Westministenders: I can't believe it's not butter

[RedToothBrush]

Nigel Farage @ Nigel_Farage
Cannot believe we're seeing Nazi salutes in 21st century America.

Yeah, that's what we said on 16th June 2016, when some dickhead stood in front of a poster.

The thing is, what Farage says with faux surprise isn't unusual or isolated to him. It's widespread. It's perhaps the norm rather than the exception in many circles.

It's represents a total lack of self awareness. It represents the disconnect that what comes out of your mouth tends to have an effect on the people around you, whether intentioned that way or not when you talk about 'others' or 'not belonging'.

It's a direct effect of nationalism.

Patriotism seems to be something that people have totally lost the plot with and don't understand. It's used as a defence for nationalism. It is the last defence of the scoundrel. Patriotism and being pro-EU or not being a racist dick are not mutually exclusive, though you'd be forgiven for thinking differently these days.

I think a lot of people will sit and go, "Look at America, that is awful. I'm glad we are not like that".

Except we are far more than we realise. Grenfell says much about that.

There's an phrase and Southern Wolves and Northern Wolves when it comes to racism in America. The UK is like the Northern Wolf. Sly and silver tongued to justify and hide racism because 'Look they are worse than us. We are the good guys'.

A bit like saying, you talked to an EU citizen and they were just as racist as me, so Brexit is ok.

It's the twisted desperation to justify the othering rather than take responsibility for enabling and emboldening racism. Then dressing it up as some legitimate political cause which actually you have zero understanding or comprehension of the consequences of.

Brexit has some deep roots in Nazi type fantasies. You can not separate the idea that Britain is superior and Brits are better than Europeans from too much Brexit logic. The Empire was not a pretty thing for much of the world. It's worrying.

Not to mention we've had a right wing attack on a group of people outside a mosque in this fashion before the US had that attack yesterday.

Let's not think that because we haven't had blokes with tiki torches providing a photographic opportunity and theatre for the TV producer that we are somehow 'better'. Or not as bad as America.

The only real difference between them and us is the brash openness about it and the fact they have a bunch of guns.

This was predictable. Indeed I expected and I expect more. There will be more and it will get far, far worse in the US. Yesterday was just the start. Trump wants it. He will fuel it. He will capitalise from it. Yes your mate Donald loves a bit of bigotry, Nig.

There no guarantees it won't happen here for various reasons. It just is characterised in a slightly different way because we are British and don't really do brash in anything as it's not our way.

It's too easy for Farage. Or Johnson. Or May. Or whoever to just walk away and innocently say they are shocked and bear no responsibility because they don't wave Nazi flags about.

You don't have to do that, to share the same values or believe the same thing. Salutes and flags are just branding. A repackaged version for the 21st century is even more dangerous.

We won't forget who Farage hangs out with or courts for publicity and attention. Farage only says and does what he thinks he can get away with. That's part of the ugly truth.

We still have not even started to confront the relationship between racism and Brexit. Indeed, much seems to be happening to suggest that after blaming EU, that there are a Brexit opportunities for scapegoating opening up.

For me yesterday was depressing not because it happened, but because we saw it coming and because our country is in denial about being the same.

Farage is the very personification of it.

Artisan Exactly the experience of the charity except multiplied.....

It's an honest question -bigly if your solution is to offer free education at a higher level to help with inequality then how do you address the fact there's massive equality in the already free part. Nothing suggests misti believes the solution is to pay. In fact, read the next sentence and that's obvious.

Totally agree ron.

This sort of disadvantage has nothing to do with fees.

My DD will shortly be applying for higher education places in France, a system where many HE courses are almost free (entirely free, if you are a low income student). DD is a good student with potential to gain a place on the most selective courses - but she probably won't get onto the course she wants because of geographical, cultural and educational factors which tend to exclude students from schools in poorer areas from the most sought after courses.

At least she will apply. Among her friendship group - which includes several kids of immigrants from poor single parent families - there are some very able students who will not be applying for top courses for cultural reasons that have nothing to do with fees.

Removing fees makes no difference to working class students unless you simultaneously address other factors that limit their access to good quality HE. And if you have a budget of £100bn to spend on it (what Labour's policy is estimated to cost) then its worth at least considering whether there are ways of getting better value for money.

Can't remember the complete justification and can't be bothered looking for them in breach of the Westministenders tradition of properly sourced commentary But I seem to recall that the Scottish Government claims that removing the student fees for Scottish students actually in the long run doesn't cost that much as so much of the English student debt ends up being written off anyway

Agree ron and Artisan, anecdotally with nephews and nieces we have seen similar poor advice from schools.

Meanwhile, a vision for the glorious future of Brexit Britain

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ukip-leadership-candidate-wants-cut-11006718

Ukip leadership candidate wants to cut 'unnecessary population' by PAYING British Indians to leave

elements so much for brexit helping commonwealthers (possibly completely made that term up) to come here eh? Something odd about those double barrelled Rees lot.

Is there really a GCSE in silent witness waking the dead forensic science? In contrast Scientist DD was in part inspired by Eve and CSI and wanted to be Eve when she grew up, I am sure would have loved to study forensic science at 14 but had the advantage of middle class parents and teachers that pushed into double Science (knowing that she would do 4 Science A levels not doing triple gave her the space to do two languages at GCSE) and towards a Nat Sci Masters.

Friend's DD said the school were telling her to do forensic science at GCSE alongside law but it may be a different sort of science paper.

GCSE or A Level Law is almost always bad advice!

If I am reading misti dishonestly than I think I can say the same about her reading of my posts. At no point have I said scrapping fees would solve all the worlds problems (in fact I have repeatedly said it wouldn't). She called the scrapping of fees a bung to the middle classes and I disagree with that. Now we can argue about where we would like to put £10bn till the cows come home (healthcare, social care, environment could all arguably be good places to put the money), but suggesting you might think that money is better spent somewhere else does not justify the accusations of labour buying off the middle classes at the expense of the poor.

I would quite like to do a GCSE is forensic science now. Sounds pretty fun

Oh, and the cost of stopping student fees would be £10bn a year, the £100bn you are quoting would be for cancelling existing debt, which labour have not said they would do.

bigly I think you're misreading a lot of misti posts. The tuition fees is an example she's given to some of labour's not very distributive policies in the last manifesto, and I think she's raised some valid points and areas within just the tuition fees debate. But she's no more suggested fees should be paid than you've been accused of saying it would solve all the worlds problems.

As someone with postgrad qualifications in Marketing (along with a long career) with friends teaching the business A level I am very about the benefits of studying it even at undergrad level. Much better to get the thinking and intellectual skills in place studying an established academic subject like History or Maths and then some experience in the real business world. 90% of business is common sense anyway, and that certainly seems to be the content of the A level, then you can acquire technical skills in the context of experience of how and where you would use them and go on to postgrad study of the subject to develop strategic thinking. However this is classic middle class cultural capital. I can well see that a 14 year old who from the best of motives wants to focus on equipping themselves to earn a living would see a GCSE in business as the route to get there. Why though are teachers colluding. We have a school locally that offered pupils three pathways at 16, one is A levels, but with no modern language or chemistry, the others are business (with A levels /BTEC in Law, Business etc. ) and the final one is Healthcare (which I couldn't comment on). The Head was a self important twat full of his own ideas about educating the pupils seemingly without ever having talked to any local employers....

iirc, paying "commonwealth" i.e. just those the wrong colour to leave the UK was actually government policy many years ago (may have been under MrsT) - iirc it was up to £5,000 so quite tempting

And by the way was visited by Karma when the school, which was a new build based on his methods, open plan, one of the suppliers, of fake grass, had the knoll in one of the open spaces on its website, into special measures and the LA had to find £12m to redevelop the school buildings to be fit for "traditional pedagogical methods"

I know things have changed a lot since my day which isn't that horrifically long ago long enough but even then there was some evidence of dodgy advice. I remember being told my A level options would hinder me getting onto my preferred uni course. I decided to carry on with my choices though against their advice, and every uni interview I attended commented on what a wonderful set of A levels I'd elected to do Thankfully there weren't many 'career' type a levels available to me then.

bigly I think you're misreading a lot of misti posts

I might agree with you a bit more if she was arguing about labours policies using the the correct figures at least. As it is I think we have now lost the point of the entire conversation and completely derailed this thread. We are clearly never going to reach a point when we are not "misreading" each other, so should probably move on and get back to the actual point of the thread.

into special measures and the LA had to find £12m to redevelop the school buildings to be fit for "traditional pedagogical methods"

That's it though - it's someone else who has to pay to put things right. I remember a year or so back David Cameron's mother whinging about cuts to the local library service. They are all wealthy enough to have stumped up a substantial amount of money to have made good some of the deficit, but did it occur to them to be philanthropic? It would appear not.

I've posted before that as very low income student in the mid-1970s I received full fees and maintenance grant
Without that, I would never had got a degree, let alone MSc and PhD (I changed my field quite a lot from pure to applied)
My mum was a v low income disabled widow, who could barely support me to 18. I supported her from straight after uni.

The thought of being lumbered with debt was an absolute horror that would have 100% have stopped me even thinking of uni.

Bad enough starting my working life without the help I saw all the mc kids get , without adding a millstone round my neck
I was already worried about not earning for uni years, which seemed lost money to me.

I went to a Grammar and even then was about the only v poor kid. There were aspirational wc kids, but they weren't poor.
They could pay for educational and social extras; they just had different accents.
I was the only one teased every week because I had no pocket money, hence couldn't donate to the chosen good cause (this was long before schools themselves needed money from pupils)

Another barrier then was that Oxbridge had their own exams in addition to the A levels:
I was rejected from the coaching classes because they said I could never keep up and wouldn't have done the work - the teachers ran PAID private coaching classes in parallel, which of course Incouldn't pay for.

I was told anyway that I wouldn't fit in socially as I was such an outcast at school - well, that was down to severe Aspergers (then unknown) not just poverty.

Nowadays, I hope a v low income Aspie but with maths 170+ IQ would have more opportunity.
Not without the bloody grant & fees.

This all flared off a question as to why should a new party need to be created. Labour are a massive issue for me on students because they have history of campaigning ala big red bus of lies. Dangling promises that were just possibilities. Not that the Tories, or probably any other party, are any better. Which goes back to my point that for something big to come along, it needs to be free of baggage. Be that a party or system change. A new party would be easier than system change in the immediate.

Yes one redeeming feature of traditional Republicanism is ( or was, because I don't know any traditional Republicans who did not dessert to Obama and are now watching the current shitshow in horror) the emphasis on civic responsibility and philanthropy. The British International School my DDs attended has a foundation over there that raises quite substantial sums from alumnae, for whom donating to the alma mater, museums, libraries and other philanthropic causes is the norm. Is there any parallel activity in Britain, there was a reception once in London where they drank the wine and went on on a drinking binge......

I didn't go to uni
Because my family couldnt afford it and there was no way I was going to land myself with tens of thousands ££££ of debt
I was considering applying for a nursing place but now with end of the bursary I can't afford it
Dh and i are saving in cast the dc want to go...we only have 1 years tuition saved so far and only 4 more years til ds1 is 18

Labour are a massive issue for me on students because they have history of campaigning ala big red bus of lies. Dangling promises that were just possibilities

I'm not sure what you are referring to here. The stopping of student fees has been costed (£10bn per year) and could be paid for through taxation from memory of the manifesto. The £100bn quoted above for wiping all previous student debt was never campaigned on. Corbyn did an interview with the NME where he said he would like to help those with existing debt through looking at terms of payment if possible. One sentence from this was taken out of context and suddenly there were news paper reports saying Corbyn had promised to wipe student dept. This was refuted by him and it was made clear that while they would love to this was not a part of the manifesto.

I would consider not voting labour over brexit if they don't get their backbones in order, but I don't know if I would fit for a centerist party in the James Chapman vein. I would have to see more about their policies on other areas.

There is quite a lot of philanthropy in the UK but it is not built in in the same way as in the USA where as you say the assumption is that low taxes are good because they allow for really serious charity giving and volunteering. I profoundly disagree with the philosophy but must admit I really admire the can-do, everyone get stuck in attitude that goes along with it/results from it. It's like baby showers; US version = charming all female gathering to express emotional and practical support for an expectant mother. UK=crap commercialised tat-fest resented by all. USA conservative= likes low taxes and understands the trade off is that they pay an absolute minimum of 10-15% of take home income plus significant personal time to create local and individualised safety net for the community. UK conservative=likes low taxes and as a result expects to send children to private school and pay subscription to blood sports associations.