Westminstenders: It couldn't get any worse... Until today

[RedToothBrush]

We are trapped in the tailspin of the end of the UK. Firmly headed downward and getting more and more frenzied and desperate.

Even the most sensible of types like David Allen Green have finally noticed that Brexit isn't about leaving the EU it's about the frenzied and wilful destruction of our state instutions and structure. The collapse of the civil service, of our justice system, our democratic institutions and social order. All in the name of rule Britannia, a warped sense of taking back control to preserve an ideal that never existed and an idea of sovereignity that simply was a fantasy.

We move ever closer to Johnson becoming Prime Minister and a life under President Trump.

Joy.

Ode to Joy really isn't that bad.

That's another song to add to my playlist.

I used to love going to the library - hanging out in the peace and quiet, the pleasant smell of paper, finding a book I hadn't yet read by a favourite author - ahhh I miss that!

I think the world's heading towards a dark place right now, it's very disturbing.

Do we have any idea who would be in Johnson's cabinet -if- when he wins?

"the only thing missing is the Nazi salute"

There was at least one Trump rally (some months ago), quite a large crowd of far right & white supremacists;
they were chanting "Heil Trump" and giving Nazi salutes

"I fully expect him to fuck up this Brexit job so badly and so quickly that it almost forces us to Remain"

I expect it would take the full effects of No Deal,
which would probably take 6 months+ to accumulate and become fully obvious,
before significant numbers of Leavers accept that No Deal Brexit is a rightwing fuckup.

Even then, many will still blame "EU punishment",
rather than the EU refusing to dump Ireland and consequently applying the mandatory WTO MFN rules.

My late dad, like many of his friends, had to leave school on his 14th birthday - they were the generation born just after WW ONE.

He was a maths and whizz, who had huge general knowledge about the world, politics, history, literature,
who would race through the Telegraph and Times crossword, while I sat beside him as a wee one, "helping"

They were always debating current affairs, what was happening in the world
There was great pride in any child who passed the 11+ and made it to grammar school,
even more for any kid who went to uni - usually the first in the history of the family

So, for that older generation, who learned about WW1 from their parents and fought in WW2, there was respect for education and awareness of history.

There was the wish after WW2 for a Land Fit For Heroes

• promised but not delivered after WW1, but finally delivered after WW2 in the form of the Welfare state, NHS, education reforms etc

Most of our current seniors seem to have regressed in social attitudes

Also they were wc kids who struggled to survive the Depression and hunger during the 1920s and 30s

There was much bitterness at the dreadful sufferering of wc people, especially in the NE and the lack of help from the wealthy

That knowledge of their own social history has not been passed through the generations

Meanwhile flagship government IT project to be flagged "red" - meaning undeliverable

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/18/verify_to_be_flagged_undeliverable_by_gov_projects_watchdog/

Now, about that NI tech border ...

I the expect Benn-Burt will be successful. I'm pretty sure I want it to be FWIW. Yet again the proposers show their foolishness with more opposition proposers than government ones, I'm afraid. Grieve and Letwin are the only even vaguely heavyweight Conservative supporters of this, yet the proposers will need backing from Conservative MPs to be successful.

And of course they had an object lesson in that WW2 and the Holocaust was current affairs for them;
they lived through the experience of what happened when people ignored fascists, excused their racism, went along with the scapegoating

The liberated concentration camps and the walking skeletons were shown in the cinemas (this was before the telly age) so everyone 18+ for a couple of years after the war had their nails rubbed in to what fascists do
It made a lasting impression on my dad & his friends ( my mum came from the ME and just saw the tail end of that news wave)

In WEST Germany, the allies ordered the West Germans to watch these newreels and educated them in the importance of democracy and human rights, against scapegoating races, built these into the German constitution

... but the USSR has other priorities for EAST Germany, certainly didn't want them hankering after the liberal values imposed on their Western countrymen.
The USSR whipped up xenophobia and demonised certain races, to keep their conquered territories to heel

We see the resulting gulf in social attitudes & politics between the former East - now the AfD engine room - and West Germany, even decades after the Wall was pulled down.

BigChoc - I have told the story on these threads a few times about how Robert Maxwell of the Kings Fund gave a presentation to a group of NHS senior managers-in-training, recently recruited from industry, in 1991 (on 5 November - same day as the "other" Robert Maxwell went missing, which is why I can pinpoint the date ) about how the NHS came to be formed. This was at the HSMU (Health Service Management Unit) in Manchester (part of the Uni?).

He gave all the reasons you've just given about the There was the wish after WW2 for a Land Fit For Heroes
- promised but not delivered after WW1, but finally delivered after WW2 in the form of the Welfare state, NHS, education reforms etc

and then said that since then there has been a move away from that sense of common responsibility (some might say "societal responsibility) back to the onus being on the individual but then added except in Scotland

I remember looking around the table at the group of us who were on this pilot scheme being run by Yorkshire and Trent Regional Health Authorities (about 20 of us iirc) and every single one of us was either Scottish or went to a Scottish Uni.

Maybe that's another part of the reason why Scotland voted Remain

The anti education movement runs deep. It's even worse for maths. My favourite leftie denounced arithmetic on Twitter this morning.

Anyone see the announcement that the American company that produces most of our textbooks and exams is phasing out paper textbooks? That could easily end in a dystopian nightmare as they are updated to reflect Trump's vision.

@flouncyfanny my post is more abruptly than intended, I knew you weren’t serious because anyone who would let or consider Grayling making them tea let alone run their healthcare would be incapable of reading and writing.

Hell, I bet grayling has his own teasmaid 🤣🤣

@prettybird @BigChocFrenzy

The social contract is broken. I follow Timpsons, they actively train and recruit ex cons. Even have a holiday home for staff, I believe this used to be common (Cadbury’s, Peabody’s) but now no one gives a shit about anyone.

I’m alright jack, those deplorables don’t realise that when Trump/Brexit has finished with the current ‘undesirables’ that they are next. In fact, they are ‘now’ but are too stupid and brainwashed to see it.

The anti education movement runs deep. It's even worse for maths. My favourite leftie denounced arithmetic on Twitter this morning.

Did anyone see "Veep" and how scarily believable Jonah Ryans campaign against "Muslim Maths" was portrayed ?

Just about to post that DG!

Biting my nails over amendment..

DP not letting me watch it live... It's like he doesn't want to live in a state of permanent angst he is so unreasonable

The social contract is broken. I follow Timpsons, they actively train and recruit ex cons. Even have a holiday home for staff, I believe this used to be common (Cadbury’s, Peabody’s) but now no one gives a shit about anyone.
LASH, I am a big fan of John Timpson too. He is a prominent Leaver by the way. I agree that Trump is a nasty racist but please don't conflate Trump and Brexit.

tuning in to bbc parliament

Trump and Brexit are very much tied together. It's the same drivers behind both.

Why? Because you don't like to think of Brexit as a racist issue? Of course they're products of the same societal ills.