Usotsuki Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 ... if you're a Liberal Democrat.Labour have won the Barnsley Central by-election, while the Lib Dems slipped to sixth in the South Yorkshire seat.UKIP, the Conservatives, the BNP and an independent all finished ahead of the Lib Dems, who came second in the seat in last May's general election.Lib Dem candidate Dominic Carman said his party had been given "a kicking", while Labour's victorious Dan Jarvis said it was a message to the coalition.The seat's previous Labour MP was jailed for fiddling his expenses. All the usual by-election caveats apply of course but even so not a good result for Nick Clegg, my beloved leader and the MP for Davos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 So by this, can we draw the conclusion that it's worse to be seen cozying up to a Tory than be connected to embesslement of tax payer money? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Usotsuki Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 Probably true in Barnsley, but Mr Clegg is hoping it's not a universal truth. I'm not actually sure who will be more amused by this, Mormont or Hereward, now that's a tough result to predict. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I viewed the Barnsley result more in sorrow than anger, really. I never like to see what is still a perfectly respectable political party fall behind the likes of the BNP or UKIP, although frankly the performance of every party except Labour and UKIP was so poor as to make arguments over who came higher look like the proverbial bald men fighting over a comb. I was slightly entertained by the hapless Michael Moore trying to pretend that he never paid any attention to by-election results, but at the time I was more outraged by this latest bit of rubbish from the coalition. Abolishing the May Day holiday in favour of having one on St George's Day or Trafalgar Day? And you're seriously going to try to pretend that this is about tourism? Not a nasty little bit of petty ideological symbolism? The summertime thing was bad enough, but at least that was just the usual idiotic Southern-centric myopia that you get from all the main parties. This is just bollocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datepalm Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 They're banning May Day?!?!Nice obvious symbolism though - International Labour Day replaced by Nationalism Symbolized by Religeon Day. The manifesto writes itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Usotsuki Posted March 4, 2011 Author Share Posted March 4, 2011 It might not be Nationalism Symbolized by Religion Day it might be Celebrate the Rise of Empire Day instead.I'm not opposed to a holiday in the September to November damp patch on the calendar, but I hadn't realised it was going to be paid for by losing May Day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 What is it with these politicians and their Trafalgar day? Who wants a bank holiday at the tail end of October? I suppose you could celebrate it by sitting at home or in a pub drinking Nelson's blood watching the rain fall outside and feeling the early chills of winter round your knees.Now a battle of Quebec day in September or better yet a Waterloo day holiday on the 18th of June when there's a better chance of the weather being reasonable that would be something.Whats all the nonsense of celebrating St Georges Day - some immigrant foreign saint from Turkey, or Syria or some place. The only saint's day that should be celebrated in Britain is St Swithins Day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maltaran Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 How about St Alban's Day on June 22? Although I agree that it should be an extra bank holiday and not a replacement for May Day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 St Alban! Wasn't he some kind of soldier who refused to obey orders? What kind of example is that to hold up to our armed forces? Why the next thing you'd know is that they will be wanting to love their neighbours and to turn the other cheek or even think that killing people is something that you shalt not do! Now St Edmund, dieing horribly at the hands of invading Vikings, that's more the kind of figure we need to inspire our troops and stiffen their resolve!But yes lets keep our May bank holidays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Iceman of the North Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 Clearly, the UK ought to celebrate the far superior Saint Olaf on July 29. You could replace this with the rather nonsensical Boxing Day or Good Friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 What's with celebrating saints in the UK anyway? As a poor protestant immigrant it's not too obvious to be politically correct on this. Last week, apparently they were celebrating St Jones or St James or something on J (I think, I am probably wrong) at my daughter's nursery by drawing daffodils.I think I managed to offend the staff there by looking utterly confused and sort of blank when they told me they'd been celebrating whatsit saint. :oI thought only Catholics celebrated saints? Or am I just a lost protestant in an anglican world? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I would guess St David, I think I dimly remember making daffodils for St Davids Day when I was in Infants School. I don't know about celebrating saints I was only introduced to all that lark in school, Miss Kimber's class, 2nd year infants, where we had to draw pictures of Jesus being dead in the tomb and the like (this was a state school not CofE).Anglicanism is the family religion of the kings and queens of England, I suppose since various anglo-saxon saints and holy men were among their ancestors (indirectly, for example Edward the Confessor was considered holy on account of not having sex with his wife who happened to be the daughter of his principal political rival, it all sounds a bit passive aggressive to me but it was enough to get you a good reputation with the Church back in the day) it probably seemed disrespectful to junk the whole concept.Anyhow isn't that a saint's day in Sweden when the girls wear white dresses and candles on their heads? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Iceman of the North Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I thought only Catholics celebrated saints? Or am I just a lost protestant in an anglican world?You do celebrate St. Lucia in December. In Norway, instead there's St. John (Sankthans or Jonsok) instead of midsummer night, and St Olaf (Olsok). Neither are bank holidays, but the latter is an official flag flying day, while the former is celebrated in a similar fashion the Swedish way, but with bonfires instead of maypoles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 It's more patriotism than spirituality. The four patron saints were clearly fine upstanding representatives of our mighty union. They chased out snakes and slew dragons and I'm sure the other two did something cool too.Also, I dunno how you guys do in Sweden but i'd say lutheranism is just as daft as anglicanism when it comes to saints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lyanna Stark Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 We do indeed celebrate Lucia but that's more for the singing, the cakes and the booze.Also, I dunno how you guys do in Sweden but i'd say lutheranism is just as daft as anglicanism when it comes to saints.Oh, I completely agree on this, but I just blithely assumed that Anglicans and Lutherans were sort of both vaguely against saints, hence why the forceful comment from the nursery staff regarding St David (thanks Lummel) made me feel culturally illiterate.It disturbed me even more now when saints are up for creating bank holidays since I felt even more out of touch with everything. :oMaybe I should join the Lib Dems? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelonious Posted March 4, 2011 Share Posted March 4, 2011 I don't think any of the parties have a policy on saints... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 What's with celebrating saints in the UK anyway? As a poor protestant immigrant it's not too obvious to be politically correct on this. Last week, apparently they were celebrating St Jones or St James or something on J (I think, I am probably wrong) at my daughter's nursery by drawing daffodils.I think I managed to offend the staff there by looking utterly confused and sort of blank when they told me they'd been celebrating whatsit saint. :oI thought only Catholics celebrated saints? Or am I just a lost protestant in an anglican world?It tends not to be so much a celebration of the saint as a celebration of the country the saint is a patron of - there's not really any attention paid to any saint's days other than the four patron saints and St Patrick's Day (for example) seems to be more about a celebration of Guinness and general Irish stereotypes rather than any religious content. It does seem a bit anachronistic to still associate the countries so closely with their patrons when they're not even from those countries in most cases - the English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh patron saints are Syrian, Israeli, Welsh and Welsh respectively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maltaran Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 I thought St Patrick was French? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thelonious Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 It's a little known fact that everyone was French in the old days Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 I thought St Patrick was French?I thought I'd heard he was kidnapped from Wales and enslaved by Irish raiders. Looking at Wikipedia, it seems that they're not sure where he was from, but the possibilities mentioned are all on the west coast of Britain - he did apparently have family in Gaul so there is some connection to France. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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