Westminstenders: Pah International Law. Who needs it?

[RedToothBrush]

I mean its not as if trade deals and human rights are relevant is it?

(sorry eating my dinner so must be brief)

@Emilyontmoor

The 70s isn't History

Oh dear, tell that to all the historians beavering away on researching books and articles on everything from yesterdays developments on brexit, Trump, rule of law and the Independence movement in Hong Kong, the hardening Xi's regime in China etc. etc. backwards. Surely History is the study of any issue, event or trend that benefits from being able to study it with hindsight and objectivity / a certain subjectivity and access to many sources, some not available at the time. My understanding of the 70s is certainly different to my understanding as I lived it. It would actually be a massive failure of intellectual curiosity if fifty years of emerging sources and evidence hadn't added to my understanding. Obviously some people do suffer from that lack of intellectual curiosity and in place of evidence based understanding they develop rose tinted specs which is partly what has got us in this mess. I would argue that the 70's are not just history but we really need that history to be studied so we learn the lessons. Given the crisis we are in we need that history to be studied for 2016 too....

Obviously there are crossovers with politics, economics, sociology and indeed literature and art etc. but academic study is increasingly recognising that disciplinary boundaries can be as limiting as they are useful humanity being what it is....

I was being facetious. I refuse to accept that my childhood is history as I am still a young'un.

Indeed DGR, hence I said "some sympathy"

Ron Brown BBC News asking some challenging questions...

@Darker

Ron Brown BBC News asking some challenging questions...

"What is the PMs favourite colour" ?

.

"What is the PMs favourite colour" ?

Fudge.

Or anything from Farrow and Ball.

DGR That is the problem with those rose tinted specs as opposed to actually looking at the historical evidence. The evidence not just of the crimes (even by 70s standards they were crimes even if society made it hard to bring anyone to justice) but the horrific consequences in terms of the mental health of victims and the closure that justice can achieve is clear with the benefit of hindsight. However if you prefer to keep your rose tinted specs then you can agree that "One comment I would make is that I think an awful lot of the money, an awful lot of police time, now goes into these historic offences and all this malarkey - £60m I saw was being spaffed up the wall on some investigation into historic child abuse and all this kind of thing." (Boris 2019) I actually saw someone post on a local forum that in "the old days" people didn't suffer with mental health problems, they just manned up and moved on.....

@Darker

"What is the PMs favourite colour" ?

Fudge.

MN really needs that "you owe me a new keyboard" icon.

That is the problem with those rose tinted specs as opposed to actually looking at the historical evidence. The evidence not just of the crimes (even by 70s standards they were crimes even if society made it hard to bring anyone to justice) but the horrific consequences in terms of the mental health of victims and the closure that justice can achieve is clear with the benefit of hindsight.

The thing is, in the 1970s, society was still dealing with the fallout of a war that left millions scarred in terms of mental health etc etc.

In fact, you could argue that's on reason why wars become so popular. They're a great excuse to ignore anything which doesn't affect millions at a time.

I'll never forget my DM speaking to my aunt when my DGM was taken into care with the dementia that would eventually take my DM. She would go to visit her, and DGM would always ask if she made it OK through the bombs. This was 1991 - half a century later.

I'm not saying it's right or fair. But to a certain extent it's what happened.

Ochon You have watched "Life on Mars"? Probably the first hour was the single moment that I was truly bough up against the reality that I had grown up in another era, the everyday sexism and sexual harassment, the prevailing dinge and beige, the Ford Capris.....

@Peregrina

I think you mean taught by someone who fought in WW1 BigChoc. Some of mine were old enough to have done so. The middle aged men who taught me would mostly have served in WW2.

Grenfell- how very convenient to have lost the tapes.

.... Just WW2 for my teachers, afaik Fighting in WW1 would have meant being born around 1900 or earlier, so I suppose there could have been someone in my 1st year of school, but there were very few male teachers at any stage

@Darker

"What is the PMs favourite colour" ?

Fudge.

... 😂😂

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst

An aside on the history debate. Years ago, a former boyfriend (English) and I (Scottish) were comparing the history syllabi north and south of the border. When I told him I was taught Scottish history, he retorted "there's no such thing as Scottish history!" . This otherwise intelligent man knew nothing about our kings and queens or anything else.

Is that why he became a former boyfriend?

Adam Payne@adampayne26

Gloves are off now

Brandon Lewis refused to confirm that the UK would abide by any arbitration ruling re the NI protocol

Hoare says "the seriousness of the damage" being done to the UK's international reputation is "not yet quite properly understood" throughout the government

Anton Spisak@AntonSpisak

Serious admission by Brandon Lewis.
It's unclear whether the UK would abide by a ruling of the independent arbitration panel and/or the ECJ.

Does Lewis realise what his words mean for the UK's international reputation?
Has this been thought through?

< the govt haven't bothered to find out and don't give a shit.
Nihilism in the UK - far more dangerous athan any Anarchy the Sex Pistols threatened, because this comes from govt >

Downing St:
Lord Keen has just resigned

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall

Thats means both the UK Permanent Secretary of the Government Legal Department and the Advocate General of Scotland,
&two of the most senior legal figures in the land, have gone, for one reason or another, over the Internal Market bill.^

Downing St:
Lord Keen has just resigned

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall

That^ means both the UK Permanent Secretary of the Government Legal Department and the Advocate General of Scotland,^
two of the most senior legal figures in the land, have gone, for one reason or another, over the Internal Market bill.

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall

EXC:
Senior civil servants at a govt dept have advised staff on what to do if they’re asked to work on policy which might break int law and civil service code.

I’ve seen emails which say if they’re asked to do anything “inappropriate” they’re to tell their managers “immediately”.

BCF and what action will the managers take?

Not in the CS, but I found myself in a similar position a year or so ago. My manager and I had a long chat. Her stance was that just about everything is covered by "any other reasonable duties" but only up to the point of being asked to do something actually illegal. However I'm not convinced she would have supported me if I refused to do something illegal. She had her eye on her own career.

Just seeing the blustering answers from BJ to the Liaison Committee.

As we've said regularly on these threads, it always someone else's fault In this case, the UK "needing" to break international law would be because the EU was refusing to give the UK cake "negotiating in bad faith"

Only he used a lot more ums and ahs, bluster and prevarication to say that

I have a friend who is going through a disciplinary for gross misconduct in a public sector body after raising a grievance about (amongst other things) a gross breach of GDPR and bullying by a manager a couple of levels above them instead it was turned around into them being accused of gross misconduct, with their immediate manager, who initially supported them, now backtracking for fear of their own job

pretty fear of that happening was exactly why I gritted my teeth and did the minimum necessary. So much for having principles.

If Westminster insist on carrying on scything through previously signed treaties, how would the Act of Union stand from the Scottish parliaments side ? Not sure if adding a Republican vibe to the mix would help or hinder such things ? Maybe Westminster could redeploy the gunboat it's going to sent to Barbados to then moor off Glasgow?

Have we got a gun boat? HMS Leaky I suppose.

I probably only had one teacher who fought at the end of WW1. He was the one who was rather enthusiastic about Empire. My own GF who also fought never talked about it, until right at the end of his life and then to say what a bloody business it had been. He was patriotic, but not jingoistic.

DGR Lots of societies in lots of cultures in every era are dealing with collective and individual trauma. It was certainly not confined to 70s Britain. One of the case studies used to help abuse victims understand their PTSD and how they can overcome it is JRR Tolkein. But you could also use Eileen Chang, another novelist (Chinese patriarchy and the fall of Hong Kong), Ai Qing, poet and Ai Wei Wei's father (Cultural Revolution), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, novelist and, with Frida Kahlo, artist, magical realist (Latin American political upheaval, and in Kahlo's case, patriarchy and the personal trauma of life changing injuries sustained in a tram accident).

The historical roots of abuse in British Society has almost certainly been the cause of hidden PTSD in particularly those who attended our public schools and are part of our ruling class, and the resulting deficiencies in emotional intelligence, and drive to be successful whatever the cost to others, in order to keep their own emotional pain suppressed. We know that both Trump and Boris also had/ have narcissistic fathers as another source of psychological damage.