UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

Thomas Talus · May 6, 2020

Bender said:
What's the problem? The food is all cooked, so there's no cross-contamination to worry about is there?

You don't heat your food or chill your beverages in the first place, and undercooking never happens in fair Albion, where all the food prep jobs are held down by proper John Bulls and not Achmed's slow cousin? Okay.

You use the same metal fork to eat your steak and your vegetables, don't you?

The matrix of metal atoms doesn't have the crevasses for things to hide in that a mass of cell walls do. You shouldn't prepare chicken on a wood cutting board for that exact reason.

Nobody's ever gotten a splinter from a wooden fork

X

Otterly · May 7, 2020

Ped Xing said:
Wait, I glossed over this.

You degenerates make silverware out of wood?

No the silverware is in the mouths of the landed gentry. We the plebs have the majesty that is the wooden chip fork. Some inferior chippies use plastic but real Brits have a wooden chip fork.
They banned wrapping the chips in newspaper a while back. But biodegradable and burnable, what’s not to like (apart from toxic printing ink...)
Honestly you’ve not lived until you’ve had proper fish and chips. The stuff you get in the states is nothing like it.
Chippies in Scotland will batter and fry almost anything for you. There’s a place in Edinburgh that did deep fried butter.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-16266520

https://archive.li/vO2Jz

Some bakeries in Aberdeen stay open all night so you can get a fresh pie on your way home from the pub. This, my friend is the pinnacle of civilisation and service.

Buster O'Keefe · May 7, 2020

Ginger Piglet · May 7, 2020

Thomas Talus said:
You shouldn't prepare chicken on a wood cutting board for that exact reason.

That's not entirely true. Wooden chopping boards have antibacterial properties because the capillary action of the wood dries out the bacteria and kills them. While plastic or metal chopping boards simply allow the bacteria to fester in a quagmire of chicken juices.

Sped Xing · May 7, 2020

My chopping board is made of radium.

Ginger Piglet · May 7, 2020

Ped Xing said:
My chopping board is made of radium.

That would kill off the bacteria, yes, but radium's also very reactive chemically. Enjoy ingesting literal fallout.

Sped Xing · May 7, 2020

If your cells don't regenerate, I feel bad for you, son.

CWCissey · May 7, 2020

Ped Xing said:
If your cells don't regenerate, I feel bad for you, son.

I got 99 problems, but mutations ain't one

and 3 others · May 7, 2020

Too Many Catgirls said:
In Paris they call it the royale with cheese.

You mean شيش كباب.

Otterly · May 7, 2020

Bender said:
Then, when you're two doors away from home, decide you need a piss and let it all out over your neighbour's hedge.

Ahhh Britain. How did we get that empire again..?

CWCissey · May 7, 2020

Otterly said:
Ahhh Britain. How did we get that empire again..?

By getting drunk, going to India for a curry then pissing in the world's hedges.

Otterly · May 7, 2020

CWCissey said:
By getting drunk, going to India for a curry then pissing in the world's hedges.

Waking up with a sore head wondering what the traffic cone and the Elgin marbles are doing in your living room? Sounds about right.

heathercho · May 8, 2020

Alright Britbongs : Archive
I've been hearing the moaning all week from other britbongs about Bojo the Lockdown Clown, so I want to know what your take is on this kind of stuff...

On lockdown, Boris Johnson faces a new opponent: his own party
Katy Balls
The prime minister is cautious, but many Tory MPs want a dramatic exit strategy. His problems could start to rack up
Fri 8 May 2020 03.00 EDT

When Boris Johnson addresses the nation on Sunday night to unveil his national lockdown plans, it’s not just the public he needs to bring with him: he also needs to convince his own MPs. With the biggest surprise within government being the level of public support for continuing the restrictions on movement, his parliamentary party will prove the harder to persuade.
The coronavirus pandemic means that today’s House of Commons is a virtual one. Only a handful of MPs are allowed in the chamber at any one time; most of them Zoom in from their constituencies. Caucus meetings are not held on the committee corridor but by video conference. Gossip that would have occurred in the members’ tea room either doesn’t materialise or is reduced to WhatsApp and telephone conversations.

As a result, cracks in party morale are not always immediately obvious. But with Dominic Raab announcing yesterday that the lockdown will stay in place ahead of the prime minister’s address, Tory MPs are growingly increasingly anxious over the slow pace of lockdown easing. “People have started to get skittish,” explains one.
There had been a hope among the party’s libertarian right that Johnson’s return to work would fast-track the route to normality: he was visibly uncomfortable at the press conferences in the build-up to his announcement of the lockdown on 23 March. Instead, the prime minister has come back to No 10 with a sense of cautiousness. Rather than side with the cabinet hawks, he has outlined an exit strategy that has so far made so-called doves such as Matt Hancock happiest.
The plan – as set out by Johnson last week – to keep the rate of infection (also known as the R) below 1, does not leave much room for manoeuvre in the coming weeks. The fact that the death toll is now more than 30,000 means within Downing Street there is a strong sense of caution over any easing.

Yesterday the papers splashed with headlines declaring “Lockdown Freedom” and “Happy Monday” in anticipation of the easing of restrictions – Johnson is expected to relax exercise rules and encourage more manual workers to return – but there is little expectation of a drastic change in the short term.
The problem is, a growing number of MPs – including around two-thirds of the cabinet – are less cautious. So far only a handful of MPs have gone public with their frustrations. The former European Research Group chair Steve Baker has called on the prime minister to provide a clear exit strategy to end this “absurd, dystopian and tyrannical” lockdown, while Iain Duncan Smith has warned of a permanent scarring to the economy if it goes on much longer.
For now, a lot of the frustration is being levelled at the government’s scientific advisers, with Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson – who stepped down this week for breaching social distancing guidelines – a particular target. “The Tory party has decided it hates the lockdown. We can’t blame the PM so we’ve decided to blame the advisers,” explains one fed-up MP.

The would-be rebels fall into two camps: those who, like Baker, view it as an assault on individual freedoms, and MPs concerned about the economic costs. There’s a worry that, with other countries opening up, the UK could be left behind. The prime minister’s former business adviser Andrew Griffith – elected as an MP in December – has warned that every day the UK economy is in lockdown, and its competitors aren’t, means lost business.
“I’ve come to the conclusion we’re completely fucked,” says one MP. “There were people who said the government would get credit for its response. That’s not going to happen now, and we haven’t even had the economic cost yet.”
With polling suggesting that public support for continued strict social distancing is high, questions are being asked over the furlough scheme. “It’s easy to like lockdown if you are being paid close to the same to stay at home as you would to go to work,” says one MP. Another adds: “People like lockdown? Wait until the furlough scheme ends.” With the chancellor looking at ways to bring the scheme to a gradual close, there’s a concern that, without a clear strategy for reopening businesses across different sectors, mass unemployment beckons.

Johnson could turn things around on Sunday by setting out a clear outline for the next few months – but as one MP puts it, expectations are “very high”.
Others still hold the view that it’s time to cut the government some slack. “I might not like lockdown but the current figures just don’t suggest we should be rushing to relax things,” says a more supportive Tory MP.
Should the situation deteriorate, one MP predicts that the government could start to lose parliamentary votes. Labour could in time join with Tory rebels to try to force the Commons to return.

And a lost vote could be a sign of things to come. With a majority of 80, Johnson remains in a strong position. But, under him, No 10 doesn’t devote much time to keeping MPs on side, and the problems are racking up. Many MPs are still stung over a reshuffle that left a number of ambitious middle-aged politicians on the sidelines. The vote due this summer on allowing Huawei to help build the UK’s 5G network is on course to be lost – with moderate MPs now taking a hardline stance on Chinese influence in the wake of coronavirus.
Meanwhile, any increase in taxes to pay off the debts caused by the crisis could be a hard sell. “What they don’t realise is a lot of the new intake haven’t spent years planning for high office. They’ll just do what they think is right,” one MP told me.
Even if Johnson can turn around the mood in his party on Sunday night, his party management problem may be only just beginning.

I know this is written by Ladyballs from the Spectator, but regardless, I've heard from plenty of long term Tory supporters that they're getting sick of Champagne Boris' lockdown idiocy and lack of leadership.

Do you think he's going to go his own way on this or listen to his party?

CWCissey · May 8, 2020

heathercho said:
Alright Britbongs : Archive
I've been hearing the moaning all week from other britbongs about Bojo the Lockdown Clown, so I want to know what your take is on this kind of stuff...

I know this is written by Ladyballs from the Spectator, but regardless, I've heard from plenty of long term Tory supporters that they're getting sick of Champagne Boris' lockdown idiocy and lack of leadership.

Do you think he's going to go his own way on this or listen to his party?

Fine balance, but he'll be fine unless he goes completely one way or t'other. The party knows he still has the trust of the public.

I think he'll ease the lockdown, but won't raise it completely. Even Boris has to know that people are getting antsy about the whole thing, and even the support for the NHS won't keep them behaving, as other key workers are starting to resent the attention given to medical workers (mostly in transport and cleaners as they've mostly been ignored).

heathercho · May 8, 2020

CWCissey said:
Fine balance, but he'll be fine unless he goes completely one way or t'other. The party knows he still has the trust of the public.

I think he'll ease the lockdown, but won't raise it completely. Even Boris has to know that people are getting antsy about the whole thing, and even the support for the NHS won't keep them behaving, as other key workers are starting to resent the attention given to medical workers (mostly in transport and cleaners as they've mostly been ignored).

The NHS indoctrination reminds me of the same indoctrination every dictatorship has ever used.
British hospitals are shit. I don't get it. You employ people like Adrian Harrop.

MrBlueSocks · May 8, 2020

Anyone else having local socially distanced VE day celebrations today? Street parties and compulsory Vera Lynn singalongs I believe.

I think there's a lot going on around here, but for me it's been tainted by the same smell of the central office of propaganda that the NHS rainbow clapping has. I don't wish to be a cynical git, but stop trying to manipulate me you bastards.

Odessa Norwood · May 8, 2020

MrBlueSocks said:
Anyone else having local socially distanced VE day celebrations today? Street parties and compulsory Vera Lynn singalongs I believe.

Yes, we are having a socially distanced piss up with the neighbours starting at 4pm. The balloons and bunting are already out.

CWCissey · May 8, 2020

It's happening here already. But I think this kind of thing was being planned anyway seeing as the bank holiday was changed from Monday to Friday. People are just taking advantage of it as an excuse to do something different.

heathercho said:
British hospitals are shit.

Depends on the trust. The real issue with the NHS are the bureaucrats. You don't need an army of admin and managers, you need fucking matrons back.

New Fag · May 8, 2020

IN THE DAYS OF COVID HOW DARE YOU CELEBRATE VE DAY and DON'T YOU KNOW THERE WERE MINORITIES INVOLVED.

I fucking love this gaslighting...

VE Day and coronavirus: this time, let’s not forget the efforts of migrants and ethnic minorities

http://archive.is/ysulI

During the second world war, millions of people arrived in Britain from all over the world, including occupied Europe. They kept essential industries going as war workers, served in the armed forces, worked at the BBC and nursed the sick. Britain’s war effort was multinational and multiracial – just like the effort to save people’s lives and keep essential work going during the coronavirus pandemic.

As I discovered during my research, the migrants and minorities involved in this effort were celebrated in the British wartime media. But when the war was over, the focus shifted to a national story – to the war fought by the British: their courage and resolve, their finest hour, their victory. The presence of Americans in Britain is widely known, but not the bigger picture of large-scale wartime movements to Britain from all parts of the British empire and Europe.

Over here: black GIs in Northern Ireland during the second world war. Photograph by permission of the National Archives Maryland, Author provided (No reuse)

Dunkirk is a name that resonates in British memories, but not the multinational evacuations from ports in western France in 1940 which brought Belgian, Czech, French and Polish troops to Britain, nor the multinational ships involved. Six European armies in exile were stationed in Britain from 1940: Belgian, French, Czechoslovakian, Dutch, Norwegian and Polish.

The escape of prisoners from the Stalag Luft III camp in latterday western Poland is well known from the classic movie The Great Escape. But who would guess from the movie that the 50 airmen murdered by the Gestapo after their recapture included people from eight European countries and four nations of the British empire. Before capture, most had been serving with the RAF. One of them, Porokuru Pohe, was the first Maori in the force.

Porokuru ‘Johnny’ Pohe was the first Maori pilot to serve in the RAF. Photograph by kind permission of Kawane Pohe, Author provided (No reuse)

In 1939, when he applied to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force, he was asked whether he was “of pure European descent” and wrote no but enlisted later after the rule was suspended. Who now remembers that, when the war began, British subjects who did not fit this racial category were barred from service in the armed forces in Britain? Or that this rule applied across the British commonwealth – in Australia and Canada as well as in New Zealand.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the multiethnic, multinational, multiracial NHS has been very evident. So too all the other people applauded during the weekly clapping ceremony – including those who empty dustbins, work on public transport, deliver post, food and other goods or work in social and domiciliary care. This is for many a rare, joyful moment – coming together to clap, bang saucepans, whistle and whoop, creating a clamorous cacophony.

Many of those applauded, who risk their lives, are on minimum wages or zero-hour contracts. Are people who oppose immigration aware that they are clapping immigrants and their descendants? It is surely the first time in Britain that their work has been celebrated with whoops and cheers.

Thank you and goodbye
If the second world war is anything to go by, these celebrations will not last long. Already, in wartime, the government had made plans for black troops and war workers from the empire to be demobbed back home so that they did not settle in Britain when the war was over.

Post-war government planning included the deportation of Chinese seamen who had served in the wartime merchant navy. In 1946, 1362 Chinese seamen were duly repatriated. Most British-born wives, partners and children of Chinese seamen who were repatriated and deported never saw them again.

The Battle of Britain Memorial in Dover includes the names of many Polish airmen. Wikimedia Commons

Many who stayed on, or returned to Britain, remember a change of climate in the aftermath of war – one that was more hostile and in which their wartime contributions were forgotten. Poles fought in the Battle of Britain but when the war was over, walls near Polish Air Force stations were daubed with “Poles Go Home” and “England for the English”.

Renee Webb, who served as an airman – first in Jamaica and then in Britain – remembers:

I was terribly concerned at that time that people should have forgotten so easily … I mean of the many questions that were asked of me, one of the main ones was: ‘When are you going back?‘

In the 21st century, under the “hostile environment” policy, many men and women from the Caribbean were told by the UK government to go back. Some were sacked from jobs in the NHS. Others who were detained, threatened with deportation, or charged for NHS treatment had arrived in Britain as children to join mothers who were working as NHS nurses.

The British Medical Association recently reported that 64% of Black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) doctors have felt pressured to work with inadequate personal protective equipment compared to 33% of white doctors. One of the reasons why so many BAME people working in the NHS have died during the coronavirus crisis may be a fear of losing jobs, and being reluctant to speak out about their lack of protective equipment as a result.

How historians will write about coronavirus times is a question that is sometimes raised. Will this history be written and remembered as a multinational, multi-ethnic, multiracial effort to save lives in Britain?

The Guardian view on the VE Day anniversary: never again, 2020 style

http://archive.is/rik4u

Amid the national failures exposed by the pandemic, it is immoral and preposterous to pretend that modern Britain is defined by its wartime history
Thu 7 May 2020 18.36 BSTLast modified on Thu 7 May 2020 21.22 BST

A giant union flag drawn into the sand at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland to mark the VE Day anniversary. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

The decision to move the early May bank holiday of 2020 to a Friday was taken when Theresa May was prime minister. The primary intention was that the change would enable Britain to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, 8 May 1945, more extensively. The secondary motive was that the Conservative party has also wanted to get rid of the May Day holiday for ideological reasons ever since it was first introduced in the 1970s.
As things have turned out, however, many of the plans for a national VE Day celebration have had to be scrapped or scaled back because of the Covid-19 outbreak. There will still be events to mark the anniversary, as there should be, including another national broadcast by the Queen. But Britain is still in lockdown, the virus is still lethal, and most of us have more pressing issues on our minds right now. Street parties and march-pasts would be inappropriate – though some will still occur.

The defeat of Germany in 1945 was without a shadow of doubt a historic event for Britain and its allies. Although the war with Japan was still raging in May 1945, the defeat of Hitler meant that war in Europe would now be replaced by the scarcely less difficult challenges of peace and reconstruction. The evidence of eyewitnesses in 1945, in Britain as elsewhere, is that although rejoicing was wholly justified, the mood was relieved and temperate. Few thought victory was in itself the solution or the end of all problems and difficulties. They were right.
The issues in May 1945 were mainly about the future. The national mood was expressed in the words “never again”. Europe lay in ruins for the second time in 30 years. Millions had died on the battlefield and in bombed cities. Europe’s Jews had come close to extinction. Russia, which fought the decisive campaign against Hitler, also suffered many more military and civilian deaths than the other victorious allies. America was the decisive and richest victor in the west. The British empire was on its way into history.

VE Day should continue to be remembered in the national and international calendar. But it is also right to ask ourselves how long the many anniversaries of the second world war should continue to be marked in the manner that, had it not been for the pandemic, we would have seen again this week. This question should be asked without prejudgment or the wish to provoke or divide. It is a deeply patriotic question for an evolving nation to pose to itself. The era in which Britain defined itself by the war against Hitler has been long and remarkable. But, just like the British empire 75 years ago, that exceptionalist Britain is on its way into history too. Brexit shows it is not going gently. But go it will.

Britain, in the best possible way, still needs to get over the war. Were it not for the pandemic, Boris Johnson would have commandeered this holiday to elide the Britain of 1945 with that of Brexit. He would have offered a vision of renewed global greatness, with himself as the new Churchill. He may yet try. But events have made such claims immoral as well as preposterous. This is not a time for rejoicing or false pride. There is no British victory to celebrate today. Instead, there is a Britain whose state institutions were unprepared and insufficiently resilient to minimise the Covid-19 crisis. As in May 1945, the real questions facing Britain are not about the past. They are about the future.

It'd be nice if the SOE at some point got a mention you know the guys who made it so we wouldn't be eating a nuclear bomb (Norwegians, operations Grouse and Gunnerside) and started out working with the Polish resistance which through Witold got the news out about what was going on in Auschwitz, even if it was mainly ignored both by the allies and suppressed by the Polish resistance in Warsaw who focused mainly on the plight of the poles. The princess of Sweden was even a member and got to give Niels Bor a dressing down before his flight out in the bomb bay of a Mossie.

Only ever had two and a half faults terrible survival rate for bailouts 15% compared to 25% in the Halifax the removal of an underside gun turret before the Germans discovered their love of Jazz and the 303 browning machine gun which later started to get replaced with the 50cal. It also was the only plane able to carry a nuke unmodified.

LetterlandMafia · May 8, 2020

New Fag said:
IN THE DAYS OF COVID HOW DARE YOU CELEBRATE VE DAY and DON'T YOU KNOW THERE WERE MINORITIES INVOLVED.

I fucking love this gaslighting...

VE Day and coronavirus: this time, let’s not forget the efforts of migrants and ethnic minorities

http://archive.li/ysulI

During the second world war, millions of people arrived in Britain from all over the world, including occupied Europe. They kept essential industries going as war workers, served in the armed forces, worked at the BBC and nursed the sick. Britain’s war effort was multinational and multiracial – just like the effort to save people’s lives and keep essential work going during the coronavirus pandemic.

As I discovered during my research, the migrants and minorities involved in this effort were celebrated in the British wartime media. But when the war was over, the focus shifted to a national story – to the war fought by the British: their courage and resolve, their finest hour, their victory. The presence of Americans in Britain is widely known, but not the bigger picture of large-scale wartime movements to Britain from all parts of the British empire and Europe.

Over here: black GIs in Northern Ireland during the second world war. Photograph by permission of the National Archives Maryland, Author provided (No reuse)

Dunkirk is a name that resonates in British memories, but not the multinational evacuations from ports in western France in 1940 which brought Belgian, Czech, French and Polish troops to Britain, nor the multinational ships involved. Six European armies in exile were stationed in Britain from 1940: Belgian, French, Czechoslovakian, Dutch, Norwegian and Polish.

The escape of prisoners from the Stalag Luft III camp in latterday western Poland is well known from the classic movie The Great Escape. But who would guess from the movie that the 50 airmen murdered by the Gestapo after their recapture included people from eight European countries and four nations of the British empire. Before capture, most had been serving with the RAF. One of them, Porokuru Pohe, was the first Maori in the force.

Porokuru ‘Johnny’ Pohe was the first Maori pilot to serve in the RAF. Photograph by kind permission of Kawane Pohe, Author provided (No reuse)

In 1939, when he applied to join the Royal New Zealand Air Force, he was asked whether he was “of pure European descent” and wrote no but enlisted later after the rule was suspended. Who now remembers that, when the war began, British subjects who did not fit this racial category were barred from service in the armed forces in Britain? Or that this rule applied across the British commonwealth – in Australia and Canada as well as in New Zealand.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the multiethnic, multinational, multiracial NHS has been very evident. So too all the other people applauded during the weekly clapping ceremony – including those who empty dustbins, work on public transport, deliver post, food and other goods or work in social and domiciliary care. This is for many a rare, joyful moment – coming together to clap, bang saucepans, whistle and whoop, creating a clamorous cacophony.

Many of those applauded, who risk their lives, are on minimum wages or zero-hour contracts. Are people who oppose immigration aware that they are clapping immigrants and their descendants? It is surely the first time in Britain that their work has been celebrated with whoops and cheers.

Thank you and goodbye
If the second world war is anything to go by, these celebrations will not last long. Already, in wartime, the government had made plans for black troops and war workers from the empire to be demobbed back home so that they did not settle in Britain when the war was over.

Post-war government planning included the deportation of Chinese seamen who had served in the wartime merchant navy. In 1946, 1362 Chinese seamen were duly repatriated. Most British-born wives, partners and children of Chinese seamen who were repatriated and deported never saw them again.

The Battle of Britain Memorial in Dover includes the names of many Polish airmen. Wikimedia Commons

Many who stayed on, or returned to Britain, remember a change of climate in the aftermath of war – one that was more hostile and in which their wartime contributions were forgotten. Poles fought in the Battle of Britain but when the war was over, walls near Polish Air Force stations were daubed with “Poles Go Home” and “England for the English”.

Renee Webb, who served as an airman – first in Jamaica and then in Britain – remembers:

In the 21st century, under the “hostile environment” policy, many men and women from the Caribbean were told by the UK government to go back. Some were sacked from jobs in the NHS. Others who were detained, threatened with deportation, or charged for NHS treatment had arrived in Britain as children to join mothers who were working as NHS nurses.

The British Medical Association recently reported that 64% of Black, Asian and ethnic minority (BAME) doctors have felt pressured to work with inadequate personal protective equipment compared to 33% of white doctors. One of the reasons why so many BAME people working in the NHS have died during the coronavirus crisis may be a fear of losing jobs, and being reluctant to speak out about their lack of protective equipment as a result.

How historians will write about coronavirus times is a question that is sometimes raised. Will this history be written and remembered as a multinational, multi-ethnic, multiracial effort to save lives in Britain?

The Guardian view on the VE Day anniversary: never again, 2020 style

http://archive.li/rik4u

Amid the national failures exposed by the pandemic, it is immoral and preposterous to pretend that modern Britain is defined by its wartime history
Thu 7 May 2020 18.36 BSTLast modified on Thu 7 May 2020 21.22 BST

A giant union flag drawn into the sand at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland to mark the VE Day anniversary. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA

The decision to move the early May bank holiday of 2020 to a Friday was taken when Theresa May was prime minister. The primary intention was that the change would enable Britain to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day, 8 May 1945, more extensively. The secondary motive was that the Conservative party has also wanted to get rid of the May Day holiday for ideological reasons ever since it was first introduced in the 1970s.
As things have turned out, however, many of the plans for a national VE Day celebration have had to be scrapped or scaled back because of the Covid-19 outbreak. There will still be events to mark the anniversary, as there should be, including another national broadcast by the Queen. But Britain is still in lockdown, the virus is still lethal, and most of us have more pressing issues on our minds right now. Street parties and march-pasts would be inappropriate – though some will still occur.

The defeat of Germany in 1945 was without a shadow of doubt a historic event for Britain and its allies. Although the war with Japan was still raging in May 1945, the defeat of Hitler meant that war in Europe would now be replaced by the scarcely less difficult challenges of peace and reconstruction. The evidence of eyewitnesses in 1945, in Britain as elsewhere, is that although rejoicing was wholly justified, the mood was relieved and temperate. Few thought victory was in itself the solution or the end of all problems and difficulties. They were right.
The issues in May 1945 were mainly about the future. The national mood was expressed in the words “never again”. Europe lay in ruins for the second time in 30 years. Millions had died on the battlefield and in bombed cities. Europe’s Trump's Chosen People had come close to extinction. Russia, which fought the decisive campaign against Hitler, also suffered many more military and civilian deaths than the other victorious allies. America was the decisive and richest victor in the west. The British empire was on its way into history.

VE Day should continue to be remembered in the national and international calendar. But it is also right to ask ourselves how long the many anniversaries of the second world war should continue to be marked in the manner that, had it not been for the pandemic, we would have seen again this week. This question should be asked without prejudgment or the wish to provoke or divide. It is a deeply patriotic question for an evolving nation to pose to itself. The era in which Britain defined itself by the war against Hitler has been long and remarkable. But, just like the British empire 75 years ago, that exceptionalist Britain is on its way into history too. Brexit shows it is not going gently. But go it will.

Britain, in the best possible way, still needs to get over the war. Were it not for the pandemic, Boris Johnson would have commandeered this holiday to elide the Britain of 1945 with that of Brexit. He would have offered a vision of renewed global greatness, with himself as the new Churchill. He may yet try. But events have made such claims immoral as well as preposterous. This is not a time for rejoicing or false pride. There is no British victory to celebrate today. Instead, there is a Britain whose state institutions were unprepared and insufficiently resilient to minimise the Covid-19 crisis. As in May 1945, the real questions facing Britain are not about the past. They are about the future.

It'd be nice if the SOE at some point got a mention you know the guys who made it so we wouldn't be eating a nuclear bomb (Norwegians, operations Grouse and Gunnerside) and started out working with the Polish resistance which through Witold got the news out about what was going on in Auschwitz, even if it was mainly ignored both by the allies and suppressed by the Polish resistance in Warsaw who focused mainly on the plight of the poles. The princess of Sweden was even a member and got to give Niels Bor a dressing down before his flight out in the bomb bay of a Mossie.

View attachment 1278371
Only ever had two and a half faults terrible survival rate for bailouts 15% compared to 25% in the Halifax the removal of an underside gun turret before the Germans discovered their love of Jazz and the 303 browning machine gun which later started to get replaced with the 50cal. It also was the only plane able to carry a nuke unmodified.

The Conversation really has gone to shit as a website, though equally I don’t think anyone at the University of Huddersfield is worth paying too much attention to.

UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

Thomas Talus

Εκ λόγου άλλος εκβαίνει λόγος

Otterly

Immerse your soul in love

Buster O'Keefe

Enjoys offal

Ginger Piglet

Burglar of Jess Phillips MP

Sped Xing

!Bigfoot! sightings please call 908-314-7784

Ginger Piglet

Burglar of Jess Phillips MP

Sped Xing

!Bigfoot! sightings please call 908-314-7784

CWCissey

Charming Man

and 3 others

*actually just 1 other

Otterly

Immerse your soul in love

CWCissey

Charming Man

Otterly

Immerse your soul in love

heathercho

Executive Horsewife

CWCissey

Charming Man

heathercho

Executive Horsewife

MrBlueSocks

Odessa Norwood

CWCissey

Charming Man

New Fag

LetterlandMafia

Foreclose on me one more time