Quite right, being precise. But the inference is that when you pay a part of your wages towards the state pension, you’re doing so in expectation of receiving it yourself once you retire. I think describing it in the terms that you have would lead to many people opting out altogether resulting in many existing pensioners falling into extreme poverty. This would then cost the taxpayer through increased social security and healthcare costs - probably as much as the state pension costs, but with the addition of watching your elderly relatives rot in the process.
I saw a suggestion that one “solution to the problem of the triple-lock” (which hasn’t actually been proved to be unfair, but hey-ho) is to wait until the pension reaches 33% of average earnings, and thereafter keep it there.
You forgot the one behind her head.
I am sure Samuel Johnson had words to say about patriotism and scoundrels.
Funny that Farage says he will declare a national emergency if he becomes PM. I will too.
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Straight out of the fascist’s play book. On what grounds - the diminishing number of small boat arrivals perhaps?
That was my first thought too. Also classic Trump.
I think something like that was the original plan though I don’t know the figure
Nads hasn’t improved at all. I could only bear to watch a few minutes of this but you get the idea. Krishnan is very good at tying politicians up in knots.
Agreed he is a good journalist. OTOH my pet cat could out-debate Dorries.
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Short video of a female protester at Reform’s conference being grabbed and manhandled.
Notice one of Farage’s female devotees viciously yanking her hair.
It’s from bluesky but I think you can access it without being a member.
That looks awful. The video also shows Farage laughing and it looks as if he was laughing at the attack.
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They are getting scary now bringing in JB as an ally. Promises are easy to make and please the sheep but we all know what can lay beneath as the Austrian showed us in the 30’s and beyond. Not one of this party could you trust, all self interested.
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I would see both as cultures ..in every sense of the word .. Art , Literature , Music , Architecture , Morality , Law . The predominant culture in Europe ..and by extension Western World is a Christian Culture based on elements of Roman Law and structures and strongly flavoured by Norman militaristic values …
I have often enjoyed the Foyles War series ..now currently on Netflix , and in one episode there is a charming Fascist extremely similar to Farage . The scene is similar…
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An essential difference there, then. Ghastly sleazy charmless old spiv.
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But there’s no single ‘Christian’ culture across the western world, and the various cultures that exist are built on many others, reinterpreted for each nation.
So the Roman culture was polytheist, and the Greek culture they admired too. There’s a layer of Roman-Catholicism across western Europe but not the United States, and in some parts also later evangelicalism, but then there’s the ‘Enlightenment’ layer that’s in favour of science over religion. Threaded through this is also a veneration of ‘classical culture’ and then most recently modernism and post-modernism. France had it’s revolution. Germany and Italy are only recently single nations. America draws much more strongly on its ‘puritan’ heritage than Europe, while majoring on personal freedom, with the invading fathers having fled persecution at home.
This isn’t a cultural toothpaste spread across the brushes of Europe, rather different countries have taken those layers and mixed them differently to make what looks only superficially similar. So the casual state religion of the CoE in the UK is forbidden in France, and non-traditional Christian groups are seen as cults because they don’t conform to expectations, while in Britain they are becoming mainstream. The United States has it’s megachurches and having a faith is an expected norm in some areas. Different countries have their own variations based around their national history.
It’s probably reasonable to think that ‘Islamic’ states are at least as varied.
There are commonalities, needed to allow nations to work together, and also because people have a common hierarchy of needs. These can make cultures look alike, but mask substantial differences beneath the surface.
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We are going to have to disagree ..I would see the differences you refer to as more of degree or level than of kind . What Christianity took from Rome was structures and laws and tied them to a single God..and all that legal jurisprudence which is still the basis of civil law in all of Europe and the Americas . This summer I have been working slowly through a book called Millennium By Tom Holland and it is basically the Christianisation of Europe from 400 to 1200 AD. In that context the Reformation is just a recent blip.
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Foyle’s War is my favourite series ever.