Westminstenders: War and Weirdos

[RedToothBrush]

With weirdos set to run No10 and Trump seemingly having started a new war in the Middle East, 2020 already looks set to be a cracking year.

To start off your year, it turns out that chinese curse about interesting times is actually a fallacy...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

Happy New Year.

May we make 2030...

From the Department of Education online:
"We highly value international exchange and co-operation in education and training within Europe and around the world.
"The department is open to participation in the next Erasmus+ programme".

flouncyfanny yes that was it, unfettered access. So basically they are saying again that there will be some kind of border between NI and GB?

I can't find details of any debate on the Erasmus/Horizon question, only remarks made in support of the amendment.
Maybe someone more experienced in the intricacies of Hansard can help.

Being "open to participation in the next Erasmus+ programme" is a vague, empty phrase. It certainly does not suggest that the issue is seen as important or worth fighting for.

This vote doesn't mean the UK is out of Erasmus+, but if the amendment had passed it would have sent a message that the UK was keen to remain in it. Kicking the can down the road and including the question in the negotiations (which is probably viewed by some as a canny poker move) prolongs existing uncertainty and means that many EU universities will now encourage students to look elsewhere for mobility in the 2020-21 academic year.

Current contracts run until the end of 2020; we don't know whether the UK will be in beyond that. Outgoing UK students won't be able to apply for mobility programmes in the EU post-2020, as application will happen during the negotiation period. MFL students, who often do a semester in one country and the second in another as an integral part of their degree course, will be penalised.

The continued risk of No Deal and the UK gvmt's previous statements that incoming EU students would not benefit from healthcare after the UK left the EU are also extremely damaging.

Erasmus exchanges are reciprocal. Receiving and guiding incoming students is complex and time-consuming; it's seen as worthwhile when staff know their own outgoing students are benefiting from mobility. Overstretched EU academic staff may well think twice about doing this work in the face of continued uncertainty and concerns about the UK's unwelcoming attitude to EU students.

The PR is indeed very bad.

This is not how you build a "global Britain".

Good take on the Erasmus own goal, nicked from twitter:

^This was a meaningful olive branch that could have been offered without puncturing leavers' 'take back control' fantasies.

So much for the pious appeals for reconciliation.^

CustardT Wed 08-Jan-20 08:14:35

^This website says insulin lasts a year: consumermedsafety.org/tools-and-resources/insulin-safety-center/storage-of-insulin^
But I bet in a temperature/ humidity / light controlled storage facility it lasts longer.
It’s not just stored in a household fridge.

In order to stockpile three years worth of insulin, cancer medicines, etc., these medicines would have to be produced first in huge quantities, then purchased, then transported and stored.

Are you saying that all of this has happened? That producers have doubled, tripled or quadrupled their output in order to ? That the government has bought all of this and somehow managed to store it somewhere? That this long term storage is even possible?

"Britons by far worst at foreign languages."

Well of course. Because unlike everybody else, we're not foreign.

"As an aside - the British Council's 'face of Erasmus' is actually a Rwandan/Belgian entrepreneur and television presenter - she attended primary school in Wales (doesn't say how long for), secondary school in Belgium, then Cardiff Uni.Yes, she's very likeable/bubbly/speaks well etc, but she's not British..."

I'd like to know just how much of the UK is owned by the British. Media, facilities, transport, even the Conservative party campaign team... how many of them fit this "British" description?
Even the PM had dual nationality until very recently. He wasn't born here.

There is literally no way that the U.K. has a 3 year stockpile of critical short-shelf-life medicines. Anyone who suggests this is either trolling or gullible, take your pick.

I'd like to know just how much of the UK is owned by the British.

A hell of a lot. One of my goto postings is the fact that nearly 1,000 years since 1066, an astonishing amount of land is owned by the same families that came over with Bill the Bastard.

www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/10/last-1000-years-families-owned-england/

It's actually very hard to trace who owns a particular piece of land in England and Wales. The land registry isn't anywhere near complete, and whole swathes of land are simply unaccounted for in any central record. The only way to know who owns it is when it comes to court and a deed or legal document is produced. There was an initiative under nuLab to try to force landowners to register, but that was quietly strangled. All subsequent sales of land are registered, so proles like us are accounted for. But as I understand it, a hell of a lot of moneyed gentry land is held in trust and therefore never ever gets bought, sold or transferred (also dodging any inheritance tax ....).

Private Eye have been following this for most of the millennia.

Another development which went under the radar is how much of what looks public land isn't. (Brindleyplace in Birmingham, for example). This matters because there's no right to be there and the owners can set the rules how they see fit. Are you carrying a banner with an unapproved slogan ? Then you can fuck off my friend. No, you can't pass this way. And if you try, my highly qualified and not-at-all minimum wage security guards will escort you off my land.

Luckily there won't be anything to protest about ever again, so it's worked out well. But only by luck.

UK Land ownership is unusual in that you only own the topsoil.

The attitude to fracking would be different if this were not the case.

Even the PM had dual nationality until very recently.

And will have again, I suspect. Although to be fair to Boris, that was a feature of the US own laws on citizenship via the14th amendment (which has an interesting and dark history).

He wasn't born here.

Ordinarily, I might pull you up on that as a tad ... xenophobic, if not racist. However instead I'd just comment that it's strange how Boris gets born abroad and has no problem cashing in his UK citizenship, whilst other UK citizens who have children abroad appear to be required to jump through all sorts of hoops ....

Can some one please explain the logic in the Leave poster's mindset above?

Why is 1 below ok and 2 is not?

1. The PM's true surname is (Boris) de Pfeffel Osman Kemal. He has predominant Swiss,Turkish, French, German American heritage plus Indian descent children. ( Remember the PM would be called Kemal had the family not changed name due to anti-Turkish sentiment.)

BUT

1. The British Council should not have a " very likeable/bubbly/speaks well " face of Erasmus' because she "isn't British".

She is described as a Rwandan/Belgian descent entrepreneur and television presenter who only attended primary school and Uni in Wales/Cardiff?

What is it?

One rule for prime ministers?
One rule for men?
One rule for Turks, another for Rwandans?
One rule for Etonians another for Welsh schools?

It's also worth commenting that Johnson only cashed in his US citizenship when they came after him for some tax, which I believe he paid in the end.

This rule has been catching out a lot of innocent people who happened to be born in the US, left as babies, and have had no contact with the country since.

moneyed gentry land is held in trust and therefore never ever gets bought, sold or transferred (also dodging any inheritance tax ....)

Don’t forget that you get agricultural property relief from inheritance tax on agricultural land.

Remind me again why Dyson bought up vast swathes of UK agricultural land?

The whole thing is a joke - a great future ahead for the country, but we turn our backs on international study and scholarship. We discourage people from coming. Where does Johnson hope the will to build this new UK/Great Britain/England and Wales come from?

Remind me why Dyson moved abroad? I thought he was a Leaver - surely he wants to be in on the ground floor of Brexit, as it were?

Many wealthy Brexiters have moved themselves and / or their assets abroad since the ref
Leaving 67 million less mobile / wealthy Brits to face the consequences of brexit

Dyson moved production of his colourful crap abroad well before, for very cheap labour and lower taxes
You'd think a proud Brexiter would be announcing plans to move it all back now
Funny how so few of them have much confidence in Britain now

I can try and explain it, though I don't expect you'll like it.

So, our participation in this programme is presumably supposed to benefit British students.

Student exchange programmes can well be seen as a benefit, a benefit for which according to this article, UK tax payers, the overwhelming majority of whom will derive no such benefit themselves of course, will be expected to pay £6 billion to continue.

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/lib-dems-press-keep-uk-eu-research-programmes-and-erasmus

The strapline of this is "creating opportunities for the UK across Europe" yet the person whom they chose to centre in their promotional material has a connection to Britain that might charitably be described as "tenuous". Tania Habimana describes herself as a "Belgian, born in France" I can see why that gets people's backs up tbh.

www.erasmusplus.org.uk/blog/three-things-i-learnt-on-my-erasmus-experience

Boris Johnson was born in New York, both his parents are British.

The whole thing is a joke - a great future ahead for the country, but we turn our backs on international study and scholarship. We discourage people from coming.

The same True BeLeavers who deride people for leaving (pick your keywords: unpatriotic, scaremongering, hysterical, everywhere else is baaaaad too) will also deride suitably-white-British people for staying (pick your keywords: unpatriotic, if you love the EU so much fuck off there) and also deride other non-white-or-insufficiently British-blooded people for being here (pick your keywords: some cowardly version of Blut und Boden).

I personally don't think that's a terribly good explanation. Still maybe it would be better if the Erasmus spokesperson wasn't someone who is truly international, but was someone from a very working class family and the first in their family to go to University.

DH's family was much more working class than mine, but it's very noticeable how much wider the ambitions of the younger generation of his relatives are i.e. the 20 -30 year olds. They are much more likely to travel than their parents and seek study and work elsewhere. I don't know if any have studied via Erasmus, but they might have considered it.

Another element of this, not really relevant to Erasmus itself, but just what I pick up on as a general sentiment, is that those who have opposed leaving from the get go are still trying to undo it by the back door!

We approach the end of January when we are supposed to be "Leaving" (Newsflash, Brexit will not be "Done", we're just the EU political institutions, its just the start of the transition period for everything else)

In spite of this, Members of Parliament who still favour Remain are trying to engineer a situation where we "Leave" but keep this, and this, and this, and this.....

Sorry, on reflection my last post probably sounded a bit "sarky" I am well aware that most on Westministenders will know that Brexit isn't Done at the end of January. Thanks all.

On the other hand, between 2014 and 2018, UK Erasmus projects received €680 million in funding and benefited 167,000 UK participants (figures from ErasmusPlus.org.uk).

but just what I pick up on as a general sentiment, is that those who have opposed leaving from the get go are still trying to undo it by the back door!

But if you believed that someone was making a big mistake, would you not endeavour to stop them?

What is wrong with international co-operation, particularly with your near neighbours? Why are trade deals, yet to be negotiated, with the US or Australia, so much more preferable than these? Or is it just that the are governed by white English speakers?