Westminstenders Contines. Boris outmaneovered everyone?! Now War and Peace?

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TEN

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This set of threads started out asking if Boris had been outmanoeuvred by Cameron handing him a poison chalice. Fate made it seem as if Boris lost the battle but May has confounded everyone and handed him a second chance. Or so it might seem.

May now has a new Cabinet after a sweeping cull of Cameron's lot. It is more right wing than in a generation. A number of appointments have raised eyebrows. There are plenty of poison chalices and plenty of Brexiteers. Will this create peace in the Tory ranks? Or is it just the calm before the storm

Labour are tearing themselves apart what now seems to be all out civil war. Talk of gerrymandering, violence, disenfranchisement, deselection and intimidation are rife. The seems to be no end in sight, and no prospect of a solution apparent. The question perhaps seems to be when and how, rather than if the party will split, and who will retain the name and party funds.

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So the sad face of British politics in the last two days can be summed up in a single image. Boris and a brick.

Depressed?

I think we have a while to go yet before we hit the bottom.

Excuse me with the intros as I'm starting to struggle to keep up with things myself

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2684990-The-Westminster-Hunger-Games-Contines-May-Day-May-Day Previous Thread Nine

[wooflesgoestotown]

If it is correct that immigration at current levels is actually good for our economy and the problem is really in lack of infrastructure investment then I really don't understand why the Government doesn't be honest about it and actually make the necessary investments in infrastructure.

Surely it would be better to make a concerted positive case for immigration and open the door to a Brexit deal including free movement of persons that the EU would actually agree to, than to continue the purely politically motivated charade that immigration is bad.

If it is genuinely true that FM of P within the CM is better for our economy and if we improved our infrastructure to cope with it, then the only anti-immigration arguments left are purely racist ones.

[JedRambosteen]

And the HE sector has always been a little inconsistent about post-study work: "take students out of the numbers, because they are temporary and go home after their course" AND "post-study is an important part of our offer and students need the ability to stay here and work"

I think it comes down to discipline. There are some healthcare disciplines where you are not qualified to practice without a post-graduation pre-registration year in practice, which concludes with professional exams that then give you full registration. Wages for pre-regs are fairly low because they have to be supervised & that's been a problem with the higher (and increasing) threshold for the new visa to work post-study. Removing the post-study work visa has effectively killed off the UK as an international destination for some degree subjects, as the degree is not sufficient on its own.

And as pp said above, universities need international student fees to offset govt funding cuts. The 'tripling of fees' to £9k was basically the govt shifting the cost of provision onto students - unis used to receive the rest of the £9k from the funding councils, so they are no better off under the new regime - in fact, they are worse off because the expensive subject premiums are being reduced (ie for subjects like engineering, unis used to have £12k+ when the balance of fees over £3.5k was met by govt).

[DoinItFine]

I really don't understand why the Government doesn't be honest about it and actually make the necessary investments in infrastructure.

Because they are Tories.

Because we live in a mostly neo-liberal consensus.

Because when Theresa May says "living within our means", people call that common sense (and fail to see that common sense and good sense so often diverge).

[wooflesgoestotown]

Doinitfine yes I guess I know that's the reason but it actually makes no sense because the economy would be stronger and they'd be richer if they changed policy.

Which makes me think at root it is all just based on racism.

[DoinItFine]

No, racism isn't why we don't invest in infrastructure.

Greed is.

The country is worse off, but the very wealthiest are better off as a result of "living within our means".

[wooflesgoestotown]

I mean refusing to make a positive case for immigration, to the point that we now find ourselves potentially about to jump off an economic cliff due to that refusal, looks like it could be based in racism.

Or is it just simply a fear of risking racist voters not voting for them?

[RedToothBrush]

The root of so much of our society is based on a certain level of racism. The way our media report on deaths, based on geographical location for example. How many deaths do you need to make the headlines and how many deaths to provoke public sympathy? The way that refugees have been dehumanised by the use of particular words is another good example. I do think at some point we have to face up to this, or we will be forced to.

www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jeremy-corbyn-owen-smith-labour-party-leadership-contest-angela-eagle-a7148146.html Corbyn v Smith

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/21/theresa-may-beware-angela-merkel?CMP=twt_gu
To Merkeln

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/21/eu-future-post-brexit-germany-split-european-government
The European Government

[Chalalala]

the household/national economy analogy drives me nuts

mostly because it sounds so reasonable, even though it's actually really not.

woofles it comes down to political cowardice, it's just not what the electorate wants to hear. And good luck trying to change their minds with facts and figures - as we all know by now, that's not how it works

[SwedishEdith]

Greed is at the root of everything stating the obvious, I know.

Going back to the Overton window thing - I'm very disturbed by how often people are talking about the death penalty now . We think it's confined to the loons atm... Drip, drip, drip. EU membership at least put that to bed.

[DoinItFine]

The posotive case for immigration is made more frequently than any criticism of immigration is allowed.

The problem is that immigration without investment in infrastructure does create massive problems for those least able to deal with it.

You can keep pretending that immigration is great for everyone, but if people's experience is otherwise, because they are at the tough end of failing infrastructure, then they will know you are lying.

We need immigration in the context of increased investment.

But we have had 6 months of an ideologically driven attemot to roll back the welfare state.

In that context, people who depend on that welfare state are right that hundreds of thousands of new arrivals competing wity them for resources will make their lives even less pleasant.

[Chalalala]

thanks Red, that was a good article on Merkel (for someone like me who knows very little about her, anyway)

[prettybird]

RedToothBrush - the relative coverage of "Western" deaths to "other" deaths makes my 15 year old ds soooo angry .

He's become very anti "American" - and Western involvement in the Middle East as a result.

[BigChocFrenzy]

Howabout The Leave vote was certainly NOT because of a wish to increase the number of non-EU immigrants
(except for a minority of Asian voters whom Leave conned into thinking their relatives could come more easily)

Leavers who want to reduce EU immigration also want to reduce "non-white" immigration to be blunt - often even more so.
Leave Leaders repeatedly claimed it would be easier to reduce non-EU immigration too if the UK could "take back control" of its laws & borders.

If you check the Mumsnet threads about recent terrorist attacks, you can read Leave posters saying the attacks show they were right and how the UK & EU must stop Muslim immigration etc etc ....
Leavers keep saying we can't "shut them down any more" about Muslim immigrants. They seem to think their win entitles them to post things about Muslims and their religion that they wouldn't have dared to before.

Farage's dreadful "Breaking Point" poster did not show a queue of Polish plumbers, because they aren't scary like Muslims.
The recent vile abuse by racists demanding that people "leave" has often been against Muslims, including those born here.

[BigChocFrenzy]

Fees were brought in and increased because the Blair governemnt massively increased the number of students.
When I was at uni, only 6% of the population went to Uni.
So, it was affordable to pay our fees and give us maintenance grants.
Hence, we didn't start our careers with debt.

Unfortunately, Blair didn't increase the number of graduate jobs by anything like enough.
They increased Supply of graduates, not the Demand for them by employers

[Chalalala]

BigChoc actually I have seen the "unfair on non-EU immigrants" argument many, many times on Mumsnet - but you're quite right that they certainly weren't thinking of non white or (god forbid) muslim immigrants. They were thinking of all those nice, white, English-speaking Australians kept out of the UK by Polish plumbers.

I have stayed well away from the terrorist attack threads, and from what you're reporting, that was a good move. I am seething just from reading your post.

[nauticant]

I was also bemused to read that the inequities in the discriminatory arrangements against non-EU migrants definitely fuelled the LEAVE vote.

It was something I heard occasionally from the more cerebral on the Leave side but I just assumed it was a way of applying a thin faux-concern veneer onto the substance of, essentially, anti-immigrant arguments. I can't imagine the Leave voters in Rotherham, Hartlepool, Stoke, etc were that upset about restrictions on non-EU immigration being too tight.

[Chalalala]

I just assumed it was a way of applying a thin faux-concern veneer onto the substance of, essentially, anti-immigrant arguments.

that too, yes - but also resentment that the EU was being prioritized over the Commonwealth. Probably an argument that appealed more to traditional Tories than to working-class Rotherham voters.

[Peregrina]

But still resentment that white Canadian, Australian and NZ citizens of the commonewealth couldn't get in, rather than more Indians and Africans.

[RedToothBrush]

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/ukip-leadership-election-bill-etheridge-11641430
www.shropshirestar.com/news/politics/2016/07/15/ukip-leadership-election-midlands-mep-bill-etheridge-launches-bid-to-replace-nigel-farage/

Another UKIP leadership candidate I've missed. Though I'm not convinced this has made national press.

Bill Etheridge. MEP for the Midlands.
He's standing on a cheap beer, justice for fathers and bringing back the death penalty ticket. I kid you not.

He was kicked out of the Conservatives in 2011, when he and his wife were photographed posing with knitted Golliwogs on their Facebook profile pages, as part of the Campaign Against Political Correctness.

In August 2014 Etheridge sparked controversy by praising Hitler during a public speaking seminar he gave to members of the UKIP youth wing. He described the genocidal dictator as "the most magnetic and forceful public speaker possibly in history" who "achieved a great deal".

He is an associate of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

He was married to Star, who was also a Kipper, but he had an affair with another party member Lorraine Chew and got caught.


www.express.co.uk/news/politics/689942/ukip-leadership-councillor-lisa-duffy-nigel-farage

And another: Cambridgeshire councillor Lisa Duffy

She apparently has the nickname 'Scruffy Duffy'. I can't find much out about her at all, apart from a website with something of a grudge about her from about 5 years ago and this article in the Independent from 3 years ago:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/as-the-uk-gears-up-for-the-polls-what-is-life-like-in-britains-only-ukip-controlled-town-8599144.html

[Peregrina]

Hitler was of course a magnetic and powerful speaker, which is why so many fell under his spell.

[howabout]

Lest I misspoke from my own experience I looked at the Brexit result for Leicester, which has a 50% non-white population. The vote there was 51.1 / 48.9 Remain / Leave. If it were correct to say that only whites backed Brexit then in keeping with other white Leave areas the white 50% would have voted about 40% Remain contributing 20% to the Remain total. When added to the 50% non-white population this should have given a 70% Remain vote. (In fact as Leicester is a cosmopolitan urban area like London it is far more likely that the white Remain vote was much higher than this).

I agree with Pretty's son. The distancing from Turkey the Remain side did during the campaign sickened me and as was discussed on The Daily Politics DC's posturing has left us with very little credibility. I went to Uni 30 years ago with a Turkish girl studying EU Law in preparation for Turkey joining the EU. If the EU had ever had anything other than xenophobic intentions towards Turkey then they would have joined a very long time ago.

[RedToothBrush]

www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/07/21/china-gop-convention/87380604/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
To add to the crazy Brexit world, US - China relations have hit a low due to Trump and the Republicans...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/21/jousting-reasons-to-love-brexit-britain?CMP=twt_gu
What should be brought back in Brexit Britain. Includes jousting.

Off topic but on the subject of greed, so thought I'd post whilst we were talking about it
www.independent.co.uk/news/science/altruism-selfishness-evolution-mathematics-princeton-bath-university-a7148471.html
Not being greedy is evolutionary better for you.

Boris is having another bad day. First of all he had to tell MPs that a Mexican diplomat abused a child and then walked free and its also come out today that a Saudi diplomat brought a slave into the Uk and escaped due to diplomatic immunity toowww.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/saudi-official-allegedly-brought-slave-to-london-foreign-office-diplomatic-immunity-figures-reveal_uk_5790d051e4b05c99a7095a8b

Thread 11 on the way.

[RedToothBrush]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2690632-Westminstenders-Continues-Boris-is-having-a-bad-week-Corbyn-resists-Its-gonna-be-a-long-summer?watched=1
Westminstenders Thread Eleven

[RedToothBrush]

Janice Turner Verified account @VictoriaPeckham (Times Columnist)
I just bumped into Angela Eagle. She says police have advised her not to do her constituency surgeries for her own safety. What a disgrace.

[DoinItFine]

There are lots of reasons for Turkey not joining the EU that are not xenophobic.