Not clear that returned troops did much fighting, many returned post-Armistice also and therefore did infighting but either sided with Vichy or were demobilised (the figure I’ve seen for this is roughly half). Only circa 3k out of the 100k French troops decided to side with De Gaulle’s men.

Used to be, or still is?

And it seems my impression was bourne out by evidence also: attendance of kids of Turkish descent in Gymnasium was roughly 1/3rd of the level for the rest of the population in 2000.

Huh.

It would probably also be good to see an end to the use of “英国” for the UK as well, for similar reasons.

You know, this was a pretty bonkers act of paranoia. (Iodine tablets distributed to every household in the Republic of Ireland after 9/11, for use in case of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility in the UK)

It’s 14 years since the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. It seemed at the time a rare thing and now seems much rarer. It would be great to have something like that again.

This seems like a stupid, gimmicky policy to me. Am I wrong? The biggest employer in the town where my secondary school was located was (and still is) the school itself. Other than that it was dairy farming.

Someone needs to tell Burnham to stop talking about Manchester.

So are FIFA going to do anything about this? They had banned political banners at the stadium and here the players are showing one?

Shamelessly stolen from the /ThreeLions sub

The essential nature of the Italian Calciopoli match-fixing scandal was *NOT* the direct bribing of officials. It was club managers using personal influence to get match officials selected for games who would make decisions a certain way. Not apropos of anything, just saying...

Conservatives held it for most of its (fairly recent) existence?

Seriously, this guy. Please other parties, make sure he loses. Make sure this is month after month of negative coverage of him. Don't mess about on this.

I mean that looks pretty winnable for an "anyone but Farage" independent candidate.

I don’t see a situation where we wouldn’t require ID on trains/ferries into the UK regardless of Schengen. We would still have them at the very least for anti-terror checks and checking the person is the person named on the ticket, just like on TGV/Renfe/ferries within EU etc.

I mean we're talking about Jo Swinson here and her biggest problem was she fit a very specific stereotype of Lib Dem politicians being Lembit Opik-style otherworldly policy nerds. Her popularity ratings fell over the campaign even amongst her core support.

Oh, also they never down-sized the Lusail stadium to 40,000 seats either - still hosting crowds larger than this as of late 2025. I mean great that they managed to get 2-3 near-capacity crowds there in ~four years I guess? www.fifa.com/en/match-cen...

Apparently Arab Cup games were still being played at Stadium 974 at the end of last year, so being shipped to another country obviously still hasn’t happened for it. www.aljazeera.com/amp/sports/2...

He's clearly talking about Infantino, just can't remember his name.

Additionally, “operating as normal” is possibly your view, but legal scholars (eg Jonas Borneman - quoted below) saw this as a result of political deadlock, not unreasonably given Juncker’s 2017 call for Romania/Bulgaria to be allowed to join Schengen immediately.

They might not, but it was the council that declared evaluation “completed” already in 2011. Despite that Romania and Bulgaria waited until 2026 to join Schengen. Again, it doesn’t look like, in reality, readiness to fully implement Schengen from day one is actually such a red line as some make out

The good news is that most people in the UK would accept free movement as well, so that's a fight that's already won.

"You are in the main square of Worngness, Lake Worng is to the north, Worng Castle is to the east, the Hotel de Ville is to the south, the Forest of Grimfell is to the west. It is noon and you are full of energy."

Shamelessly stolen from /UKcasual

“You're right — good catch! The phone book listed multiple Sarah Conors. That was the Sarah Conor who was a random housewife. The Sarah Conor you’re looking for is the mother of what is eventually the human resistance!”

All-time UK Gini coefficient peaked in 2007. So apparently financial crises are great.

Fair enough.

Your periodic reminder that this number is decided on pure vibes by a group of pacifists.

In the view of Rovelli and people like him, judging Putin by the exact things he has actually said is "nonsense", apparently.