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

Yes, career talks for the boys at my dad's school were "do you want to work for [large local manufacturing business A] or [large local manufacturing business B]?" and they almost all went into good apprenticeships. Not so good for the children who didn't want those jobs, but at least for the ones who did, they were there and they trained you and they were a decently-paid, relatively secure career.

This thread is so thought provoking and refreshing in many ways. I am unable to post much due to an ocular condition and an archaic tablet that seems to have a mind of its own. I wish I knew people, like posters here, in real life.

The somewheres and anywheres has really resonated. I've realised that my brother has cultivated a 'somewhere' working class identity in reaction to the rest of the immediate family falling in the 'anywhere' category. Whereas I'm an anywhere by default and never seem to be a good fit with communities where I have lived.

For a long time I've been saying that social mobility isn't necessarily the greatest goal. While it seems like most complex societies have had some sort of outlet for social mobility, often through the civil service or religion or the military, it's generally true that populations have a fair bit of stability barring wars and such.

And because we have a lot of capacity to educate people we may have somewhat more capacity for social mobility than before. But there will always be different kinds of work, and to some extent that relates to different social roles.

The real issue is living and working conditions of all groups, and also their ability to be politically involved, and to have respect in their work and for their work. It's great if a really bright person from a working class background can follow his talents and passions and become a university professor, but we are never going to be a society made up entirely of professionals, or bankers, or whatever, and that would not be a good outcome anyway.

The other problem which IMO is seldom discussed is that when it is aspirational for all the brightest people to be bankers or whatever, you end up losing those people from other sectors. But being very capable and intelligent brings important things to almost all types of work, those are the people that go on to be leaders and innovators or to provide important insights.

Socialism in some ways started to lose the plot, in my view, when they started to think the goal was not to represent the interests and ideas of workers, but to give them all middle class office jobs.

I have so much to say but more sneaky work posting means limits

It is very refreshing to read this after being called names for expressing these views in the past.

On the value of community. I grew up in Essex, then lived in five different London boroughs, I did find community there but areas were changing so fast and so many incomers didn’t even respond to “good morning”, I really noticed it falling apart, and the nature of London is that it’s normal to travel an hour to see people and I hate that.

In desperation, and combined with the death of my dad, I went to church as an atheist and there’s community there but it’s small.

Re the comments some people have seen about how certain people should have got a better education - foul. What vile people. The funny thing is, I have a feeling they’d jump down my throat if I said it about someone not English.

I actually have a post grad. I never say that on MN because I never understood the woke speak and had to ask questions and often thought people would think I was thick.

The job I do shouldn’t need a degree but that has a huge screw up along the way. Cock up or conspiracy? I don’t know.

I’ve had to spend a lot of time with mum in Essex after dad’s death. I’m pleased to say community is still there. We would not have managed without them.

Why anyone would not value, much less actively want to destroy, local community, is beyond me.

Re academia, I cannot understand why they would encourage ideas that were so inapplicable. I thought perhaps it was just social media globalising thought. If academics here have been encouraging it, that’s batshit.

I wonder if my North London outer burb community can recover but if not, when I retire, I’m heading back to the comfort of Essex!

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?
It is great to 'Meet' you too 😊My parents had an arranged marriage. My dad came here for university then brought my mum. I have 10 cousins who were either born here or came here as children after leaving E. Africa. Only 3 of us (the older ones) have married into our culture. the rest of us have all married Caucasian partners. My older cousin got all the grief for 'marrying out' her sister then did what was expected and divorced after a horribly abusive marriage. As a result, the rest of us didnt get as much grief! There are many diverse types of immigrant. I do think the difference in many cases is class based. The problem with the 'woke' is they don't have the experience they think they do. They don't know a lot of white working class. When I lived in London, I mixed with people of many different races. They were virtually all middle class, whatever race they were. As are so many of the people demonstrating against the election result on Friday. Unironically anti fascists demonstrating against a democratic election result instead of trying to understand or accept people have different opinions to them, because they dont see, know or speak to anyone outside their own narrow experience.

gcacademic Ah, I see. My parents are actually both Catholic
mine too I bet we're from.the same place

As far as I understand it, there was genuine social mobility in the fifties and sixties in the sense that many people moved down as well as up. People wanting to move down depends on working class jobs having decent pay and security.

I agree with the poster earlier who said it was the middle class left who keep talking about empire in relation to Brexit. They also complain that Brexit would lead to us having less global influence. But as we are no longer an empire, why should ordinary people want more global influence, especially as that so often requires our sons to fight and die in foreign wars?

And daughters

The problem with social mobility is that it is a function of inequality. If there was no inequality you wouldn't need social mobility. I know that's a big 'if' but it's why social mobility isn't something to aim for. Reduction of increasing inequality between richest and poorest would be better.

www.thelocal.dk/20150521/denmark-has-lowest-inequality-among-oecd-nations

I recall there was a company reported on a while back which had a policy of never paying its top executives more than a certain multiple more than it's lowest paid workers for this reason.

I think there used to be real barriers to a lot of social mobility that weren't just about inequality. In many places and times children were largely trained in their occupation starting in childhood, usually by their parents. Sometimes parents arranged another sort of training for children who seemed suited, or they entered the military, but mainly you carried on doing the things your family did.

Opening up all possibilities to all kids depends on some capacity to teach them the things they need to start down that path, so a lot of social infrastructure that has not been possible always.

Just been directed to this thread from another one so trying to catch up on it (haven't RTFT in entirety yet, soz 😳)

As far as I've got I've been agreeing emphatically with just about all of it, but these bits are the highlights for me so far:

"It has become the party of students and London. Its traditional base was always more Conservative than Labour realised. This election was the tipping point"

"last several years people remembered how they have been mocked, ignored, be shouted to shut up."

"The ft stated the biggest driver of a swing to the Conservatives in this election was the number of blue collar workers in the area."

I'm blue collar working class, family background on both sides is also blue collar

I'm not loyal to any party but def feel more of an affinity with Tories at the mo and absolutely wanted nothing to do with Corbyn's Labour - not just because of Corbyn, or because of Brexit, but because the Tory values of aspiration, equality of opportunity & a ' hand-up' where needed speak more to me than the politics of division & envy & levelling down that Corbyn espoused

And being told how I should think, Vote & act by 'people who know better than me what's best for me' (shouty left-wing right-side-of-history people) has really grated.

And being told how I should think, Vote & act by 'people who know better than me what's best for me' (shouty left-wing right-side-of-history people) has really grated

Hey Dusty, I think that’s really alienated many people. Reading other threads elsewhere on this forum, the level of vitriol directed at voters and the palpable contempt for those voters is quite staggering. I wonder if those making such comments have any idea how detrimental it is to Labour? On a positive note, I think this board is quite unique for its interesting discussions and the way people disagree while respecting each other’s opinions. That’s increasingly rare these days and it’s one of the things I love about this forum.

Unironically anti fascists demonstrating against a democratic election result instead of trying to understand or accept people have different opinions to them, because they dont see, know or speak to anyone outside their own narrow experience

noodle
Absolutely agree. I think it’s a refusal to accept that any other political viewpoint is valid. I think social media has made it worse because of the proliferation of echo chambers

FE funding and policy is such a mess. Wave after wave of junior ministers (whichever party) with an incentive to make a name for themselves by shaking it up, but with almost total isolation from the effects of that shakeup, because neither they nor their wider social circle nor their Cabinet nor a majority of those who should be providing oversight, from media or from Parliament, have any direct connection with the people who use it.

Picked this post out of a sea of posts about FE because it mentions ministers specifically.

I agree with all that's been said re FE btw

I follow Robert Halfon (Tory MP) on Twitter & he's been championing FE, technical degrees & apprenticeships ferociously for a while now - he's so on the money with his ideas

I'm hoping there's a place for him in the February reshuffle because he's impressed me no end with his ideas & enthusiasm for the subject

Some times ‘knowing’ you lot feels like doing a sociology module (in a good way)

One argument I’ve read about social mobility in the 50s and 60s is that it owed less to grammar schools than to the emergence of new industries without a preexisting career structure. This is certainly true of my dad who is from very poor rural stock in an area with no work other than sheep farming. He got a job straight from school in the 50s with the only other local employer (the army - Salisbury Plain) and because he had maths o level they put him to work on The Computer . There followed a career in computing and a fast track to a life in London and NY. He had no qualifications or soft skills at 17 but he got in on day one and the industry carried him up and out of his tiny impoverished village.

I think the same was true of the media and creative industries which exploded at about the same time which is why so many of his contemporaries in the media appear to have the same story - John Humphries for example. Yes working class grammar school boy but actually it was the burgeoning industry that lifted him up.

Here's a New Statesman article by Maurice Glasman, founder of the Blue Labour tendency, in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum. It's incredibly prescient if you read it after participating on this thread. It's both a love letter to and a eulogy of the Labour Party, reading it today.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2016/11/things-dont-only-get-better-why-working-class-fell-out-love-labour

Binterested

That's funny, my grandfathers both came from working class backgrounds. Both eventually joined the middle classes, one going into the early computer work via the navy, while the other went from the navy into journalism.

How funny ! And that computing came via the military again.

BarbaraStrozzi, I've been all too aware of New Zealand's situation: I have farming family over there who really suffered when the UK joined the EU. They still talk about the struggle of those years. If they couldn't grow it, they didn't eat it. They think we've gone mad. I agree.

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

Same, but my adoptive mums were Hispanic, Arab, and Indian. I feel like I'm constantly code switching. I'm not complaining and there are a lot of good things about how I grew up, but I think never fully having what the somewheres have makes me value it more in my family, in an odd sort of way. Kind of like having it part time/intermittently - you see just enough of it to understand why it's important to people. Took me a while to make the connection to Brexit, since most of Scotland voted to Remain.

This “somewhere, anywhere, nowhere” is new to me.

But hey, I’m an Essex girl 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

In spite of living in London, I kind of want to reclaim my Essex roots because right now, London looks bonkers to me.

Does anyone on this thread remember the thread about London in the 90s? Happy days. I wonder if we can return to them.

Socialism in some ways started to lose the plot, in my view, when they started to think the goal was not to represent the interests and ideas of workers, but to give them all middle class office jobs.

Oh yes. First, that's not possible and is never going to be, and second, it betrays exactly the sort of lack of respect for people who work with their hands or in other non office settings that's leading to people who would traditionally have voted Labour feeling like modern Labour doesn't really like them very much. It's so hard to put into words but once you've noticed it you can't miss it. Politics isn't just about a list of policies and tick boxes, people want to feel respected.

Prodigal “ second, it betrays exactly the sort of lack of respect for people who work with their hands or in other non office settings that's leading to people who would traditionally have voted Labour feeling like modern Labour doesn't really like them very much. ”

So much this.

Anyone else detest the term “unskilled”?

I know lots of people who've moved out of London not just because holy shit the housing costs but because it doesn't feel like home to them in ways they struggle to explain. Which some lurking "FWR is terrible" git is going to read as being about race but it's not - London hasn't been a "white" city for a long time, and that's one of the things people used to like about it.

I could go on a rant about London and overseas investors being allowed to treat housing like buying shares in a company and what it does to a neighborhood to have half the houses or flats sitting empty because they're "investment opportunities" rather than homes now. That's one of the things I actually agreed with Corbyn on.