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.

Bigchoc My Grammar School experience is probably further back and it was Direct Grant but with 75% of the places city or county scholarships, it really was inclusive and I do think of the girls that were lifted out of poverty (and it really was poverty) , went to uni on full grants which were generous then, and went on to successful careers, many giving back to society. The seventh term meant none of of the brightest went in to Oxbridge, just the Theresa May's. And as a dyslexic I also had a pretty miserable time there but I do think that then it did the job that Grammars, and Universities, do not do now.

However the experience with the mentoring charity and schools makes me wonder if you would have been as deprived of opportunity as you think. Although support for Aspergers and Dyslexia is patchy and often hard to access they are at least recognised, and few teachers would still discriminate because of your social skills or think your Dyslexia was laziness / dreaminess/ stupidity. You would be in top sets and however misguided the subject choices and advice those pupils do get focused on university and any sign of the Oxbridge spark tends to get cultivated . You would be eligible for study workshops and contextual offers based on poverty and family circumstances and scholarships and bursaries once at uni. My DDs both had flat mates from deprived backgrounds who had all of those benefits.

I am somewhat in the middle on the fees issue as I do think that the money should be focused on livable grants (the maintenance loan is not livable, if there is no parental support they have to work) for those from middle income and poorer families but clearly the student loans system is an inefficient and deterrent mess.

It's a habit of a lot of parties and politicians to dangle something out there non manifesto, allow it to be misconstrued in their favour then turn from it afterwards. Labour have done this multiple times over students alone down the years, never mind in all the other areas all parties play in. The first ever politician to lie to my face was a Labour one over tuition fees, so I possibly notice it on that area more.

As it happens I'm in a meeting right now with people from the government education department about evening out inequality in the system and the role that universities can play in this.

Also as if by magic this appeared in my Twitter feed www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/degrees-of-failure-do-universities-actually-do-any-good pointing out that in the uk we have too much of the wrong kind of tertiary education. This I think is key to resolving the fee anomaly in the long term but relies on people giving up their prejudice that university is best.

I should add the admissions /scholarships for my Grammar were teacher assessed with the middle 4 sitting an assessment of not just reasoning tests but other exercises and interviews and if they prove under or over assessed another four were assessed, to level all the schools. That meant that the teachers at the schools that served some of the most deprived areas (some of the most deprived public housing in the country) who saw a spark of intelligence could get those children to the Gramnar School. Of course that could not offset the result of serious neglect, my Mum taught in one of those schools and some had never been beyond the house and school and when asked to draw a tree drew a torn down stump because that was all that survived in the roads of the estate, half her Reception class had petty mall, with frequent absences.

You had a better grammar than mine, ron - just an ordinary county run school. In all the time I was there, no one got to Oxbridge. The default option was teacher training, which probably 2/3rds of the sixth form went into. A handful went to University. I did, but that was after another year at an FE college, taking extra A levels.

Sadly, I think my school was very typical. The thought of Theresa May bringing a school like that back makes me shudder. As a Comprehensive, it's now got a very good reputation and it's the sort of school we should be looking to, to see what works with Comprehensive education.

But we digress. Brexit won't do anything for Education.

I went to a grammar. Very high in the league tables, but didn't suit me at all. I ended up leaving with OK GCSEs, but didn't stay to do any a-levels. Luckily I had parents who both got their degrees and Masters as adults through OU, so it never crossed my mind that not having a-levels was an issue.

Funnily enough, while I argue against student fees I am in the position that I wouldn't be doing my nursing degree if it was still the bursary. Due to a strange coincidence of finances, personal circumstances and already having a student loan, so another one i will never pay off doesn't seem so much of an issue, I get double the amount of maintenance grant through the loans system than I would through the previous bursary. This is the sole reason I am doing a 3 year degree rather than the 2 year PgDip, which is still bursary.

However, because I have spent a ridiculous amount of time working all this out and battling my way through the finance system I am very, very aware that my circumstances are rare and will not apply to the vast majority who are doing degrees. Getting rid of fees would do me no good at all, but I still think it should be done.

Peregrina It could not do that job now, the legal constraints on admissions alone stitch them up for middle class parents. I agree that our outstanding comps are the best model, unfortunately too many are not outstanding or are run by all manner of self seeking sponsors. I disagree that it is not related to Brexit though, for that very reason, in education by stealth large numbers of our schools have been handed to those who put self interest and dogma above the interests of children. It was a precursor to Brexit and the architect was in part the same person, Gove. Locally we had to set up our own school to serve our community because the outstanding comps were vastly oversubscribed, the LA were focused on setting up an exclusive faith school, and used the best local site at the heart of our community to do it, and the only local school with places was the one I previously described. Now we are going to have to dig our own gardens and allotments to even access food......

Brexit, when hubris will meet Nemesis? One of those times when you could suspect the journalist /politician read these threads....... www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2017/08/britain-has-built-national-myth-winning-second-world-war-it-s-distorting-our

My df asked my opinion of grammar schools a while back. Now usually he does this because he wants to engage me in an argument. He clearly was in favour of them and expected me to be anti them. He didn't get very far because my response was to say I never got why grammar schools were meant to be so good when, though it would have been trickier, my dps chose to put my sister and me in the local comp. DM chirped in loudly that our school was the best in the area at that time. Shut him right up

I still don't get grammar schools as a current concept. Not sure I get them as an historical one either mind you.

Hashi In my city which was one of those Northern Socialist Republics the strategy was broadly the one that the Finnish have now. The idea was that teachers in primary schools knew their pupils best and they assessed whether pupils would be suited to an academic education or a vocational one. The levelling assessment I mentioned included tests of dexterity as well as intellectual ability confirming I should never be allowed near a chisel (It was used throughout the North and was known as the Thorne scheme) The idea was that there should, as is true in Finland, be no stigma attached to going to a secondary modern, where there were much better facilities for studying vocational subjects and where teachers were able to tailor teaching methods to different ability levels and were more skilled in helping those with SEN. Of course this is Britain, not Finland, and we are a culture who need someone to look down on....

Maintaining Grammar Schools and buying up 75% of the places in the Direct Grammars was specifically aimed at providing an opportunity for an academic education for pupils from poorer backgrounds, they were effectively crowding out the Middle Classes. Of course the Middle class was a. much smaller and b.not as pushy and c. had no chance of voting in the Tories.

It is what effectively goes on within Comprehensives now that setting is common, something that was against the ideology of the early Comprehensives.

Thanks ron
So they're another one of those good in theory but doesn't fit in with Britishness things then? I assumed there was a good theory behind them at some point at least, but wasn't sure it was more than giving more privilege to those already privileged.

Not strictly Brexit-related but yet more evidence of Boris Johnson's record of perfidious spending: £940 million on vanity projects while mayor

The former Labour minister Margaret Hodge, whose review of the Garden Bridge project led to its abandonment, said she was shocked at how “irresponsible” Johnson was with public money. But during her review she was also struck by the lack of scrutiny of his profligate spending decisions when mayor.

"I kept thinking how the hell was he allowed to get away with this,” Hodge told the Guardian.

His bloody Routemasters alone (designed by Thomas Hetherwick of Garden Bridge notoriety) cost more than £320 million!

Strange isn't it, how the Tories extol the virtues of private industry and finance, and when the wealthy don't want to stump up, they expect the taxpayers to pay. No, if Boris and Co want the Garden Bridge then they raise the funds. It would have been a good idea if there genuinely was a run down bridge or similar, in need of smartening up.

What other bright ideas did Boris have?
The Water Cannon? Flogged off unused I recall.

I thought the Boris routemasters were still in use, but they don't open the back doors, so they were a complete waste of time.

What would be useful would be another river crossing to ease congestion in the Blackwall Tunnel.

peregrina the routemasters are still in use, and sometimes on the tourist routes have a guard and the back doors open. As lovely as they are, they're just prettier buses when run round my way. For some reason too, whenever the back doors are in operation there's never the ability to bring a buggy on board, folded or otherwise. Don't know if that's exceptionally bad design or for some other reason though.

I love the new routemasters, you can get on in the middle doors with a buggy instead of squeezing it through the front. Also having 3 doors to get on and 2 staircases means it's less of a bun fight getting on and off the bus, I use them all the time with my kids and much prefer them (never had the back foots not open)

Peregrina It sounded like a good idea until you realised they were effectively seeking to privatise the public open space on the Southbank. Most Londoners were against it from the start when that became clear. It wasn't just the cost, money was funnelled to Boris's mates just for coming up with the idea / plan before a single brick was laid, Arup and Heatherwick pocketed over £8m between them. The landowners, Lambeth Council and the Coin Street Project who lease the land were negotiating to sell the land for profit to the Bridge project 18 months before it was even publicly announced.

Nobody consulted the local community who were opposed to the Southbank walkway and foreshore being blocked, along with the views from Somerset House to St Pauls and the 30 mature trees that make up the Queen's walk being ripped out with no corresponding replacement of that number of trees on the bridge itself (most of it was going to be concrete not actually garden ). Their argument was that the South and North Banks don't need another tourist attraction, they are busy already, so the real purpose of the bridge would be to be a corporate hospitality venue and the need to provide benefit to the investors would mean the bridge would be closed to the public most of the time anyway. This was never a greening project like the Highline.

London still has the water cannon, never found a buyer...

It sounded like a good idea until you realised they were effectively seeking to privatise the public open space on the Southbank.

People would be amazed if they knew how much "public" space has been bought up by private companies.

Nearly all of Brindleyplace in Brum (for example).

The upshot is (as the ever excellent Mark Thomas explained in his show "Trespass") that there is no public right of way, and the landowners can impose conditions on people using the space.

Such as no begging, no political activity, no marches, no selling, no religious activity ....

We'll miss it when it's gone ....

The Canary Wharf development in the Docklands is privately owned as well - I remember when I used to work in the tower, the security guards were effectively a private police force and could bar "undesirables" from the shopping areas. Undesirables included builders who were working on the rest of the mushrooming towers and complexes in the area . The Liverpool One area which covers most of prime central Liverpool is also privately owned and seeks to impose bans on anyone it doesn't like the look of very tightly managed. It shocks me how this acquisition of public space has happened but the Garden Bridge really was the most egregious example yet - it is fantastic that it has been scrapped, let's see Sadiq chase the trustees for the missing £37 million now.

The London Docklands Development Corporation (hands up who remembers them ?) were actually praised by the EU as a model in how to regenerate inner city areas. The land grab was actually welcomed back then.

One of Heseltines better legacies ....

Just heard Steve Bannon has gone ..

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40980994

That's really interesting about the Thorne system, Ron
I was in the South East, so it was all 11+ in our area

As we know, the original idea back in 1945 was to have grammar, secondary modern and technical schools, but somehow only the grammar schools were properly organized and funded;
the other 2 types of schools, for the non-academic were left to be sink schools.

The original idea would have been ok, imo, if proportional effort & resources had gone into all 3 components of the tripartite system, also resourcing that kids could move to another type of school at say 13 and 16.

I certainly did better at grammar school than I would have at the alternatives, which were terrible locally both for academics and bullying.

So, I definitely think there should be (means tested as before) payment of fees and maintenance grant (mine was ok to live on, being a typical Aspie hermit )
BUT
there must also be investment for the 50% of kids who don't go to uni, e.g. apprenticeships and vcoational training, which should have a MUCH higher status, instead of the often sneery attitudes from those who think everyone should go to uni.

Just heard Steve Bannon has gone
Left a bit of a smell though. Job done as far as the American nazis are concerned. Gove's probably got him lined up for a job here.

British Pakistani men ARE raping and exploiting white girls… and it’s time we faced up to it

www.thesun.co.uk/news/4218648/british-pakistani-men-raping-exploiting-white-girls/

Compare and contrast

The Scottsboro Boys and George Stinney

www.theroot.com/white-lies-a-brief-history-of-white-people-lying-about-1790856437

Worked well for the Klan last time.

Maybe Bannon has started work already?

Good news that one alt right white supremacist is out of the White House - hopefully not to be rep,aces by another
(does anyone else find autocorrect writes "Shite Ouse" )

Reading about Bannon, I then shuddered when I followed a neighbouring US story:

< they're back to sterilizing the poor >

"In a small county in rural Tennessee,
inmates were offered 30 days off their sentences in exchange for a vasectomy or a long-acting birth control implant."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40955288