Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

[BovaryX]

There is an interesting article by Douglas Murray in the DM about the authoritarian, identity politics which have alienated Labour voters and triggered a paradigm shift in the political landscape. It covers some of the themes which Lang GC Pencils and others have been discussing in light of election result.

It is a divide between people who have real-world concerns and those focused on niche and barely significant ones...How, you might ask, have we reached such a state? There is a clue in the Labour Party’s dysfunctional reaction to its catastrophic defeat on Thursday

Key bit here.

A key tactic by Conservative HQ was to put local candidates in the northern “red wall” seats, and Young thinks that was a winning formula

That whole parachuting in woke candidates from fuck knows where thing didn't work out so well for Momentum, did it?

The somewhere v anywhere thing is something I find v interesting as technically I fit into both camps.

I was born in the 1970s on a council estate to working class parents and we were skint growing up. However I got out (grammar school, uni) as did my sisters. I & they are now middle class

Kit, I think that Grammar Schools as a conduit for social mobility came under sustained attack by Tony Blair. Which is ironic because he went to Fettes.

I'm an anywhere from a family of mostly somewheres. I don't think I realized how much having lots of somewheres in the family influenced how I feel about things until I started paying attention to the sneering tone from the political class and went, wait a minute, that's my family you're talking about you smug gits.

Kit19

I think fundamentally no party is willing to be honest about why they want immigration because the real reason is the demographic time bomb that is the baby boomer generation. They are a demographic time bomb because they are an unusually large generation but that also means they have the most voting power.

I have tried having this conversation with members of my own family of that age and it is extremely difficult to do as they always take it as an insult when it really isn't a case of blaming them for being a large generation but the need to acknowledge the problems this presents as the approach retirement age.

If I find it hard to have a sensible conversation with my own, largely mild mannered, family on the issue it is hardly surprising politicians don't want to touch that hornet's nest so instead talk around it.

I think grammar schools were gone long before that - abolished in 1965 I think. Kent was one of the few places that hung onto them. It was my route out - bsck thej no one I knew had coaching to get in so it was mix of kids of all classes & backgrounds

Me too. I hadn't been aware of the concept but it's what I see here all around me.

GC, Bovary, Noodle - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has always come in for a lot of crap from the Woke for daring to talk about this.

My dad has been complaining about the destruction of the grammar schools for as long as I can remember, since well before Blair actually. Even though he didn't go to one (his route out was via a trade union that taught him what it turned out were highly portable skills).

It was my route out - bsck thej no one I knew had coaching to get in so it was mix of kids of all classes & backgrounds

Absolutely agree. Not sure how Kent managed to preserve theirs

Grammar schools were never a great conduit for social mobility, though. In reality social mobility most came from the fact that there was a significant growth in what we would regard as middle class jobs in the thirty years after the end of the Second World War, and that the demand for talent always outstripped supply. More importantly - far more importantly - there was a ready supply of well-paid working class jobs, so you could live a decent and dignified life if you were either unsuited to a middle-class career, or chose not to take that route in life.

Which btw, re the oh hey these people are talking shit about my family bit, is how I've often found myself looking at someone who as Lang puts it identifies as our representation and going "this person is lying about their background, or at least putting some serious spin on it, because they wouldn't have that noblesse oblige tone if they were really from the background they claim to be from".

(A certain Guardian journalist comes to mind)

That whole parachuting in woke candidates from fuck knows where thing didn't work out so well for Momentum, did it?

It's emblematic of the whole bloody thing, Kitten.

I don’t understand why people think they will suddenly throw money at the state?

I think lots of people have no faith that either party will help them, but they at least feel that at this moment in time the Conservative party respect them.

I'm an anywhere from a family of mostly somewheres. I don't think I realized how much having lots of somewheres in the family influenced how I feel about things until I started paying attention to the sneering tone from the political class and went, wait a minute, that's my family you're talking about you smug gits.

Likewise.

GC, Bovary, Noodle - Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has always come in for a lot of crap from the Woke for daring to talk about this

Lang I read an article by her that I thought was an excellent analysis of the extreme pressure put on children growing up in the UK who are unable to participate in normal social activities because of orthodoxy. She seems to be sidelined, haven’t seen her writing for a while. I often think that many liberals don’t understand the issues because they don’t know anything about the culture in question

Hey GC, noodle, how fabulous is this thread and to ‘meet’ each other like this! I love this forum, so many great women here. Are either of you from a mixed background? Did either of you have any problems with orthodoxy if you see what I mean?

Yes, my parents met here - my mother is from an EU country. It's been quite interesting over the last few years observing an underlying tension between the two immigrant communities (i.e. EU vs Commonwealth). There is undoubtedly some resentment amongst those from former Commonwealth countries that the UK went into a relationship with the European Communities straight after passing an immigration law that turned its back on the former colonies. My mother, in turn, resents the fact that she is resented. She dislikes Priti Patel because she sees her attitude to EU citizens in the UK as motivated by her background.

Can you explain what you mean by orthodoxy - I'm not sure I've understood your meaning?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has always come in for a lot of crap from the Woke for daring to talk about this.
I can well believe it. For all their talk about "lived experience", the Woke are not prepared to listen to other people's lived experience if it doesn't conform to their narrow world-view.

Also re. grammar schools - yes, that was my step up too, and I am very grateful for it. It's one of the few things we don't talk about in this house, though, as DH (who is now a senior academic) ended up in a secondary modern where he was told he didn't have the ability to do an O-level in the subject he now teaches. Understandably, he gets quite upset about how the system wrote him off, and made it much more of a struggle for him to get to university.

GC, really interesting, my parents met in England too. Your observation about the tension between commonwealth immigration and EU immigration is a great point. I was referring to religious orthodoxy, especially as it affects girls. Not from Priti Patel’s background if that makes sense?

Fascinating thread. It's the first thing I've read in years that's made me really reconsider my views and where they come from. I'm particularly interested in the educational divide article, as a graduate Remainer with non-graduate Leaver parents. I have accused my DM of unthinkingly voting Leave as a kind of impotent way of 'sticking it to the man'. But I'm now feeling a bit more sympathetic to those who did that. If you don't listen to the people, they are going to do what they can to make you listen.

I voted Lib Dem with a heavy heart in spite of TWAW, but this thread is making me feel a bit less despairing about the GE result even though I loathe Johnson.

Re: grammar schools. My grammar school certainly wasn't a flagship for social mobility, and is probably even less so now. The local house prices alone make sure of that. The demographic was pretty much the same as the very expensive private girls' day school where I later taught.

Mine was. There were girls from council estates and I knew boys from council estates at the corresponding boys’ grammar. Absolutely definitely a vehicle for social mobility and tutoring was non existent

A bit of a lightbulb moment for me. I would almost certainly class as an anywhere, except growing up I felt like a nowhere (boarding school, distant parents etc). A sense of belonging has been really important. Possibly why my sympathies lie with the somewheres, even though am surrounded by anywheres.

I sort of dug deep wherever I lived, learning the language and having local friends rather than rely on a readily available expat community. I also acquired a couple of 'adoptive mums', one Jewish in New York, and one Muslim in Asia, and spent a few months living with them and their families.

I like grounded people.

Equally I gave up quite a classy career when I had children. I wanted them to belong, not be dragged round the world. I certainly did not want them to board. Ironically though central London and the schools they went to proved to be 'anywhere' places, and school friends are already seriously scattered.

Something to think about. Thanks.

I can well believe it. For all their talk about "lived experience", the Woke are not prepared to listen to other people's lived experience if it doesn't conform to their narrow world-view.

Quite. As another aspect to this: two of my eight greatgrandparents were not white. I see myself as white because that's how I "look" and so do my parents and how I am perceived to "look". But the British working class has been multi-ethnic for a long time, particularly for those whose ancestors came from industrial port cities, as some of mine did. Another thing the bourgeois Woke don't understand at all.