else, I think there should be a serious and scholarly reevaluation of the "philanthropy" of certain celebrated individuals. It's easy to be generous with stolen money.

One thing we should be proud of in Britain - or it certainly used to be the case (maybe recent events have broken that too ) - is the amount of slide there is in the scale between "write a letter" and "heads on spikes". Which is very short in some countries - Libya springs to mind.

Mind you, if Boris wants his Churchill moment, I'm sure he has the armies number. Who knows, we might even get a photo op of Boris with a Tommy gun. (Let's hope Nigel has clean underwear)

Even before the marches at the weekend, ds was complaining that some people now want to change the names of Glasgow streets due to their connotations with slave owners.

There was a recent "Frankie Boyles Tour of Scotland" where he spoke with a local historian about the slave history of Glasgow. I hadn't really been aware, so it was another good day for me (good days are when you can say you learned at least one thing).

I imagine with their finger on the pulse of Tory society the BBC have decided to make it available again ...

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000frjc

thought not. Still - well worth adding in for when they do reshow it.

Elements

So both the airlines and the hoteliers (supporting a crowd funded action) are now posing legal challenges to the Government’s travel restriction / quarantine plans?

Elements . It must have been such a shock and the grief will be exacerbated by the inability to hug

Apparently for all Pritis upset over the statue (I'm hearing it wiped the smirk of her face, so trebles all around for those that did it) the local police chief is reported as having decided not to intervene - for whatever reason.

I wonder if it was intended to "send a message" to the politicians about how far they can push the police

Meanwhile ...

'Cummings is the real boss': world's press pours scorn on Boris Johnson

Newspapers around world question PM’s judgment that led to his ‘shameless’ response to breach

Yes, Libération declared categorically, “the answer is yes. There really is one rule for Dominic Cummings, prime minister Boris Johnson’s special adviser, and another, quite different rule for the rest of the British public.”

Yes indeed, France’s left-leaning daily repeated, “Cummings may disregard, without consequence, the lockdown imposed on the rest of the country. And yes, the real boss at No 10 is this unelected adviser,

and not its current tenant, Boris Johnson.”News of Cummings’ 500-mile round trip to Durham, and of Johnson’s decision to back his controversial adviser, left much of the international media doubting the prime minister’s judgment,

condemning his “shameless” response – and wondering who is really in charge in Downing St. In telling the public that “the efforts and sacrifices demanded of them - staying home, not visiting even dying relatives”

simply did not apply to his closest adviser, Johnson had “confirmed the exceptional influence” Cummings exerts on him, Libération said.

Italy’s Corriere della Sera agreed, saying there was “one politically untouchable man in London, and it is not the prime minister”. Johnson has “enveloped himself in unsustainable contradictions just to shield his adviser”,

the paper said, but “clearly he doesn’t have the power to get rid of Cummings”. The prime minister’s personal appearance at Sunday’s briefing was preceded by a face-to-face meeting at which “it is evident that Cummings

must have confronted Johnson with the reality that without him, the government is going nowhere – though now, with him, everyone is at risk of crashing to the ground.”

In the Netherlands, De Volkskrant recalled that Cummings was “the architect of Brexit and of Johnson’s election victory, so Johnson does not want to ditch him just like that”. But others who broke the lockdown rules were

given no option but to resign, the paper pointed out. “By insisting that Cummings had behaved ‘responsibly, legally and with integrity’, the prime minister has effectively raised the question of who exactly is the boss inside

No 10 Downing St: the prime minister, or his top adviser.”

The Irish Times noted that Johnson “not only exonerated Cummings, but praised him … In its shamelessness, it was a return to the playbook of his early months in office, when he gloried in the disapproval

of his political enemies over his prorogation of parliament and (false) claim he would not fulfil his legal obligation to seek a delay to Brexit.”

In Spain, El País said the episode showed Johnson was increasingly “losing his ability to scent what the people will and won’t put up with”. Cummings, the former Brexit guru, “seems to have become the voice

that whispers advice on how to act in the face of the devastating virus crisis”, the paper said.

“And for the time being, at least, Johnson is not prepared to keep him two metres away - nor to maintain the safe political distance from his adviser that many of his Conservative fellow believers are now demanding.”

Le Monde confirmed the prime minister’s “preferential treatment” of Cummings was “very risky: with what credibility will his government emerge from this episode as it approaching a crucial new phase of the country’s

exit from lockdown?” Continuing to defend his adviser “exposes Johnson to considerable political damage”, it said.

In Germany, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said whether Johnson should fire his chief advisor had “superseded over all other coronavirus questions, bringing politics back to centre stage”.

Cummings is “more than a consultant”, the paper said. “He is a symbolic figure whose loss would hit the prime minister and his agenda hard.”

In a dispatch published by several German papers including the Suddeutsche Zeitung, the dpa news agency said the government’s credibility “could have been seriously damaged by the generous interpretation

of the lockdown rules in Cummings’ favour”.

Denmark’s Politiken said Johnson had “so far dodged all questions about specific critical issues”, such as whether Cummings had indeed visited Barnard Castle while in self-isolation in Durham.

“The question remains whether special rules apply to the prime minister’s top adviser – rules that ordinary Britons cannot invoke,” it said.

The New York Times said Johnson had now “latched himself” to his chief adviser, underlining “his deep reliance on Cummings, the architect of his election victory last year and the driving force behind his ambitious

post-Brexit agenda. But it is unlikely to defuse the uproar over Cummings’s actions, which critics say send a signal that Britain’s leaders can ignore the rules they impose on others.”

www.liberation.fr/planete/2020/05/24/a-downing-street-le-boss-c-est-dom_1789285

www.corriere.it/esteri/20_maggio_24/coronavirus-boris-johnson-difende-dominic-cummings-superconsigliere-che-aveva-violato-lockdown-d979a6a8-9de2-11ea-b9b6-8e4b7089692f.shtml

www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/nu-johnson-adviseur-mag-blijven-rijst-de-vraag-wie-is-eigenlijk-de-baas~b01a370b/

www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/boris-johnson-s-shamelessness-returns-to-fore-in-cummings-defence-1.4261442

elpais.com/internacional/2020-05-24/boris-johnson-ignora-las-solicitudes-de-dimision-contra-su-asesor-cummings-por-saltarse-el-confinamiento.html

www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/05/24/malgre-le-scandale-boris-johnson-refuse-de-lacher-son-conseiller-dominic-cummings_6040617_3210.html

www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/dominic-cummings-soll-corona-auflagen-verletzt-haben-16783961.html

politiken.dk/udland/art7798708/Boris-Johnson-holder-h%C3%A5nden-under-sin-udsk%C3%A6ldte-spindoktor

Maybe the Police didn't intervene, like that East German Border guard didn't intervene, when people crowded the Wall? He wanted to make sure no one got hurt. The only thing which has got 'hurt' here seems to be a statue.

Those Tories are certainly showing their true colours: Pulling down a statue is Unacceptable and a national disgrace. Ethnic minorities dying of Covid in huge numbers? We'll look into it. You've looked into it, what did you find? Not telling.

So the search begins for someone worthy of a statue in Bristol: Hannah Moore. Elizabeth Blackwell. ....PJ Harvey?

Or how about the leaders of the bus boycott.

DGR, there is a lot of talk of still prosecuting those who took the statue down for criminal damage.

I believe it was David Allen Green pointed out over the weekend, there was a not dissimilar case which sets something of a precident as it was ruled that it was not in the public interest to find them guilty.

He's also tweeted this morning:

david allen green @davidallengreen
The Colston statue was not from slave-trading times

Erected in 1895, the high Victorians glossed over the slave-trade, drugs-trade and imperial atrocities that were the basis for much of their wealth

Yet, it is for this same high Victorian confidence that many now are nostalgic

The Colston statute was not put up to expressly celebrate him as a slaver or the slave trade

It was put up because those details did not matter in 1895: a blind eye to basis of much Victorian wealth

Beware nostalgia for our Victorian past

So that statue isn't JUST about the slave trade. Its about more than that.

Maybe the Police didn't intervene, like that East German Border guard didn't intervene, when people crowded the Wall?

UK police have a very good way to avoid intervening. They turn around to the Home Secretary and say "is that an order ?" which tends to stop things there, or it has to be the army.