Westminstenders: Penny dropping time

[RedToothBrush]

Johnson already seems to be hinting at protections for workers rights and the environment that he promised are to be dropped.

Along with enshrining Brexit in law to the end of Dec 2020 thus creating another Brexit no deal date. This time without any safety net in parliament.

"won't Johnson be more liberal than he suggested" they cry

About that...

I am literally catching up from 7am. Thanks random it was away into town I was trying to recall!!

Been a while since I've seen it (like when it was first released !) but I seem to recall that one of the plot devices in "Wild At Heart" is that Lulas mother considers Lula out of Sailors class.

Plenty of Hollywood films inclulding The Goonies and Down And Out In Beverly Hills that show an overt racist attitude to Hispanic domestic servants. Lots of jokes about the low status of the Spanish language across US media, all "Tacos & Burritos" in a funny accent, etc.

In Europe, Spanish is a high status arty language.

piggy beat me to it, but I was going to say that class is less rigid and less easy to decode in Scotland, though it's alive and well and stalking the glens, salmon rivers, corridors of Fettes, Gordonstoun, etc.

* ..it allows you to discriminate against people that look like you do is an example of many a true word being spoken in jest.*

I've been reading the theme of the last few posts with interest.
I think there are some real verities in there.

From my London international bubble I completely disbelieved it when the extent of the BNP/UKIP/Brexit/ Faragist racism revealed itself.

But thinking about it, colour, religion, race, nationality are only a part of the picture of prejudice.

I don't know if we are worse than other countries but seems to me we are seeped in deep rooted prejudice and assumptions against people. The colour aspect is just more visible.

Thinking about what I see around me from the places I go :

• Huge prejudice in the rural SE against Londoners. Calling them DFLs. Completely lumped together as an homogeneous whole.
• Similar bias against commuters from the 'locals' and those who work locally.
• Pretty constant comments between the children I went to school with -mostly those from the town resenting those from the outlying villages coming to their school.
• Within the village - people near the shops making endless chippy comments about those in the big houses up the hill.
• Yorkshire relatives make constant references to southern lifestyle and weather in every single visit and phone conversation.
• In London 'jokes' about if you live on the park side of the borough or the busy south circular side.
• Judgments about going to the Catholic primary, or the posh Primary by the park or less posh primary by the road ( they're all the same in reality).
• People in the allotments in my home village falling out with the gardening club and boycotting each other's events.
• Bias against kids from a certain estate.
• Interracial bias, eg the Chinese saying stuff about African descent families being inferior, other Asian descent families saying Chinese are rude and don't integrate.

Thinking about it, endless mix of origins, money and class form many people's opinions and views.

And I'm afraid the white Torys do represent the 'top of the pile ' and it's one factor in why they have won more times than Labour have and will continue to do so.

In Europe, Spanish is a high status arty language.

(suddenly remembers Victoria Abril in "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down" )

and in England, foreign language films rarely - if ever - make it out of the M25. With extremely rare one-offs . So returning to that theme of midlands/north ... if you do want to see an art-house film. Especially in another language, it's a day out to London for you, my son.

I agree about Fettes etc auld and thought of them as I was posting. They are, however, full of English people!

I'm in the Midwest so probably avoid the worst of either the South or the East coast in terms of class snobbery.

There are issues are race and language. I was surprised at first by the number of very wealthy Latinos we know whose dc speak little Spanish, compared to our dc with whom we have made a huge effort to keep their Spanish alive.
Spanish is very much looked down on and we have drawn negative attention to ourselves speaking Spanish to other Spanish speakers in public.

If I had to teach DS one thing and one thing only, it might very well be how to listen and speak in accents. If he didn't already. It's an advantage gifted to people from multilingual backgrounds that can really rub some people up the wrong way.

Unlike the whole of continental Europe, we do not dub forrin films into English. We subtitle, and the yanks remake, as with the abominable Vanilla Sky, not a patch on Abre Los Ojos.

Scotland is a feudal society in large swathes, you don't get more class ridden than that. I grew up among tenant farmers who had an actual overlord.

Scotland is a feudal society

The answer to the question: Why should the Tories rule Scotland?

Because they own most of it.

Trump, for example, is upper class. It is a source of constant astonishment to many Americans that he is so beloved of many American blue collar workers (there is your American class term, right there!)

Some of the snideyness about Bill Clinton is that Trump views him as common and Hillary as marrying down. The Bushes are new money Texans and, therefore, vulgar. Michelle Obama does make much of her working class background and upbringing and her ability to escape that'class' through hard work, family encouragement and education

When I lived in Wales, I would have said it was less class conscious. Where I was in N Wales, a little bit of a Catholic/Protestant split...Then the language, are you a good Welshman or woman or not. Good - speaking Welsh.

The Bush Clan come from that part of Texas called Connecticut.

Have you seen Local Hero ? I love the idea of an American trying to come and basically buy a village when the actual 'feudal overlord' lives in a shack on the beach.

It's one of my favouritest fillums! And says everything you need to know about the Scottish highlands where Russian sailors are greeted with warmth!

Yeah true originally but then they went to Texas and declasse-d themselves.
I think it is actually Massachusetts

@DGRossetti
Re art house films only available in London- not at all true! We have a fabulous independent cinema.
( Northern town)

The glens were a ref to land ownership, which remains seriously problematic in Scotland.
The history of who has owned places like Knoydart is really revealing - and offers some glimmers of hope.

Scotland is a feudal society in large swathes, you don't get more class ridden than that. I grew up among tenant farmers who had an actual overlord. My cousin rents her farm 'from the Estate' but it would be difficult to find a bigger snob than her. My grandfather rented his farm from Lady Soandso. My own father broke free of all this and bought his own farm. It doesn't stop my cousin looking down on us. My uncle used to say, 'She thinks she's County but she just makes a bloody fool of herself!'

PMK. A late one.

Having some time out but just wanted to post in solidarity for the nurses in Northern Ireland.

There's a foreign language film club at dd1s (Northern) school. There were regular ones on at the arty cinema in Sheffield when I lived there (?cornerhouse) and one of the cinemas in Manchester too.

I’m enjoying ‘Belgravia’ atm

‘Set in the 1840s when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche’ all those cutting remarks. Highly recommend.

Local Hero borrows very heavily from the Powell-Pressburger gem, I Know Where I'm Going, in which the new money middle-class philistine Joan is contrasted with the genteel poverty of Torquil of Killoran.

Trump, for example, is upper class. It is a source of constant astonishment to many Americans that he is so beloved of many American blue collar workers (there is your American class term, right there!)

Strictly speaking US has no upper class -ie gentry/aristocracy etc. But he’s east coast super rich who doesn’t give a fuck about the blue collar workers who support him.

His mum was a Gaelic speaking daughter of a crofter from the Hebrides.