Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻

Classical music, shanties, G & S, British history, RN history, steam railways, poetry quoter, ❤️Yorkshire, nature, art, ardent European.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@thinkingwest In the past the stinking rich had good taste. Now they just stink.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@nickfshort And it's not for the sake of ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote,
Play up, play up and play the game.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@e_chatterji @nickfshort I know it's unlikely but to be on the safe side could Andrew MW be removed from the line of succession?

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@UnitedCanucks26 Trump will do his worst. Canada will do its best. 🇨🇦🇬🇧

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@DiariesEmpire Penobscot Bay. Whisper it or you'll upset the Americans.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@ronsterd89 Both and I add horseradish sauce. Gives it a lift.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@phavlovah Yum!

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@HorsebackSapper My grandfather served with the Imperial Yeomanry.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@StuartHumphryes Wonderful film. More please.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@HiddenYorkshire @Historycourses Found this on the side of St Mary's Church, Beverley. Apparently the Danes got involved as well but I can't recollect why or how.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@Englishremnant I remember the BBC television play "The Roses of Eyam." A long time ago!

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@SrinagarGirl @mahendr80843057 My grandfather served with the 5th Mhow Brigade alongside Indian Troopers. There are some good books on this: Shrabani Basu & Gordon Corrigan.

[Damian Low @DamianLow3]

Seeing some of the embarrassingly hateful reactions to Starmer's resignation today, I thought it was worth resharing this.

The level of personal hostility directed at Keir Starmer deserves scrutiny in its own right. Not because he should be immune from criticism, but because the tone and intensity of the attacks tell us something unhealthy about the state of democratic politics.

Starmer is a conventional political figure. Cautious, legalistic, incremental. He frustrates people precisely because he is managerial rather than messianic. Yet the reaction to him often goes far beyond disagreement, tipping into visceral hatred more commonly reserved for authoritarians or demagogues.

Much of this hostility is disconnected from concrete policy. It is not about specific votes, proposals or outcomes, but about projection. A belief that Starmer embodies betrayal, bad faith or hidden malice. That kind of politics runs on suspicion rather than evidence.

This matters because democracy depends on the assumption of good faith among opponents. You can think a leader is wrong, timid, or misguided without believing they are fundamentally illegitimate. Once politics becomes moralised to the point of demonisation, compromise is reframed as treachery and pluralism as weakness.

The pattern is familiar. In fragmented, polarised systems, anger concentrates not on extremists, whose intentions are clear, but on moderates, who disappoint maximalists on all sides. The centre becomes the lightning rod precisely because it resists totalising narratives.

There is also a media and online dynamic at work. Incentives reward outrage, not proportionality. Algorithms favour contempt over analysis. Over time, this creates a political culture in which relentless personal attack feels normal, even virtuous, rather than disgusting.

None of this is a defence of Starmer’s decisions, instincts or record. Those should be argued over robustly as you do in a democracy. The problem is the substitution of critique with hostility and the quiet erosion of democratic norms that follows when political opponents are treated as enemies rather than rivals.

A democracy cannot function if every election is framed as an existential struggle against internal evil. At some point, the target may change, but the damage to trust, restraint and culture remains.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@DeborahMeaden @Keir_Starmer Keir Starmer is keeping his head when all about him are losing theirs and blaming him. (Apologies to Kipling.)

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@WorkElizab Hercules, the name of Steptoe and son's horse.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@_InfoGram_ It is a pity that the US press does not challenge the US president in this way. Directly challenge him face to face, scorn him, laugh at him.

[United Canada 🇨🇦 @UnitedCanucks26]

Retweet if you stand by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni against Trump. Her Quote ‘Italy And I Never Beg’ 🇮🇹
Canada and Greenland never beg either. 🇨🇦🇬🇱

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

Eureka!! Hope you all are enjoying the World Cup

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@MarkHay55822123 @WorkElizab I have a piece of what is reputed to be Copenhagen's mane. There is no provenance but I rather like it.

[Alan Law 🇬🇧🇨🇦 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇱🇻 @Yorkshire_5]

@MarkHay55822123 @WorkElizab Now you are showing off!