Westminstenders: Just another DEADline

[RedToothBrush]

Today is the last scheduled day for talks with the EU.

We have til 30th June to ask for a transition extension. We won't.

That leaves us starring down the barrel of a no deal exit, when we still could be in a covid-19 crisis and the US may be in turmoil given recent events and the coming election...

It's not a pretty picture.

Matty's been homiligising us, lecturing about how it's our civic duty to sign up to the spyware.

When it comes to civic duty, I tend to stand behind Jefferson before Johnson. Has a certain orthographical neatness to it, as well as being correct in the main.

The Cleaners? We lived in terror of the cleaners at Scumbag:

Mockers! Did you leave that sick in the bathroom? You can clean it up yourself!

(Wasn't me.)

I had an interview at Durham Uni in 1988. The interviewer asked me: 'do you row'? I had been at an average state schools so, no, I did not.

Ah, far too honest.

Questionmark
If paramedics are wearing appropriate PPE, they will not be considered as having had 'close contact' with someone with covid.
Define, and bear in mind they are called out to all sorts incl RTAs
I am also not aware that the whole taem will have to self isolate.
They all sit in the same canteen between calls
If someone has been flagged up as being in contact with someone testing positive, only that person will be in self isolation, not anyone other members of the family.
Which makes the whole thing even more pointless

Evening.
I've managed to get a 2nd opinion appt on weds!
I'm acutely aware that not everyone had that option.

I was asked at a job interview why I went to a certain university. I think the answer they wanted was that it was good for my subject, x, y and z famous people taught there. "It's near the sea." I said, perfectly truthfully, because that was a reason why lots did go there. As those into mountaineering go for Manchester or Sheffield or Bangor.

Do you mean England generally? Are Scotland and Wales quite so class conscious? As for NI, isn't this a more religious plus class divide?

No I meant the U.K. - Scotland has its own class system with its posh Scots and schools like Fettes. More than 50% of Scotland is owned by landed elite. Although politically it’s more meritocratic and more socialist - apart from Gove obviously.

In Wales there’s a gap between middle class life and the economically deprived areas.

Even NI, where large areas are and have historically been economic depressed has its middle class and Anglo-Irish and Georgian piles.

But are posh Scots like posh English people - Fettes College aside?

Wales, I always thought, having grown up there, was more of a north - south divide, and although the middle class are better off than the economically deprived areas, they are not like the upper class. My niece who still lives in N Wales and visits us in Oxfordshire talks about this area just oozing wealth.

Oh @yoikes that IS good news!

But are posh Scots like posh English people - Fettes College aside?

Many posh Scots are posh English - they’re both - like the Frasers, Gordons, Moncrieffes, Egertons etc, holding English and Scottish titles.

You’d know more about Wales than I do but there are old aristocratic families such as Phillips - Barons Milford, Earl of Snowden, Marquess of Anglesey, Earl of Pembroke, Viscount Tredegar, Prince of Wales.

This may have been discussed way back when (I've been following these threads since June 2016) but the work of Peter Pomerantsev sounds like it would be worth exploring: I'm particularly struck by the combination of 'democratic rhetoric and undemocratic intent' and the misuse of deliberately unspecific language ('stable', 'effective')

No one can quite define what they actually mean, and as the city transforms and surges, everyone senses things are the very opposite of stable, and certainly nothing is “effective,” but the way Surkov and his puppets use them the words have taken on a life of their own and act like falling axes over anyone who is in any way disloyal.

www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/hidden-author-putinism-russia-vladislav-surkov/382489/

I have read 'Nothing is True and Everything is Possible' and it's pretty depressing, Arborea.

It's hard not to think about the political landscape he maps out when surveying the last week - especially the last week on Twitter.

It's been extraordinary - and meanwhile the transfer of wealth into fewer hands goes on, the gross exploitation of the least protected grinds on, Brexit, with its extraordinary potential to accelerate the previous 2 situations, grinds on ... against a carnival of emotionality and what is rapidly descending into a vacuous simulacrum of progressivism, that actually effects the opposite of political liberation.

🤷‍♀️

No offence to the original stimulus of BLM - but something really grotesque has happened as it has hit social media and collided with other events in the U.K.

Something is just very wrong with politics.

Perhaps it's just lockdown. I hope so.

We literally had a feudal overlord growing up.
We bought our semi derelict house from him.
He wasn't actually too bad.
His son was, stripped the local community, wouldn't invest anything and left property to fall down.
I think the class system is alive and well in Scotland.
(I also agree that you cannot tell the difference between the current overlord and any other wannabe Guy Ritchie type)

One day, people will be astonished that the likes of Owen Jones were able to promulgate a puritanical version of politics, berating others, attracting a huge following, whilst simultaneously still selling their books on Amazon.

One day, that will be seen as a staggering act of complicity, made more marvellous by the stance of uncompromising purity demanded of others, and it will be derided as hypocrisy.

And the craven silence of sections of the Left over Brexit (Owen Jones again) will be similarly wondered at.

I just don't understand how the inconsistencies and evident absurdities of political purity can't collapse under the weight of their own absurdities. I keep thinking, 'This must be the breaking point.' But no.

Prince of Wales is English.

The story goes that when Edward 1 conquered Wales and built loads of castles, he promised the Welsh that he would give them a Prince who spoke no English. Then presented them with his baby son. Hence the motto Ich Dien, which is really a corruption of the Welsh eich dyn - your man.

Owen Jones is one of the few commentators in Britain that champions social justice. The UK needs real social change it wont be achieved by centrists sitting on their hands dreaming of the Blair years. The current challenge to far right populism is a glimmer of hope and the most positive I've felt in about half a decade. This conversation must continue.

Brexit happened partly because of english exceptionalism. The truth about many of Britains statues is finally challenging that idea ie people that were labelled heroes had murkier pasts. This fact finding needs to continue in order for Britain to become more progressive and pragmatic in global affairs.

Owen Jones is one of the few commentators in Britain that champions social justice.

Are you on crack?

Jones is in no way into social justice if you are female. He's just another middle class overprivileged idiot who owes a lot of his position to his parents status in the Labour Party. He has no interest what so ever to structurial inequality or barriers women face. He slurs people he disagrees with in the most contempt able manner, initiating the most disgusting social media pile ons from his status as a public figure whilst complaining about how awful they are. Hypocrite does not cover it, because he describes structural inequality in his books and then uses this himself for his own political advantage at the expense of those who hold less status than him. Cos it suits his own personal interest. There are few opinion column writers who are quite so appalling. He certainly does not practice what he preaches in any form and instead ignores many working class narratives because they don't suit his agenda. Contemptable man

Anyway.

20% drop in GDP reported in April is this mornings big news.

This was published overnight.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-border-checks-eu-delayed-customs-coronavirus-a9562006.html
Brexit: UK set to backtrack on plans for full EU border checks from 1 January
Ministers expected to take more flexible approach in bid to ease impact of coronavirus pandemic on economy

Keep your eyes out for stuff like this. This is not compatible with a no deal situation. That means we either ask for an extension or do some rapid compromising with the EU...

Morning

Totally agree cat

I keep thinking surely this will be what of opens peoples eyes!? But, no.

Thanks auld was very surprised it was so quick!

Well I'm glad I haven't entirely disappeared down the Westminstenders rabbit hole and its (at times) lack of self awareness. The entire remain movement oozed middle class privilege that seemed more concerned about the DC's gap year to europe over structural class inequalities that partly led to Brexit.

The media is middle class that isn't Owen Jones fault. Lets not pretend the remain/centrist 'cause' is bastion of class struggle. Constant sniping at Corbyn and then mild disbelief when the Tories won in 2019. Centrists might be able to bake sourdough bread for 4 years in the hope Starmer gets in but many more people will get thrown under the bus in the meantime. Many of the them will be women.

There are few opinion column writers who are quite so appalling.

You should probably read more opinion columns.

Did I hit a nerve?

Gap years for the privileged has never been of particular interest to me.

I've always been far more interested in things like food supply and security, food standards, data protection, Northern Ireland, job security, human rights - particularly women's rights.

I've pointed out many many times why people have taken these things for granted or in practice they already don't have them but how Brexit will make them worse.

So piss off with your accusations that I'm only concerned about gap years etc.

Jones is the epitome of middle class trying to pass himself off as working class. It's bullshit. He's a social justice warrior but he's not actually interested in social justice. Just his own personal opinion and pounds per column inch generated by his deliberately provocative click bait opinion over hard cold well researched journalism which confronts uncomfortable truths in a way which asks questions and does not tell you 'the right way to think'.

The moment that you champion Owen Jones as an outstanding social justice hero, you've already lost the battle to ultra neoliberal capitalism without even realising wtf you are talking about

Ghost - you haven't followed these threads very closely if you think it's about gap years for us- yes they got a mention, but far more time has been spent on(in no particular order) GFA, jobs, businesses costs (which will effect jobs) food security and safety.

There are few opinion column writers who are quite so appalling.

Isn't Melanie Phillips an opinion column writer? Hers was one name which jumped out at me as being appalling.

The Labour Party IMO has always had a problem with their misogynistic male dominated wing, originally from a heavy industry base, and the more moderate and much more female wing of public sector workers.

Jones is the epitome of middle class trying to pass himself off as working class.

More or less what I thought of Tony Benn, or someone getting down with the working classes.

I don't think Remainers were more concerned about their children's gap yah's though - that was just how the right wing press chose to portray it, and the gap yah people are the sons and daughters of toffs anyway - who may or may not have voted Leave.

But it's a good question as to how the Leave elite managed to persuade working class people that they would be better off with the Tory elite like good old Boris and Rees-Mogg. I suspect that Labour complacency was something to do with it. It's a long time since I lived in a Labour voting area though, so things may have changed.

Did I hit a nerve?

Thought the same to your original response to Ghost tbh

Oh and I wasn't surprised the Tories won, just incredibly disappointed.
As was said on this thread many times Corbyn was unelectable- but it seems labour needed that proved to them, to the detriment of the country