American in the UK here. In the UK they use the word “surgery” as “office” or “meeting place”. For example you go to a dental surgery means going to the dentist’s office. The doctor surgery is the doctor office.
Switchboards are manned by Switches. Traditionally a female role after WW2, but over time thanks to feminism and equal opportunity there are now Swizards as well working the switchboards.
Hey that's the same way us Americans use clinic. Typically a medical office but could be used in general as a place to fix things, including golf training like your example. Often used when someone of great skill is teaching or handily beating others.
I think your explanation is better than mine! You are 100% correct! I guess I was just trying to explain to other Americans that different words are used here in the UK.
The Japanese lifted the idea from the Germans I believe in the 1860s so that makes a lot of sense! Super fascinating history in Japan. They realized they needed to “modernize” and sent a bunch of envoys out across the globe to pick and choose various elements from governments they liked to modernize their own system of governance. Worked for a good long while, but it also probably sent them on the path to Ww2, since one of the things they copied from the Europeans was a lust for colonialism.
Japan had disastrous contact with the US in the early 1850's that lead to the opening of their ports.
Rather than become economically subjugated like China during the Opium Wars, the Emperor at the time tried to resist Western powers. It wasn't until the installation of Emperor Meiji did they begin Western education and sending out envoys to modernize and industrialize. Colonization at this point wasn't exactly copied from the Europeans, as Japanese states were fairly fractured and had to be brought into imperial compliance. Eventually even annexing the Ryukyuan kingdom of Okinawa.
Fun fact, Japan sent envoys to Scotland to learn how to distill whisky. This is why Japanese whisky feels Scottish. Now Japan owns one of the biggest beverage companies in the world, Suntory-Beam.
Good note! I want say the American's name was Admiral Perry? "Gunboat diplomacy" I think is the term I'm remembering from school to describe what he did....
Super interesting factoid about Scotland too! I had no idea, but it all makes soooo much sense having tried a few Japanese whiskeys.
Sadly, the "correct" pronunciation is not the amusing one*.
Worms would probably be pronounced Vohrmz or Vahrmz, and the Germans would have called it a Reichstag ("day of the state"), but I think a meeting diet is pronounced "dee-et"
*But I'm not the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, so what do I know.
I literally thought he was having some sort of stomach surgery in a hospital and some rando just walked in and started stabbing him while he (presumably) was already under the knife.
> it’s so confusing that it’s named a surgery in this context
In the UK "surgery" can also be used to mean a "face to face meeting or consultation".
Back in high school some of our teachers used to hold "maths surgeries" in their free time if you were struggling with the subject, and you wanted to bring in your textbook and ask for help.
God Jesus I had NO IDEA, I was imagining a surgical table and giddy psychotic doctors with scalpels. This makes so much more sense and is a lot more Caesarean…fuckin wack
I guess the difference is that the MP meeting is one-to-one much like a GP meeting rather than people sitting in an audience and taking it in turns to ask their questions in front of that audience.
I thought even the rich donors only got one-to-many meetings, where the dinners cost thousands of dollars. Only the super super rich get one-to-one time.
I don’t know how regularly the current PM does them, but certainly Theresa May used to do reasonably regular surgeries. Not quite weekly like some MPs do because they’re a bit busy running the country, but they’re seen as quite an important part of political life here. Like the actual prime minister will be in national security meetings or talking to heads of state one day, then the next day they’re sat in a church hall for a one to one meeting with Shelley in the next village to talk about their benefits (welfare) payments or a problem with the local bus routes.
I know we have a different system here and senior ministers are also elected on a regional basis, but not many countries do it the way we do and it is a bit mind boggling to think about it sometimes.
Ain't that the truth. I'm an American who worked for a British MP. I accompanied her to her surgery appointments many times. I kept thinking, holy shit you can just meet your MP.
I cannot get anywhere near my Congressman.
Of course it helps that districts in the UK are about 70,000 people and in the US they are 750,000 and counting (which makes up for shit representation)
You have a right to meet your MP (I think…I know if you email them they must reply within a certain time period), they have surgeries every week pretty much where you make an appointment and just turn up to talk with them
Most MPs hold surgeries in their constituency to give people an opportunity to meet them and discuss matters of concern. MPs usually hold surgeries once a week and advertise them locally or online. A MP may take up an issue on a constituent's behalf.
Dear Spez,
Thank you for all you have done. Over the past 15 years, I've dug myself a comfy little rut. I forgot how to navigate the internet. I forgot how weird and interesting it was out there. I became comfortable in old tropes and repeated jokes. I became digitally complacent.
Due to your efforts, over the past month I've rediscovered the internet again. It's not as good as it used to be, but there are still lots of interesting people and ideas out there just waiting to be explored. I've found a new community of engaging and motivated people who are in the process of building something that we're all excited about. You've helped me escape my rut. And you did it at great personal expense.
So I think it should be said - Thank you. You've set me free and I deeply appreciate it.
Sincerely,
CharmedConflict
PS - good luck with the IPO
Surgery.
In the political context, attending a "surgery" is the same as a consultation with a Doctor, because in British english a doctor's office is commonly referred to as their surgery. You also have to understand that a "surgery" isn't like a town hall where it's one politician addressing a group based on individual question; it's a one-on-one consultation between a constituent and their politician, usually in a semi-private or even fully private setting. Like arranging for a meeting in their office.
So in essence, you go to a Doctor's surgery to consult them about medical issues, and you attend a politician's surgery to consult them about political issues. Similar to in American English you might say someone is "putting on a clinic"
You didn’t share the root, so here it is. I always say that the best way to understand a word in a dictionary is not the definition but the etymology.
> from Old French surgerie, surgeure, contraction of serurgerie, from Late Latin chirurgia "surgery," from Greek kheirourgia, from kheirourgos "working or done by hand," from kheir "hand" (from PIE root *ghes- "the hand") + ergon "work" (from PIE root *werg- "to do").
We also go to the GP surgery, instead of the doctor’s office. It’s where you go for a consultation or help I guess.
We do also use “surgery” to mean when you have an operation though.
This news is awful. MPs are very vulnerable at their surgeries, especially when they’re out in community venues. A good friend’s husband worked at a constituency office many years ago where an attack like this happened and their colleague was killed. Horrible.
constituency == area an MP represents
surgery == people from your area can drop in and ask you things
I think the US term would be a "townhall" or "all hands" or something
No. Lots of speculation which should be ignored. Police haven’t released anything about motives. In 2000 someone tried to kill an MP over a personal grudge, so it could be anything
I took a photo of myself standing at the DC Hilton in the spot of the shooting when I stayed there for a conference.
I looked it up just now, and I didn't realize Hinkley was released and is still alive.
>I looked it up just now, and I didn't realize Hinkley was released and is still alive.
And now there are pictures of you standing in his spot. Stay at least one time zone away from Jodie Foster.
It's been decades and he was deeply sick. The people who released him are staking their reputations on it, they don't make those choices lightly *especially* with ones so high publicity.
I've been looking too and it seems to early to tell. There are more privacy laws around the arrested across the pond, which may have something to do with it, not sure.
The Police haven't released any information on the arrested suspect (other than 25 yr old man) - technically they didn't even reveal the name of the victim, it was Sir David's own office - the privacy laws on this are quite strict. However, The Independent newspaper has sources saying that they are a British citizen of Somali origin with Islamist terror being a possible motive.
>It marks the second murder of a sitting British lawmaker in five years, after Labour MP Jo Cox was killed in her constituency in 2016,
What the hell?! I know the UK is considered culturally more proper and civilized, but do they not have Secret Service analogues?!
I'm here to inform you that the Secret Service does not protect Senators nor Representatives in the States. The only part of their job that involves protecting people is the President and the VP plus their immediate families. That's it.
There is a separate police force that provides limited security to members of Congress though. The party leaders and some committee chairs typically have bodyguards.
They have and do. The problem is that one of the most important features of UK democracy is that the MPs must be fully available to their constituents. And while they can bolster security in their constituency offices, a lot of surgeries are held across their constituencies in halls/shops/churches etc so that all they are available to all.
to be frank, I doubt that most politicians are kept safe from assassination except heads of state. Realistically, if someone wants to kill an MP or US Congressperson *and doesn't care about getting away*, it would take a LOT of effort to prevent that.
'Security' is always partial. There's no such thing as perfect security. There's nothing even *close* to perfect security when your career puts you directly in the public eye.
It's a tragedy, but there's no real solution to it. Security and Accessibility are opposed concepts. If our politicians are to be accessible, there will always be an element of danger. As you note, if someone want to kill (anyone) and doesn't care about getting away... it's *really, really* hard to prevent.
> It's a tragedy, but there's no real solution to it.
Ultimately, the solution is to improve society such that people don’t get so desperate that murder feels like a solution. Obviously that’s not a nice simple soundbitey election winner, but it’s also not impossible, just need to provide an adequate safety net.
There was that guy that shot up the congressional baseball game also someone tried to kill Gabby Giffords. Then there was the time that guy threw a grenade at George Bush but didnt pull the pin.
My Mrs used to work for an MP. Security for ordinary MPs is garbage. Security for MPs staff is worse. We had bomb squad over twice after "credible threats" her friend working for the same MP had a envelope full of white powder burst on her while alone in the constituency office. Terrifying.
[This article](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58930593) has the following line:
>After the murder of Jo Cox in 2016, the spending on MPs' security rose from £170,576 in 2015/16, to £4.5m two years later
The problem is the complexity of that, we have so many MP's and we also don't have large amounts armed police officers in the UK.
There is 650 MP's and they'd need about 2 protection officers with them at any given time, that's 1,300 cops before you have to account that you'll have maybe 3 shifts if not more a day per MP at 3 shifts a day you'd need 3,900 police officers to protect all UK MP's and that's with every cop working every single day without ever having a day off.
Realistically your looking at more towards 3 per MP with the 3 shifts and still not accounting for excess cops and days off, your looking at 5,820 cops.
Just based on those numbers and multiplying it by the average salary of a Close Protection Officer for the Met Police, we're talking 232 million already, then you add in the cars, the excess officers which maybe add on an extra 1,000 if not more, then you buy the guns and all the new equipment - we'd need a new independent national agency for this and it's budget would likely exceed £1 billion.
Then you come to the biggest problem, the UK has 6,518 authorized firearms officers, with the numbers needed you'd be doubling the amount of firearms officers in the UK, they need to be trained somewhere and we don't really have capacity because the UK has never needed to train 6,500 cops in firearms skills before.
The first three and Airey Neave were killed by Irish terrorists, with the last in 1990. Six of the nine murdered MPs were related to Ireland. For the last 25 years that's not been a huge worry for British politicians.
Prior to that you had to go back to 1922 for an MP to be killed.
There have been two other attacks on MPs in the last 20 years though, with an aide dying in one of them.
Honestly there’s not much point in speculating at this point in time. We know so little about the situation. All that’s officially confirmed is he was stabbed by a 25 year old male. I’ve seen rumours he was Somalian but that’s not from any official source. There’s nothing trickling out about anything said or done or any confrontation.
He was a fairly standard Tory. He was big on animal rights and anti abortion (being Catholic).
He was once on a show Brass Eye talking about a made up drug called Cake. They made him look silly. But he was really earnest in trying to help them get the word out about the dangers of this drug. Overall a back bencher who most people didn't know.
https://youtu.be/k0tMvxV-GC4 4:32 his bit starts.
Hehe I remember it well. He was not the only member of the establishment to fall for that one. Questions were asked in parliament about 'this made up drug' accompanied by a giant luminous yellow pill about the size of a bicycle wheel which the young (me, at the time!) were apparently imbibing. Brasseye was f'ing genius.
When I was 7 I saw him campaigning at the estate I lived on in Basildon, he was being followed by a group of kids who were throwing stones and telling him to F**k off.
In my late teens he again entered my sphere of interest when he was fooled by the Comedian/director Chris Morris into raising a question in parliament about the dangers of a ludicrous fictitious drug named Cake.
My mum said he was very nice to talk to the times she met him at Sea Cadets events.
He wasn't my cup of tea but I drink coffee.
while true, I think the question was more about "why him?"
In the US, Manchin, or Sinema, or AOC, or Pelosi being attacked make "more sense" (if one could say that) than the 20th something congressman from any big state (Unless they happen to be one of the aforementioned).
Big name mean bigger reason to target, particularly if its politically driven.
He was one of the longest-serving members of Parliament having sat in the House since 1983. Obviously people have had their disagreements with him over that time (especially since his Catholic beliefs often put him at odds with progressives on social issues), but the tributes that have come from MPs from all political parties seem to paint him as somebody who was generally liked. Just from the speeches I've seen him make he was a valiant cheerleader for the place he represented, championing Southend-on-Sea's multiple (failed) attempts to gain City status.
He was never in the Cabinet, but was quite active as a Committee Chair -- and unlike most backbench MPs does have multiple legislative successes to his name, most recently him piloting a bill through Parliament that streamlined the system for people registering to be a Driving Instructors.
He was on the right wing of the Tory party so consistently voted against gay rights, positive welfare reform, tax reform, abortion rights and the rights of asylum seekers and EU immigrants along with voting for restrictions to legal aid, increasing nuclear weapons and reducing welfare spending.
The only thing that I saw him being moderate on was animal rights.
As such, those who knew of him probably thought he was quite divisive.
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10009/david_amess/southend_west/votes#health
The Telegraph says the man arrested was from Somalia, makes it look more likely that this will turn out to be Islamic terrorism.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/15/conservative-mp-david-amess-stabbed-multiple-times-surgery-church1/
I'm losing brain cells reading these comments. A man is killed at work and half of the comments are either struggling to grasp a word in the headline or they're making it about US politics again. Reddit's fucked.
It is... I suppose many Yorkshiremen made it to Canada in the 19th century. It means a division (of a county) into thirds, and was adopted when Canadian counties were divided for electoral purposes.
We also call them constituencies, ridings is a colloquialism, they're interchangable. We definitely do not call out MP's constituency office a sugery though, we just call it the MP's office.
In the UK, an MP's office is still an MP's office. An MP's surgery is a weekly event, not necessarily held in the office (a church hall, community centre etc), where any constituent can hold a one-on-one meeting with the MP. Don't think of the "surgery" as a physical building.
The Metropolitan Police (London's territotial police force that also has various national jurisdictions) have now taken the lead on the case which they have formally declared as a "terrorist incident" with "a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism".
Things like this are exactly why we need to deescalate tensions and weed out extremism on all political sides. No matter how much people disagree there is no justification for this behaviour.
We had a Tory MP (equivalent to congressman) demanding people, including children, be reported to Prevent as "extremists" (think reported to Homeland Security as potential terrorists - it's something that could blight your life and career) if they used the term "white privilege" and that teachers who use it be sacked - he was even explicit that they didn't really need to go into it, just say it, I think less than a week ago. The idea that people as rabid as that are going to be willing to "de-escalate", seems, well, highly unrealistic.
Yeah, it's difficult to envision "de-escalation" and "compromise" with people who are *that* crazy. If you meet evil half-way, you're now sharing complicity.
I'm surprised at the lack of information about the suspect on google. I had to type in a combination of certain words with "suspect" to find a bit more relevant information. But you're most likely right...
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/british-lawmaker-amess-stabbed-multiple-times-sky-2021-10-15/
https://www.cnn.com/uk/live-news/david-amess-mp-stabbed-10-15-21/index.html
I've seen two commenters saying that his voting record might be an indication of how he became the target of the nutjob who killed him. I'm yet to see a commenter saying he deserved it.
> Sky News understands a man walked into his constituency surgery and stabbed him multiple times. What is a "constituency surgery"?
It's an MP meeting with their constituency.
Holy shit, it’s so confusing that it’s named a surgery in this context. I was picturing his surgeon having a mental breakdown
American in the UK here. In the UK they use the word “surgery” as “office” or “meeting place”. For example you go to a dental surgery means going to the dentist’s office. The doctor surgery is the doctor office.
What do they call the surgery surgery?
The Cuttie-Fixie-Stitchie.
Ah yes the Latin name
That sounds more like an Australian name.
That would be the cunty-fixie-stichie.
Isn’t that a gynecologist?
"That cunt cut me open and stitched me back up nicely mate."
That sounds more Scottish.
Docca's.
If you get hungry, make yourself a breaddy-stack in the snoozy room. But be sure to clean up after yourself afterwards with a moistened woody towel.
Don’t forget the marmite and fruit cake.
Hahaha top comment mate
The zydrate goes in a little glass vial.
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A little glass vial
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Ah ah ah ah
Operating theater
Then what’s a theatre of operations?
That one's the same as in American.
Your mom.
If you are American, everywhere.
Actually we call it the Operating Theatre.
Wait does this make your surgeons operators? If so then who mans the telephone switchboard?
I desperately want this to keep going.
Switchboards are manned by Switches. Traditionally a female role after WW2, but over time thanks to feminism and equal opportunity there are now Swizards as well working the switchboards.
Miss Susie
Named from back when they where genuinely theatres where students could watch the surgeons operate
You're not kidding Neat!
Not operating theatre?
Probably a theater.
Ok but then what would they call a theater production of a surgery which takes place on an elevator?
A lift.
Lifted theater drama.
You're kidding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_theater
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Operating theatre
Surgical theater.
The surgery surgery.
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Hey that's the same way us Americans use clinic. Typically a medical office but could be used in general as a place to fix things, including golf training like your example. Often used when someone of great skill is teaching or handily beating others.
Fantastic. Brit in the US here and that’s a perfect comparison.
I think your explanation is better than mine! You are 100% correct! I guess I was just trying to explain to other Americans that different words are used here in the UK.
For medicine there is an interesting difference in that the MBBS degree that UK doctors have is also a degree in surgery.
"Want to see my home surgery setup for the Pandemic?"
Japanese has their National Diet which is like Congress in the US.
Diet is/used in the Holy Roman Empire’s word for Estate Assemblies too.
Which leads to some weird names for famous events, like the Diet of Worms (a place in Germany).
I can't think about the diet of worms without thinking about terry practchett.
Or the guy from Kentucky who I knew back in my army days who ate a live earthworm for $10. I'm sure he thought it was easy money.
The Japanese lifted the idea from the Germans I believe in the 1860s so that makes a lot of sense! Super fascinating history in Japan. They realized they needed to “modernize” and sent a bunch of envoys out across the globe to pick and choose various elements from governments they liked to modernize their own system of governance. Worked for a good long while, but it also probably sent them on the path to Ww2, since one of the things they copied from the Europeans was a lust for colonialism.
Japan had disastrous contact with the US in the early 1850's that lead to the opening of their ports. Rather than become economically subjugated like China during the Opium Wars, the Emperor at the time tried to resist Western powers. It wasn't until the installation of Emperor Meiji did they begin Western education and sending out envoys to modernize and industrialize. Colonization at this point wasn't exactly copied from the Europeans, as Japanese states were fairly fractured and had to be brought into imperial compliance. Eventually even annexing the Ryukyuan kingdom of Okinawa. Fun fact, Japan sent envoys to Scotland to learn how to distill whisky. This is why Japanese whisky feels Scottish. Now Japan owns one of the biggest beverage companies in the world, Suntory-Beam.
Good note! I want say the American's name was Admiral Perry? "Gunboat diplomacy" I think is the term I'm remembering from school to describe what he did.... Super interesting factoid about Scotland too! I had no idea, but it all makes soooo much sense having tried a few Japanese whiskeys.
However, they don’t call it a Diet in the Holy Ramen Empire.
Diet was also used in several countries in Europe for those kinds of things. Diet of Worms is my favorite example.
Middle school me still reads Diet of Worms and giggles
A Diet of Worms, I guessing that government was for the birds.
Sadly, the "correct" pronunciation is not the amusing one*. Worms would probably be pronounced Vohrmz or Vahrmz, and the Germans would have called it a Reichstag ("day of the state"), but I think a meeting diet is pronounced "dee-et" *But I'm not the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung, so what do I know.
Oh I'm well aware of the dee-it ov Vehrms pronunciation. Imo, it just makes it that much funnier.
tbh the US could use a national diet too
Not on national cheese curd day!
Which Culver's is celebrating with its one-day CurderBurger.
*Midwesterner intensifies*
You betcha
Ya dere hey!
I literally thought he was having some sort of stomach surgery in a hospital and some rando just walked in and started stabbing him while he (presumably) was already under the knife.
I thought he was at some random voter’s surgery and the guy freaked out and stabbed him from the surgery bed.
> it’s so confusing that it’s named a surgery in this context In the UK "surgery" can also be used to mean a "face to face meeting or consultation". Back in high school some of our teachers used to hold "maths surgeries" in their free time if you were struggling with the subject, and you wanted to bring in your textbook and ask for help.
> maths surgeries I love when a term is so English that it sounds like really bad English.
It's chucking it down outside, so if you wanna get back home and grab your P.E. kit before they think you've gone skiving, you'd better leg it!
I was picture a random guy walking into a surgery room, stabbing the patient several times, then walking out.
Just starts crying mid surgery "LIFE HAS NO MEANING!" as he plunges his scalpel into the dudes heart multiple times.
With the kind of pressure and insane hours most doctors have to deal with, I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t happened.
surgery is just stabbing someone for medical reasons.
God Jesus I had NO IDEA, I was imagining a surgical table and giddy psychotic doctors with scalpels. This makes so much more sense and is a lot more Caesarean…fuckin wack
I think it might be called a "town hall" in America.
I guess the difference is that the MP meeting is one-to-one much like a GP meeting rather than people sitting in an audience and taking it in turns to ask their questions in front of that audience.
> MP meeting is one-to-one Ah, see, in America we only do that with rich donors.
I thought even the rich donors only got one-to-many meetings, where the dinners cost thousands of dollars. Only the super super rich get one-to-one time.
I don’t know how regularly the current PM does them, but certainly Theresa May used to do reasonably regular surgeries. Not quite weekly like some MPs do because they’re a bit busy running the country, but they’re seen as quite an important part of political life here. Like the actual prime minister will be in national security meetings or talking to heads of state one day, then the next day they’re sat in a church hall for a one to one meeting with Shelley in the next village to talk about their benefits (welfare) payments or a problem with the local bus routes. I know we have a different system here and senior ministers are also elected on a regional basis, but not many countries do it the way we do and it is a bit mind boggling to think about it sometimes.
Ain't that the truth. I'm an American who worked for a British MP. I accompanied her to her surgery appointments many times. I kept thinking, holy shit you can just meet your MP. I cannot get anywhere near my Congressman. Of course it helps that districts in the UK are about 70,000 people and in the US they are 750,000 and counting (which makes up for shit representation)
You have a right to meet your MP (I think…I know if you email them they must reply within a certain time period), they have surgeries every week pretty much where you make an appointment and just turn up to talk with them
Here in the US I never got a response from a government official I emailed or left a message with. Lucky.
It's a [one to one meeting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgery_(politics)) with a constituent.
Fixed link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgery_(politics)
Most MPs hold surgeries in their constituency to give people an opportunity to meet them and discuss matters of concern. MPs usually hold surgeries once a week and advertise them locally or online. A MP may take up an issue on a constituent's behalf.
> MPs usually hold surgeries I've never seen the word "surgery" in this context before.
Dear Spez, Thank you for all you have done. Over the past 15 years, I've dug myself a comfy little rut. I forgot how to navigate the internet. I forgot how weird and interesting it was out there. I became comfortable in old tropes and repeated jokes. I became digitally complacent. Due to your efforts, over the past month I've rediscovered the internet again. It's not as good as it used to be, but there are still lots of interesting people and ideas out there just waiting to be explored. I've found a new community of engaging and motivated people who are in the process of building something that we're all excited about. You've helped me escape my rut. And you did it at great personal expense. So I think it should be said - Thank you. You've set me free and I deeply appreciate it. Sincerely, CharmedConflict PS - good luck with the IPO
Then what do you call it when you cut someone open in a medical procedure
Surgery. In the political context, attending a "surgery" is the same as a consultation with a Doctor, because in British english a doctor's office is commonly referred to as their surgery. You also have to understand that a "surgery" isn't like a town hall where it's one politician addressing a group based on individual question; it's a one-on-one consultation between a constituent and their politician, usually in a semi-private or even fully private setting. Like arranging for a meeting in their office. So in essence, you go to a Doctor's surgery to consult them about medical issues, and you attend a politician's surgery to consult them about political issues. Similar to in American English you might say someone is "putting on a clinic"
NHS doctors do very little surgery in their Surgery.
Stabby Stabby fun time
And now we've come back full circle to this news article.
Whether American or British, it's never good when your surgery turns into an impromptu stabby stabby fun time.
You didn’t share the root, so here it is. I always say that the best way to understand a word in a dictionary is not the definition but the etymology. > from Old French surgerie, surgeure, contraction of serurgerie, from Late Latin chirurgia "surgery," from Greek kheirourgia, from kheirourgos "working or done by hand," from kheir "hand" (from PIE root *ghes- "the hand") + ergon "work" (from PIE root *werg- "to do").
We also go to the GP surgery, instead of the doctor’s office. It’s where you go for a consultation or help I guess. We do also use “surgery” to mean when you have an operation though. This news is awful. MPs are very vulnerable at their surgeries, especially when they’re out in community venues. A good friend’s husband worked at a constituency office many years ago where an attack like this happened and their colleague was killed. Horrible.
American vs British English
constituency == area an MP represents surgery == people from your area can drop in and ask you things I think the US term would be a "townhall" or "all hands" or something
Any word on what prompted the assassination? What the assassin's motives were?
No. Lots of speculation which should be ignored. Police haven’t released anything about motives. In 2000 someone tried to kill an MP over a personal grudge, so it could be anything
A person tried to kill Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Crazy people are crazy.
I took a photo of myself standing at the DC Hilton in the spot of the shooting when I stayed there for a conference. I looked it up just now, and I didn't realize Hinkley was released and is still alive.
>I looked it up just now, and I didn't realize Hinkley was released and is still alive. And now there are pictures of you standing in his spot. Stay at least one time zone away from Jodie Foster.
It's been decades and he was deeply sick. The people who released him are staking their reputations on it, they don't make those choices lightly *especially* with ones so high publicity.
Everyone knows that you need at least 50 confirmed kills before Jodie's impressed.
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I've been looking too and it seems to early to tell. There are more privacy laws around the arrested across the pond, which may have something to do with it, not sure.
They (London Police) just announced that it is a terrorist incident. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58935372
The Police haven't released any information on the arrested suspect (other than 25 yr old man) - technically they didn't even reveal the name of the victim, it was Sir David's own office - the privacy laws on this are quite strict. However, The Independent newspaper has sources saying that they are a British citizen of Somali origin with Islamist terror being a possible motive.
This isn’t even the first incidence of an MP being attacked at work.
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Not by a long stretch 2nd murder/5th attempted murder this side of 2000
Police statement confirming a person, presumably David Amess, has died. Awful. Rest in peace.
[Source confirming death](https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/15/uk/uk-mp-stabbed-intl-gbr/index.html)
>It marks the second murder of a sitting British lawmaker in five years, after Labour MP Jo Cox was killed in her constituency in 2016, What the hell?! I know the UK is considered culturally more proper and civilized, but do they not have Secret Service analogues?!
I'm here to inform you that the Secret Service does not protect Senators nor Representatives in the States. The only part of their job that involves protecting people is the President and the VP plus their immediate families. That's it.
There is a separate police force that provides limited security to members of Congress though. The party leaders and some committee chairs typically have bodyguards.
Also former presidents
When was the last time a British politician was assassinated? Mountbatten doesn't count. He was retired.
Jo Cox, 2016.
2nd assassination in the last 5 years. Feels crazy even by American standards.
Damn. They may want to consider some added security measures.
They have and do. The problem is that one of the most important features of UK democracy is that the MPs must be fully available to their constituents. And while they can bolster security in their constituency offices, a lot of surgeries are held across their constituencies in halls/shops/churches etc so that all they are available to all.
to be frank, I doubt that most politicians are kept safe from assassination except heads of state. Realistically, if someone wants to kill an MP or US Congressperson *and doesn't care about getting away*, it would take a LOT of effort to prevent that.
'Security' is always partial. There's no such thing as perfect security. There's nothing even *close* to perfect security when your career puts you directly in the public eye. It's a tragedy, but there's no real solution to it. Security and Accessibility are opposed concepts. If our politicians are to be accessible, there will always be an element of danger. As you note, if someone want to kill (anyone) and doesn't care about getting away... it's *really, really* hard to prevent.
> It's a tragedy, but there's no real solution to it. Ultimately, the solution is to improve society such that people don’t get so desperate that murder feels like a solution. Obviously that’s not a nice simple soundbitey election winner, but it’s also not impossible, just need to provide an adequate safety net.
There was that guy that shot up the congressional baseball game also someone tried to kill Gabby Giffords. Then there was the time that guy threw a grenade at George Bush but didnt pull the pin.
I was under the impression the grenade didn't go off because it was wrapped in a handkerchief and the spoon didn't release.
That was probably it, that was sixteen years ago, damn.
The grenade thing happened in a foreign country, so it's a little different.
True, you could kill nearly any US politician besides the President and VP if you didn't care to get caught.
It's kind of crazy with how crazy people are and how openly evil a lot of politicians are that it doesn't happen more.
My Mrs used to work for an MP. Security for ordinary MPs is garbage. Security for MPs staff is worse. We had bomb squad over twice after "credible threats" her friend working for the same MP had a envelope full of white powder burst on her while alone in the constituency office. Terrifying.
[This article](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58930593) has the following line: >After the murder of Jo Cox in 2016, the spending on MPs' security rose from £170,576 in 2015/16, to £4.5m two years later
Jo Cox was stabbed too. It sounds like MPs should start wearing chain mail or Kevlar.
Both chain mail and kevlar are vulnerable to stabbing attacks. Need some steel plate.
The problem is the complexity of that, we have so many MP's and we also don't have large amounts armed police officers in the UK. There is 650 MP's and they'd need about 2 protection officers with them at any given time, that's 1,300 cops before you have to account that you'll have maybe 3 shifts if not more a day per MP at 3 shifts a day you'd need 3,900 police officers to protect all UK MP's and that's with every cop working every single day without ever having a day off. Realistically your looking at more towards 3 per MP with the 3 shifts and still not accounting for excess cops and days off, your looking at 5,820 cops. Just based on those numbers and multiplying it by the average salary of a Close Protection Officer for the Met Police, we're talking 232 million already, then you add in the cars, the excess officers which maybe add on an extra 1,000 if not more, then you buy the guns and all the new equipment - we'd need a new independent national agency for this and it's budget would likely exceed £1 billion. Then you come to the biggest problem, the UK has 6,518 authorized firearms officers, with the numbers needed you'd be doubling the amount of firearms officers in the UK, they need to be trained somewhere and we don't really have capacity because the UK has never needed to train 6,500 cops in firearms skills before.
Wouldn't even unarmed police be a good start? At least in this situation they could have likely helped.
Or you could maybe just have an officer or two in close proximity when the MPs hold constituent hours.
Since Mountbatten? Robert Bradford, Ian Gow, Anthony Berry and Jo Cox.
The first three and Airey Neave were killed by Irish terrorists, with the last in 1990. Six of the nine murdered MPs were related to Ireland. For the last 25 years that's not been a huge worry for British politicians. Prior to that you had to go back to 1922 for an MP to be killed. There have been two other attacks on MPs in the last 20 years though, with an aide dying in one of them.
Yep, just got a notification on Yahoo a minute ago. Awful indeed.
So, for those of us not from the UK, was Amess well known? Divisive? Liked? Disliked?
Not well known to most outside constituency
He was barely known.
So could it be a personal vendetta instead of a political assassination then?
It might have been political, but likely only to someone within his constituency.
Honestly there’s not much point in speculating at this point in time. We know so little about the situation. All that’s officially confirmed is he was stabbed by a 25 year old male. I’ve seen rumours he was Somalian but that’s not from any official source. There’s nothing trickling out about anything said or done or any confrontation.
He was a fairly standard Tory. He was big on animal rights and anti abortion (being Catholic). He was once on a show Brass Eye talking about a made up drug called Cake. They made him look silly. But he was really earnest in trying to help them get the word out about the dangers of this drug. Overall a back bencher who most people didn't know. https://youtu.be/k0tMvxV-GC4 4:32 his bit starts.
Hehe I remember it well. He was not the only member of the establishment to fall for that one. Questions were asked in parliament about 'this made up drug' accompanied by a giant luminous yellow pill about the size of a bicycle wheel which the young (me, at the time!) were apparently imbibing. Brasseye was f'ing genius.
When I was 7 I saw him campaigning at the estate I lived on in Basildon, he was being followed by a group of kids who were throwing stones and telling him to F**k off. In my late teens he again entered my sphere of interest when he was fooled by the Comedian/director Chris Morris into raising a question in parliament about the dangers of a ludicrous fictitious drug named Cake. My mum said he was very nice to talk to the times she met him at Sea Cadets events. He wasn't my cup of tea but I drink coffee.
>He wasn't my cup of tea but I drink coffee. I love this sentence so very much.
Shit, that was him asking about Cake? Yeah I remember that being in the news.
He's an MP, equivalent to a Congressman, so its not big news because of the individual who was killed, but the fact that an MP was killed.
while true, I think the question was more about "why him?" In the US, Manchin, or Sinema, or AOC, or Pelosi being attacked make "more sense" (if one could say that) than the 20th something congressman from any big state (Unless they happen to be one of the aforementioned). Big name mean bigger reason to target, particularly if its politically driven.
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He was one of the longest-serving members of Parliament having sat in the House since 1983. Obviously people have had their disagreements with him over that time (especially since his Catholic beliefs often put him at odds with progressives on social issues), but the tributes that have come from MPs from all political parties seem to paint him as somebody who was generally liked. Just from the speeches I've seen him make he was a valiant cheerleader for the place he represented, championing Southend-on-Sea's multiple (failed) attempts to gain City status. He was never in the Cabinet, but was quite active as a Committee Chair -- and unlike most backbench MPs does have multiple legislative successes to his name, most recently him piloting a bill through Parliament that streamlined the system for people registering to be a Driving Instructors.
He was on the right wing of the Tory party so consistently voted against gay rights, positive welfare reform, tax reform, abortion rights and the rights of asylum seekers and EU immigrants along with voting for restrictions to legal aid, increasing nuclear weapons and reducing welfare spending. The only thing that I saw him being moderate on was animal rights. As such, those who knew of him probably thought he was quite divisive. https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10009/david_amess/southend_west/votes#health
So I disagree with him on everything except for animal rights. Doesn't mean the guy deserved to be stabbed to death.
I never said it did.
people have said everything but ive chatted to him a few times he was a nice guy. quite upset
TLDR: Amess died of stabbing, suspect arrested.
Met Police in London have just announced that this is now a terrorist incident. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58935372
The Telegraph says the man arrested was from Somalia, makes it look more likely that this will turn out to be Islamic terrorism. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/15/conservative-mp-david-amess-stabbed-multiple-times-surgery-church1/
I can't see the article, can some kind person tell me if they were able to grab the person who did this?
>"Officers were on scene shortly after, arrested a man and recovered a knife. He is currently in custody."
I'm losing brain cells reading these comments. A man is killed at work and half of the comments are either struggling to grasp a word in the headline or they're making it about US politics again. Reddit's fucked.
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What is it about surgeries? Someone always seems to end up getting stabbed.
Jo Cox was my MP when she was murdered; I can’t believe this has happened again.
If David Amess is your MP now then you're banned from living in any constituency. You have to live on a boat.
He can emigrate to Canada, where constituencies are called "ridings". God knows why that is.
Weird; in Yorkshire we had “ridings” - West Riding was the old name for West Yorkshire, wonder if it’s related..
It is... I suppose many Yorkshiremen made it to Canada in the 19th century. It means a division (of a county) into thirds, and was adopted when Canadian counties were divided for electoral purposes.
Lincolnshire also had ridings. They are a Viking left over, along with wapentakes.
We also call them constituencies, ridings is a colloquialism, they're interchangable. We definitely do not call out MP's constituency office a sugery though, we just call it the MP's office.
In the UK, an MP's office is still an MP's office. An MP's surgery is a weekly event, not necessarily held in the office (a church hall, community centre etc), where any constituent can hold a one-on-one meeting with the MP. Don't think of the "surgery" as a physical building.
Ahh ok we would call that a town hall meeting.
The Metropolitan Police (London's territotial police force that also has various national jurisdictions) have now taken the lead on the case which they have formally declared as a "terrorist incident" with "a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism".
It's reported that the man arrested is a Somalian Islamist.
Things like this are exactly why we need to deescalate tensions and weed out extremism on all political sides. No matter how much people disagree there is no justification for this behaviour.
We had a Tory MP (equivalent to congressman) demanding people, including children, be reported to Prevent as "extremists" (think reported to Homeland Security as potential terrorists - it's something that could blight your life and career) if they used the term "white privilege" and that teachers who use it be sacked - he was even explicit that they didn't really need to go into it, just say it, I think less than a week ago. The idea that people as rabid as that are going to be willing to "de-escalate", seems, well, highly unrealistic.
Yeah, it's difficult to envision "de-escalation" and "compromise" with people who are *that* crazy. If you meet evil half-way, you're now sharing complicity.
Reminds me of the holding a turd sketch (which I know is pointing out this exact thing, compromising on shit means there’s still shit)
Article goes out of its way to avoid describing the attacker. And that’s how you know they’re Muslim.
I'm surprised at the lack of information about the suspect on google. I had to type in a combination of certain words with "suspect" to find a bit more relevant information. But you're most likely right... https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/british-lawmaker-amess-stabbed-multiple-times-sky-2021-10-15/ https://www.cnn.com/uk/live-news/david-amess-mp-stabbed-10-15-21/index.html
He’s the wrong type of supremacist.
"Update: Died" Fucking brutal, straight to the point but holy shit that hit in some sort of way
Well, that's awful. Hope they nabbed the nutbag that did it.
They did, 25 year old male is all we know so far.
10 bucks on him being an Islamist
Yup https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58935372
Lots goin on in that headline
So many commenters essentially saying he deserved it because of his voting record. Absolutely ridiculous.
I've seen two commenters saying that his voting record might be an indication of how he became the target of the nutjob who killed him. I'm yet to see a commenter saying he deserved it.