UK Politics Thread XII: The Lockdown

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Looking forward to the gammon outrage about the idea of putting a person of colour on a bank note.

Who do they wana put on a note?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... tes-first/

Mary Seacole, Noor Inayat Khan

[Andsed]

Who do they wana put on a note?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... tes-first/

Mary Seacole, Noor Inayat Khan

Not really familiar with Noor Inayat Khan but from what I found she was pretty heroic. Seacole absolutely deserves to be honored.

[The Huskar Social Union]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... tes-first/

Mary Seacole, Noor Inayat Khan

Not really familiar with Noor Inayat Khan but from what I found she was pretty heroic. Seacole absolutely deserves to be honored.

I found out about Khan myself just recently in the last season of Doctor Who where she had an appearance. Was a british spy and the first female wireless operator to be sent into Occupied France to help the french resistance. Ended up dying in a concentration camp.

[Rojava Free State]

What's with all the Pole hating going on in Britain post Brexit? It seems like all of the sudden half of the UK wants to throw every last polish person into the North sea kicking and screaming.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

The Telegraph seems to have become the government's organ of choice for floating policy ideas. I suppose the Murdoch press became so toxic after hacking Millie Dowler's phone.

[Souseiseki]

What's with all the Pole hating going on in Britain post Brexit? It seems like all of the sudden half of the UK wants to throw every last polish person into the North sea kicking and screaming.

idk i thought most of the poles went home as quality of life in poland went up and quality of life in england stagnated. maybe people are just getting nostalgic for the decades gone?

[Pilipinas and Malaya]

What's with all the Pole hating going on in Britain post Brexit? It seems like all of the sudden half of the UK wants to throw every last polish person into the North sea kicking and screaming.

idk i thought most of the poles went home as quality of life in poland went up and quality of life in england stagnated. maybe people are just getting nostalgic for the decades gone?

Some Poles may go to Britain or other European nations, especially those of the LGBTQ+ Community, seeing as their rights are being attacked.

[Ifreann]

I imagine all the different IRAs all choosing the same target, turning up to plant the bomb, and pointing at each other like that spiderman meme.

Spider-Ra, Spider-Ra,
Hides a bomb in the police ca'
Balaclava on his head
If you're the Queen, he wants you dead
Look out!
Here comes the Spider-Ra

[Rojava Free State]

I imagine all the different IRAs all choosing the same target, turning up to plant the bomb, and pointing at each other like that spiderman meme.

The Provisional IRA when they run into the Official IRA: Why are you us? We're us.

[Gormwood]

I imagine all the different IRAs all choosing the same target, turning up to plant the bomb, and pointing at each other like that spiderman meme.

The Provisional IRA when they run into the Official IRA: Why are you us? We're us.

Glengarry Glen Ross with the IRAs.

[The Archregimancy]

Who do they wana put on a note?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... tes-first/

Mary Seacole, Noor Inayat Khan

Ah, but that's not notes - it's coins. While a 'Banknotes of Colour' campaign group seems to be involved in pushing the change, the article clearly states that:

Black and ethnic minority people are set to feature on British money for the first time, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is looking at proposals by a campaign group to put influential BAME figures from throughout history on a set of coins, a Treasury minister said.

Coins are a bit easier - and less prone to controversy - than notes since there are typically several commemorative £2 and 50p coins each year. They wouldn't have to replace anyone to get Mary Seacole on a coin.


True story: I helped design one of the Royal Mint £2 coins coming out this year. It's not out yet, but it should come out next month (I think).

Edit:
Have just done a check, and one source claims that since I left the project in May of last year, it's transmuted into a £5 coin; and therefore won't find its way into your change. This isn't confirmed yet, but if true would be a source of minor disappointment for me.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... tes-first/

Mary Seacole, Noor Inayat Khan

Ah, but that's not notes - it's coins. While a 'Banknotes of Colour' campaign group seems to be involved in pushing the change, the article clearly states that:

Black and ethnic minority people are set to feature on British money for the first time, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is looking at proposals by a campaign group to put influential BAME figures from throughout history on a set of coins, a Treasury minister said.

Coins are a bit easier - and less prone to controversy - than notes since there are typically several commemorative £2 and 50p coins each year. They wouldn't have to replace anyone to get Mary Seacole on a coin.


True story: I helped design one of the Royal Mint £2 coins coming out this year. It's not out yet, but it should come out next month (I think).

A spokeperson from the campaign was on the news talking about bank notes, and starting the process of getting a person of colour on one, and the support they were getting from Rishi Sunak, and Layla Moran, amongst others. I couldn't link to the TV news segment so found the closest thing I could.

[The Archregimancy]

Ah, but that's not notes - it's coins. While a 'Banknotes of Colour' campaign group seems to be involved in pushing the change, the article clearly states that:



Coins are a bit easier - and less prone to controversy - than notes since there are typically several commemorative £2 and 50p coins each year. They wouldn't have to replace anyone to get Mary Seacole on a coin.


True story: I helped design one of the Royal Mint £2 coins coming out this year. It's not out yet, but it should come out next month (I think).

A spokeperson from the campaign was on the news talking about bank notes, and starting the process of getting a person of colour on one, and the support they were getting from Rishi Sunak, and Layla Moran, amongst others. I couldn't link to the TV news segment so found the closest thing I could.

Well, it it's going to be bank notes, then we're likely a decade away from an update of any Bank of England banknotes; so they could be waiting a while. Alan Turing on the new £50 note (next year) is as much diversity as we're going to get on that front in the immediate future. A coin (or set of coins), on the other hand, could be done in 18 months.

[Vassenor]

Besides, commemorative coinage is markedly more permanent than commemorative banknotes.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

A spokeperson from the campaign was on the news talking about bank notes, and starting the process of getting a person of colour on one, and the support they were getting from Rishi Sunak, and Layla Moran, amongst others. I couldn't link to the TV news segment so found the closest thing I could.

Well, it it's going to be bank notes, then we're likely a decade away from an update of any Bank of England banknotes; so they could be waiting a while. A coin (or set of coins), on the other hand, could be done in 18 months.

It's a slow process even without getting the cultural buy in. There was enough of an outcry when they took Wellington off the old fivers, so it's best to telegraph these things.

[The New California Republic]

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has been caught up in his own department's rule change while on holiday in Spain.

The cabinet minister travelled to the country with his family on Saturday morning for a summer break.

But just hours later, the Department for Transport confirmed all travellers returning to the UK from Spain would have to quarantine for 14 days, due to a spike in cases in the country.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53543198

Lol rekt.

[Fartsniffage]

Well, it it's going to be bank notes, then we're likely a decade away from an update of any Bank of England banknotes; so they could be waiting a while. A coin (or set of coins), on the other hand, could be done in 18 months.

It's a slow process even without getting the cultural buy in. There was enough of an outcry when they took Wellington off the old fivers, so it's best to telegraph these things.

We've been putting a person of colour on British coins for centuries. St. George.

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

C L R James wasn't British Hirota.

[Hirota]

C L R James wasn't British Hirota.

Neither was Noor Inayat Khan, if that's the criteria. She was born in Russia.

However you are wrong - both CLR James and Seacole (the other one you listed) were born in British colonies at a time when the empire was still a thing.

Not that it really matters to me, but you were the one who raised "British" as a requirement.

If "British" nationality isn't an issue (and it shouldn't really), but rather their service for this country (such as Seacole and Inayat Khan) how about something honouring the ghurkas?

[Vassenor]

C L R James wasn't British Hirota.

Neither was Mary Seacole though depending on how strict we want to be regarding parents.

[The Archregimancy]

While she's very worthy of commemoration, I still think it more likely that the British-Jamican Seacole (whose father was a Scottish British army officer, if anyone's puzzled by Vassenor's sentence) would get a coin rather than a bank note. I also think it won't be imminent unless there's a more general 'Britons of Colour' coin issue - though from the original Telegraph article linked-to above, this is looking likely.

Several factors here:

1) We had a nurse best known for her Crimean War activity on a Bank of England £10 note from 1975-1992; that might be a bit too recently for thematic duplication for the Bank, though it wouldn't impact the Mint's decision-making process (the Bank of England issues English notes; the Royal Mint issues UK-wide coins).

2) The Mint does, however, separately try to avoid replicating similar themes in its own issues too closely together. Inconveniently, 2020 just happens to be the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth, and I believe a commemorative coin is forthcoming (which is a bit greedy, since Nightingale had a £2 coin as recently as 2010, to commemorate the centenary of her death and the 150th anniversary of the foundations of British nursing, but there you go).

3) The Mint likes to associate coins for specific people or events on significant anniversaries, and we don't have much in the way of convenient Seacole-specific anniversaries for a while.



Also, so long as we're doing significant 19th through 20th-century British women of colour, can I take a moment to nominate Sophia Duleep Singh, prominent suffragette, British-born Punjabi princess, First World War British Red Cross nursing volunteer, and goddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Though she has at least already had a Royal Mail stamp:

[Mostrov]

Neither was Mary Seacole though depending on how strict we want to be regarding parents.

Vassenor discussing how 'British' ethnic minorities may be. Have we come full circle and looped back over into ethnonationalism?

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

C L R James wasn't British Hirota.

Neither was Noor Inayat Khan, if that's the criteria. She was born in Russia.

However you are wrong - both CLR James and Seacole (the other one you listed) were born in British colonies at a time when the empire was still a thing.

Not that it really matters to me, but you were the one who raised "British" as a requirement.

If "British" nationality isn't an issue (and it shouldn't really), but rather their service for this country (such as Seacole and Inayat Khan) how about something honouring the ghurkas?

Ghurkas who won the Victoria Cross were mentioned by the campaign's spokesperson as potential candidates.

[Vassenor]

C L R James wasn't British Hirota.

Neither was Noor Inayat Khan, if that's the criteria. She was born in Russia.

However you are wrong - both CLR James and Seacole (the other one you listed) were born in British colonies at a time when the empire was still a thing.

Not that it really matters to me, but you were the one who raised "British" as a requirement.

If "British" nationality isn't an issue (and it shouldn't really), but rather their service for this country (such as Seacole and Inayat Khan) how about something honouring the ghurkas?

Something commemorating the Eastern European squadrons in exile from the Battle of Britain just to troll the ultranats.

[The Free Joy State]

So the Birmingham Museums Trust is in financial difficulty.

Wonder what the "removing statues is erasing history and must be stopped" crowd has to say about the damage to the sector that the pandemic is doing and what to do about it.

Among your many weird one- or two-sentence posts, this one surely ranks among the weirdest.

These are challenging times across the heritage sector; the BMT is hardly unique in looking closely at current staffing needs, and it puzzles me as why you'd choose a single post from the Chair of the BMT Board of Trustees as representative of a sector-wide issue given the very different challenges faced by within the heritage sector generally and the bizarre tangent you then make over statues.

Secondly, while facing challenges, the BMT is financially secure enough to have recently engaged with recruiting a new Chief Executive (which is not the same as Niels de Vos's post as board chair). Recruitment is now closed, but you can see the LinkedIn advert here. The BMT is the largest independent museum charitable trust in the UK; like many heritage organisations it is currently facing painful staffing decisions (which is the crux of the cited post), but - unlike some smaller museums - it will survive. It's also directly engaged in long-term planning for the post-COVID world, so it's hardly sitting around in the vague hope that a vaccine will turn up next month and save the City Museum and Art Gallery.

Finally, there is absolutely no explicit direct link between Niels de Vos's cited post and 'the "removing statues is erasing history and must be stopped" crowd', nor is it clear what you expect the link to be, or why you expect that 'crowd' to react with a single voice towards the staffing decisions of a museum charitable trust, nor is it clear what you expect them to do about it. Give more money? Protest about staff redundancies at Midlands museums? Write firm letters to the government asking them to give more money to the National Trust? Picket the Tower of London until Historic Royal Palaces agrees not to lay off any Beefeaters?

I mean, I know a thing or two about the heritage sector - likely just a teensy bit more than you, dare I say - and I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Certainly it's not a helpful one that anyone in the sector would recognise as a constructive contribution to debate.

And please don't bother to reply to this post with one of your one-sentence rhetorical questions. I'll ignore it. An actual substantive discussion point, in contrast, I would be delighted to follow up on.

The whole cultural sector is experiencing difficult times right now. As a theatre fan, I'm most concerned about the plight and future of the theatres (especially the smaller ones, and especially the ones where I learned to love the stage).

At least one theatre in England has already closed. Many British creative freelancers have been exempt from government support during the pandemic. Up to 70% of British theatres may be out of money and out of business by the end of this year (with a huge loss of jobs, not to mention a huge loss to our cultural landscape.

I have to admit, I do worry about what will become some of the British culture and heritage sites. I'm not sure how many of the smaller organisations, galleries, theatres, etc. will be able to survive this period. Hopefully, the effects won't be as drastic and is feared.

Who do they wana put on a note?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... tes-first/

Mary Seacole, Noor Inayat Khan

Both very worthy people to be put on a coin.

Noor Inayat Khan's heroism well deserves remembering. Mary Seacole's work in the Crimean war also deserves far more prominence than it generally receives.

It would be a shame if these were £5 coins, rather than coins in general circulation though. To deservedly honour people with dedicated coinage before making it so the honour isn't easily accessible seems to me to be rather defeating the object.