#britons

Australians and Britons, please help me catch up?

Australians -

Question 1:

As far as I can tell from here on the other side of the planet, Sky News Australia is trash...right?

Sky News Australia is to Aussies what Fox News is to Americans? It has a constant right-wing populist bias and isn't particularly credible?

Question 2:

If I liked something from a Sky News Australia shouty-uncle type like James Macpherson, that should concern me...right?

I mean...I can find almost nothing else Macpherson has written or said that I thought had any value.

So...is this a stopped-clock scenario?

Here's the unedited moment from Rachel Milward (of the UK's Green Party) and Question Time host (Fiona Bruce):

And here's Macpherson, rightly fisking this, moment by moment

Question 3:

Why does Sky News Australia spend so much time on UK politics?

Question 4:

•

On 12 July 927 King Constantín mac Áeda, King Hywel Dda , Ealdred of Bamburgh, and King Owain ap Dyfnwal gathered at Eamont, near Penrith, to accept Æthelstan as their overlord.

Æthelstan was king of the Anglo Saxons and later England, regarded by many as their first King, Constantín mac Áeda, giving him his old Gaelic name, was King of Alba, mostly covering lands around the Tay down to the Forth, King Hywel Dda, it won't surprise you was ruler of Wales, Ealdred of Bamburgh, King of Northumberland and Owain ap Dyfnwal ruled Strathclyde, which included parts of modern day Cumbria.

After defeating the Norsemen at York Æthelstan started to stamp his authority in the North and according to the ‘Annals of Ulster’ in 927 AD Constantine and Owain had met with Æthelstan, on what was probably the Northumbria/Strathclyde border, where:

“... they surrendered themselves and their kingdoms to the sovereign of England. Out of regard to this treaty, the king himself stood as sponsor for the son of Constantine, who was ordered to be baptized at the sacred font.”

The ‘Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’ also records the meeting its list of attendees differed and it's a wee bit more dramatic, so I'll classify it as the tabloid of the day!! “In this year [927] fiery beams of light appeared in the north part of the sky. And Sihtric died; and King Athelstan succeeded to the kingdom of the Northumbrians, and he subjugated all the kings that were in this island: first, Hywel king of the West Welsh, and Constantine king of the Scots, and Owain king of Gwent, and Ealdred son of Eadwulf from Bamburgh:+ and with pledge and with oaths they confirmed peace, in the place called Eamont, on the 4th of the Ides of July [12th July], and renounced every kind of idolatry; and after that departed in peace.”

It led to six years of peace between the Northern Kings and the new King of England, by 934 things had taken a turn as “In this year King Athelstan went into Scotland, with both a land-force and a ship-force, and ravaged a great part of it.”

Other sources tell that Constantine's son was taken to England as a hostage to keep the peace.

There is loads more info on how things developed in the tenth century and beyond here http://www.dot-domesday.me.uk/athelstan.htm