Westminster: Brexit is the hard right's weapon of mass distraction

[BigChocFrenzy]

The fervour and divisions over Brexit have suspended normal party politics.

The staggering incompetence & unsuitability of Corbyn as a leader, together with the resulting impotence of Labour has removed the normal checks & balances in UK politics.
There is a vaccum where the Official Opposition should be, so Theresa May is under pressure only from her right.

I fear Thereas May and the Tory rightwing are taking advantage of Brexit to complete the destruction of the post-WW2 social contract and the welfare state.

Meanwhile, the constraints of civilised discourse have been loosened and those with racist or social Darwinist views now feel free to spout their poison openly.

Putin is pouring petrol on all the fires and Arron Banks is lurking < sinister emoticons required >

Zoe Williams:
"Behind a smokescreen of bogus patriotism, ideologically driven cuts to the NHS and all our public services are unpicking the bonds of nationhood"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/brexit-theresa-may-falklands-war-nhs-cuts

"We should be marching against the crisis in adult social care, the closure of care homes, the systematic exploitation of carers, the £4.6bn cut from social care budgets this decade.
We should be .... asking:

“What exactly is the plan, if we’ve decided we can no longer afford to care for the elderly and the disabled?
What do we do with them instead?”

"We should be marching against cuts in education funding"

"Every morning we wake up to someone on the radio explaining, despairingly, that you can’t fix the hospital bed crisis until social care is fixed, and you can’t fix that until council tax brings in more, and it can’t bring in more because wages are too low."

"But when everything breaks at the same time, that is not a coincidence: it is a plan.

As surely as Margaret Thatcher had an economic plan on employment, rights, industry and wages,
this century’s Conservatives have a plan on public services, which is to smash them beyond all recognition."

Thank you for the new thread, Bigchoc.

Woman Guanxi is what all those Tories who are shaping policy and on the boards of academy chains, private health companies and Care Home chains have by the bucket load these days.......

As an aside, Gardener's World magazine contacted DEFRA to ask what leaving the EU will mean for pesticide use in the UK. They haven't as yet had a response. Just reading an article.

My FIL still talks about the fact they had to learn Latin and really why on earth did you need to do that!

Both my kids have done three years of Latin at their very ordinary French junior high, where three quarters of the students are classified as from deprived backgrounds. It's not just the middle class kids who do it, either.

Peregrina I think for high level vocational alternatives to academic qualifications to work, they have to be offered in the same schools as more academic qualifications (so the students can benefit from the best teaching and any academic options that are appropriate, like MFL), there have to be ways for good students with vocational qualifications to access higher education, and students, parents, schools and employers all have to value them.

The system here ensures that students doing a technogical bac continue with basic academic subjects at the same time (obviously at a lower level, but they are not abandoned completely), so they can access higher education either directly or after a remedial course.

mistigri i did too. I even did some Ancient Greek lol.
It's very unusual nowdays though, apart maybe some private schools??

Is a big regret of mine that I didn't do Latin as my 6th form head wanted me to
Ah! The ignorance of youth! 😊

My school was happy to timetable Ancient Greek for one person, but refused to timetable Economics for six of us. Just as well, I didn't like the potential Economics teacher and went elsewhere to do it, and ended up being taught by one of the best teachers I ever had.

badders

My whiskey is 60% its supposed to have a bit of water added

I studied Latin at my comprehensive in the 70s. Got an A for it at Higher

Ds' state school (they're all comprehensives here in Scotland and have been throughout the country for 40 years earlier in Glasgow ) had a Latin option until 5 years ago (just before he went ). The only reason they no longer offer Latin is that the teacher retired and Latin teachers are literally a dying breed

Why are there more and more threads appearing about the same thing, repeating the same rhetoric again and again like a broken record?

Despite the majority of people voting leave, there are few people who are brave enough to come on to your threads. This is because of aggressive guilt by association tactics.

This has created an echo chamber, whether you like it or not.

BINGO!!!

Beat you to it.

Thanks Bigchoc. Lets get back to the spirit of Red's threads discussing Brexit in a considered, informed and respectful way.

Food prices in the news again

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/07/food-inflation-doubles-uk-shoppers-feel-pinch

mistigri i did too. I even did some Ancient Greek lol.
It's very unusual nowdays though, apart maybe some private schools??

Dunno about UK. You can still find Greek in ordinary schools in France - not everywhere, but it exists even in backwaters like where we live. DD wanted to do Latin and Greek, but in the end she opted for a course with an intensive Spanish option (she has three subjects taught entirely in Spanish by native speakers) which ruled out classical languages for timetabling reasons.

Lets get back to the spirit of Red's threads discussing Brexit in a considered, informed and respectful way. Indeed.

Latin was offered at my school. Never really had much uptake. I partly wish I'd taken it up now too.

I'm so ashamed of my country today
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-votes-down-plan-to-help-more-child-refugees-a7616301.html

I'm not surprized sadly pandering to a certain type of voter.

I was literally about to post about that too badders. The empathy removal in full show today.

My DM never realised her government had turned away Jewish children during the holocaust until a few years back. I can remember the shame on her face. I am wearing that look now too.

The vote was lost by 287-267 - I'd love to know who those abstentions and absentees were whose actions allowed this vote to be lost . The whole saga makes the government looks so weasly and ungenerous.

Latin is invaluable if you want to learn any language. Learning Latin teaches you to take your own language apart (you can't break it !) and see how it works. A very useful tool to have.

It also exposes you to Roman (and thus European) history in all sorts of ways. Just reading Juvenal tells us that Romans had an equally low opinion of politicians and lawyers we do.

EU delenda est ...

I have some more free time now so I may even give it a go now lurking!

I appreciated the way that Latin taught me grammar and an awareness of language structures (the 70s weren't hot on grammar ). It helped me with my MFL: I went on to study French and Russian at Uni (although I dropped Russian after 2 years and did a joint degree with French instead).

The year I spent in France as part of my degree helped me understand a bit better how "others see us". At the time I was fiercely "britannique et écossaise" . Had some interesting discussions with my French friends about nationalism (it was not long after the failed devolution vote) and the Troubles (it was the time of the Hunger Strikes).

Shame I've lost touch with them - I'd love to get their opinions about the current fiasco situation.

....a joint degree with Economics must remember to proof read

Lets get back to the spirit of Red's threads discussing Brexit in a considered, informed and respectful way. Indeed .

Lets get back to the spirit of Red's threads discussing Brexit in a considered, informed and respectful way.

I agree