@CapelLofft

✝️ Political and ecclesiastical history, Anglicanism, literature. Author of 'The Rage of Party: How Whig versus Tory Made Modern Britain'.

 Cambridgeshire
hachette.co.uk/titles/george-owers/the-rage-of-party/9781405558174/
Joined January 2018
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It's official in the print edition of today's Times. Not only is 'The Rage of Party' a @thetimes book of the year, it is *the* history book of the year.
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Well, confident spoken communication certainly isn't a privilege that has been extended to most of the ministers in HM's current government
Lucy Powell MP
@LucyMPowellOct 19
For too long, confident spoken communication has been kept for the few. Now, it will be the right of every child. Here’s what I’m changing👇🏻 theguardian.com/commentisfre…

My critics think speaking fluently is vital for fee-paying pupils, but not for anyone else. Here’s...

We are accused of dumbing down, but that’s nonsense: this is levelling up. All the evidence shows helping children articulate improves their life chances, says Labour’s deputy leader Lucy Powell

theguardian.com
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In 1750 a British diplomat was sent to Berlin to try to secure an alliance with Prussia. The mission to charm Frederick was not a success. It ended with the British envoy declaring that 'he would rather be a monkey in the island of Borneo than a subject of His Prussian Majesty'
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Boney was, in the end, a loser. The rest is babble
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Capel Lofft retweeted
Mehmet Çiftçi@mehmet_y_cOct 21
Lord Nelson: "Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them" - from Cochrane's The Autobiography of a Seaman.
USAS 🇺🇸@USAS_WW121 Oct 2025
Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805: Admiral Horatio Nelson rams his Royal Navy (27 ships of the line; 2,148 cannons) through France and Spain's ships (33; 2,632), splitting their fleet and then defeating one section. 18 ships captured or destroyed for 0 losses. Nelson KIA.
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Capel Lofft retweeted
Herb Brubanter@HBrubanterOct 21
21st October, 1805. Napoleon is master of Europe. Only the British fleet stands before him. Oceans are now battlefields. Happy Trafalgar Day.
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Wish a very happy Trafalgar Day to all who celebrate.
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Absurd comparison. No-one is issuing a fatwa against her, least of all because of her bloviating novelistic descriptions of the personal relations of sensitive leftist Irish twentysomethings. It's because she wants to donate the royalties to a banned terrorist organisation
The New Statesman
@NewStatesmanOct 21
If you ever sought out the novels of Sally Rooney in bookshops – when that was still possible – you’d know they sit in the fiction stacks adjacent to the novels of another SR whose books have been withdrawn in dastardly political circumstances. Until last week, “Rooney” and “Rushdie” had little in common beyond being shelfmates; now they have more than just a physical proximity. @tanjil_rashid_: This is censorship by other means newstatesman.com/comment/202…

This is censorship by other means

The Sally Rooney affair shows how laws meant to target terrorism now suppress the freedom to dissent

newstatesman.com
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Rushdie's choice was either: don't publish 'The Satanic Verses' at all, or publish and spend the rest of your life at risk of murder or attackd. Rooney has chosen this path. She could donate the royalties to support the Palestinian course in a legal fashion. She chooses not to.
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*attack & *cause
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Rooney is not having to withdraw her books for a single opinion she has expressed, either in her novels or elsewhere, on Palestine or any other subject. It is because of her decision to actively fund a legally proscribed terrorist group. To call that censorship is ridiculous
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Still, useful to get a list of names of useful idiots whose political opinions we can safely ignore. Not that the names on it are much of a surprise.
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Happy Trafalgar Day. Nelson, in his dying moments, could say with confidence 'Thank God I have done my duty'. Let us hope we can all say the same in our last minutes.
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Mark Allen (@pistol147) is a superb snooker player whom I have a huge amount of time for and I really hope he comes back and starts winning again. If anyone can, after the nightmare he had in the last World Championship semi final, he can
I ❤️ Snooker
@ILoveSnooker_Oct 20
Mark Allen: “I’m just trying to survive at the minute. My snooker career might be over.”
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I have always been a subscriber to the admirable maxim that, as the Bible puts it, 'if any would not work, neither should he eat'. A sentiment that has the rare distinction of being endorsed by both St Paul and Lenin
Richard Johnson@richardmarcj16 Apr 2024
Ben Pimlott described Judith Hart as ‘probably the most left-wing member of the Cabinet’ in the 1960s. As Social Security Minister (DWP), she took a hard line against benefit cheats in the name of socialism. Her attitude reflects an instinct that is rarer on the left today🧵
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Of course, there are always exceptions, such as the elderly & genuinely disabled. But to me the idea of not working and sponging off the state when one is able to work seems disgusting, totally undermining one's self respect. Honest labour, even if menial, is better than idleness
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The welfare state was meant to be an insurance system for temporary unemployment, with more permament support only for the small number genuinely unable to work. Not a lifestyle choice for those who think themselves above honest toil. Nothing left wing about being a scrounger
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If I get sent one more book proposal for a project on AI I swear I will become fully certifiable. No I am not interested in the 197th proposal sent to my inbox this month on AI. Smash the machines and salt the earth of the data centres, if only to spare me from this
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Never forget: disorder is bad, the ultimate failure of politics. Riots, political violence, looting, arson: it's not fun. It's not glamorous. It's also almost never the prelude to greater justice or the means of improvement. It's just miserable, for the poor usually most of all
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I despise the glamourisation of political violence and the intellectual posturing that defends mindless destruction and chaos, even when there are legitimate grievances - indeed, perhaps esp when there are legitimate grievances, as violence usually discredits the cause
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Smashing up people's small businesses, injuring policemen or teachers (not themselves wealthy anyway), burning down the public realm: none of it will improve one person's education. But it will immiserate working class people and coarsen everything.
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