James105

It distracts from more important issues. Since the royal family are just ceremonial figures and are not allowed to do anything of real significance (such as changing laws etc), in order to keep them in the public eye they are reported on incessantly for carrying out the most mundane of tasks that literally any able-bodied human in the UK is capable of doing. Do the French have to put up with news about the Presidents kids, grandkids, wife's cousin half removed from his sisters fiance etc? Probably not as they are as irrelevant to the vast majority of peoples lives much in the same way as most members of the royal family are in the UK. Yet we see our head of states family in the news everywhere in the UK as soon as they are born and throughout their lives, even though the chances of them accomplishing anything significant is no greater than the other 70 million people in the UK.

How many tourists actually got to even see the Queen, even from miles away? They come to see the palaces and castles which do not require a monarchy to be present. One of the most popular tourist destinations in France is still the Palace of Versailles and they haven't had a monarchy since 1792 so the tourist argument for retaining a monarchy is a non-starter. I've always been indifferent to the Royal family, and it grates when they occupy so much of the news agenda - I have no idea (for example) why I am supposed to be interested when someone does something as normal as saying hello to someone or waves out of a window or car which, quite frankly, any human is capable of doing. At least a "president" is selected by the people, which gives them significantly more credibility than an accident of birth. If the monarchy was disbanded there would be nothing stopping King Charles III putting his name forward to be president and if that is what the people wanted then he could become head of state on merit, rather than based on who his mum was.

For the funeral I can understand as this will attract a lot of high profile visitors from around the world and will need a significant police presence, but that is in 10 days time. It's the suggestion that the games would need to be cancelled (as opposed to minute's silence) this weekend that has me a little riled. Normal folks plan (and shell out cash) in advance to travel to games, and the passing of a major celebrity figure (yes, even the Queen) should not be reason enough to cancel them.

Not really. People (who have a lot less money than the royal family) buy tickets/accommodation in advance to travel to sporting events at the weekend and I do not see why they should lose money/lose out because a celebrity figure has passed. The traditional way that respect is paid is a minutes silence (or applause) at the start of games and the wearing of black armbands. I do not see why this should be any different.

Very sad the Queen has died. She was extremely dedicated to the public service role she was born into, and regardless of whether or not she was the best person for the job she did it admirably nonetheless, and even garnered respect and warmth from even those who do not believe that such a monarchy should exist in modern times. Now, I'm hearing some nonsense about the weekends football matches being cancelled over this and this is the part where I start to get a tad irritated. Sporting occasions are a great way for people to come together and celebrate a life well lived (as well as show their respects) and I very much doubt someone who loved a sporting occasion like the Queen would want these events to stop on her behalf so hopefully that will not be the case.

Lot's of double standards in this thread, which I expected to see. Plenty of girls do the groping in this town as well. It's nigh on impossible to walk down certain streets without being sexually assaulted on the way through. It's kind of funny how those that suggest that a women should be able to walk down any street she likes, wearing whatever she wants and should not receive unwanted attention (which she should of course), but if a guy gets unwanted attention then he should know better than to come to pattaya and walk down certain streets. I just hope we are not witnessing the birth of a new scam as collecting 200k from whatever the grope was sounds a lot easier and more profitable than selling sex at 1k a go. I doubt it would be too difficult to engineer an unwanted grope from the average drunken farang, especially if the police are onside (which they will be) by taking a significant chunk of that 200k as well.

It was probably more like a 50 baht bill. If that was me and even if I was 1000% convinced I was in the right, I would have just given her the cash regardless to avoid the inevitable conflict. Some battles might be worth fighting, but a 50 baht bill is definitely not one of them.

Yes, people did vote to control the borders but clearly the Tories have no appetite to do so. Since Labour would encourage even more to come (and have zero solutions for this) who do you recommend people vote for if they want to prevent these illegal immigrants from coming over and potentially dying on this treacherous crossing, whilst allowing organised crime to profit from this at the expense of taxpayers. Or do you believe that anyone who makes it into the UK should simply be allowed to stay there, and when the boats overturn and people die attempting the crossing thats just a bit of collateral damage not worth bothering about?

Reminds me of the time one of my friends got stuck in a public toilet on holiday somewhere. The silly sausage forgot that when she entered the toilet it was a slide door rather than on a hinge and was screaming the building down after 30 minutes of failing to open the door. She was in floods of tears when we "rescued" her by sliding the door open very easily. It took her quite some time to get over the incident, her agitation about the whole thing being prolonged by our mockery of her stupidity which we engaged in for probably a bit longer than we should have.

So you disagree with the lockdown approach and paying people to sit at home doing nothing now? Or would your approach be the labour one which was harder poverty inducing lockdowns for longer which inflict even more long term harm? Thailand has now removed pretty much all lockdown measures. All the alarmists and fear propagandists on here were predicting doom. So what happened? Those that salivated over the covid stats daily have been very quiet lately. Could it be that any human measure to control something like a virus is completely pointless (as most sensible people said) and is really just about authoritarianism and control? And what a cost these measures will have! This is just the beginning. Unfortunately this hubris will cost the kids of today their entire lifetimes to pay back.

Who have proven without doubt their approach was the correct one, as we can see from the financial repercussions being felt from taking the wrong one i.e locking up healthy people who were at next to zero risk from serious illness. Of course if your goal was to put as many people into abject poverty as possible then you would of course think that Sweden took the wrong approach.

Good grief, you people and your labels. It's common sense that paying people to sit at home doing nothing would have massive financial consequences. If "alt-right" means common sensical then yes, they are to blame for not recognising the obvious repercussions. The government could have done with a little more balance in their choice of scientific advisors with some more dissenting voices but they could not introduce lockdowns without overwhelming public support.

Not really. Listening to and believing fear propaganda was a choice. Over 70% of the public supported lockdowns and being paid to do nothing, as well as wasting 1/2 trillion pounds making big pharma et all incredibly rich. If the opinion polls were against lockdowns then there would not have been lockdowns and a more sensible, Sweden style approach would have been adopted. The politicians would not have been brave enough to go against public will, especially so when it became very, very clear that only a small, well defined group of people would have been at risk from severe illness. The only people who I would say do not deserve this are the sensible ones who were against lockdowns and the associated madness of healthy people being masked and isolated from other healthy people.

Every single one of those "workers" who sat at home getting furlough money for the best part of 2 years and producing nothing should not be overly surprised about this.