 | Forum
Reply | Asylum Backlog
at 06:51 27 Feb 2026
As I feared, the combination of a strong sectarian vote (aided by foreign language leaflets mentioning global policies tailored to particular ethnic groups and "family voting") and misguided social liberals, got the Greens over the line notwithstanding their crazy policies. This will strengthen the influence of Labour left wingers who want to shift government policy to the left (including crucially on immigration) on the theory that the Greens rather than Reform are the main threat. I see further deterioration in the UK's situation ahead. |
| Forum
Reply | Death of the Town Centre
at 21:47 26 Feb 2026
The point is that the town centre has to compete against shopping plazas that have free parking, |
| Forum
Reply | Asylum Backlog
at 21:44 26 Feb 2026
Let us hope that Labour get the right signal about this in the by-election. I worry though that it will show that the more migrants arrive, the more we will see an ethnicity-based voting bloc that will oppose tighter controls. |
| Forum
Reply | Asylum Backlog
at 12:24 26 Feb 2026
The negative is that Ministry of Justice figures for the year to September 2025 show that about 70,000 were waiting for an appeal against an asylum decision, which was around double the previous year. |
| Forum
Reply | Sir Jim Ratcliffe
at 02:42 23 Feb 2026
That phrase "This is a Muslim area" is what stood out for me in the original clip. More positively, I like Jeff Banks' style and the ambience of the era that he mentions. The idea of being "suited and booted" to attend live jazz events really appeals to me.
https://web.facebook.com/jbank
We have quite a good local jazz scene in Swansea, but only a minority make the effort to dress up these days (and the women more than the men). Looking at the old photos there was a time when nearly all the guys (musicians and audience) wore a jacket and tie. In the old days of the jazz scene this applied to people of various ethnicities, and it is ironical that a newer version of "concentrated" diversity is sweeping away this kind of integrated club/pub-based culture and music in certain urban enclaves. I can report, however, that some of the local Albanian gangsters do seem to attend gigs in a certain Swansea pub.  [Post edited 23 Feb 3:18]
|
| Forum
Reply | Swansea City v Bristol City : Match day thread
at 00:41 22 Feb 2026
Excellent result against a team that pushed us hard. This game was a reminder of how difficult it is to get out of the Championship. There are quite a few teams with good squads that could be there or there abouts when it comes to the play-offs. |
| Forum
Reply | Swansea's 3 nights blitz
at 23:57 20 Feb 2026
As a child born after the war I have vague memories of some areas of the city still in ruins. Does anybody know how many years passed before the bombed out areas were cleared and rebuilt? |
| Forum
Reply | Trump rubbishes Chagos deal
at 23:49 20 Feb 2026
There are multiple emerging dimensions of the mess. (1) If Trump digs his heels in the UK appears to be prevented from ratifying the Mauritius agreement by a 1966 treaty with the USA. (2) The UK opt-out admitted in recent parliamentary answer to a written question suggests that the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea may have lacked jurisdiction over the issue on which is provided an advisory judgement; (3) Chagossians have landed on one of the islands and their proposed removal has been temporarily blocked by a senior judge from the British Indian Ocean territory in a development that looks likely to lead to further legal action. (4) The US is reportedly having direct talks with Mauritius, probably exploring constraints that a lease might put on its future freedom of action in areas like attacks on a country like Iran and storage of nuclear weapons. It could be that we are seeing the beginnings of a blame game in which some wish to implicate Tories like Johnson and Truss, Personally I would allocate a good chunk of culpability to Hermer and Powell. |
| Forum
Reply | Sir Jim Ratcliffe
at 10:42 18 Feb 2026
Just to mention one part of this route, Sketty and Uplands accommodate a lot of international students and it would be unusual not to see a few if walking through the area. Additionally, if you walk past Bishop Gore School at times when pupils arrive or depart or the newish Sketty Mosque at certain times you will see a lot of persons with minority ethnic backgrounds.
https://www.skettymosque.org/ |
| Forum
Reply | Trump rubbishes Chagos deal
at 03:49 18 Feb 2026
Another angle that has just come up in the news concerns the original (advisory) judgment by the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea.
Critics have found that the treaty that established the tribunal contains provision for an opt out that would exclude the Chagos base from the jurisdiction of the tribunal if exercised.
Article 298 allows states to declare exceptions to compulsory dispute settlement procedures under UNCLOS, effectively excluding certain sensitive disputes from binding adjudication.
_______________
AI Overview
Article 298 of the UNCLOS provides optional exceptions to the compulsory dispute settlement mechanisms outlined in Part XV, Section 2 of the Convention. When a state signs, ratifies, or accedes to the Convention, it may declare in writing that it does not accept compulsory procedures for certain categories of disputes, without affecting its other obligations under the Convention.
Categories of Disputes Excluded
The article allows states to exclude disputes concerning:
Military activities by government vessels or aircraft engaged in non-commercial service.
____________
Apparently such a declaration was made.
https://questions-statements.p
The Government probably won't take any notice as they are claiming that Mauritius could take the case to other international courts and eventually get a binding decision, but the fact that this has been kept out of public view says something about the intention to get the deal done.
In another development four Chagossians have arrived on one of the islands and are daring the UK government to remove them. The complications keep coming thick and fast. [Post edited 18 Feb 8:53]
|
| Forum
Reply | Sir Jim Ratcliffe
at 22:24 17 Feb 2026
Text of Louise Bennett-Coverley's poem, "Colonization in Reverse".
Wat a joyful news, miss Mattie,
I feel like me heart gwine burs
Jamaica people colonizin
Englan in reverse.
By de hundred, by de tousan
From country and from town,
By de ship-load, by de plane-load
Jamaica is Englan boun.
Dem a pour out a Jamaica
Everybody future plan
Is fe get a big-time job
An settle in de mother lan.
What a islan! What a people!
Man an woman, old an young
Jus a pack dem bag an baggage
An tun history upside dung!
Some people doan like travel,
But fe show dem loyalty
Dem all a open up cheap-fare-
To-Englan agency.
An week by week dem shippin off
Dem countryman like fire,
Fe immigrate an populate
De seat a de Empire.
Oonoo see how life is funny,
Oonoo see de tunabout?
Jamaica live fe box bread
Out a English people mout’.
For wen dem ketch a Englan,
An start play dem different role,
Some will settle down to work
An some will settle fe de dole.
Jane say de dole is not too bad
Because dey payin she
Two pounds a week fe seek a job
Dat suit her dignity.
Me say Jane will never fine work
At de rate how she dah look,
For all day she stay pon Aunt Fan couch
An read love-story book.
Wat a devilment a Englan!
Dem face war an brave de worse,
But me wonderin how dem gwine stan
Colonizin in reverse.
________________
TfL recently put up posters featuring this poem. |
| Forum
Reply | Trump rubbishes Chagos deal
at 22:05 17 Feb 2026
This hints at a form of corruption that occurs when senior elements in a country's legal establishment become too closely entwined with government. In effect they come up with solutions that experts in countries that feel they have cases against the UK could not arrive at without their help, and they profit handsomely. The close relationships between advocates and former colleagues in government facilitate this process. And yet the cumulative effect is national self-harm, if not actual suicide. It is as though the elite profits but isolates itself from the ever growing collateral damage to the nation. There is a last days of Rome feel about what is happening. |
| Forum
Reply | Sir Jim Ratcliffe
at 06:30 17 Feb 2026
But before going round and round in circles we started with Mr Ratcliffe's actual words and the suggestion that use of the word "immigrants" was in itself racist. Ratcliffe never mentioned ethnicity or race. |
| Forum
Reply | Sir Jim Ratcliffe
at 19:11 16 Feb 2026
Another red herring and failure to grapple with the real issue. From what you say one would assume that "immigrant" is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, when the characteristics defined in law are ones that only some immigrants will have.
You can lead a horse to water but... |
| Forum
Reply | Sir Jim Ratcliffe
at 09:10 16 Feb 2026
Surely you should realise that the definition you put forward is contested. Blair Imani in the video clip link I posted, herself as right-on an anti-racism activist as you will find, flatly contradicted what you are arguing. The controversy is feeding into the government's efforts to draft a definition of Islamophobia, with the formulation they have come up with thought not to satisfy Muslim campaigners.
In any event, your post again fails to explain the exact mechanism whereby Ratcliffe's use of the word "immigrants" can be heard as an expression of racism. It may also be worth getting to grips with the idea of "racialisation" as a concept that underlies racism, and considering the processes that racialisation involves and whether Ratcliffe used any of them (I don't think he did).
I have been explicit about how I come to my understanding of how "immigrants" would be heard by speakers in our language community. Perhaps you could dip into the sociolinguistics literature to explain to me how you or Gwyn arrive at a different hearing of the word
A final thought is that your own favoured definition involves discrimination against a particular group, whereas Gwyn's argument was that the failure to specify a particular group within the category immigrants was itself racist. I'm sorry but I think the logic is all over the place. [Post edited 16 Feb 9:28]
|
| Forum
Reply | Sir Jim Ratcliffe
at 01:06 16 Feb 2026
I want to understand but am trying to see how a collective noun that encompasses multiple social types is racist, remembering the origin of the term "racism" and its claim that humankind is divided into separate physical groups differentiated by phenotype and genetics. One way to analyse how categories are used in language is the idea of membership categorisation devices, collections of categories that cluster together. Immigrant would be part of the category set that includes native (or resident or citizen) and emigrant. I do not see how describing persons arriving on the UK with the intention to settle as "immigrants" rather than listing all the included categories that one might unpack is racist. How does this speech act relate to any claim that races exist in nature and that some races are superior to others? Can you unpack the logic or chain of reasoning? [Post edited 16 Feb 1:24]
|
| Forum
Reply | UAE concerned about British Radicalisation!
at 20:21 15 Feb 2026
Haven't quite got my head around what is happening, but two aspects of this problem seem to be (a) the particular and almost obsessive focus on the Palestinian situation in the universities while neglecting other conflicts, and (b) the growth of an increasingly demanding Muslim vote in some larger cities, which leads to a heated political climate and the type of events we saw in Birmingham with the Villa game. Both contribute to an impression of growing radicalisation which could worry governments in certain Muslim countries. [Post edited 16 Feb 0:43]
|
| | AnotherJohn
|
Site Scores| Prediction League: | 0 | | TOTAL: | 0 |
|
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.