To be deeply disappointed in John Cleese

[drspouse]

I have no idea if this is typical but he just tweeted that London isn't an English city any more
What is it then pray tell? What's not English about it??

@BertrandRussell

‘An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman wall into bar...’

Meanwhile there’s actual, violent, terrible crime going on on the streets!

“An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman wall into bar...’”

And the police cane round? Yep. Sure they did.

The Remain campaign concentrated almost entirely on economic arguments, which was it’s downfall.

And predictions that never came to pass. They got it spectacularly wrong.

This happens. People’s fears are not exaggerated. I know of people who’ve made perfectly innocuous jokes on Twitter who’ve had the police come knocking to check that they’re ‘thinking correctly.’ I know because my DH is that copper.

So why does he do it ? "Obeying orders" ?

@BertrandRussell

I’ll tell DH he had a vivid imagination then

I’m prepared to believe Isabella on that one - those of us who frequent FWR know full well that wrong think can have the police knocking for retweeting a limerick, for example.

Sorry- I just don’t believe it. Unless the rest of the home was a threat of racially aggravated violence.
Apart from anything else, it would be all over social media if something like that had actually happened.

For generations now we have not been taught to think positively about our Englishness, and beyond that our Britishness - the heritage of our art, literature, religion, food, Government, politics, language, theatre, music, and all the other things that make up a culture

Firstly, being self-deprecating is a very British thing. We are not like the Americans or even the Canadians in terms of blowing a trumpet over our achievements.

I'm trying hard to understand this statement fully. I get concerns at a local level, but this statement makes me wonder if what you're really feeling is a hangover from Empire.

I wonder if those of you understand how smothering English and European culture can be to those elsewhere in the world who aren't? I really don't mean that in a liberal sense, goady or negative sense but purely from a factual impact of culture sense.

European culture has infiltrated and affected virtually every culture on earth. Foremost among that is the British. People still are experiencing the impact of the BE till this day. To get ahead you have to speak like British people, act like British/European people, dress like British people. People abroad in other countries teach Shakespeare, and British/European history. I know of people from Nigeria who were still using Our Island Story to teach their children British values. Many people know of members of the Royal Family.

In the carribbean whole swathes of prime land is owned by British people and the Queen is still nominally head of state. In Australia the same. In how many countries is the Queen constitutional Monarch?

How many people in the world speak English, have a British model of Justice and governance, rely on technology developed in the west?

Only recently has China started exporting its own culture in a way that barely reaches the tip of western culture.

Im not saying any of these things are bad at all.

But I am that you can ignore this and say you feel like being English is being undermined in a wider sense.

I think the benefits of multiculturalism are perhaps experienced more by the middle class. If you’re middle class, you can afford these exciting new restaurants. There is less competition for your job. You can have a cheap cleaner, a cheap nanny, and you live in a nice neighbourhood so don’t live with the social tensions that some of us do.

I agree with this. I'm also surprised that some posters are denying that starting school in the UK without speaking much English can be detrimental for children. It's common sense, surely? Brushing it off with "they'll catch up in a few years' time" is naive in the extreme. Children learn in different ways. Some children will adapt to the language barrier. Others will find that it impacts on their education in the long term.

And predictions that never came to pass. They got it spectacularly wrong.

That is simply not true. Investment in important sectors is down, the pound is low, the economy is much smaller than it was projected pre referendum it would now have been, some agencies and businesses have left or partly left, other businesses are moving parts of their operations to the continent, there is a staffing shortage in the NHS, ditto fruit and vegetable picking... A huge amount of our money has also been wasted on Brexit planning. We could now have been in a much better place, dealing with other important issues.

You think it’s bullshit, and you’re entitled to that opinion, but it’s obvious that many other people don’t agree. Perhaps try to understand people’s reasons, instead of writing them off as fools. Essentially, they have different priorities to you.

I don't see them as fools. I see them as victims of a very clever con trick. I look at the language of the propaganda they've been given and it is extremely clever. It's exactly the same type of language and argument that you here in MLM pitches.

MLM is a pretty good analogy to the Leave campaign. It's going to make a very few people very rich, and leave an awful lot of people struggling along, keeping on pitching in for more "product", genuinely believing the big break is just around the corner

Well I’ve used those phrases, and I voted Remain and then Labour in the last election.

Labour are currently re-running the same campaign tactics that Leave used for the Referendum. It's not doing them very well at the moment. The same type of linguistic hooks are being deployed, just with slightly different words.

A new politics drinking game. Drink a shot every time a Labour spokesperson uses the phrase, "This disastrous Tory government". You'll be legless before the end of a news bulletin. I counted it three times in a response to one question the other evening. Once you get your ear in you can spot the handful of prepared phrases Seamus has got them drilled into repeating.

@BertrandRussell

You asked for an example and I gave you the most innocuous one. It turned out be be an older lady who was frightened witless by the police turning up.

If you don’t believe it? No matter. I know it.

That is simply not true. Investment in important sectors is down, the pound is low, the economy is much smaller than it was projected pre referendum it would now have been, some agencies and businesses have left or partly left, other businesses are moving parts of their operations to the continent, there is a staffing shortage in the NHS, ditto fruit and vegetable picking... A huge amount of our money has also been wasted on Brexit planning. We could now have been in a much better place, dealing with other important issues.

Yes. I'm shocked that anyone, at this stage, thinks Brexit is going to be anything other than a disaster! I'm still waiting for someone - anyone - to offer a feasible solution to the issue of the Irish border.

But @BertrandRussell, presumably you do believe HarryTheOwl and Parker Posy and investigations by police for their tweets, none of which involved threats of violence? Why is it such a stretch to believe the same happens WRT racially oriented tweets?

I don't see them as fools. I see them as victims of a very clever con trick. I look at the language of the propaganda they've been given

But you admit you think they’re fools by your language. You see them as victims, too stupid to see through rhetoric, too uneducated and dense to know propaganda when they see it. Is their life experience anywhere in your tally? Might they know things and experience things that might lead to them to different conclusions than you?

I don't see them as fools. I see them as victims of a very clever con trick. I look at the language of the propaganda they've been given and it is extremely clever.

Again, the basic message here is - “the plebs are stupid and don’t understand language and fell for a con trick. Luckily I am cleverer, and have a superior understanding of these things, so I know what is best for everyone else!” I’m sorry but it just doesn’t wash.

Immigrant children who do poorly at school are usually held back not by language but by social factors. Immigrant children with educated middle class parents tend to do well, just as native children with educated middle class do.

These are not the immigrants that are ghettoising enfield and lewisham and wherever else. These are not the immigrants that are adding to the gang crisis. These are not the immigrants that have no wish to integrate within the community they are in.

Again, these different types of immigrants are poles apart from each other.

What is happening in Edmonton is not nice middle class integration

I say, bring back the good ol' days of Londinium, nice Romans, good wine, plumbing, etc.

Cos there were no foreigners back then eh?

Just some druids and whatnot, I read an article once.

Druids were mostly made up by the Victorians.

And slaves!

But you admit you think they’re fools by your language. You see them as victims, too stupid to see through rhetoric, too uneducated and dense to know propaganda when they see it. Is their life experience anywhere in your tally? Might they know things and experience things that might lead to them to different conclusions than you?

No, not stupid. I wasn't taken in because I'm smarter - I wasn't taken in because it wasn't a message I wanted to believe. I wasn't a target for the message. I'm married to an EU citizen, we met as an indirect result of both of us participating in the Erasmus scheme. I'm the last person that Leave would target.

Con tricks do not rely on people being stupid.

They target a very specific message at very specific audiences. They focus on Influencers that will persuade others, and channels that created reinforcing environments.

In the future the Leave campaign is going to be studied as a very effective marketing campaign.

They were very good at:

Making small things feel significant, e.g. the fishing industry is very small compared to its perceived national importance. But at every opportunity Farage chose to appear on or near a boat.

Making big things feel very insignificant, e.g. the influence of free movement access to the EU market of the car industry.

Making issues disappear altogether, e.g. the UK fishing industry is almost wholly dependent upon exporting UK catch to EU markets, a large part of the UK fishing quota was sold to EU boats by UK fishing businesses. The EU permits state investment in the fishing fleet but the UK government has never considered modernising the fleet of state level importance - leaving it to the free market.

I will make a distinction between Leave and the Brexit Party though. There's something very odd about voting for a party with no manifesto, that's now negotiating to join the hard right bloc of the EU parliament, and all along calling the entire process - the second largest democratic process in the world - undemocratic/unelected. The most undemocratic part of the entire process is the Brexit Party itself.

Cos there were no foreigners back then eh?
Well.. the Anglo-Saxons hadn't arrived yet...

Just seen this which some of you might not like .

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/31/elton-john-brexit-not-imperialist-english-idiot-verona

[runs]