Westministenders: One for the Women

[RedToothBrush]

Just remember that women are more likely to be worried about Brexit.

Their women's and workers rights are more at risk from departure from the EU, the ECJ and potentially the EHCR.
They are more likely to be worried as EU citizens in the UK due to taking time to have and raise families.
They are more likely to have been badly affected by austerity and an economic downturn will hit them first.
If they are leavers they are more likely to have changed their minds.
They are less likely to be MPs so have less representation.
They are more likely to be feeling politically unrepresented by any party and unsure of who they will vote for at the next election.
They are more likely to get abuse for expressing a political opinion. Many report having been subjected to sexual harassment from political colleagues.
They are more likely to be the target of abuse on social media.
They are earn less than their political colleagues, they earn less than their media colleagues, they earn less than their business colleagues. They are less likely to be in powerful lobby groups.

Then there's #metoo

And to cap it off women's groups are finding it hard to get their voice heard, and are frequently being labelled as hysterical or bigoted for merely wanting to discuss things and be reassured that their fears are acknowledged. They are frequently dismissed as liars or over sensitive.

This is 2018.

It doesn't feel progressive. It doesn't look equal.

Brexit has more of an impact on women.

But it will all be fine Talkin. Won't it?

You know what really grates? When you know you need to plan for something or else it could potentially be a disaster. And you don't. And whoever needed to do it turns around and asks 'what do you want me to do now?' We are where we are.

Excellent post Ican'treach

I normally try and see both sides to a point of view but that's what frustrates me about this, there just is no tenable view other what you expressed in your post.

Brexit was the worst change they could have possibly picked. They have opted to make themselves and the country poorer - which will inevitably squeeze the welfare state until it suffocates...and handed absolute power to the evil bastards responsible for ideological austerity ...

it is probably, OK, almost certainly, going to impact hardest on those who are already vulnerable.

That is almost certainly true. But polls still show that is a close thing between Remain and Leave. After including those who can't or won't vote, give or take a third of the population still supports Brexit.

Not all of those people are vulnerable - many are not well off, but the vast majority are adults capable of making decisions. If Brexit makes them poorer (as it will, for most of them) then it's what they voted for. Being poor or uneducated doesn't absolve you of responsibility for your decisions.

Of course I reserve most of the blame for the politicians - who have exploited many not-terribly-bright and uneducated people who prefer slogans to nuance - but voters have to take some responsibility too.

As one of the group most immediately affected by Brexit I actively want Leave voters to be poorer. I'm angry about having rights taken away and if the people who voted for this suffer from it too then they won't get much sympathy from me.

Harry Cole @MrHarryCole
Lib Dems to try amend May's Trade Bill to toughen up UK opposition to Spanish Brexit veto re Gibraltar - will give @FabianPicardo a counter veto meaning May could not sign withdrawal deal without his written consent.

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Fintan O'Toole on the UK and a friction free technological border. Timeline issues of a decade or two. Even if it were a solution.

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-british-can-t-deliver-promises-of-frictionless-trade-1.3415561

Tusk has confirmed that the EU will play hardball over Ireland. There isn't going to be a technological solution. Unless Brexit, the Irish border will be in the Irish Sea. That effectively means the end of the Union.

Sorry proof reading fail.

"Unless Brexit is soft,"

Who is going to be making the decisions? May? Ultras? Arlene? This cannot be kicked down the road.

.

Excellent post pretzels. I might have to quote you elsewhere.

Thanks, red

Austerity, cuts in nhs and care services, £100 billion on Trident, tax cuts for the wealthy …
These are all choices made by the UK govt and have nothing to do with the EU

Some other EU countries made different choices and have better quality of life.

Working abroad is definitely not just for the privileged:

I grew up very poor, with a disabled widowed mum, who I had to sub as soon as I left uni.
No bank of mum for me
It was during high unemployment, the de-industrialisation of Britain in the early Thatcher years
So I was paid peanuts, even working in science.
No useful contacts to help me get a better job - in the UK, it still matters who you know

I first worked in Germany in the 1980s, because I had zero prospects in my field in the UK.
Germany gave me a real boost in my career and my pay, made me more interesting later to UK employers

Working there transformed my life from being poor, to being reasonably comfortable and secure
Now I've returned to Germany, again sheltering from a storm that is due to hit the UK economy

mobile.twitter.com/MarcusFysh/status/971775706983264256

Watch the video, then read the feed. It says something about our politics when an elected MP argues with people on Twitter like this.

As an 18-year-old, I voted in the 1975 referendum to Remain
I was not politically active, but I took the time to inform myself of the issues before voting

I deliberately voted, expecting the "ever closer union" in the various treaties.
In fact I wanted eventually a United States of Europe, which the hard left and hard right both warned against.

The prospect of a full USE is much less now, since Britain lobbied so strongly to enlarge the EU with many more new countries joining, which are quite different to the original core members.

It now looks like there will be a central core of EU countries that becomes closer,
but with concentric rings of other countries that have looser arrangements
and some countries not integrating any further at all, e.g. not moving to the Euro

As Sheridan says, it doesn't give enough focus on present Conservatism.

It could happen in Britain
British Institutions may not withstand the authoritarian-populist wave

twitter.com/gavinsblog/status/971875725635735552

Marcus Fysh is a Grade A arse.

Anyone who can only respond “ya da ya da” immediately loses any argument and is probably better suited to a primary school playground than the HoC.

Although having said that, whenever I can bear to listen to PMQs I tend to think I am back in a primary school playground.

www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/largest-study-ever-fake-news-mit-twitter/555104/

A MIT study of fake news and its reach, and a suggestion that the phenomenon reveals something about human nature.

Though the study is written in the clinical language of statistics, it offers a methodical indictment of the accuracy of information that spreads on these platforms. A false story is much more likely to go viral than a real story, the authors find. A false story reaches 1,500 people six times quicker, on average, than a true story does. And while false stories outperform the truth on every subject—including business, terrorism and war, science and technology, and entertainment—fake news about politics regularly does best.

Twitter users seem almost to prefer sharing falsehoods. Even when the researchers controlled for every difference between the accounts originating rumors—like whether that person had more followers or was verified—falsehoods were still 70 percent more likely to get retweeted than accurate news.

And blame for this problem cannot be laid with our robotic brethren. From 2006 to 2016, Twitter bots amplified true stories as much as they amplified false ones, the study found. Fake news prospers, the authors write, “because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.”

Place marking .

With regards adult social care , here is a little experiment for you all to do . Ring a local care agency and ask them how much they charge for a 30 minute visit . Then get someone else to ring the same agency and ask how much they pay hourly , pretend you are interested in a job .

The privatisation of adult social care began in the 1980s. The creation of ‘personal social services’ as a ‘fifth social service’, complementing the four established pillars of the post-war welfare state – social security, education, housing and health – was only accomplished by the Local Authority Social Services Act of 1970; barely two decades later these services became a prime field for the new neoliberal policy of outsourcing public services to the private sector. Following Sir Roy Griffiths’ 1988 report for Margaret Thatcher on the funding and organisation of community care,5 the 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act re-cast local councils as ‘enabling authorities’ rather than providers of care services, such as care homes. Funding for this new role was accompanied by a central government requirement that 85% of it should be spent on the ‘external’ purchase of care services from the private sector, so that local authorities began to contract with private providers to provide care rather than deliver it themselves.

Sorry the bold in my last post was from a report by the CHPI from 2016.

This may have been posted but it's an excellent summary.

It is very sinister that deceits were perpetrated by DD and all to try and keep this quiet.

If the gov have a deep faith in what they are doing, then say 'there's a massive price to pay but we advise the country that it's worth it.'

Don't try and hide the facts from the electorate.

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/the-brexit-assessments-the-government-didnt-want-released-have-been-published-now-everyone-can-see-what-they-were-hiding/08/03/

It's harder to sell "you'll all be screwed but we'll be able to grab power and personal wealth!" to the electorate (though through the complicit press and lack of effective opposition, they are near enough doing just that ).

This seemed a good characterisation of the UK's position:

Tom Moriarty
@thetommoriarty
"They were in with a load of opt-outs. Now they are out, and want a load of opt-ins.” Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel sums it up perfectly. You can feel the exasperation and the patience gauge rapidly descending to empty

frumpety do you know that bed blocking in hospitals is caused not only by other factors like lack of appropriate residential nursing places for the elderly but. By the fact that, councils will only pay about £12 an hour or so to care agencies for care because they can't afford to pay more. Private care agencies are now refusing council referrals and only take private paying customers where they charge anything from £22-30 an hour. That's just for one carer, if you need two, well , its eye watering. So what you end up with is bed blocking because councils can't find private agencies willing to take on clients and thus they ate left in hospital until they can.