New job for Howie

[Manx Bean]

6 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

One wonders precisely what contribution he will make? 🤔

Other than submitting expenses receipts for lunches in Enzos, very little.

[Roxanne]

2 hours ago, Dirty Buggane said:

I'm amazed she don't own the house and most of his money

I’m not. He has previous form in this area. 

[La Colombe]

Yeah, they've got the band back together! Time has been rather cruel. Here they are back in the day!

 

 

[Moghrey Mie]

It's a bit of a strange 'foundation' whose main role is to keep Northern Ireland in the UK. What can the Isle of Man contribute to that debate when the IOM is not part of the UK?

[Yibble]

7 hours ago, Roxanne said:

I’m just amazed that his wife is letting him go out of the house again. 

Well hopefully she at least checked he had the right shoes on.

 

[Non-Believer]

Remuneration package, if any...? 🤔

[CallMeCurious]

WTF is the point of this? Really. This smacks of Grand Fenwick delegation to the USA. Or a Cornish village council turning up at Westminster ringing the cloth cap in hand.

Aren't we already paying for a UK (or Crown) representative to live in a mansion (albiet a small one) for free? Or the Celtic League etc.

Who are they meant to be representing? What Union are they talking about as I know the IOM isn't part of the UK? Larry, Curly and Mo on some jollys.

[Zarley]

As long as we're not paying for it, who cares? As long as it keeps him from having anything to do with running the island, it's fine by me. 

Although I will say... him teaming up with Arlene Foster is priceless. They can compete for who's the most odious, not to mention the worst dressed. 

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I don't know.  I find it hard to understand any sort of British nationalism these days, if it isn't a northern Irish unionist one or a misty-eyed obsession with the past when being British could understandably inspire some pride. I don't mean that being British should have inspired pride, as patriotism, and maybe even nationalism, aren't positive things. But I understand the sort of things that people look for when they feel pride in their nation. But there is so little that I can think British nationalists can look for. More embarrassments when you start looking.

The economy is a mess.  The strength of the military isn't anything unique or special. 

Foreign policy is dismal. The UK becomes more and more of a lapdog to the US and doesn't have much freedom to act independently or to say anything of much worth and clout outside of the shadow of the US.  I tend to think that nationalists had more to be proud of in being part of the EU because of the influence the UK had there.  Yet the UK only slides into having less influence and coming more under the influence of the US.

The political class of government in the last couple of decades are embarrassments.  And there are no statesmen. But they also don't display any genuine sense of British nationalism.  The Conservatives seem more unabashedly interested in making sure that their class does well with little appeal to patriotism. 

Maybe there is something cultural but I struggle to think that all-British.  

Despite equality legislation, it seems like other rights are being eroded with changes to union laws and now protesting.  I don't think the UK can claim to be a bastion of freedom and liberalism like it could.

Yet, there are quite a number of people on the island and some recent politicians who seem to hold to a weird 1950s British nationalism.  I don't know if that is the influence of some comeovers.  It's like they're more proud of being British when the UK is having an identity crisis.

 

 

[Andy Onchan]

21 hours ago, La_Dolce_Vita said:

Yet, there are quite a number of people on the island and some recent politicians who seem to hold to a weird 1950s British nationalism.  I don't know if that is the influence of some comeovers.  It's like they're more proud of being British when the UK is having an identity crisis.

I suspect the 1950's nationalism and the perceived identity crisis that you refer to isn't weird to those who are still alive or were born in the immediate aftermath of WW2, whether you were a come-over or not. I was born in the fifties, my brothers were born immediately after the war and I think it's fair to say that my parents and millions of others didn't have much other than the pride as a nation, a British nation, that they survived the war. The Isle of Man certainly paid the price in both world wars, you only have to look at the village and town memorials to realise that. Those lives lost and those that survived were not fighting only for IOM but for Britain, the whole, the bigger picture. It mattered. And to some it still does.

If anyone asks me what nationality I am I always say British not English, which technically I am being brought up and having lived in the East Midlands for the first 25 years of my life. 

I certainly think that there's an element of faux British nationalism in UK politics.

And I think the Special Relationship (or lapdog as you prefer) with USA is as a direct result of both world wars as well.

 

[Happier diner]

On 6/13/2023 at 7:20 PM, La_Dolce_Vita said:

I find it hard to understand any sort of British nationalism these days

Is that because you are not British?

[joebean]

Howard Quayle’s involvement in anything merely guarantees that nothing will happen except all expenses-paid trips that are pointless apart from making him appear to be a very minor Statesman. I can’t think of a fatter, more irrelevant waste of space in politics or public relations. 

[Non-Believer]

57 minutes ago, joebean said:

Howard Quayle’s involvement in anything merely guarantees that nothing will happen except all expenses-paid trips that are pointless apart from making him appear to be a very minor Statesman. I can’t think of a fatter, more irrelevant waste of space in politics or public relations. 

But it is also a mark of just how difficult it is to get off the gravy train once you're aboard. Not that any of then are exactly fighting to dismount.....

[cissolt]

On 6/13/2023 at 9:31 AM, Zarley said:

As long as we're not paying for it, who cares? As long as it keeps him from having anything to do with running the island, it's fine by me. 

Although I will say... him teaming up with Arlene Foster is priceless. They can compete for who's the most odious, not to mention the worst dressed. 

That's the crux of the matter, will it cost us anything? If not let him trot about putting his nose in someone else's trough

[La_Dolce_Vita]

20 hours ago, Andy Onchan said:

I suspect the 1950's nationalism and the perceived identity crisis that you refer to isn't weird to those who are still alive or were born in the immediate aftermath of WW2, whether you were a come-over or not. I was born in the fifties, my brothers were born immediately after the war and I think it's fair to say that my parents and millions of others didn't have much other than the pride as a nation, a British nation, that they survived the war. The Isle of Man certainly paid the price in both world wars, you only have to look at the village and town memorials to realise that. Those lives lost and those that survived were not fighting only for IOM but for Britain, the whole, the bigger picture. It mattered. And to some it still does.

If anyone asks me what nationality I am I always say British not English, which technically I am being brought up and having lived in the East Midlands for the first 25 years of my life. 

I certainly think that there's an element of faux British nationalism in UK politics.

And I think the Special Relationship (or lapdog as you prefer) with USA is as a direct result of both world wars as well.

 

I think I completely understand where you are coming from.  The war was one of those things that people felt pride about. It naturally and gradually becomes less significant as time goes on for something to point to for pride because Britain is very different and few people are around from that time.

(World War I is a different thing, something as an aside.  There was no moral cause and no noble sacrifice. Just a very sad slaughter in my mind. It's more of an embarrassment of what people can do to each other.)

I say I'm British too, or Manx first, depending on whether someone understands what being Manx is. 

But what is there today for pride?

As for special relationship, that's more of a British myth.  When you look at the relations, consider the existence of strategic and economics alignments, especially in the last few decades, there is little there to demonstrate it.  It comes up often when the British government are trying to convince the Boss about seeing things from a joint view than a purely American one.