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Another tricky by-election defence for the Tories – politicalbetting.com

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  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263
    Farooq said:

    Roger said:

    Re Howard Davies........;Don't want to get the three witches out of bed on a Sunday morning...

    ......here's something he wrote last month which shows his unsuitability to be considered an impartial 'financial expert' on the BBC

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/21/natwests-sir-howard-davies-im-quite-pessimistic-brexit-was-a-significant-mistake

    A telling bit of that piece:
    he later faced criticism for failing to clamp down heavily enough on the City during the buildup to the crash of 2008. “At the time, people moaned about financial regulation being too tight and that I was judge and jury in my own court,” he says. “I was accused of being an overmighty regulator who was getting in the way of ‘animal spirits’. There was never any criticism in the other direction.”

    You see this kind of thing on here. A few voices harshly criticising the actions of the BoE over recent years, nobody speaking in the other direction...
    I defended them a couple of days ago, FWIW.

    Once inflation becomes entrenched - and there are signs we've started down that road - there aren't good options for bringing it down, only painful ones. Deferring that just brings more pain.

    The bank is going its job tolerably well. The faults in economic policy lie elsewhere.

    It's also fair to note that a couple of the most significant shocks - Ukraine and the pandemic - are somewhat outside of the control of government. (Though I did point out a year ago that accelerating the supply of modern weapons might have ended the war rather more quickly, to everyone's benefit - but even then, that was more a US decision than ours.)
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,711
    Foxy said:

    I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.

    I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.

    They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.

    If the BoE was tasked with controlling housing costs as well as CPI then they might take a different approach.

    As it is, if your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
    Ultimately, HMG will be accountable for whether the BoE succeeds or fails and they are able to change its terms of reference.

    They can't afford to get ideologically dogmatic about inflation in a monetarism mark two.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263

    kle4 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    @paulwaugh

    .@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson.
    Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.

    @jessphillips

    Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.

    Idiotic, if true.

    Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
    Frit, which is bad.

    Frit of the loud minority rather than the quiet majority, which is worse.
    Not only is Johnson now behaving like Trump, the Tory party is responding to his behaviour in the mealy mouthed manner of the GOP.
    Not really - they removed him as leader and a majority of MPs didn't want him back, even if 1/3 did. They seem more wearied by him even if not openly hostile.
    Yes really.

    This is like the GOP voting to acquit in the second Trump impeachment.
    Yes, craven and self destructive.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    Keir Starmer should bring back WEAK WEAK WEAK next weak to the HoC. Weak Rishi should call a GE
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Chris said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:

    Are the Russians preparing to claim victory and then fuck off out of Ukraine?

    "The Kyiv Independent
    @KyivIndependent
    ⚡ Kremlin spokesman claims Ukraine largely 'demilitarized'.

    Kremlin press secretary Dmitriy Peskov claimed that Russia's goal of "demilitarizing" Ukraine was largely completed, saying that it was using "fewer and fewer of its own weapons" and increasingly relying on weapons provided by the West."


    https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1670168560700735489

    Would be one way to end the war before the Russian army completely disintegrates.

    It would indeed - were the Russians to unilaterally and completely withdraw from all Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea, I doubt there'd be many calling it anything other than a victory for Zelenskyy. However, if Putin wants to sell something different to his people, that's his business I suppose.
    I doubt if he'd be able to. Ultimately, withdrawing would be seen as a failure.

    It might not lead to his overthrow by the people, but I can imagine manoeuvres in the Kremlin would intensify.
    Russia seems to be on the upswing at the moment, using attack helicopters to fire air to ground and anti-tank missiles. This might provide Moscow with a chance to initiate peace talks on more favourable terms before Ukraine is supplied the wherewithal to shoot them down.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/17/russian-attack-helicopters-upper-hand-southern-ukraine/ (£££)
    Apparently they found some wherewithal:
    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/18/7407334/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=[twitter]&utm_campaign=[rogue_corq]
    Given that the Ukrainians have committed only a fraction of their forces so far, I think it's obvious that this phase is about assessing how the Russians defend against counterattack, working out the extent to which what they do can be countered, and adjusting plans accordingly.
    Fingers crossed. It does seem true the Russians have, regrettably, started to learn some things (plus the general boost that comes with defending).

    Russian adaptation. “Russian armored columns, for instance, no longer rush into areas where they can be quickly damaged or destroyed. Troops are more often using drones and probing attacks … to find Ukrainian trenches before striking”...

    Russian trenches have frequently proved better built than their Ukrainian counterparts, Ukrainian soldiers said. The March mission report said the bunkers were akin to “Vietnam-style spider holes” and “so deep as to be undetectable by drone.”

    https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1670069239640731648?cxt=HHwWgMC9sYDIo60uAAAA
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,569
    edited June 2023



    The problem is that many people don’t self examine their beliefs of the moment. Which they change like socks, depending on Tik Tok.

    Since everyone is the Hero of Their Own Tale, they must be Good.

    One thing I’ve tried to teach my daughters is to compare their own views with history - very little is new.

    My late uncle (a nice chap but a little eccentric) had strong religious views which he (gently) always tried to persuade the family about, saying mildly that he didn't want us to go to hell. The problem was that he changed his views every couple of years, and said with only slight embarrassment that God had shown him that his previous opinions X were mistaken and the correct view was Y, which we should now adopt to avoid damnation. It seemed a bit like trying to follow the party line under Stalin - you could be shot for having last month's opinion. Not believing in any of it was our strategy.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    Boris Johnson and Trump are now very alike. I didn’t used to use that comparison but I now can.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,711
    eek said:

    I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.

    I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.

    They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.

    What else can they do - admit they have been utterly useless for 2 years and pray that a single 1% increase will solve the problem.

    I’m sure I (and others on here) have pointed out at least 3 meetings where the decision made wasn’t enough and we are now seeing the consequences of that lack of action

    I suspect the end result will be rates 1-1.5% higher than they should have been short term (because it needs to be that high to break the problem) and 0.5-0.75% higher than they should have been long term
    Keep them where they are. Be patient.

    The increases are more than enough to gradually squeeze inflation out of the system, but, it will take time because it needs to wait for people to progressively come off 2-3 year fixed rates.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Please do it, Jezza - the prospect of a former party leader running against his party is fantastic. And if he has a following locally then it would be only right if they elected him.

    .@bencsmoke "Jeremy, what's the future for Islington North?"

    @jeremycorbyn "I've been the MP for Islington North for 40 years, so if the people of Islington North want me, I will be available for service"

    https://twitter.com/BrizTransformed/status/1670057739505000450
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    There’s a clever riddle dressed up as one of those maths puzzles involving either a “surgeon” or a “professor” and various sons and daughters and other relatives of the surgeon/professor.

    It seems impossible to crack so you give up, and the answer is the surgeon is the patient’s/student’s mother. And you think shit,
    I really am unconsciously biased.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    Keir Starmer should bring back WEAK WEAK WEAK next weak to the HoC. Weak Rishi should call a GE

    I think Keir doesn't even need to call for a GE - others can do that. Just hammer home the weak line over and over, make some gibes about how the PM can stop getting hammered for being weak every week if he wants.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,509

    Scott_xP said:

    @paulwaugh

    .@michaelgove tells @bbclaurak that he WONT vote to endorse the Privileges Committee report into @BorisJohnson.
    Will abstain cos he disagrees with the 90 day suspension.

    @jessphillips

    Normally slick Gove left looking very weak and without a single answer to any of the questions.

    Idiotic, if true.

    Every single Conservative MP needs to enthusiastically stick the knife in and twist it.
    Just what you would expect from Gollum
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    edited June 2023

    Heathener said:

    And for anyone saying this doesn't compare with the high rates in the 1970's, this is the powerful riposte:

    https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1669659240884064256

    House prices are 65 times higher now than in 1970, average wages are only 35 times higher. An interest rate of 10% in the 1970s is equivalent to one of just *2%* today.

    People are borrowing far more relative to their incomes.

    One difference from the 1970s is two-income households are far more common.
    ...and you have to ask yourself why that is. Life has gotten so hard that in order to raise a family both parents have to work longer and longer hours in order to afford smaller and smaller accommodation.

    The UK economic model is built on maximising economic utility of its population so that foreign investors can maximise their profits. This is done by working them harder and harder until they burn out, then replacing them (like fuses) with imported labour, then working them harder and harder until they burn out, and so on.

    Here are the cures
    * Ban foreign ownership of residential property
    * Limit inward migration to ~150,000 per year, instead of the current ~1,000,000
    * (Oh, and kill Help To Buy as well)

    There y'go. Then you can stop f*****g around with interest rate rises which (as @LuckyGuy1983 and others have pointed out) don't work with an endogenous supply shock.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    I somehow missed this one - what a card, eh?

    @Guto_Harri reveals on his @LBC podcast @BorisJohnson's private verdict last year on allegations of sexual harassment by MPs:
    "As he put it in the heat of the moment: ‘If we took away the whip from everyone here, who's pinched someone's bottom, we'll lose our majority.’"

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1669239719249559552

    It's ok though, because it was heat of the moment.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,903

    As one of the older posters I’ve rarely felt discriminated against here. By anyone who’s posts were worth anything, anyway.

    OK Boomer.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 51,152
    A
    Chris said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:

    Are the Russians preparing to claim victory and then fuck off out of Ukraine?

    "The Kyiv Independent
    @KyivIndependent
    ⚡ Kremlin spokesman claims Ukraine largely 'demilitarized'.

    Kremlin press secretary Dmitriy Peskov claimed that Russia's goal of "demilitarizing" Ukraine was largely completed, saying that it was using "fewer and fewer of its own weapons" and increasingly relying on weapons provided by the West."


    https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1670168560700735489

    Would be one way to end the war before the Russian army completely disintegrates.

    It would indeed - were the Russians to unilaterally and completely withdraw from all Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea, I doubt there'd be many calling it anything other than a victory for Zelenskyy. However, if Putin wants to sell something different to his people, that's his business I suppose.
    I doubt if he'd be able to. Ultimately, withdrawing would be seen as a failure.

    It might not lead to his overthrow by the people, but I can imagine manoeuvres in the Kremlin would intensify.
    Russia seems to be on the upswing at the moment, using attack helicopters to fire air to ground and anti-tank missiles. This might provide Moscow with a chance to initiate peace talks on more favourable terms before Ukraine is supplied the wherewithal to shoot them down.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/17/russian-attack-helicopters-upper-hand-southern-ukraine/ (£££)
    Apparently they found some wherewithal:
    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/18/7407334/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=[twitter]&utm_campaign=[rogue_corq]
    Given that the Ukrainians have committed only a fraction of their forces so far, I think it's obvious that this phase is about assessing how the Russians defend against counterattack, working out the extent to which what they do can be countered, and adjusting plans accordingly.
    The Ukrainians, since the beginning of the war have been knocking down the Russian attack helicopters in numbers. It was notable that China cancelled an order, apparently due to vulnerability to shoulder fired missiles.

    Judging by past offensives by Ukraine, Ukraine is trying to get Russia to commit its main forces and reserves, pinning them in place and reducing their ability to manoeuvre.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,903
    kle4 said:

    I somehow missed this one - what a card, eh?

    @Guto_Harri reveals on his @LBC podcast @BorisJohnson's private verdict last year on allegations of sexual harassment by MPs:
    "As he put it in the heat of the moment: ‘If we took away the whip from everyone here, who's pinched someone's bottom, we'll lose our majority.’"

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1669239719249559552

    It's ok though, because it was heat of the moment.

    What a fine collection of people.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    edited June 2023

    kle4 said:

    I somehow missed this one - what a card, eh?

    @Guto_Harri reveals on his @LBC podcast @BorisJohnson's private verdict last year on allegations of sexual harassment by MPs:
    "As he put it in the heat of the moment: ‘If we took away the whip from everyone here, who's pinched someone's bottom, we'll lose our majority.’"

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1669239719249559552

    It's ok though, because it was heat of the moment.

    What a fine collection of people.
    The Tory voters in 2019 should be utterly ashamed they ever voted this lot into office.

    And this is the problem, they chose a winner over a man with any qualifications to lead or indeed act as a human being.

    I will probably never vote Tory again after the latest party-gate revelations, I couldn't visit relatives who were dying yet Number 10 treated me with contempt and partied their way through.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    edited June 2023
    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I don't think the label of microaggression is helpful. There is a big difference between those things, but some are actually just, well, aggressions.

    Looking for microaggressions just guarantees you'll find them, an ever increasing number of them in fact, and dilute focus on serious stuff - being a wide range makes it pointless.

    We can still focus on people making an un-PC slip and saying 'That's an offensive term actually' 'oh, thanks bob, I'll remember that', and 'That's really not ok, asking to touch someone's hair is not on', rather than discerning ill motives from simple ignorance or interrogating body language.

    For me, it's about being alive to the possibility of unintentionally offending, discriminating or prejudicing someone, which most of us could probably improve on, to be on the active hunt for someone to say the wrong thing, look at someone funny, and then get pilloried for it.

    One is about supporting us to be more thoughtful and respectful, to be reflective, the other encourages an atmosphere of distrust and hostility, and enforcing control on others.
  • WestieWestie Posts: 426
    edited June 2023

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by serious-faced white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading or catching the killer lergy?

    Of course they didn't. Or maybe an elderly dowager aristo of weak mind believed it somewhere in Worcestershire. Other than that, they all knew it was bullsh*t. Look at their actions.

    That's the real question. "They partied while they told us not to" sounds good but it's spin. It's spin in the same sense that "cash for questions" (don't call it corruption) and "credit crunch" (don't call bankers leeches) were both spin.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    Scott_xP said:

    @iainjwatson
    But @michaelgove doesn't advocate stripping Shaun Bailey and Ben Mallett (the latter is in the video) of their honours - saying the responsibility for that honours list was @BorisJohnson 's

    The whole of British politics is not "how do I fix this problem" but instead "how do I blame somebody else for it"
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,956

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,928
    Roger said:

    Farooq said:

    Roger said:

    Re Howard Davies........;Don't want to get the three witches out of bed on a Sunday morning...

    ......here's something he wrote last month which shows his unsuitability to be considered an impartial 'financial expert' on the BBC

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/21/natwests-sir-howard-davies-im-quite-pessimistic-brexit-was-a-significant-mistake

    A telling bit of that piece:
    he later faced criticism for failing to clamp down heavily enough on the City during the buildup to the crash of 2008. “At the time, people moaned about financial regulation being too tight and that I was judge and jury in my own court,” he says. “I was accused of being an overmighty regulator who was getting in the way of ‘animal spirits’. There was never any criticism in the other direction.”

    You see this kind of thing on here. A few voices harshly criticising the actions of the BoE over recent years, nobody speaking in the other direction. Where are those voices? Can it really be that the only one who think what the BoE have done is right are the BoE themselves? If that's the case, how do you explain such a concentration of such a minority view? Coincidence? Malice?

    Likelier, there are a range of views out there in the wild, but we aren't getting them here.

    Both are interesting possibilities. And as Davies knows, it's consequential when you only hear one side of the argument. Very consequential.
    Having Andrew Bailey a declared Brexiteer as governor of the BoE should have disqualified him from important decision making for life.
    Okay I've had a look around and I can't find any evidence for Bailey supporting or voting for Brexit. I can't find any evidence he supported remain either.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I did laugh at the idea the Telegraph goes to interview these multi-millionaires who we are apparently supposed to feel sympathy for. It does rather explain their current position if this is what they think the country wants to hear.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    Surely the journalistic definition of middle class is 'fellow journalists'?

    The ones who are not posturing as working class I suppose.
  • WestieWestie Posts: 426
    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I don't know why you blame journalists. That's what the whole middle class thinks. (I will steer clear of definitional issues for the moment.) "It's always the people in the middle that get squeezed the most", etc. Whingeing c*nts.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,778

    A

    Chris said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:

    Are the Russians preparing to claim victory and then fuck off out of Ukraine?

    "The Kyiv Independent
    @KyivIndependent
    ⚡ Kremlin spokesman claims Ukraine largely 'demilitarized'.

    Kremlin press secretary Dmitriy Peskov claimed that Russia's goal of "demilitarizing" Ukraine was largely completed, saying that it was using "fewer and fewer of its own weapons" and increasingly relying on weapons provided by the West."


    https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1670168560700735489

    Would be one way to end the war before the Russian army completely disintegrates.

    It would indeed - were the Russians to unilaterally and completely withdraw from all Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea, I doubt there'd be many calling it anything other than a victory for Zelenskyy. However, if Putin wants to sell something different to his people, that's his business I suppose.
    I doubt if he'd be able to. Ultimately, withdrawing would be seen as a failure.

    It might not lead to his overthrow by the people, but I can imagine manoeuvres in the Kremlin would intensify.
    Russia seems to be on the upswing at the moment, using attack helicopters to fire air to ground and anti-tank missiles. This might provide Moscow with a chance to initiate peace talks on more favourable terms before Ukraine is supplied the wherewithal to shoot them down.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/17/russian-attack-helicopters-upper-hand-southern-ukraine/ (£££)
    Apparently they found some wherewithal:
    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/18/7407334/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=[twitter]&utm_campaign=[rogue_corq]
    Given that the Ukrainians have committed only a fraction of their forces so far, I think it's obvious that this phase is about assessing how the Russians defend against counterattack, working out the extent to which what they do can be countered, and adjusting plans accordingly.
    The Ukrainians, since the beginning of the war have been knocking down the Russian attack helicopters in numbers. It was notable that China cancelled an order, apparently due to vulnerability to shoulder fired missiles.
    Every helicopter ever built is vulnerable to MANPAD.

    The Chinese Navy deal for Ka-52K is still on but the PLAAF have cooled their interest due to progress on their Z-10 project.

    They Egyptians like their Nile Crocodiles; so much that the US had to sell them AH-64 (over the objections of Israel) to stop them buying more. Ka-52 has been an export failure though, especially compared to the (deeply flawed) Hind that proceeded it.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    Off topic but possibly to become relevant soon: the weather is about to do one of its phase changes.

    We’ve had weeks of high pressure to the north and low pressure to the South. Settled weather with Easterlies, warm days and cool nights. Typical late spring pattern. Now we’re switching to the later summer Westerly regime, and the continent is about to heat up. Already a couple of weather models showing temperatures into the mid to high 30s in Southern England by the end of the month.

    That kind of thing used to be exceptional. Now it’s almost an annual event.

    Enjoy the thunderstorms in the meantime, as the pattern does its big shift.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Dura_Ace said:

    A

    Chris said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:

    Are the Russians preparing to claim victory and then fuck off out of Ukraine?

    "The Kyiv Independent
    @KyivIndependent
    ⚡ Kremlin spokesman claims Ukraine largely 'demilitarized'.

    Kremlin press secretary Dmitriy Peskov claimed that Russia's goal of "demilitarizing" Ukraine was largely completed, saying that it was using "fewer and fewer of its own weapons" and increasingly relying on weapons provided by the West."


    https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1670168560700735489

    Would be one way to end the war before the Russian army completely disintegrates.

    It would indeed - were the Russians to unilaterally and completely withdraw from all Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea, I doubt there'd be many calling it anything other than a victory for Zelenskyy. However, if Putin wants to sell something different to his people, that's his business I suppose.
    I doubt if he'd be able to. Ultimately, withdrawing would be seen as a failure.

    It might not lead to his overthrow by the people, but I can imagine manoeuvres in the Kremlin would intensify.
    Russia seems to be on the upswing at the moment, using attack helicopters to fire air to ground and anti-tank missiles. This might provide Moscow with a chance to initiate peace talks on more favourable terms before Ukraine is supplied the wherewithal to shoot them down.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/17/russian-attack-helicopters-upper-hand-southern-ukraine/ (£££)
    Apparently they found some wherewithal:
    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/18/7407334/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=[twitter]&utm_campaign=[rogue_corq]
    Given that the Ukrainians have committed only a fraction of their forces so far, I think it's obvious that this phase is about assessing how the Russians defend against counterattack, working out the extent to which what they do can be countered, and adjusting plans accordingly.
    The Ukrainians, since the beginning of the war have been knocking down the Russian attack helicopters in numbers. It was notable that China cancelled an order, apparently due to vulnerability to shoulder fired missiles.
    Every helicopter ever built is vulnerable to MANPAD.

    The Chinese Navy deal for Ka-52K is still on but the PLAAF have cooled their interest due to progress on their Z-10 project.

    They Egyptians like their Nile Crocodiles; so much that the US had to sell them AH-64 (over the objections of Israel) to stop them buying more. Ka-52 has been an export failure though, especially compared to the (deeply flawed) Hind that proceeded it.
    Is Manpad military speak for 'dude with a missile'?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,230
    edited June 2023
    Farooq said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I eat pineapple on pizza and if some Italian tries to stop me you won't see a microaggression from me, I will make war on the whole country. Tanks on the Piazza di Siena. Internment camps, war crimes THE WORKS.
    I had pizza with pineapple in Pisa. And very nice it was too.

    Pizza condemnation should be reserved for those where the base is several inches thick and resembles a stottie cake.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,477
    edited June 2023
    kle4 said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I don't think the label of microaggression is helpful. There is a big difference between those things, but some are actually just, well, aggressions.

    Looking for microaggressions just guarantees you'll find them, an ever increasing number of them in fact, and dilute focus on serious stuff - being a wide range makes it pointless.

    We can still focus on people making an un-PC slip and saying 'That's an offensive term actually' 'oh, thanks bob, I'll remember that', and 'That's really not ok, asking to touch someone's hair is not on', rather than discerning ill motives from simple ignorance or interrogating body language.

    For me, it's about being alive to the possibility of unintentionally offending, discriminating or prejudicing someone, which most of us could probably improve on, to be on the active hunt for someone to say the wrong thing, look at someone funny, and then get pilloried for it.

    One is about supporting us to be more thoughtful and respectful, to be reflective, the other encourages an atmosphere of distrust and hostility, and enforcing control on others.
    Mmm.
    It's difficult. We've an issue at the moment with someone who makes remarks on an almost constant basis. It's difficult to pin down cos they are are very slight slights. (Mostly around he'd have done it better, assigning blame, interfering in tasks without being asked, and trying to take over, evading responsibility, undertone of misogyny).
    Each one is nothing that you can take to higher up with a straight face. But the cumulative drip drip all day, every day is wearing.
    Nobody wants to work with him, and he's making a happy workplace become one where people are wanting to quit.
    I'd class them as micro annoyances.
    But they are serious.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 13,215
    Westie said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I don't know why you blame journalists. That's what the whole middle class thinks. (I will steer clear of definitional issues for the moment.) "It's always the people in the middle that get squeezed the most", etc. Whingeing c*nts.
    The very fact the “middle class” in popular culture supposedly shop at Waitrose, holiday in Tuscany and call their kids Sebastian and Guinevere demonstrates this phenomenon clearly.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,064

    eek said:

    I worry about inflation of 7-8% as opposed to 2% but, like millions of others, I care about not being thrown out of my house by unaffordable mortgage payments even more.

    I think the BoE/HMG have got this wrong.

    They can't keep ratcheting up interest rates by 0.25-0.5% in the hope something breaks.

    What else can they do - admit they have been utterly useless for 2 years and pray that a single 1% increase will solve the problem.

    I’m sure I (and others on here) have pointed out at least 3 meetings where the decision made wasn’t enough and we are now seeing the consequences of that lack of action

    I suspect the end result will be rates 1-1.5% higher than they should have been short term (because it needs to be that high to break the problem) and 0.5-0.75% higher than they should have been long term
    Keep them where they are. Be patient.

    The increases are more than enough to gradually squeeze inflation out of the system, but, it will take time because it needs to wait for people to progressively come off 2-3 year fixed rates.
    Unfortunately keeping rates where they are isn't an option. If the BoE doesn't raise rates then sterling will tank and inflation will rise again. The markets have priced in another 0.5-0.75% of rate rises. That's pushed sterling up to $1.28 and €1.17 from $1.20 and €1.10, if this unwinds to any significant degree import price inflation will be absolutely killer and CPI hits 11% within a few months. If the BoE had done this sooner and pushed rates up faster than the Fed and ECB we'd have benefited from import price deflation for the better part of a year and CPI would already be under 5% and the BoE would be eyeing a rate cut mid-2024.

    It's going to be tough out there for people with large mortgages coming to the end of fixed rate periods. Andrew Bailey is entirely to blame for this he's the governor and ultimately can push through higher rates and kick the idiot doves off the MPC and pack it with inflation hawks who will do whatever it takes to get back under 5% CPI. In the middle of last year the BoE was projecting a 2 year recession and used that as justification for keeping rates low. That recession never materialised and it turns out there was plenty of spare capacity in the economy to absorb bigger rate rises in 2022. The BoE bought into the IMF/OECD groupthink about Brexit Britain and completely fucked it. At least when the IMF project doom for the UK because they don't like Brexit it makes no difference except a few uncomfortable headlines, when the BoE buy into the narrative it results in awful policy making, which is what's happened. A steeper path to the same eventual 5.0-5.25% would already have inflation falling quite rapidly, instead we're going to have to hold 5.25% for a solid 12-18 months before we see it work and that's going to being misery for millions of households who will see their (our) disposable income eroded by mortgage interest.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    edited June 2023
    [deleted: confused two posts]
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959
    Bairstow fluffs another one, fourth ball of the day.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,230

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    Utter nonsense. Infections would have spiralled out of control, the NHS would have been completely overwhelmed and tens of thousands more would have died.

  • glwglw Posts: 9,956
    Westie said:

    I don't know why you blame journalists. That's what the whole middle class thinks. (I will steer clear of definitional issues for the moment.) "It's always the people in the middle that get squeezed the most", etc. Whingeing c*nts.

    There is a lot of truth in that. Probably because most people think they are normal and average, rather than exceptional, and because the people they mix with and live amongst look like them, so "this" must be the norm.

    I still blame journalists because even the thickest of them ought to be able to quickly look up some data about income and household wealth and wonder "is this really middle class?"
  • WestieWestie Posts: 426

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    👍

    For most of the population, though, I think the level of submissive obedience has risen. Yesterday I went on my morning run in a recreation ground (I'm away from home right now) and there was an organised run and they were going the other way around the park. Fine. Ample space for everyone. I made sure of course that I didn't get in the way of the other runners, but several of them kept telling me I was running in the wrong direction, apparently without it occurring to them that somebody might be running without taking part in their event. I never experienced that kind of thing before Covid. Also cyclists seem almost all to wear helmets nowadays. Without wanting to get into the helmet argument (I don't wear one but am not an extremist or bigot on the issue), I used to observe about 30% not wearing helmets, whereas now it's more like 1%. Something's changed and it's scary to think that the "new normal" is now the baseline for whatever shock comes next.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    dixiedean said:

    kle4 said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I don't think the label of microaggression is helpful. There is a big difference between those things, but some are actually just, well, aggressions.

    Looking for microaggressions just guarantees you'll find them, an ever increasing number of them in fact, and dilute focus on serious stuff - being a wide range makes it pointless.

    We can still focus on people making an un-PC slip and saying 'That's an offensive term actually' 'oh, thanks bob, I'll remember that', and 'That's really not ok, asking to touch someone's hair is not on', rather than discerning ill motives from simple ignorance or interrogating body language.

    For me, it's about being alive to the possibility of unintentionally offending, discriminating or prejudicing someone, which most of us could probably improve on, to be on the active hunt for someone to say the wrong thing, look at someone funny, and then get pilloried for it.

    One is about supporting us to be more thoughtful and respectful, to be reflective, the other encourages an atmosphere of distrust and hostility, and enforcing control on others.
    Mmm.
    It's difficult. We've an issue at the moment with someone who makes remarks on an almost constant basis. It's difficult to pin down cos they are are very slight slights. (Mostly around he'd have done it better, assigning blame, interfering in tasks without being asked, and trying to take over, evading responsibility, undertone of misogyny).
    Each one is nothing that you can take to higher up with a straight face. But the cumulative drip drip all day, every day is wearing.
    Nobody wants to work with him, and he's making a happy workplace become one where people are wanting to quit.
    I'd class them as micro annoyances.
    But they are serious.
    I'd probably class them as reasons they are a bad team member (even if, potentially, their individual work was good).

    Not easy to deal with, to be sure.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    kle4 said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    Surely the journalistic definition of middle class is 'fellow journalists'?

    The ones who are not posturing as working class I suppose.
    Journalism is traditionally a working-class occupation, so the middle-class is perceived to be people better-off than those doing the writing - even if most senior hacks are on six figures these days, in the top decile of income. The guy with the £7m house is obviously in the top 1%, if not the top 0.1%.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959
    edited June 2023

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    Utter nonsense. Infections would have spiralled out of control, the NHS would have been completely overwhelmed and tens of thousands more would have died.

    The first lockdown was necessary and proportionate for the surging crisis. I don't think it would have worked without legal measures either, not to get the necessary level of compliance to prevent being overwhelmed. I don't think pre-vaccine we could have coped with loosened arrangements.

    Could some other lockdowns have been avoided or ended sooner, or done on a more urged behaviour than legal threat basis? Possibly.

    Whilst we need to look back on what we did, I do think there is a bit of lockdown remorse going on which is stretching too far from 'Some were not needed/should not have been so long or restrictive' to 'they were not necessary at any time'.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,820
    edited June 2023
    Bairstow dropped another! Get Foakes in
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,721

    As one of the older posters I’ve rarely felt discriminated against here. By anyone who’s posts were worth anything, anyway.

    OK Boomer.
    I’m older than that.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,230
    TimS said:

    Westie said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I don't know why you blame journalists. That's what the whole middle class thinks. (I will steer clear of definitional issues for the moment.) "It's always the people in the middle that get squeezed the most", etc. Whingeing c*nts.
    The very fact the “middle class” in popular culture supposedly shop at Waitrose, holiday in Tuscany and call their kids Sebastian and Guinevere demonstrates this phenomenon clearly.
    Class is on a logarithmic scale.

    You have to be an order of magnitude wealthier to make it to the next level.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    Bairstow dropped another! Get Foakes in

    I don't think Stokes likes feeling forced to drop someone. But he needs to make room for Foakes - Bairstow gets in as a batsmen, they can make room elsewhere.

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416

    As one of the older posters I’ve rarely felt discriminated against here. By anyone who’s posts were worth anything, anyway.

    OK Boomer.
    I’m older than that.
    ...which would make you a minimum of 84. I think that makes you the PBer with the oldest known age, beating @Big_G_NorthWales by at least four years. Not unsurprising given remarks you've made in the past, but still impressive. Here's to many more.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    kle4 said:

    Bairstow dropped another! Get Foakes in

    I don't think Stokes likes feeling forced to drop someone. But he needs to make room for Foakes - Bairstow gets in as a batsmen, they can make room elsewhere.

    I said it yesterday, get rid of Bairstow
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,779
    Andy_JS said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
    Yet more evidence that the human species is too stupid to survive.

  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    A

    Chris said:

    ydoethur said:

    stodge said:

    Are the Russians preparing to claim victory and then fuck off out of Ukraine?

    "The Kyiv Independent
    @KyivIndependent
    ⚡ Kremlin spokesman claims Ukraine largely 'demilitarized'.

    Kremlin press secretary Dmitriy Peskov claimed that Russia's goal of "demilitarizing" Ukraine was largely completed, saying that it was using "fewer and fewer of its own weapons" and increasingly relying on weapons provided by the West."


    https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1670168560700735489

    Would be one way to end the war before the Russian army completely disintegrates.

    It would indeed - were the Russians to unilaterally and completely withdraw from all Ukrainian territory, including the Crimea, I doubt there'd be many calling it anything other than a victory for Zelenskyy. However, if Putin wants to sell something different to his people, that's his business I suppose.
    I doubt if he'd be able to. Ultimately, withdrawing would be seen as a failure.

    It might not lead to his overthrow by the people, but I can imagine manoeuvres in the Kremlin would intensify.
    Russia seems to be on the upswing at the moment, using attack helicopters to fire air to ground and anti-tank missiles. This might provide Moscow with a chance to initiate peace talks on more favourable terms before Ukraine is supplied the wherewithal to shoot them down.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/17/russian-attack-helicopters-upper-hand-southern-ukraine/ (£££)
    Apparently they found some wherewithal:
    https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/18/7407334/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=[twitter]&utm_campaign=[rogue_corq]
    Given that the Ukrainians have committed only a fraction of their forces so far, I think it's obvious that this phase is about assessing how the Russians defend against counterattack, working out the extent to which what they do can be countered, and adjusting plans accordingly.
    The Ukrainians, since the beginning of the war have been knocking down the Russian attack helicopters in numbers. It was notable that China cancelled an order, apparently due to vulnerability to shoulder fired missiles.
    Every helicopter ever built is vulnerable to MANPAD.

    The Chinese Navy deal for Ka-52K is still on but the PLAAF have cooled their interest due to progress on their Z-10 project.

    They Egyptians like their Nile Crocodiles; so much that the US had to sell them AH-64 (over the objections of Israel) to stop them buying more. Ka-52 has been an export failure though, especially compared to the (deeply flawed) Hind that proceeded it.
    Is Manpad military speak for 'dude with a missile'?
    Yes, it's also a micraggression against women.

    The military should not be indulging in aggressions like this.
    MANPAD = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-portable_air-defense_system
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653
    Muesli said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism, and homophobia and transphobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    FTFY.

    A big part of the problem is that EDI initiatives are all too often seen as a zero sum game in which extending rights, freedoms and privileges to one group means denying, taking away or impinging upon the rights, freedoms and privileges of others. The same is true for policy in other areas too.

    Freedom of movement for overseas workers with much-needed skills? Attack on the white working class.

    International Women’s Day? When’s International Men’s Day then? (19 November btw.)

    Rainbow flag in your corporate logo to celebrate Pride Month? Woke virtue signalling. Why not celebrate the traditional family?

    Trans women using female or gender-neutral bathrooms? SaVe ReAl WoMeN fRoM cHiCkS wItH dIcKs!!!!!!!1!

    Triple-lock pension guarantee? Robbing the young to feed the blue rinse brigade!

    All egged on by a political class and media commentariat encouraging such division by playing groups off against each other and not sufficiently moderating intolerance and bigotry in public life.
    Hang on, the triple lock isn't in the same category as women's equality.

    More to the point, this glib assessment is missing that valid disagreements DO exist in democracies, and the way we manage them can't be to blame shadowy conspiratorial forces in government or media.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591

    As one of the older posters I’ve rarely felt discriminated against here. By anyone who’s posts were worth anything, anyway.

    OK Boomer.
    I’m older than that.
    I believe you're from what's termed the silent generation, so keep it down would you? :)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,145

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I did laugh at the idea the Telegraph goes to interview these multi-millionaires who we are apparently supposed to feel sympathy for. It does rather explain their current position if this is what they think the country wants to hear.
    Won't no one think of the mega-rich, in desperate need of tax cuts in order to pay £45 000 per year school fees?

  • MuesliMuesli Posts: 202
    Jonathan said:

    Sunak is disappointingly weak on Johnson. He should bury him, but he doesn’t. I wonder why. He’s not that vulnerable in the party.

    A cynic might suggest Sunak wants to avoid drawing attention and scrutiny to his enabling of Johnson’s rise (and fall), misbehaviour and corruption, as well as his own participation in the Bacchanalian shenanigans in Downing Street during lockdown.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,035
    Early breakthrough for England!
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,246
    ..

    Farooq said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I eat pineapple on pizza and if some Italian tries to stop me you won't see a microaggression from me, I will make war on the whole country. Tanks on the Piazza di Siena. Internment camps, war crimes THE WORKS.
    I had pizza with pineapple in Pisa. And very nice it was too.

    Pizza condemnation should be reserved for those where the base is several inches thick and resembles a stottie cake.
    If you have a piece a pizza in Pisa, you have no reason to expect authenticity. Everyone knows pizza is an American invention and the pineapple version is Canadian. Possibly the only Canadian national dish.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    Foxy said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I did laugh at the idea the Telegraph goes to interview these multi-millionaires who we are apparently supposed to feel sympathy for. It does rather explain their current position if this is what they think the country wants to hear.
    Won't no one think of the mega-rich, in desperate need of tax cuts in order to pay £45 000 per year school fees?

    At that point I genuinely could have seen it in the Onion. What an absolute prat lol
  • glwglw Posts: 9,956
    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    Surely the journalistic definition of middle class is 'fellow journalists'?

    The ones who are not posturing as working class I suppose.
    Journalism is traditionally a working-class occupation, so the middle-class is perceived to be people better-off than those doing the writing - even if most senior hacks are on six figures these days, in the top decile of income. The guy with the £7m house is obviously in the top 1%, if not the top 0.1%.
    Only about 1 in 2,000 houses sold in England 2022 was in that range. So he could easily be in the top 0.01%. No such transactions occured in Scotland or Wales in 2022 to give you an idea of how rare such a sale is.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    Foxy said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I did laugh at the idea the Telegraph goes to interview these multi-millionaires who we are apparently supposed to feel sympathy for. It does rather explain their current position if this is what they think the country wants to hear.
    Won't no one think of the mega-rich, in desperate need of tax cuts in order to pay £45 000 per year school fees?

    I recall a US commentator arguing in a debate that 250k per year in New York was close to poverty. Those poor people.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,230
    kle4 said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    Utter nonsense. Infections would have spiralled out of control, the NHS would have been completely overwhelmed and tens of thousands more would have died.

    The first lockdown was necessary and proportionate for the surging crisis. I don't think it would have worked without legal measures either, not to get the necessary level of compliance to prevent being overwhelmed. I don't think pre-vaccine we could have coped with loosened arrangements.

    Could some other lockdowns have been avoided or ended sooner, or done on a more urged behaviour than legal threat basis? Possibly.

    Whilst we need to look back on what we did, I do think there is a bit of lockdown remorse going on which is stretching too far from 'Some were not needed/should not have been so long or restrictive' to 'they were not necessary at any time'.
    The first lockdown worked. Infection levels were way down. And then Sunak had his bright idea of Eat Out to Catch Covid and back into lockdown we went.

    Then you had the nonsense tier system with the pubs in Leeds shut and the pubs in York open. Thereby encouraging more travel and more spread.

    There was lots wrong in the government's response to Covid. However, blanket lockdown was the one policy that they got right.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,167
    edited June 2023
    Foxy said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
    That is total bollocks and the excess mortality figures show it.

    Just because someone has another condition, it doesn't mean they are about to die.

    The secondary condition of consuming Spiked, Unherd and GB News uncritically certainly has a drastic effect on not being a gullible tit.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,591
    I have to confess that I thought even the most stringent of Covid deniers would have put UK deaths at least at 10% of the official total, not less than 1%.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,959
    edited June 2023
    First thing I read in the Sunday Times: "Labour are forecast to win a majority of Scottish seats by returning 26 MPs". I don't think 26 seats would be a majority, even after boundary changes. Maybe by majority they mean more seats than anyone else.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,477
    FF43 said:

    ..

    Farooq said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I eat pineapple on pizza and if some Italian tries to stop me you won't see a microaggression from me, I will make war on the whole country. Tanks on the Piazza di Siena. Internment camps, war crimes THE WORKS.
    I had pizza with pineapple in Pisa. And very nice it was too.

    Pizza condemnation should be reserved for those where the base is several inches thick and resembles a stottie cake.
    If you have a piece a pizza in Pisa, you have no reason to expect authenticity. Everyone knows pizza is an American invention and the pineapple version is Canadian. Possibly the only Canadian national dish.
    Poutine. Bannock.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,491
    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    Surely the journalistic definition of middle class is 'fellow journalists'?

    The ones who are not posturing as working class I suppose.
    Journalism is traditionally a working-class occupation, so the middle-class is perceived to be people better-off than those doing the writing - even if most senior hacks are on six figures these days, in the top decile of income. The guy with the £7m house is obviously in the top 1%, if not the top 0.1%.
    https://fullfact.org/education/how-many-journalists-went-public-school/ <- journalists have some of the highest rates of being privately educated.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395
    Farooq said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
    Poor woman, she had an "accident" with a three bar fire but that's ok
    'cause she was old and she would've died anyway
    Have we had any PBers suggesting recycling the over-70s Soylent Green and Judge Dredd Resyk style?
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,491
    Andy_JS said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
    People with conditions are still PEOPLE. They wouldn’t have died were it not for COVID.

  • MuesliMuesli Posts: 202
    EPG said:

    Muesli said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism, and homophobia and transphobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    FTFY.

    A big part of the problem is that EDI initiatives are all too often seen as a zero sum game in which extending rights, freedoms and privileges to one group means denying, taking away or impinging upon the rights, freedoms and privileges of others. The same is true for policy in other areas too.

    Freedom of movement for overseas workers with much-needed skills? Attack on the white working class.

    International Women’s Day? When’s International Men’s Day then? (19 November btw.)

    Rainbow flag in your corporate logo to celebrate Pride Month? Woke virtue signalling. Why not celebrate the traditional family?

    Trans women using female or gender-neutral bathrooms? SaVe ReAl WoMeN fRoM cHiCkS wItH dIcKs!!!!!!!1!

    Triple-lock pension guarantee? Robbing the young to feed the blue rinse brigade!

    All egged on by a political class and media commentariat encouraging such division by playing groups off against each other and not sufficiently moderating intolerance and bigotry in public life.
    Hang on, the triple lock isn't in the same category as women's equality.

    More to the point, this glib assessment is missing that valid disagreements DO exist in democracies, and the way we manage them can't be to blame shadowy conspiratorial forces in government or media.
    I’m not blaming shadowy conspiratorial forces. The intolerance, the bigotry, the deliberate encouragement of us versus them mentalities, the rabble rousing etc is in full (and noisy) public view. That’s the problem.

    And I mentioned the triple lock as an example of how one group can often be portrayed as receiving entitled treatment to the detriment of other groups. The same arguments are made wrt women’s equality. So, in this case, they are very much in the same category.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,167
    dixiedean said:

    FF43 said:

    ..

    Farooq said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I eat pineapple on pizza and if some Italian tries to stop me you won't see a microaggression from me, I will make war on the whole country. Tanks on the Piazza di Siena. Internment camps, war crimes THE WORKS.
    I had pizza with pineapple in Pisa. And very nice it was too.

    Pizza condemnation should be reserved for those where the base is several inches thick and resembles a stottie cake.
    If you have a piece a pizza in Pisa, you have no reason to expect authenticity. Everyone knows pizza is an American invention and the pineapple version is Canadian. Possibly the only Canadian national dish.
    Poutine. Bannock.
    I think bannock is Scottish in origin, my Angus granny and great aunties certainly baked them and named them as such.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,653

    Andy_JS said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
    People with conditions are still PEOPLE. They wouldn’t have died were it not for COVID.

    They would have died, but the question is when (and if you're making policy, with what intermediate quality of life). Excess deaths stats prove that the answer was not "at or near the same time" for almost everyone.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 11,491
    FF43 said:

    ..

    Farooq said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I eat pineapple on pizza and if some Italian tries to stop me you won't see a microaggression from me, I will make war on the whole country. Tanks on the Piazza di Siena. Internment camps, war crimes THE WORKS.
    I had pizza with pineapple in Pisa. And very nice it was too.

    Pizza condemnation should be reserved for those where the base is several inches thick and resembles a stottie cake.
    If you have a piece a pizza in Pisa, you have no reason to expect authenticity. Everyone knows pizza is an American invention and the pineapple version is Canadian. Possibly the only Canadian national dish.
    Poutine
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    Andy_JS said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
    People with conditions are still PEOPLE. They wouldn’t have died were it not for COVID.

    Obvs the wrong sort of people.

    Mind, I remember the discussions back in 2020. There was a particularly ripe specimen of statisticcal shite floating about in the pool of the discussion: that if average life expectancy (for everyone) is x years then someone who is y years old can only expect to live another (x-y) years. I suspect that this has continued to colour thinking on covid.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    The opposition parties should push a vote on Monday. Allowing this to go through on just a nod gives the Tories a pass .
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263
    .
    glw said:

    Westie said:

    I don't know why you blame journalists. That's what the whole middle class thinks. (I will steer clear of definitional issues for the moment.) "It's always the people in the middle that get squeezed the most", etc. Whingeing c*nts.

    There is a lot of truth in that. Probably because most people think they are normal and average, rather than exceptional, and because the people they mix with and live amongst look like them, so "this" must be the norm.

    I still blame journalists because even the thickest of them ought to be able to quickly look up some data about income and household wealth and wonder "is this really middle class?"
    Setting any sympathy aside, in terms of the economic effect (and this effectiveness) of the interest rate rises, that on middle class home owners is pretty significant. Which is the point of them, rather than an argument against them.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    dixiedean said:

    FF43 said:

    ..

    Farooq said:

    TimS said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    darkage said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    I went for a pint in Brexit Central and everybody’s rather bitter

    A wish for sovereignty drove voters in Clacton-on-Sea to Leave. But optimism has given way to anger

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-went-for-a-pint-in-brexit-central-and-everybodys-rather-bitter-mmbnccpcs

    Brexit is a racist endeavour.

    In the Moon and Starfish, a Wetherspoon’s pub on the Clacton seafront, the day drinking crowd were well into their third pints by Thursday lunchtime. When I brought up Brexit, it was viewed with a sense of wasted opportunity, like a football team who had thrown away a two-goal lead.

    “I expected problems from day one. It’s the British way,” said Trevor, 77, a retired commodities trader. “I hoped it would be good, but it hasn’t panned out; the politicians have let us down as usual. Boris is an arsehole. He’s always been an arsehole.”

    “Independence” and “standing on our own two feet” were the most common rationales I heard for Brexit, but, like many in Clacton, Trevor had also hoped that leaving the EU would allow the government to drastically reduce immigration. Clearly, this hasn’t happened. “We need to stop the boats — this country is full,” he said. Then he looked at me. “I’m not being rude to you, but it’s to stop the n*****s coming in.” Right then.
    I hear similar all the time from people of that generation. I’m not racist but….. type stuff. From the Boomer generation who grew up in a white country.

    The question is how different are the Gen Xers and Millennials who have grown up in an increasingly multicultural society? Much more tolerant in the main? If Brexit was primarily about enabling a dying generation to express its racism, then it’s unsustainable.
    One of the things that struck me about the Yorkshire Cricket Club racism scandal is that those involved were considerably younger than me. Ditto police officers who get caught up in such scandals.

    I’m Gen X.
    Anyone thinking that the young are somehow free of prejudice needs to get out into the real world. Look at the misogyny, racism and homophobia we have seen described in many institutions and the people exhibiting these - many of them young. These prejudices just take different forms and get packaged differently. Sexism towards women is quite shocking and often comes from young men against women of all ages, for instance. There are also some pretty unpleasant descriptions of old people by the young - sometimes on this forum.
    Your general point is true, and you can get some strong sexism from a 20 year old bro who knows all the right terms and forms to present as being free from prejudice.

    But I am interested in what you consider over the line in terms of prejudice against the old. Is someone railing against the government reliant on and thus wholly focused on the needs of retirees over the line? Is someone blaming that cohorts priorities on housing or immigration over the line, wrong, or just exaggerating? Is all that fine so long as bad words are not used?
    The idea that prejudice can be removed from the human experience is one that I find absolutely deranged and comical, but this is consistent with a long history of progressive ideas. In the end all these projects end in tragedy and failure.

    I've mentioned the initiative below a few times, 'prejudice reporting in education', an example of the phenomenon I am raising.


    https://www.prfe.education/

    Indeed. I think the sane view is that *something approaching* an unbiased view of people can only be achieved through continuous self examination.

    Anyone who says “I can’t be biased, I am X/a member of Y” can be presumed to be biased.
    We all have prejudices, and it it examination and acknowledgement of these that allows us to overcome them.

    It needs to be in a supportive culture though, not Maoist Cultural Revolution style self criticism.
    Sadly, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
    Some people react with horrified fury at the idea of unconscious bias and if they can be persuaded to take those little tests that purport to identify them, reject them wholeheartedly.

    The issue, I think, is the stigma admitting bias. But if we can get past that and be comfortable with seeing our own biases, it's not the end of the world and it can save us from making embarrassing mistakes.

    One of my biases is around around gender. I suspect it's very common. If I hear certain genderless job names, like "doctor" or "nurse", I have a tendency to picture one gender or the other. Now that I know I do this, I can consciously remember not to carry that assumption forward into saying something stupid. (Of course, I still say many other stupid things).

    I don't blame myself for having those early-learned gendered ideas, and I don't think anyone else should either. But a lot of people are terrified of being seen as having biases and so will avoid doing something about them.
    I think unconscious bias is definitely a thing, as you say it might be around instinctively picturing something, and you probably would not act any differently were that instinct incorrect.

    I do think that the impact of it can be vastly overstated, and there have been some comical examples of advice and training on the subject which seems to me to be likely to have the opposite effect - like the one about not making enough eye contact with some people, which seemed likely to result in people making too much eye contact at people of a specific race, etc, in an effort to overcome it.

    I do think microaggressions are utter bullshit though- far too open to abuse to condemn people for something both slight and unintentional (if even real), and to make people hyper aware and sensitive to see slights where there are none.
    This is where nuance is important. Micro aggressions cross a wide spectrum. There’s a big difference between “so you’re Italian, bet you get cross when people put pineapple on pizza” and “calm down dear” or “let me feel your fuzzy hair”.

    I had a someone at work complain to me that a senior colleague had described him (a Mexican) as South American. On the basis this level of geographical ignorance was borderline racist. I couldn’t get excited by that when most Americans think we live in a country called England and half the world thinks it’s always foggy in London.
    I eat pineapple on pizza and if some Italian tries to stop me you won't see a microaggression from me, I will make war on the whole country. Tanks on the Piazza di Siena. Internment camps, war crimes THE WORKS.
    I had pizza with pineapple in Pisa. And very nice it was too.

    Pizza condemnation should be reserved for those where the base is several inches thick and resembles a stottie cake.
    If you have a piece a pizza in Pisa, you have no reason to expect authenticity. Everyone knows pizza is an American invention and the pineapple version is Canadian. Possibly the only Canadian national dish.
    Poutine. Bannock.
    I think bannock is Scottish in origin, my Angus granny and great aunties certainly baked them and named them as such.
    https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/bannock

    https://www.foodful.co.uk/shop/baked-goods/bannock/selkirk-bannock-450g/
    https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/orkney-blog/orkney-bere-bannock-recipe/ (routinely available in Orkney and Shetland bakers, perhaps Caithness too for all I know)

    (but would not be surprised to find it in Northumberland etc)
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,803

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    Now that's a damascene conversion to match any on PB - you spent two years demanding more, longer and harder lockdowns.

    Actually the first lockdown was necessary.

    But the subsequent two could have been avoided if the government had restricted foreign holidays for a year.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,914
    kle4 said:

    I somehow missed this one - what a card, eh?

    @Guto_Harri reveals on his @LBC podcast @BorisJohnson's private verdict last year on allegations of sexual harassment by MPs:
    "As he put it in the heat of the moment: ‘If we took away the whip from everyone here, who's pinched someone's bottom, we'll lose our majority.’"

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1669239719249559552

    It's ok though, because it was heat of the moment.

    Huh? I suspect few on here have ever assaulted anyone in that way. If I tried that, I would expect to be both subsequently eating through a straw and summoned for an appointment with a magistrate.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,976
    edited June 2023
    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    I was saying this right from the beginning, and throughout the entire period of the lockdowns. 1,000 people died directly from Covid-19 in the UK, the rest were people who already had conditions. Closing schools was going to do more damage than the virus itself.
    You think only 1000 people died as a result of Covid, seriously? You think 100k+ other people were imminently about to die without Covid?

    If I had a mild case of cancer which was non-threatening, and then got Covid and died, you'd say Covid had nothing to do with it?
    It's utter nonsense. Andy_JS is one step away from "crisis actors" levels of disinformation. Arrant bollocks and completely reprehensible.
    It's called going full Plato.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,037
    Farooq said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    Quite obvious? Are you sure about that?
    Something in the news recently about how it saved "only" 1700 people. You might have been one of those people, or someone you know.

    And before anyone comes at me with figures about the cost to the economy, please make sure we're talking about the same thing. The 1700 people was those saved over and above those saved by the voluntary behavioural changes. If you want to do a cost-benefit analysis, split the economic costs into similar categories of voluntary/mandatory so we don't mislead anyone, thanks.

    I don't know whether lockdown was worth it or not, but I'm not going to be guided by the wankers in Tufton Street into casually dismissing the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people without a proper balanced analysis.
    Oh, yeah, that "study" by the trio of fervent anti-lockdowner economists.

    To believe it, you only need to believe that ANY intervention is lockdown. Including a mask mandate on its own. Or requiring people to quarantine if found to have the virus. Meaning, for example, that Sweden had a longer "lockdown" than we did. Which means those citing this report can't possibly try to cite "Sweden," of course.

    You need to believe that mask mandates, despite being "lockdowns" and therefore unhelpful, did actually reduce deaths considerably (when you look at their tables). So, those arguing this are arguing in favour of mask mandates (curiously, they don't seem to do so).

    You need to believe that the correlation between restrictions being brought in and deaths is only one way. That is - there can't POSSIBLY be a correlation between deaths spiralling upwards and countries desperately increasing restrictions, can there?

    You need to believe that Australia and New Zealand avoided massive deaths during the worst of the pandemic by sheer luck, because all of their efforts were now PROVEN to be completely ineffective.

    And, of course, to do all of what they did, they had to discount studies by epidemiologists (because what do THEY know about epidemiology?) or any studies comparing trajectories of before and after (because you can't look at trajectories before restrictions because that's just hypothetical).

    Naturally, the Telegraph, GB News, and the usual suspects trumpeted this as a triumph...
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,772
    nico679 said:

    The opposition parties should push a vote on Monday. Allowing this to go through on just a nod gives the Tories a pass .

    Corbyn should force it for shits and giggles.

    So he can say no matter what they’ve done democratically elected party leaders should not be expelled from party or house by their successors…
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,803
    Re inflation.

    Wouldn't changing pension increases back to inflation only be a way of taking future demand out of the system ?

    As well as making the country a little fairer.
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    Now that's a damascene conversion to match any on PB - you spent two years demanding more, longer and harder lockdowns.

    Actually the first lockdown was necessary.

    But the subsequent two could have been avoided if the government had restricted foreign holidays for a year.
    Am I not allowed to change my mind?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 49,145
    kle4 said:

    Foxy said:

    glw said:

    I know the Telegraph is a joke but this reads like a parody.

    The mortgage bomb about to explode under middle-class Britain

    The mercury is rising and so are interest rates: the scene appears to be set for a midsummer nightmare in the mortgage market. With nearly half a million home loan borrowers rolling their fixed-term loans every three months over the course of this year, the ratchet is tightening. As someone wryly pointed out on Twitter recently, “When does your fixed rate end?” has become the new “Have you watched any good box sets recently?” go-to dinner party conversation starter.

    Don’t ask Adam Fraser*, 42, and his wife, who bought their £7 million house in Berkshire in July last year having secured a mortgage in the January. “It was at the tail end of when there were still good deals to be had,” says Fraser. “We passed our affordability test with flying colours and so I had no problem buying at the top of the market.”


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/mortgages/mortgage-bomb-middle-class-britain/

    If that's the Telegraph's idea of middle class then I must be working class.
    Journalists routintely talk about a middle-class that by any normal definition is usually the upper quintile. This has been the case for as long as I can recall. The very people who journalists think need help are the group that basically needs no help at all and ought to be paying more tax.
    I did laugh at the idea the Telegraph goes to interview these multi-millionaires who we are apparently supposed to feel sympathy for. It does rather explain their current position if this is what they think the country wants to hear.
    Won't no one think of the mega-rich, in desperate need of tax cuts in order to pay £45 000 per year school fees?

    I recall a US commentator arguing in a debate that 250k per year in New York was close to poverty. Those poor people.
    There was this hilarious bit on BBC QT with Richard Burgon and an audience member too:

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/question-time-video-man-top-earners-tax-percent-80000-explained-a9213351.html
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,395

    kle4 said:

    I somehow missed this one - what a card, eh?

    @Guto_Harri reveals on his @LBC podcast @BorisJohnson's private verdict last year on allegations of sexual harassment by MPs:
    "As he put it in the heat of the moment: ‘If we took away the whip from everyone here, who's pinched someone's bottom, we'll lose our majority.’"

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1669239719249559552

    It's ok though, because it was heat of the moment.

    Huh? I suspect few on here have ever assaulted anyone in that way. If I tried that, I would expect to be both subsequently eating through a straw and summoned for an appointment with a magistrate.
    Unfortunate wording there, too (not you - Mr J).
  • CorrectHorseBatCorrectHorseBat Posts: 1,761
    Who is Plato?
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 22,416
    Andy_JS said:

    First thing I read in the Sunday Times: "Labour are forecast to win a majority of Scottish seats by returning 26 MPs". I don't think 26 seats would be a majority, even after boundary changes. Maybe by majority they mean more seats than anyone else.

    Yes, it appears you are right. New boundary seats in Scotland = 57. McHeinz varieties, if you will.

    https://www.bcomm-scotland.independent.gov.uk/?q=reviews/2023-review-uk-parliament-constituencies
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,803

    kle4 said:

    Westie said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65941549

    Michael Gove says sorry over Tory lockdown party video

    What an absolute bunch of twats.

    Has anyone ever denied that Michael Gove is a complete twat?

    More to the point, did anyone at elite level in ANY part of British society BELIEVE all the government crap, served up for the proles and middle groups by white-coated scientists, advising people who WEREN'T chronically ill or in small high-risk groups that they should stay 2 metres away from everyone, and only leave the house to go shopping, and walk around wearing masks, in order to reduce the ever so high risk of spreading the killer lergy?
    Seems quite obvious now that lockdown was a complete and utter waste of time, we should have protected the vulnerable and elderly with proper care and attention as they rightfully deserve and then let the rest of society get on with our lives. I am so angry that I put my life on hold for two years when the Government didn't care.
    Utter nonsense. Infections would have spiralled out of control, the NHS would have been completely overwhelmed and tens of thousands more would have died.

    The first lockdown was necessary and proportionate for the surging crisis. I don't think it would have worked without legal measures either, not to get the necessary level of compliance to prevent being overwhelmed. I don't think pre-vaccine we could have coped with loosened arrangements.

    Could some other lockdowns have been avoided or ended sooner, or done on a more urged behaviour than legal threat basis? Possibly.

    Whilst we need to look back on what we did, I do think there is a bit of lockdown remorse going on which is stretching too far from 'Some were not needed/should not have been so long or restrictive' to 'they were not necessary at any time'.
    The first lockdown worked. Infection levels were way down. And then Sunak had his bright idea of Eat Out to Catch Covid and back into lockdown we went.

    Then you had the nonsense tier system with the pubs in Leeds shut and the pubs in York open. Thereby encouraging more travel and more spread.

    There was lots wrong in the government's response to Covid. However, blanket lockdown was the one policy that they got right.
    People going to restaurants wouldn't have spread covid if nobody had it.

    It was allowing covid to be imported again in summer 2020 which was the mistake.

    While the media were obsessing about the dangers of covid free Bournemouth beach it was being brought back on ever flight from Spain.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,263

    kle4 said:

    I somehow missed this one - what a card, eh?

    @Guto_Harri reveals on his @LBC podcast @BorisJohnson's private verdict last year on allegations of sexual harassment by MPs:
    "As he put it in the heat of the moment: ‘If we took away the whip from everyone here, who's pinched someone's bottom, we'll lose our majority.’"

    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1669239719249559552

    It's ok though, because it was heat of the moment.

    Huh? I suspect few on here have ever assaulted anyone in that way. If I tried that, I would expect to be both subsequently eating through a straw and summoned for an appointment with a magistrate.
    I noticed in Glenda Jackson's obituaries that she said she'd never been in a relationship where she had not been beaten by her partner.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,778

    Who is Plato?

    Weird woman on here who went full MAGA shitbird then died.
This discussion has been closed.