Be Excellent To Each Other

A strong left-leaning opposition would be rather helpful right now.

I can't even begin to express my objection to the premise that uneducated working class = Trump-supporting, racist bellend.

My wife said to me the other day that it's as though people are losing their humanity, after seeing some shit on Facebook. This was about the NHS health tourism thing. We actually caught the program that kicked it all off, the poor lady who ended up all over the tabloids lost two children giving birth and the only response from so many was that it was disgraceful that they had to pay for it. Seriously what the fuck is wrong with people these days?

This really pissed me off. In any decent civilised the world the headlines about that would have been celebrating the fact that the NHS managed to save two of the woman's four children, and highlighting how great the NHS is.

I think much of it might be due to people seeing these things on TV or in the press, then looking at their own circumstances and feeling that they are not getting 'special treatment' as they see their home towns crumble, services be consistently underfunded and withdrawn, and 'outsiders' move in.

I think much of it might be due to people seeing these things on TV or in the press, then looking at their own circumstances and feeling that they are not getting 'special treatment' as they see their home towns crumble, services be consistently underfunded and withdrawn, and 'outsiders' move in.

the Columns of Grim...

I can't even begin to express my objection to the premise that uneducated working class = Trump-supporting, racist bellend.

Just goes to show what your average Labour supporter/member knows about the working class (just ask Emily Thornberry, eh). With sentiments and prejudices such as these, no wonder they're being wiped out politically - good fucking riddance, too.

I think much of it might be due to people seeing these things on TV or in the press, then looking at their own circumstances and feeling that they are not getting 'special treatment' as they see their home towns crumble, services be consistently underfunded and withdrawn, and 'outsiders' move in.

I can't even begin to express my objection to the premise that uneducated working class = Trump-supporting, racist bellend.

Just goes to show what your average Labour supporter/member knows about the working class (just ask Emily Thornberry, eh). With sentiments and prejudices such as these, no wonder they're being wiped out politically - good fucking riddance, too.

Sure. So what is your explanation for this:

I don't see the indigenous working class as some inherently and immutably virtuous group of people.

That seems to be the root of the issue in my hometown, Middlesbrough. Rapid, devastating decline in heavy industry with nothing to replace the jobs. Huge unemployment and disaffected youth. Localised Brain drain as practically everyone in my generation who could move away, did. Combine this with the heavy influx of immigrants and asylum seekers (the largest number in any town in England I believe) and I can understand why the Leave vote got such traction there.

Sounds rude.

they adopted an antisemite terrorist apologist as leader

That seems to be the root of the issue in my hometown, Middlesbrough. Rapid, devastating decline in heavy industry with nothing to replace the jobs. Huge unemployment and disaffected youth. Localised Brain drain as practically everyone in my generation who could move away, did. Combine this with the heavy influx of immigrants and asylum seekers (the largest number in any town in England I believe) and I can understand why the Leave vote got such traction there.

I am increasingly convinced that a programme of extensive and meaningful devolution of powers and money to city, regions, or whatever natural grouping of territory makes sense is the only way to reverse the sense of disaffection with politics and the system. If people feel that their area's needs are being met, if politicians identify themselves with tangible successes, if they feel their voices are being heard, they are more likely to support the system and not be led astray. After all, if Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (sometimes), are considered capable of forms of self-government, why not the north east?

Are you Anon X in disguise?

Teesside Development Corporation

That said, though, having a greater propensity to be a Leave voter, as according to education and class != everyone of the (so-called) "uneducated" (non graduate) working class is a Leave voter (and most certainly != a racist Trump supporter)

Agreed. So why does this very real and strong correlation exist, do you think?

Are you Anon X in disguise?

For the record, I have neither a degree or even a single A-level to my name

Labour MPs will be asked to vote through the Brexit bill at its last stage in the House of Commons regardless of whether any amendments are passed, raising the possibility of further frontbench resignations.

The shadow cabinet agreed that Jeremy Corbyn should impose a three-line whip on the bill at third reading on Wednesday, even if opposition parties do not manage to make any changes to the legislation over the next two days.

Oh dear.

This explains everything!!!

Me neither, actually.

Wow! I mean, I can understand three-lining it to make sure you get your amendments through, but pushing it through unamended? I just can't even start to understand the reasoning behind that.

I cannot fathom why you'd whip the unamended bill. Just baffling.

Even if you allowed a free vote it'd still go through, but you'd prevent the mass-sacking of most of your front bench in the process...

Corbyn has entirely lost the plot.

Just so incompetent. It boggles the mind.

ideology-fuelled rank stupidity.

Alistair Campbell not convinced by Corbyn.

Is this a rhetorical question Doc?

This, of course, is worlds apart from the ludicrous (IMO) sweeping statements being hitherto made, as both I, and subsequently Cras explain in our posts above, and as you, as the intelligent man you are (despite our differences), appreciate of course.

I think you know why, as I do: in statistical terms, the less educated an entire, large population of people is, the less well informed they're likely to be, and also likely to be less able to possess all or some sufficient critical, intellectual faculties to be able to form educated, reasonable judgements in such matters. Sad, yet true (IMO), and as much as I, as a *passionate* believer in grammar schools and meritocracy et al, loathe this reality.

Popping this here, again.

That's like saying Hitler isn't convinced of Stalin. I'm not sure what the point is.

As an aside, it's a testament to how well-disciplined the Tories can be at times that all the fuss and debate is about Labour, and not the bill.

I tried to search earlier to see if there's a Conservative whip on the bill. I couldn't find any information at all.

WASHINGTON — President Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night.

Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home.

This account of the early days of the Trump White House is based on interviews with dozens of government officials, congressional aides, former staff members and other observers of the new administration, many of whom requested anonymity. At the center of the story, according to these sources, is a president determined to go big but increasingly frustrated by the efforts of his small team to contain the backlash.

Cloistered in the White House, he now has little access to his fans and supporters — an important source of feedback and validation — and feels increasingly pinched by the pressures of the job and the constant presence of protests, one of the reasons he was forced to scrap a planned trip to Milwaukee last week. For a sense of what is happening outside, he watches cable, both at night and during the day — too much in the eyes of some aides — often offering a bitter play-by-play of critics like CNN’s Don Lemon.

Until the past few days, Mr. Trump was telling his friends and advisers that he believed the opening stages of his presidency were going well. “Did you hear that, this guy thinks it’s been terrible!” Mr. Trump said mockingly to other aides when one dissenting view was voiced last week during a West Wing meeting.

But his opinion has begun to change with a relentless parade of bad headlines.

Mr. Priebus bristles at the perception that he occupies a diminished perch in the West Wing pecking order compared with previous chiefs. But for the moment, Mr. Bannon remains the president’s dominant adviser, despite Mr. Trump’s anger that he was not fully briefed on details of the executive order he signed giving his chief strategist a seat on the National Security Council, a greater source of frustration to the president than the fallout from the travel ban.

Visitors to the Oval Office say Mr. Trump is obsessed with the décor — it is both a totem of a victory that validates him as a serious person and an image-burnishing backdrop — so he has told his staff to schedule as many televised events in the room as possible.

To pass the time between meetings, Mr. Trump gives quick tours to visitors, highlighting little tweaks he has made after initially expecting he would have to pay for them himself.

Flanking his desk are portraits of Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. He will linger on the opulence of the newly hung golden drapes, which he told a recent visitor were once used by Franklin D. Roosevelt but in fact were patterned for Bill Clinton. For a man who sometimes has trouble concentrating on policy memos, Mr. Trump was delighted to page through a book that offered him 17 window covering options.

Ultimately, this is very much the White House that Mr. Trump wanted to build. But while the world reckons with the effect he is having on the presidency, he is adjusting to the effect of the presidency on him. He is now a public employee. And the only boss Mr. Trump ever had in his life was his father, a hard-driving developer the president still treats with deep reverence.

With most of his belongings in New York, the only family picture on the shelf behind Mr. Trump’s desk is a small black-and-white photograph of that boss, Frederick Christ Trump.

I long for the days that political news wasn't being fired at our faces in an endless gooey torrent

Turn off Twitter, and just read the papers in your club each evening.

"Build more houses, make getting planning permission quicker and easier, and help out with a deposit for first-time buyers" is what the news said this morning.