Westministenders: The bookends to a year of political chaos. Just how far have we come?

[RedToothBrush]

The 15th June 2016.

The Thames was filled with a flotilla of boats in a publicity stunt for the Leave campaign to draw attention to fisheries. Nigel Farage and Kate Hoey in their heads thought they were Leonardo and Kate, but the moment was rather more titanic in nature and could not have been more Alan Partridge if they had tried. Coming up behind was Bob Gedolf in a shameful and cringeworthy display of swearing and abuse that really didn’t help the Remain camp in anyway. Largely unnoticed was a small boat with a family following it all unfold…

The next day things went from fiasco to horror.

Farage unveiled the Dog Whistle Poster and Jo Cox was murdered. And the UK seemed set on its course for 7 days later when the world was turned upside down by the referendum itself.

14th June 2017.

Fast forward 365 days later and another tragedy unfolded. This time of a very different nature but with no less political significance.
Grenfell.

A moment of national shame. A symbol of so many things that had come to pass in the previous twelve months.

The election just the previous week had changed the direction of travel we seemed to be headed and left the Prime Minister exposed and looking wildly out of touch. The Maybot was given one more chance.

And the Maybot seems to be failing the test of her party who had the grace to grant her a second chance.

The Queen dressed in the same shade of blue, May delivered her ‘victory speech’ in, ignored the security threat and visited the ranks of the poor and the forgotten. A deliberate message to May not to forget who she serves? A Queen who feels aggrieved and angry by May’s behaviour? Who knows.

As for Brexit. The government looks lost. Adrift. The ‘Fight of the Summer’ over the EU’s plan for talks sounds out the window despite the denials from the Brexit Department. Hard Brexit is still on the cards. Apparently. But what does anyone believe now? May’s and the Brexiteers domination of the agenda is shattered, its power starting to be questioned.

What next?

This evening the anger is building.

Who knows, what will happen. Some of it might be predictable, but the future is far from certain and we have definitely entered a new era. We just don’t know who will lead it, or what its ambition or what the end goal now is.

What we do know, more acutely than ever is that we are all human and the wise words of Jo Cox about having ‘More in Common’ ring though ever more strongly.

Once again we feel ‘on the brink’.

However I do agree with Sos 're education and training. My understanding is in France at 15? you continue your education via a practical or academic route. Similar to old technical colleges. I believe something is similar in Germany?

We should look at something simlar here allowing children to take a route suitable to them and have schools capable of teaching practical vocations. This should be seen in equal weight to the academic route

Where did the straight cucumber come from?

Basically one of Boris Johnson's silly little stories. However, the EU does classify fruit into grades, so something like a cucumber which wasn't very bendy wouldn't become a class 1 fruit. As anyone who has been to a market in Spain or Italy will see, they have stalls full of gnarly peppers and other misshapen stuff, so the EU can't be stopping them selling it.

We had to go metric we had to do this, that and the other.
Another porky I am afraid. The UK (then GB and Ireland), first started making noises about metrication in the 1850s, and yes, you have read the century right. We had already started to metricate and decimalise before we were in the EEC, but the Government bottled it, and decided to blame the Common Market. It's still possible to mark up goods for sale in Imperial measures, they are just not allowed to be sold only in them.

We used to think Great Britain was the bees knees, when we had an Empire. This has now completely gone, apart from a couple of overseas territories. You will find that a lot of former colonies don't share the same view of the wonder of Great Britain. But sure, I would be happy to see us celebrate what we thought were British values - tolerance, acceptance, but these have taken a battering this last year.

guardian Jamie Oliver wonky veg

Decent article regarding standardisation of fruit and veg shapes and sizes.
Pre the wonky box trial, which took successfully so is still going.

I love our diverse nation and would not alter that, but there is a strong need to train our workforce. We must invest in schools so education becomes once again one of the best in the world. Our world is changing, along with work skills needed, then train our children for them. Stop all exploitation of workers. Pay a decent wage, a decent wage for a decent days work. Make big business and privatised companies cough up more wages, more investment in training the staff, more nurseries to allow people to work for them. We MUST invest in all areas to create growth.

We rely so heavily on cheap labour from abroad that we no longer bother to train our own workforce

I believe the lack of training came first. You ask about the NHS, introducing quotas on the no of medical students and recent abolishion on the already low nursing bursary reduced numbers.

It was traders in bananas and cucumbers etc that asked 'the EU' for standards. 'Red tape' they positively wanted.

Agree we do need to invest in our workforce. But that's decades of underinvestment to undo...in 2 years. You see why we are concerned

Agree about wages. But that will not happen due to Brexit. If anything the hard economy will continue the wage squeeze for many many years

Great points bigchoc and peregina. And everyone but not enough maybe to sway hard brexiteers. We can become great again if we have the right government in place. So stay in EU because yes it has its good points and I agree with ALL points put forward. But, not with this government. We do need a more socialist government to bring change in all the things I mentioned above. A Tory government will not invest in our youth, will not improve conditions for working class people, will only look to big business. We have to have more socialism. We just cannot carry on like we are.

sostenueto and everyone, if this thread is going to degenerate into a piecemeal anaylsis of EU protections like bananas and cucumbers it's important to see things in context and look at the importance of the matters we do and do not share.I don't want Red's reliable thread to go weird.

Managing any organisation has to see the bigger picture and keep things in context.

As I've posted on other threads....

Lone matters-We have 100% MP control on the following many rules and regulations :Health policy. Education. Fiscal policy. Public expenditure. Monetary policy. Income tax. Corporation tax. Capital gains tax. Inheritance tax. Border control and security. Non-EU immigration. Pensions. Welfare. Foreign policy decisions. Defence. Military Intelligence. Development cooperation and humanitarian aid. All local government. National policing. Crime. Media and press regulation. Family law. Property law and succession of estates.

Joint matters -We agreed to have a joint say (currently 73/748 so 9.7 %) over the following matters.Energy.Climate.Environment.Agriculture. Some Employment. Consumer.Transport. Some crime. Asylum.VAT. Foreign policy (EU). Single Market.Competition.Fisheries.EU migration. So we jointly decided what happens here and in the other 27 member states too.On both a soft and hard Brexit scenario we lose this control.

We made the pragmatic decision to share some joint law making power with our neighbours over matters requiring decent standards such as Agriculture, environment and food like cucumbers. This was in return for open access to a $16.6 trillion annual market, a decision that paid off- strengthening the UK’s economic position hugely.

Voting records since 1999 show that we agreed with the regulations passed jointly by us and other member states 2,466 times. We only voted ‘No’ to laws passed 56 times and abstained 70 times. UK ministers agreed with what our and the other MEPs were doing about light bulbs etc 95% of the time, abstained 3% of the time, and disagreed only 2% of the time.

So the mind set we are ruled by this distant machine is profoundly incorrect :
a.We are ( were) a disproportionately large part of that Parliament ; and
b. Our government agreed with the decisions anyway.

So the advocates of a hard Brexit are blaming our EU membership for
administrative matters that our government agreed with the vast majority of the time.

So we go for soft brexit (I still believe there will be no brexit) but we simply must get rid of a far right government.

Sos I'm with you there

OK I will shut up then.

Don't want to ruin thread peace to all.

I love our diverse nation and would not alter that, but there is a strong need to train our workforce. We must invest in schools so education becomes once again one of the best in the world. Our world is changing, along with work skills needed, then train our children for them. Stop all exploitation of workers. Pay a decent wage, a decent wage for a decent days work. Make big business and privatised companies cough up more wages, more investment in training the staff, more nurseries to allow people to work for them. We MUST invest in all areas to create growth.

Why do we need to leave the EU and cripple our economy in order to do all this?

Leavers often seen to forget that once upon a time we had a very large empire. We exploited this empire relentlessly for cheap goods, trade and labour. We exploited it so much and so ruthlessly that the empire rebelled and we no longer have the easy access to very cheap goods and labour we had when Britain was what you call 'great'. By joining with other near by countries to form the EU we have been able to replace some of this through access to labour and trade. Britain did not stand alone before the EU it stood with an empire and a common wealth, which it lost. It is a myth that England was ever really that great as a single little island. We were great when we joined with many other countries. If we leave the EU we will truely be alone and it will not be great I can assure you.

We stood alone for a long time in the second world war. Pity we as a nation don't have that grit and determination anymore.

joint matters we would have more say if our MEPs actually turned up to vote. Nigel Farage is 749th (out of post Lisbon Treaty numbers - 751) in terms of MEP voting records. Participation in other EU activities can skew the voting records but not in his case.

Maybe Boris can explain to the Brexiters,
because before he cynically flip-flopped to join the Leave referendum campaign - because he planned to become PM - he explained quite well

Boris Johnson, 2013:

“If we left the EU… we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by ‘Bwussels’,
but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure…

Why are we still, person for person, so much less productive than the Germans?

That is now a question more than a century old, and the answer is nothing to do with the EU.”

I think the issue with education and vocational training is a cultural one, the traditional prejudice against "trade" amongst those in power in the U.K.. It is behind the seeming disregard of May and the Brexiteers for the economic impact of Brexit as well as the neglect and devaluation of vocational training in favour of Gove's beloved "academic rigour". It is most definitely not an EU problem, it is not shared by eg Germany, where the emphasis on building economic capability and trading links, both through spending on the Human Resources and infrastructure has resulted in more successful Industry sectors and a better trading record with partners both inside and outside the EU.

Remember how Gove went off to China and said we had to take a lesson from their world leading, but very Chinese based on a long tradition of a literati meritocratic elite, education system, rather than the Finnish one which if anything has better results but is focused on empowering teachers to cater for different learning styles and identifying a pupils potential either to be academic, with only the best able to apply for the highly respected role of teacher (teachers are highly respected in China too), or the vocational route, with no value of superiority being attached to each.

If you look on the education pages Gove's increasing rigour in eg the Maths GCSE is creating a group of pupils who will be left thinking they have no potential that is valued by society, other than to go on X Factor....

It is an issue at all levels though, what does society most value as an outlet for the talents of the cream who have risen to the top of the academic system. If you go to the education threads you would think the entire economy was driven by Doctors and Lawyers..... We need Doctors yes, but how many bright Scientists are attracted to Medicine by the status and become mediocre Doctors when they might have been great Scientists? And how many become mediocre Commercial Lawyers bored rigid and wishing they were on the client side of the table when they would have been effective in business /industry? I know lots of them

Business too relies on attracting the best and the brightest from around the world and has been highlighting that existing immigration policies have been holding them back.

"Pity we as a nation don't have that grit and determination anymore."

People often find that they do have grit and determination when tested to extremes.

It is A GOOD THING that life is better for my children than it was for my grandparents when they were young. That is not a pity! I don't want things to go to shit just so we can all congratulate ourselves on our "grit".

I don't want Britain to merely "survive" (a very loose definition anyway). I would like to see us thrive.

@jonsnowc4
Its Official: Bank of England Governor tells the City: Brexit has made us poorer.
And. And. And. We haven't even left yet.

Sosteneuto We did not stand alone in the Second World War. My ancestors fought alongside West African regiments in Africa and Burma, and alongside Chinese, Indian Australian and Canadian soldiers in the rest of Asia throughout the war (Remember it was a World War which originated as much with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 as Hitler's aggressive strategy of territorial gain) I also know descendants of the Polish Airmen who served in the Battle of Britain. Whilst the US were slow to commit troops to the war Britain could not have survived without the convoys that brought food equipment and other resources from North America and the rest of Empire throughout the war and obviously it took the commitment of troops from all those places to make a success of the allied invasion. It just reflects the sense of entitlement we have all been brought up with, at least those who grew up in the shadow of Empire that we do not appreciate these realities of history.... We never were an island that stood alone...

Yes what and how many practical students attempt university courses when they would be better as master builders or cabinet makers

We do undervalue trade in the UK. And too many mediocre doctors a rent going to solve the housing shortage. A lot of this is driven from the 'service economy' we drove ourselves into.

Why standing alone as a nation while everyone suffers is seen as something to even aspire to is absolutely beyond me.

Life in WW2 Britain was incredibly grim, I don't really want to go back to starvation rations thanks.

Sos completely agree with you about getting rid of the (loosening) grip the right wing government is still clinging on to, and I desperately hope you are correct about the no Brexit.

Also didn't mean to shut you up about the rules/protections thing,I just like to keep an eye on the bigger picture too.