Westminstenders: The wheels on bus start to fall off, start to fall off…

[RedToothBrush]

The wheels on bus start to fall off, start to fall off…

Since Article 50 has been triggered – 8 days ago:

1. A week after a terror attack in London, the government threatened to stop co-operation over security issues with the EU. This was quickly retracted as ‘not being a threat’. Except it was.

2. The ‘Great’ Repeal Act White Paper was published. Its vague, lacks detail, does not have a draft bill and there is no plan for a public consultation over it. It proposes sweeping powers for the government without parliamentary scrutiny using Henry VIII powers.

3. HMRC have said the new computer system planned for launch in 2019, won’t be able to cope with the additional work which leaving the Customs Union would produce. It would be five times the work load which sounds like a lot more red tape.

4. Spain have said they would not oppose an Independent Scotland being in the EU.

5. May’s article 50 letter did not mention Gibraltar and after the publication of the EU draft document on how the Brexit process would be handled, this looks like a massive error and oversight. One of the clauses was that any future arrangements with regard to Gibraltar had to be settled with Spain bi-laterally rather than by the EU and the UK’s agreement with the EU would not apply to Gibraltar, unless Spain agreed. This has been taken as an affront to Gibraltar’s sovereignty, although the document says nothing about sovereignty. Michael Howard, however, decided this was sufficient grounds to threaten our ally Spain with war.

May has not condemned his comments, and laughed it off. Though she was happy to get worked up about the word ‘Easter’ a couple of days later.

Of course, this situation was entirely predictable and was predicted yet this situation seems to have taken the government by surprise. Our reaction, in the context of everything else, has made the UK look like a basket case.

6. The government’s plan to run talks on the UK’s settlement on leaving the EU in parallel with talks on the UK’s future relationship with the EU has been rejected by the EU. Instead we must do things in stages, with advancement to the next stage only possible after completing the last: Stage 1 – Exit, Stage 2 – Preliminary agreement on future relation, Stage 3 – Exit/Transition Deal, Stage 4 – As third country status enter a new deal.

The effect of this also means that deals we currently have with counties like South Korea through the EU need to be revisited. There is no guarantee these countries will want to continue trading with us on the same terms, if they do not want to.

7. The EU has set out its own red lines. Our deal 'must encompass safeguards against...fiscal, social & environmental dumping'. Our transition deal must not last longer than three years and individual sectors, like banking, should not get special treatment.

Donald Tusk has said we don’t need a punishment deal as we are doing a good job of shooting ourselves in the foot, whilst Guy Verhofstadt said Brexit is Brexit is a 'catfight in Conservative party that got out of hand” and hoped future generations would reverse it.

8. May has admitted that we might well have no deal in place by the time we leave the EU. Until now we have been told we would have a deal in two years. She has also admitted an extension of free movement of people beyond Brexit.

9. The Brexit Select Committee published their report which warned about the dangers of exit without any deal, as well as talking about problems relating to the ‘Great’ Repeal Act, Gibraltar and NI. This is sensible and you’d think uncontroversial, but the Brexiteers threw the toys out of their pram saying it was too pessimistic. The government’s job is, of course, to plan for problems no matter how unlikely – such as disasters – and to hope that never happens. It seems that these Brexiteers don’t want to act responsibility or do their job.

10. Questions at the WTO have been asked about how Brexit will affect them. Interest in the subject came initially from Indonesia about Tariff Rate Quotas, but other parties who were watching closely were Argentina, China, Russia and the United States.

11. Phillip Hammond has openly said that there are a number of Tory MPs who want us to not make any agreement with the EU and to crash out in a chaotic exit.

12. Polling has suggested that people want Brexit to be quick and cheap. Not only that, but the word ‘Brexit’ has started to poll badly. Instead the Brexit department are advising officials to use the phrase “new partnership with Europe”. Lynton Crosby, the mastermind behind 2015’s Conservative victory has also warned that the Tories would probably lose 30 seats they gained from the LDs at an early election.

Of course, even a 2020 election might prove challenging with a transition deal still likely to be unresolved as Brexit drags on. Government strategy is, apparently, to hope that Remainer's anger will have dissolved by 2020.

Eight days in, and the Brexit Bus looks like it strayed into 1980's Toxeth and got torched, its wheels nicked, and graffitied with obscenities over its £350million pledge.

I agree with you lala but I also think the more exposure a person has to second language teaching in childhood the easier it is to pick up if you travel in adulthood.

However having worked with people from all over the World, sometimes with very little language in common, I think that an ability to communicate beyond language and adapt to cultural differences is far more important. Also very few non native English speakers ever understand a word I say if I speak with my natural idiom.

Where are you from howabout?

I once took a Californian colleague to a meeting in Ireland, where we spoke to a customer who was originally from Glasgow but had lived in the ROI for about 20 years. Afterwards,, my Californian colleague asked me what language our customer had been speaking in. He had quite literally not understood a word!

I had a quick look earlier and couldn't find the source but I'm sure I read that Eurostar had difficulty recruiting UK applicants as much fewer with good enough language skills.

I notice a lot of decent journalists are bi/poly lingual - Matt Frei, Emily Maitlis, Huw Edwards, Gabriel Gatehouse, Ciaran Jenkins, Fiona Bruce.

Latin. Removed from most state schools in Britain but great for
Portuguese, Italian etc.
No help with Scots though! Although Scots is obviously good for learning German. Ye ken?
Govey took MLF out of his brightest and best curriculum (briefly but affecting this Year 11 cohort in Britain), he also took out non British born writers from literature, that still stands.

About the MFL learning abilities of the Europeans, I'd like to add that there is a massive informal learning aspect. I grew up in the Netherlands in the 70s. We had 2 national tv channels and 3 German ones we could receive. I watched children's programmes from very young and spoke both languages from an early age. German was not very cool though. English and American culture is much more popular. Music, tv shows. . In Holland they are subtitled so you develop an ear for how it is supposed to sound. It makes learning a language much easier. Nowadays they start teaching languages in primary school.
I tried to learn spanish later but I find it difficult to connect with Spanish tv, radio and books the way I did with German, French and English. Culture is massively important.

Dutch is also good for learning Scots woman

Groot!

I suspect that if the USA became a majority Spanish speaking country, then suddenly we would find that we could master Spanish sufficiently well.

As has been pointed out - for many other nations the obvious foreign language to learn is English, whereas for us it's not so clear cut. The Scandinavian languages also have quite a lot of vocabulary in common with English - so a Dane assured me, which makes learning vocabulary easier. Indeed if you watch the Scandi crime series on the TV every now and again you will hear a sentence which sounds like English.

I think the problem is, Misti, that they aren't expected to be fluent in the language, despite studying it at A-level. The texts that a French literature student is given at A-level are short, perhaps excerpts of classic French novels, rather than, say, the whole of Mme Bovary. It's more about comprehension than really getting involved in the text. A friend's daughter did A-level French a couple of years ago and barely had to read any French texts at all, it was more like a "French Studies" curriculum.

Both my kids did Latin throughout junior high (as well as two MFL). That was in a very ordinary state school!

Rhu I think what you say about absorbing culture is true of some Northern European countries. Less so here, but the school language programmes are still popular and successful. DD has watched a few Spanish TV series now, there are some excellent historical drama shows to choose from (Gran Hotel is her favourite).

With youtube and Internet TV there is absolutely zero excuse for any language learner not to access foreign language programming.

I think the problem is, Misti, that they aren't expected to be fluent in the language, despite studying it at A-level. The texts that a French literature student is given at A-level are short, perhaps excerpts of classic French novels

I am really surprised. We did three complete French novels for A level (Bel Ami, Therèse Desqueroux and another I can't remember). I'm not sure that we all read them all, but you were expected to be able to read a French text! Speaking was another matter, I didn't really learn to talk French until I moved here.

DD has done some complete Spanish novels, though from what I understand a lot of the literature exam marks will be for a "dissertation" (literary argument) - obv written in Spanish. They also do some Spanish/hispanophone world history as well as the usual world/european history syllabus.

I did the Dutch equivalent of A levels and I read whole novels. 6 for each language iirc.Proust A la recherche du temps perdu, I kid you not. Only part 1 though. But also Waiting for Godot in French as a short and easy read (). Exam on those books was verbal, you had to talk about them!
I agree it is different in France Misti, still, it is not as self enclosed as it is in English speaking nations and much better in languages than UK. Darn Europe, better at things!

I did French and German A levels and a modern languages degree without studying any literature at all. Doesn't affect my fluency, and I'm now a literary translator! I did lots of French and German politics instead, which is maybe more useful. The issues are with curriculums and cultural arrogance, I would say - lots of blame Gove always a good plan , but it was pretty dire before him too. What did get me fluent was a 3-week immersion course in German (in an ex GDR area so their English wasn't as hot and I had to speak German) and then my year abroad.

Mistigri I would cry with happiness if my MFL A level students were given eight hours a week! It's half that... four hours

I suspect that if the USA became a majority Spanish speaking country, then suddenly we would find that we could master Spanish sufficiently well

I think this is the crux of it Peregrina. English speaking primacy is an assumed cultural prerogative of what is in fact a waning power. In fact the whole alt right shebang is.

"It's demographics, stupid", could be the slogan. That'll be why the alt right aren't keen on us controlling our own bodies, but being 'hosts'. Good luck with that one, boys.

I did Marcel Pagnol Le Chateau de ma Mere for A level French with Les Enfants Terribles, by Jean Cocteau. And studied French Cinema, specialising in Truffaut and Godard. Great stuff, well Pagnol, not so much but the other stuff was.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/15/britain-set-to-lose-eu-crown-jewels

This doesn't look good at all...

Yep Misti Glaswegian can be somewhat complex

misti

Sounds like my dh

On holiday in spain he asked me what language the people on the other table were speaking

Its english you fool...just with a Scottish accent

That really isn't good lalalonglegs. I'm guessing that losing those will prove to be the start of losing a lot of connected businesses.

I find I am still capable of astonishment at the perseverance of the Conservatives in face of all the evidence that this is going to be incredibly destructive for the economy.

We really are going to be left as a low-wage, low skills, no public services tax haven, aren't we?

I am so, so angry with all the people who voted for this - and continue to not inform themselves, or to delude themselves, about what this is going to mean for us - and our children - in twenty years' time.

It's not so much the loss of jobs within these two agencies. It's rather that they are a hub - of other business that will leave, along with all the revenue raised by that. Not to mention the culture (of skill, for a start) that they support.

I'm finding it just shocking that people really don't seem to realise what we are going to lose.

If that article is correct lala it really is going tits up rather swiftly isn't it?

Not a single one of the other 27 countries want to engage in trade talks yet?

Other cities are itching to take away our 'crown jewels'

My only hope is that the fact this is unraveling so quickly might just be a wake up call before it's too late.

I personally don't think our attitudes and ability with language are primarily down to our education systems.

The main difference you find in Europe is simply exposure to other languages. You just have to switch on the TV and flick the channels over to quickly fine another language.

This means that exposure to other languages is a normal part of everyday life regardless of class or economic or social background.

In the uk, seeing TV in another language is generally confined to BBC 4 or Channel 4. It's very much seen as an elitist thing, and as such it puts off a great many kids from exploring it at school. If you are from a council estate why would you be remotely interested in another language?

Languages therefore are incredibly middle class, and kids thinking about doing at school have to get past these social stigmas and perceptions.

It's not simply about ideas of Empire or that English is somehow 'better'. Many kids will never go abroad, never see it on TV and may well never hear it spoken on the streets where they live. It's something irrelevant and detached from their everyday lives.

Thought this might be useful to the majority some of us on here

http://inktank.fi/facebook-pages-every-remainer-battling-brexit-should-follow/

Haven't yet checked out all the suggestions.

I think this article, in combination with the comments in the Irish press, suggest that it's all finally kicking in. I wonder if the May government were really deluded and disconnected until very recently? I guess they're getting the message now.

It all very worryingly suggests that they really are as bad as they have appeared to be.

So it seems to me that all this may be a quite calculated pre-emptive channelling of the anger that is building, diverting the tide away from themselves and towards any convenient target further down the chain: the EU, immigrants, Islam, Mexicans, liberals, intellectuals. And it's working

Is it?

There are two opinion polls out tonight. One puts the Cons 21 points ahead of Labour. The other puts it just 9 points ahead.

One of the more interesting parts of the surveys relate to reactions to policies. Labour policies were for popular than Conservative ones. One poll split respondents into two groups and asked question about Labour. Another half were asked, referring to Corbyn's labour. They have hugely different answers. Labour came out better. For the same policies just describing them as belong to the party in different ways.

If it is indeed true then i depend on how these policies eventually impact on people.