Largely, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that Iceland won no fewer than three wars against the second-best navy in the world (assuming the UK’s edge in tech and general competence nudges them ahead of the Soviets, but it’s not an area of interest so feel free to correct my ordering). I mean, look at this section on the Wikipedia page detailing the ships involved in the first one:
The Coast Gaurd vs. the Royal Navy! ‘Patrol’ vessels! @schurem is right: it’s a fantastic story.
As long as there’s no JarJar, I’m good.
Surely you mean “meesa like Jar Jar”.
draxen
9037
Looks like Labour are getting a thumping in the locals.
Canuck
9038
Serves them right for this whole Brexit mess of the past few years and then their terrible leadership during the Corona disaster.
draxen
9039
As mentioned earlier Labour are getting hammered in todays local election results.
Here’s my favorite bits from the fallout/analysis.
Sorry to all the people living in the UK where apparently your compatriots are getting dumber.
If labour lost Hartlepool it’s not because the average IQ there dropped significantly in the last few years.
I honestly have no idea what they offer as a party other than ‘not the tories’.
At least they can no longer just lazily blame all their problems on Corbyn.
I dunno, looks to me like Labour hasn’t found a vision to sell to people, at least a vision the people will believe in, while the Tories do have a vision that the people have signed on to.
I think the Conservative vision the people have bought is not likely to come to pass, but I’m not a UK voter.
Banjax
9043
Principally because if the monkey hangers had lost a significant their IQ they would be dead as they’d be too stupid to breathe.
I think it’s really fallen into ‘identify politics’ about the split into the country between the ‘real UK’ socially conservative, largely monochrome & not doing that well, wrapped in the union jack and very leave focussed and the not the real UK.
spiffy
9044
As a lazy answer, I’d guess Labour offer to not keep cutting every service everywhere. In London the Tories were campaigning against Sadiq Khan’s impotence against rising violence, which is interesting since from what I understand, the Tories have been cutting police budgets year upon year.
I think there’s a feeling of the UK resigning itself to the path it has chosen, more than anything. Don’t rock the boat just as the water’s getting calmer.
Don’t rock the boat as you head out to sea.
That district voted 70% for brexit. The guy running for Labour voted against it 46 times. Here’s a link covering it this morning for some context for non-Brits:
From that article, a link to one from last year:
One key lies in the emergence of a confluence of voting patterns in 2019 that tipped the election in Johnson’s favor, a blind alliance between a section of the (mainly English) traditional working class, and a group of new “disruptive” capitalists, hedge fund owners and Russian oligarchs for whom nation states are an impediment to the free flow of (their) capital. Both groups, for radically different reasons, backed the claim that Johnson would get Brexit done. Whether this is a temporary phenomenon remains to be seen.
“Much of the population have been battered by Reagan-Thatcher aftermath neo-liberal globalization, designed to protect capital and set working people in competition with the poorest paid around the world,” linguist, philosopher, and political critic Noam Chomsky told DW. “It is easy for demagogues to blame it on immigrants, Blacks, etc. There’s plenty of anger and resentment. One reaction is ‘we want our country back’: Brexit-MAGA. Suicidal, but understandable,” he adds.
This is not to say Labour isn’t in trouble, they actually seem to be in (wait for it) disarray.
It feels like Labour shattered over Blair’s support for invading Iraq and the rifts have gotten worse ever since.
spiffy
9048
Which again feels so pithy, same as how the LibDems are eternally punished for the Uni tuition fiasco. And yet the Tories get away with murder, year upon year, ten years and counting. It’s all very odd, people keep voting for the vampires.
Have you guys considered that maybe British people actually generally align with the Conservatives?
ETA:
Or maybe just the English, this whole several different countries in the same country is confusing.
Banjax
9050
I think the problem is that if you live in Hartlepool for the last 50 years it’s not felt that good. Heavy industry has been dissappearing for the last 40 years. In the 80s up north (where I was at that time) there were constant bad jobs news and it was obvious that the retrianing/enterprise zones/get ‘on your bike messages’ from the Tories wasn’t going down that well.
Then came the 90s and though to 2010 any new Labour stalwart can point to surestarts, new schools, lower hospital waiting times it didn’t feel that different if you lived in an ex industrial area. Many were looking at what a wonderful time that there London was having but it didnt’ feel like that locally.
There has then been 10 years of Tory rule and austerity has taken all of those gains and more. The libraies that have closed by a Labour council despite being due to the funds by the Tory government.
I think that could give you an anger against the establishment but the establishment is local. The MP is Labour, the council is Labour so what was the point in doing it.
spiffy
9051
This is sad, but true. In my borough, the local facebook page is always raging against the local LibDem gov. for one thing or another, but in almost every case, it’s a budgetary decision brought upon the fact the local council used to be receiving X millions of pounds from the Fed, and now get (literally) zero.
