PaulMB
pfm Member
Yes, definitely Stephen Fry!
Greatest Living English / Scottish / Welsh / Irish etc Person
- Thread starter Stemcor
- Start date
paulfromcamden
Baffled
I guess Alan Bennett is more of a playwright. Certainly a National Treasure.
Simon Dawson
Angry, Ill & Ugly
I thought that you had to be over 18 to vote.
vince rocker
pfm Member
So, apart from Mrs Big Tabs, all white men? I don't think fishies are especially racist and sexist, it's a reflection of where the power, influence and media exposure are in our society.
ff1d1l
pfm Member
Pro zionist video attempting to justify gaza. You can really go off people.
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Yes I had the same thought and wondered who I would nominate as greatest living Englishwoman.
Judi Dench perhaps? If not for her portrayal of M then surely for her infamously obscene cross-stitch.
tricky1
pfm Member
What's wrong with being woke? He gives a toss about climate change and the decline of animal species. And why is caring about climate change leftist? Politics shouldn't even come into that.
David Attenborough is definitely the greatest living Englishman by a long way.
Spraggons Den
pfm Member
Kevin Keegan/Bob Mortimer, Billy Connolly, Liam Gleason and ow what's occurring.
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Was joke.
Paul is making a joke with the target being the right wing press etc who like to portray anyone who cares about the environment etc as "woke", this being used as a pejorative term.
tones
Tones deaf
I'd like to propose a controversial choice for greatest living Irishman - Gerry Adams.
Now why would a Northern Prod make such a controversial choice? Because, without Adams, there'd be no peace in Northern Ireland. Although, despite his consistent disavowals, he was undoubtedly a member of the IRA and almost certainly on the Army Council, he perceived quite early that the romantic Republican attachment to the gun and the bomb as a means of getting rid of the British wasn't going to work, so, in a series of columns entitled "Brownie" in the Republican newspaper An Phoblacht he started to set out a new vision of winning - the bullet and the ballot, as he put it. To do this, he had somehow to drag a famously fractious Republican movement with him. British negotiators from the earliest days found him bright and knowledgeable.
He was not solely responsible for the Good Friday Agreement - one must recognise the sadly late John Hume, who would otherwise be my choice - but his vision and his ability to deliver the Republicans played a major role. As a result, no matter how the Northern Irish parties may squabble, nobody apart from the few nutcases on both sides wants to go back to The Bad Old Days.
Now why would a Northern Prod make such a controversial choice? Because, without Adams, there'd be no peace in Northern Ireland. Although, despite his consistent disavowals, he was undoubtedly a member of the IRA and almost certainly on the Army Council, he perceived quite early that the romantic Republican attachment to the gun and the bomb as a means of getting rid of the British wasn't going to work, so, in a series of columns entitled "Brownie" in the Republican newspaper An Phoblacht he started to set out a new vision of winning - the bullet and the ballot, as he put it. To do this, he had somehow to drag a famously fractious Republican movement with him. British negotiators from the earliest days found him bright and knowledgeable.
He was not solely responsible for the Good Friday Agreement - one must recognise the sadly late John Hume, who would otherwise be my choice - but his vision and his ability to deliver the Republicans played a major role. As a result, no matter how the Northern Irish parties may squabble, nobody apart from the few nutcases on both sides wants to go back to The Bad Old Days.
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misterc6
Wasted and wounded, it ain’t what the moon did
That will be Ruth Jones.
GavinA
pfm Member
I was initially gobsmacked by your choice because my view of him was that gained from many years of mainland news presentation. But your second para was a new perspective on him, and cause for reconsideration.
But like you, I would rate John Hume higher, ever since seeing him on tv being assaulted by a police chief when leading a non violent march in the 60s. An impressive man.
Spraggons Den
pfm Member
Take two:
chose any one of the Kinnocks, Alex Salmond, ow what's occurrings fella (not Smithie) and wales get a second go in lieu of NI, Liz Truss
chose any one of the Kinnocks, Alex Salmond, ow what's occurrings fella (not Smithie) and wales get a second go in lieu of NI, Liz Truss
tones
Tones deaf
As I see it, the big problem with both Unionists and mainlanders is that they don't ask the fundamental question - why was there an IRA? (Ditto the Israelis, who don't ask why there is a Hamas). Terrorist movements are often the reaction to major injustices - it's the weapon of the weak against the strong. And a terrorist/resistance movement doesn't have to win, only to survive, and wear down the opposition. It is to Adams's credit that he realised that the way forward was through politics and that violence alone simply wasn't going to get anywhere. He encouraged people to get involved in politics as a means of change. To do this, he had to manage a precarious balancing act, especially with the traditional Republicans who had the romantic illusion of shooting and bombing their way to reunification, like their predecessors, the "bold Fenian men" of 1916-1921. Being Republican royalty helped - his father had been interned by the British during the Second World War, when the Abwehr was trying to get the IRA to sabotage British installations.
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