Westministenders: Boris and God Knows what next. (I'm all out of ideas!)

[RedToothBrush]

Still a week until Stoke and Copeland. (Labour Hold/Con Gain unless something strange happens) QT is from Stoke next week.

A50 hits the Lords next week. Melania is being lined up to do something for the women. (God help us all).

Will UKIP survive? Will Nuttall survive? Will Labour survive? Will Trump survive? Will CNN survive? Will the Lords survive? Will Theresa May survive a class room of children?

All these questions and more

woman, this thread is not free to all. You need to pay for internet access to see it.

With declines in libraries, there is also a decline in access to free internet access.

Our local library network has been trying to axe our local one. They have tried to make out that the area was being difficult by putting in the report that it was only 6 miles to walk to the next library. The thing is the people who use and need the library the most, often can't walk that far and in tandem with the bus services being killed off this would have removed access to the service completely. (The local library network also tried to axe a library next to a school which had been criticised in an ofsted report about its lack of books. The local network has been up to dodgy as fuck stuff, and has dubious financial figures but that's a whole other story about mismanagement and neglect of services).

On top of that, the network has now introduced a fee for using the internet for over an hour. An hour does not go very far for anything. Imagine looking for jobs in an hour. The way the scheme is set up, is you can't top up either. You have to pay an annual subscription for the year or come back the next day for your free hour.

If you are using the internet in the library the chances are that you don't have access at home these days. Why would you go to the library to search the internet if you can do it at home?

(The exception to this, is for use of things like family history subscription services, in which case there should be a charge for these services, but not the internet as a whole).

Plus, you have to have knowledge to know where to find things on the internet. Inexperience with the internet, makes for people less able to use it in a way that makes the best use of it. You couldn't use the internet as efficiently as someone who uses it a lot. Its a skill that needs to be learned as much as leaning to read these days.

There is vast inequality in access to the internet and the skill to use it, which is also along the lines of education.

A lot of the things on this thread are actually about levels of skill and knowledge in how to use the internet. The thread itself is just a collection of that. Teaching people, how to use the internet and find things to use to fit local and national government bollocks is as important as talk of Bexit (sic) really and I hope that it has helped in that as well as anything else it may (or may not) achieve.

Yes, Badders
he-exams.wikia.com/wiki/HE_Exams_Wiki

Its a skill that needs to be learned as much as leaning to read these days
Sure
PS watch out for new (Pearson, Murdoch, Gove) GCSE Maths and English results this August, local LEA subject adviser said "It will be a bloodbath" .

Agree totally
Our library has closed
Nearest one is a bus ride away now
Things like public libraries and the open university are being systematically taken away from those who benefit most
I started a degree with the OU - courses
Cost around £500 and you could pay monthly
Then the fees came in
The SAME course now costs £3000
I can't afford that and I do not trust this govt one iota wrt fees
They have in fact just sold off student loans to a private company....after increasing the interest - Martin Lewis of MSE has been campaigning against it

So sorry, redandyellow, Dorothy
My fingers & toes are crossed for you both, that you can stay and enjoy your family life in the UK

Also, I hope that even if / when the UK doesn't get its special cake deal, that the decent majority of the general public won't allow the govt to steal anyone's pensions out of sheer spite.
Those who have made their contributions MUST receive their pension - I can't believe EU citizens woukd be treated worse than non-EU in that respect.

I was going to say the ECHR would definitely prevent pension robbery - but of course May wants to leave the ECHR too:
Taking back control for her govt = freedom to be spiteful against the vulnerable of all nationalities.

Badders www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/university-tuition-fees/other-financial-support/other-bursaries-and-scholarships/
Any bursaries around that could help? Sorry if you know all these links. Our loss, if you can't study. I don't know what to advise on HE, it's a travesty.

Libraries in America have campaigned against Google getting ownership of texts. Close the libraries, steal the knowledge:
www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-google-copyright-office-free-content-20161107-story.html

I don't qualify for any help, sadly.
It's a shame. I enjoyed studying.

I hated studying.
I still have nightmares about essay deadlines.

Yes, really.

Distance learning?

www.distancelearningportal.com/

Note here that Europeans do not have this same rigid notion of classes

as Reginald D. Hunter observed when asked by his father if there was discrimination in the UK ...

"There is, but they have a whole new level of discrimination. It's called 'class'. And it lets you discriminate against people that look like you. We're still in the stone age with our skin colour discrimination"

KABOOM!

Strike up the band, play 'Lets Face The Music And Dance'

Paul Nuttalls of the UKIPs, just took to the mattresses.

www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/uk-independence-party/news/83506/paul-nuttall-condemns-ukip-donor-arron
Paul Nuttall condemns Ukip donor Arron Banks for ‘crass’ Hillsborough remarks

UKIP bloodbath ahead. Regardless of Thursday's result.

I can only see three outcomes ahead;

1. Nuttall fights and beats Farage/Banks in a UKIP show down - this results in collapse of propaganda support and financial backing;
2. Nuttall gets caned on Thursday and has conveniently set himself up as the fall guy (reality: Banks has already done this, hence why Nuttall found the backbone to criticise Banks), prompting the return of Farage to the leadership in last desperate bid to save the party;
3. Banks and Farage use it as an opportunity to go "SEE YA" and fuck off to form a new party without a fight, leaving Nuttalls to clear up all the crap he's been left with from the EU.

I can not see a long term future for UKIP under any of these scenarios.

Anyone else got an alternative prediction?

Anyone else got an alternative prediction?

No, but ...

The person I know who is most snotty about class is my grandmother.

My grandmother, now 91, has been writing her life story for my Mum as part of my mum's desire to preserve the family history.

The trouble is, as my mum has found out this week, my gran, has developed some 'alt-facts' in her history. Amongst other things, my grandfather died of a heart attack whilst they lived together in Canada in the mid 1970s before I was born.

Which comes as news to me, since my grandmother has never lived in Canada and I remember my grandfather's third wife telling me the news that my grandfather had died of cancer when I was 16 and having to pass this on to my Mum.

My grandmother tries to make out she is 'a lady', is ashamed of her divorce to the point she has hidden from every friend she has and forgets the fact that she is 2nd gen irish whose father was a docker and the abuse that came with that growing up in the 1930s, as she spouts off about how Enoch Powell was right.

She's very much all there despite her years, but is just a racist snob. Its quite impressive to see the level of self denial she's gone to and the elaborate construction of her other life. When me and mum write up the family history, I'm making the point of including the fantasy version as well as the real version, as I think both are important...

Her attitude to Brexit is about slamming the door shut on her past, as much as it is about her racism. Likewise I'm sure many like the myth of hard work over luck as cover story for their self justification and dislike of their past and class.

Lurking, if only we had a weekly impressionist show on TV at the moment which focused on politics of the week. I'd love to see a Farage/Bank/Nuttall spoof of that ad. Its MADE for it!

Its sad, and a testament to what trying to conform does to people. Which is one of the reasons why I feel it important to preserve her version of the truth, but the point remains that she clearly thinks its right to tell her daughter this version. Its not one of her friends. Its her daughter!

www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2017/02/21/stoke-central-is-set-to-rank-alongside-darlington-in-1983-as-one-of-the-great-by-elections-of-modern-times/
Stoke Central is set to rank alongside Darlington in 1983 as one of the great by-elections of modern times

Urgh, UKIP.

I'm going to go with (3) out of those scenarios. Although I wouldn't rule out Banks suggesting Nuttall's condemnation of him himself. The more chaos the better.

However, I do think the 'don't be a dick rule' of self censorship should be promoted more

Sorry, I went out earlier, wasn't being rude y not replying (not doorbell-gate #TheSequel honest! Really truly went out!!)

Anyway, just catching up and this part of one of RTB's posts jumped out at me.

That's the crux of tolerance/free speech etc for me - censoring people doesn't work, it's counterproductive - but pushing the message of individual responsibility for your words & actions is spot on, and "don't be a dick" nails it.

That's the message I try to instil in my kids, definitely.

After Darlington another 14 years of tory rule.

Characteristics of an authoritarian,

www.dailykos.com/story/2016/03/02/1494504/-A-word-from-Dr-Bob-Altemeyer-on-Donald-Trump-and-Authoritarian-Followers

With link to free down load of the book 'The Authoritarian.

^They are highly ethnocentric, highly inclined to see the world as their in-group versus everyone else. Because they are so committed to their in-group, they are very zealous in its cause.

They are highly fearful of a dangerous world. Their parents taught them, more than parents usually do, that the world is dangerous. They may also be genetically predisposed to experiencing stronger fear than most people do.

They are highly self-righteous. They believe they are the “good people” and this unlocks a lot of hostile impulses against those they consider bad.

They are aggressive. Given the chance to attack someone with the approval of an authority, they will lower the boom.

They are highly prejudiced against racial and ethnic majorities, non-heterosexuals, and women in general.

Their beliefs are a mass of contradictions. They have highly compartmentalized minds, in which opposite beliefs exist side-by-side in adjacent boxes. As a result, their thinking is full of double-standards.

They reason poorly. If they like the conclusion of an argument, they don’t pay much attention to whether the evidence is valid or the argument is consistent.

They are highly dogmatic. Because they have gotten their beliefs mainly from the authorities in their lives, rather than think things out for themselves, they have no real defense when facts or events indicate they are wrong. So they just dig in their heels and refuse to change.

They are very dependent on social reinforcement of their beliefs. They think they are right because almost everyone they know, almost every news broadcast they see, almost every radio commentator they listen to, tells them they are. That is, they screen out the sources that will suggest that they are wrong.

Because they severely limit their exposure to different people and ideas, they vastly overestimate the extent to which other people agree with them. And thinking they are “the moral majority” supports their attacks on the “evil minorities” they see in the country.

They are easily duped by manipulators who pretend to espouse their causes when all the con-artists really want is personal gain.

They are largely blind to themselves. They have little self-understanding and insight into why they think and do what they do^.

Sounds a bit like me too though

Red 89-year-old DF recently sent me a letter which casually mentions his many grandchildren. I am an only child and so is my son. I can't decide whether to put it down to dementia or ask DM.