John Cocker

half man half cocker spaniel.

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

This video bears watching in its entirety. It is chilling. A Reform member of the Welsh parliament has been banned from speaking in the chamber until he apologises for a previous contribution in which he raised concerns about the pace and scale of demographic change taking place in the country.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

Speaking of pink minstrels. Can this twat be arrested for something please?

[Tulip 💐 @cutelipssx]

With David Walliams in the news for assorted anticipated iniquities, I think it's important that we remember the late, great Sean Lock and his perhaps prophetic hatred of him.

Lock threw perhaps one of the greatest insults of all time at Walliams during a break in filming 8 Out Of 10 Cats. Sean had turned to speak briefly to a writer when Walliams, already on everyone's nerves, gave him a flouncy slap on the shoulder. Lock simply whirled and spat:

“Don’t fucking touch me, you pink minstrel.”

[Rafe Heydel-Mankoo @RafHM]

Rubbish. Your bill is called the "English ETHNIC Identity Bill"

You criticised the flying of the English flag. Now you seek to deny the English their unique ethnicity, their ultimate & most intrinsic identity

Denying a group their ethnic heritage contributes to "cultural genocide" or "ethnocide" according to the 1944 definition

Polling shows that ALMOST ALL ethnic minorities in England still understand that "English" is a fundamentally ethnic identity to which they do not belong

It is only certain parts of the White British community - and activists like yourself - who seek to engage in ethnic erasure

Such a large percentage of White British people disagree with you, that it is dangerous to go down this needless path

Acts like yours are the reason for the growth of ethno-nationalism, not to mention political extremism. Their rise is a direct reaction to needless provocation from leftist elites

If one is born and raised in England, a person may be culturally English -- but that is wholly distinct and separate from being ethnically English. The two should not be conflated.

The two identities - ethnically English and culturally English - have happily co-existed for generations - with the historically tiny culturally English understanding their status and preferring to identity as civically and legally "British" rather than English.

This was done partly out of respect for the ethnic English, who accounted for 92% of the population of England as recently as 1991. But it was also because they naturally identified with their own ethnic group.

This is the only correct view. By way of illustration:

An Englishman born and raised in Japan, who was brought up in Japanese culture and who speaks Japanese with a flawless Japanese accent is clearly culturally Japanese -- but he remains ethnically English. That is an immutable characteristic.

In contrast with England, however, an immigrant to Japan can also be legally Japanese. Japan is a sovereign country of which he is a passport-holding citizen.

So this Englishman is culturally and legally Japanese but he is clearly not ethnically Japanese. I'd wager that 99%+ of Japanese people would agree with this - they'd say it was blindingly obvious

There is such an Englishman in Japan, actually. His name is Joshua Thomson, and he is a sensation for precisely this reason. He identifies as culturally Japanese but acknowledges he is not ethnically Japanese

But Englishness is an even more exceptional case. Unlike Japan, England is not a sovereign nation. It has no citizenship or passports. There is no nationality law.

One may be culturally English - as, say, the footballer Ian Wright is. But Ian Wright can no more be ethnically English than he (or anyone) can be legally English.

So that begs the question: what is the point of doing this?

What is behind this dangerous, provocative and completely unnecessary desire to erase / undermine English ethnicity, by far the most historically significant and consequential identity for creating the England we know and love?

Ethnic minorities are not calling for it. Poling shows that a mere 10% identify as English. The rest identify either as British or of the ethnicity of their ancestral homeland.

If anyone still believes the myth that the Liberal Democrats are a "centrist" party of "moderates" - falling somewhere between the Tories and Labour - this reprehensible policy by one of their MPs must surely blast it to smithereens.

Economically they may be more centrist than Labour - but culturally they are every bit as reckless and dangerous.

[David M Friedman @DavidM_Friedman]

Brilliant analysis about why and how Israel destroyed buildings but not people in Gaza.

[Janet Murray @jan_murray]

Imagine being in your first week of social work training and being told that some of your fellow students might be there to gain access to vulnerable children.

Shocking, right? But this social worker’s point applies anywhere adults work with children. Some people will seek out those roles for the wrong reasons. And the person whose behaviour you need to question might be the nicest person you know.

She also makes an important point about why safeguarding starts with having a clear sense of what’s normal and what isn’t. Once that boundary starts to blur, it’s easier for someone to cross it without being challenged.

I wish I’d seen this video years ago. I can think of times when something felt off and I kept quiet because I worried I might be wrong or cause offence.

Thanks @JournalistJill for highlighting it.

[Não Intendo @blognaointendo]

É a primeira vez que eu vejo uma música eletrônica analógica

[Dan Neidle @DanNeidle]

On Thursday I wrote about the 2014 injunction Russell Brand obtained against a woman who accused him of assault.

I've now obtained the final order. It's breathtaking.

She had no lawyer. No trial. Yet she was silenced for life - even barred from speaking to the police.

🧵:

[Chuck Thomas 📺 @chuckthomasuk]

All this debate about the best Christmas advert. John Lewis? M&S?

For me, there can only be one winner. Robert Dyas.

Every year. No contest.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@DavidPGCSE You’re so wrong.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@HXValley

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

I'm a storyteller.

I will tell you a story.

Not a thinly veiled allegory or analogy. Not a fable. Not a parody or a satire, or some smug little parable featuring characters "Ronald Grump" and "Alan Tusk".

No, this is a true story, and it means what it means, with no hidden symbolism whatsoever. It contains only facts, and general principles to derive from them.

It is a story about Rome.

We all know what Rome was. It was a republic, then an Empire, then nothing.

But every time we ask why, historians wish to tell us it is complicated, and that we desperately need historians, such as themselves, to sort it all out.

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire was not complicated.

The decline and fall of the Roman Empire can be explained in two words.

Cheap labor.

The Romans, as you know, had two classes, the patricians and the plebeians.

The patricians ruled Rome. But the plebeians were Rome. And the patricians forgot this.

Around this point in the story, you may be thinking you understand me already. You may think you have anticipated where I am going with this. You may think that this is going to be some general polemic about the importance of remembering the little people.

It is not. I have a very specific meaning, and I always choose my words very, very carefully.

Two words.

Cheap. Labor.

The Romans patricians, like the old and the rich of any society, owned land, and sold goods. To do this, they bought labor.

The Roman plebeians, most especially the young, sold labor. So that they could buy goods and land.

So, it should go without saying, but often doesn't, that it was in the interest of plebeians that goods and land be cheap, and labor be expensive, and in the interest of patricians that land and goods should be expensive, and labor should be cheap.

Now, markets have natural cycles. The price of every thing fluctuates up and down, looking for an equilibrium which is only ever temporary.

Sometimes goods and land are cheap, and labor is expensive. Then the plebeians become fat and prosperous, and they marry pretty girls and have lots of healthy children.

Sometimes goods and land are expensive, and labor is cheap, and patricians amass vast fortunes and build fine estates and eat honeyed dormice.

To every thing, there is a season.

But the patricians controlled Rome. Not fully or directly, not in theory, but they had money. And money buys power. Just as power buys money.

And the temptation, in the long run, became irresistible. To buy political power, and put the finger of that political power on the scales of the market.

To make sure the cheap labor stays cheap forever.

In Rome, cheap labor meant slaves. Elsewhere, it has meant other things.

In Rome, slaves kept labor cheap not only because slaves don't get paid, and can't quit, but also because every plebeian who sells labor must compete with the slave on price.

Little by little, this took away from the plebeians, not only because real wages were depressed, but more importantly because there were no seasons of labor scarcity. No cycles in the market where wages went high.

No fat seasons for the plebes, just an ever-increasing drought.

And, while the patricians controlled Rome, the plebeians were Rome. It was their blood, shed in the legions, that conquered the world. Their sweat that built the shining city of seven hills.

And their patriotism that defined what Rome was.

The patricians ruled Rome. But the plebeians were Rome, and when they ceased to bear allegiance to Rome, Rome ceased to exist, because the only thing that Rome ever was, the only thing that any city or nation ever is, is its people.

A man who has no work, a man who must compete with slaves, a man who is beaten down to want the hungriest beggar will take, is a man who cannot have a home and a family.

Not only because he cannot afford such things. But because no woman will have him. No woman will bear his children.

The ultimate expression, after all, of female lust and admiration, is "I want to have his babies".

Fewer people seem to realize that the reverse is true.

I was told once, by a man who should have known better, that Rome fell because the Romans forgot what it meant to be Roman.

Nonsense.

Rome fell because Romans knew exactly what it meant to be Roman. Which meant they knew that to be Roman meant to be replaced by slaves.

The patricians bore no allegiance to Rome, because it was cheaper to replace the Roman workers with slaves, and the Roman legions with mercenaries.

The plebeians bore no allegiance to Rome, because Rome bore no allegiance to them.

And so Rome simply ceased to be.

The outward forms hung around awhile, until the mercenaries, bearing no true allegiance to Rome, realized they didn't have to wait to be paid. They could just... take.

The patricians destroyed Rome because they thought like politicians instead of kings.

A politician buys a crown by offering the most to those whose support is most in doubt.

A king knows that crowns and thrones are only symbols, and power comes from armies of loyal men, whose loyalty must be bought with loyalty in turn. Not table scraps.

The Roman plebeians didn't want, and couldn't survive on, free bread and circuses. They needed work and land and incomes to have families and happy lives.

But no Caesar emerged in time.

Tick tock, Mr. Vance.

Tick tock.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@HXValley 5 whole years, that’s 2 whole phone contracts. An unimaginable period of time.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@HXValley Jon lost his mind a few years ago. I was a huge fan, but as the Dems went crazy (TW in sport, open borders, “unhoused” , denial of fraud in “learing centres”) he joined in their descent into madness.

There isn’t even a joke prepared - he’s just giggling incoherently

[Larry Sanger @lsanger]

I have been reflecting about this sort of exposé of a particular user’s work on Wikipedia. It’s old-fashioned journalism, and it is both appropriate and effective as a criticism of Wikipedia and how it works today. Not a long read. Have a look.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@PTCarnehan @mjsimpsonfilms @ThePDTverse If you tell it to use photos you have copyright clearance on, it would use those instead.

Sorry but your book cover looks like a fanzine sold in a comic book shop in 1986. The cover matters. It’s fair feedback, take the advice or don’t.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@PTCarnehan @mjsimpsonfilms @ThePDTverse 10 seconds on GPT

[NW Nature Lover @nwnatur]

Labour MPs are delighted by the relaxation of the ILR rules

Here is Emily Thornberry asking when a Pakistani who will now qualify can claim disability benefits for his newly born child

The costs of allowing these people to claim welfare will be unimaginable

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@SJRichmond89 @ForWomenScot

[Rainy @rainy101]

They always like to brag. It's a power thing.

[John Cocker @CockerJon]

@TonyLapidus @MartinHGAnthony Trigger was good, this one is perfection