I honestly don't know. I do know that my parents and others they knew and around whom I grew up embodied a decency and politeness which seems quaintly old-fashioned now. I do know that in the area of London where I have lived most of my life, when I was young, you did not have guards outside synagogues; when I went to Barmitzvahs for Jewish friends you did not have your bag searched. And yet, when my children reached the same age and I took them to such events, as my parents did, guards were needed and bags were searched because - well, because, it was no longer inconceivable that people who were often the children or grandchildren of those who had fled here from persecution might face the sorts of attacks which their parents/grand-parents had fled from.
We have all these events commemorating historical events, all these lessons and films and lachrymose "Never Agains" and yet at an every day level all kinds of people feel it's OK to talk about fellow human beings, whether Jewish or Muslim or foreign or different in some way, in awful terms and instead of feeling ashamed when this is pointed out, they are proud of it and try and justify it. It often seems to me that the more we elevate anti-racism in the abstract, the less we practice decent polite behaviour to real people in our everyday lives.
Maybe people have always been like this and maybe we have to keep relearning these lessons in every generation. I should not be surprised. It is what happens in finance after all. But it is still saddening.
I think that unpleasant things have always been swept under the carpet and ignored. Brexit has allowed some of the darker corners to empty out into the daylight. People used to bang on about Victorian values and suchlike but it is well known that many things - crimes even - were ignored. The Unions in the early 20th Century did not spring out of nothing. If anything the terrible conditions that many lived in probably produced a sense of solidarity that led to the sort of decency and support that you mentioned. With society being more fragmented these days that support network has gone.
I do find that those who have had some truly terrible event in their life do seem to be more tolerant and understanding, but I do not recommend it as a way to social cohesion.
Lib Dems have either run out of money or principles, or they think that being united on Brexit allows them to back Greens. Has no one spelt out to Jo Swinson that the Greens are more illiberal than Corbyn?
43:10 Liberal Democrat:Green is more generous to the Greens then I expected, even if some of them are forlorn hopes.
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
Slightly stale cheese and onion Pringles are disgusting Shit sandwiches are disgusting Therefore slightly stale cheese and onion Pringles and shit sandwiches are equally disgusting.
In the real world, people know which they would prefer to eat.
If you are going to use a syllogism, surely your argument should be:
Slightly stale cheese and onion Pringles are disgusting Sh*t sandwiches are disgusting Therefore slightly stale cheese and onion Pringles are sh*t
Which could be correct
Which would be the fallacy of the undistributed middle.
But my point was that the argument was fallacious anyway.
"At every opportunity, he backs our country's enemies."
That's potent. Focusses the minds of a lot of wavering Tories.
That is how most Tories know Corbyn, but coming from Ian Austin that is a home truth addressed to Labour supporters.
.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
I honestly don't know. I do know that my parents and others they knew and around whom I grew up embodied a decency and politeness which seems quaintly old-fashioned now. I do know that in the area of London where I have lived most of my life, when I was young, you did not have guards outside synagogues; when I went to Barmitzvahs for Jewish friends you did not have your bag searched. And yet, when my children reached the same age and I took them to such events, as my parents did, guards were needed and bags were searched because - well, because, it was no longer inconceivable that people who were often the children or grandchildren of those who had fled here from persecution might face the sorts of attacks which their parents/grand-parents had fled from.
We have all these events commemorating historical events, all these lessons and films and lachrymose "Never Agains" and yet at an every day level all kinds of people feel it's OK to talk about fellow human beings, whether Jewish or Muslim or foreign or different in some way, in awful terms and instead of feeling ashamed when this is pointed out, they are proud of it and try and justify it. It often seems to me that the more we elevate anti-racism in the abstract, the less we practice decent polite behaviour to real people in our everyday lives.
Maybe people have always been like this and maybe we have to keep relearning these lessons in every generation. I should not be surprised. It is what happens in finance after all. But it is still saddening.
Growing up with a lot of Jews, at school in Hampstead, my impression was that anti-Semitism was viewed as an idiotic throwback. The idea of having guards outside synagogues would have been considered absurd.
There are more fundamentalists nowadays and they are more prepared to use deadly violence.
On the flip side the vast majority of people are far more relaxed and better informed about race than they were a generation or two ago. The idea of landlords openly posting no blacks, no dogs, no irish is long gone, ordinary people have got together to force most racism out of football stadia across the country, there is far greater tolerance of mixed relationships and marriages.
The question for me in this GE is not remai n or leave pacts nor anything else
This election depends on whether Boris can do a Macron and capture the country thereby securing a reasonable majority, no matter how much the opposition try to reign him in
This is not only the question that has to be answered on the 12th December but will decide Brexit itself.
Brexit can only happen with Boris capturing the mood of the natiom
43:10 Liberal Democrat:Green is more generous to the Greens then I expected, even if some of them are forlorn hopes.
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
I can't wait to hear her reaction.
I'm interested in Hitchen and Harpenden. I'm in neighbouring St Albans, which looks to go Con -> LD, I wonder if they think they can shift some activists from St Albans up to H&H and win there. It looked like a promising seat when the 4 parties were at somewhat evens in the polls; now Tories are steaming ahead and BXP are falling, I'm not too sure.
Does anyone expect this Remain Alliance stuff to matter? I ran it through my model and it gave the Lib Dems and PC one more seat each and subtracted one from the Tories and one from Labour.
It will be hard to judge the effectiveness (as voters may not follow the nudge/push from the parties to support an alliance candidate) but could be important in signalling to progressive voters that post-coalition LDs aren't too toxic to trust with a vote. So, I suspect it matters for tactical voting beyond the actual constituencies included.
Thanks. Do you know if those %s are particularly different to previous elections? Under 35s far more likely to have moved and also need to register once initially so I cant tell if 50% vs 5% is unusual or not?
Maybe I am showing my age. But when did we stop morning campaign press sessions and replace it with these short speeches followed by questions from the media in rooms stuffed full of supporters who cheer every answer to the rafters?
I have similar family experiences. Their policy on mental health is possibly the best reason for voting for the Lib Dems.
The Lib Dem policy on special educational needs has similar significance to me (we don't have an SEN kid, but my wife is headteacher of a school with several, and my mother was an SEN teacher). The Lib Dems are the only party to admit that inclusion is not always the answer, and to commit to funding special schools properly.
Inclusion is one of those policies that had such good intentions at the outset i.e. lots of children with disabilities were 'othered' and sent to special schools which didn't offer a full curriculum. Those children were absolutely able to succeed in mainstream.
However, it quickly became an excuse to defund special schools, which are very necessary and appropriate provision for some children.
I would definitely vote LD on the basis of this if I were still in England.
Funnily enough Mrs Nemtynakht has said the same thing. We would normally both vote Libdem in a south-west former marginal that has gone from 8k lib majority to a 13k Tory majority. We both voted remain, yet we don’t like the revoke policy for the Lib Dem’s. Neither of us like Corbyn, and Mrs N cannot stand Boris. She can’t think of who to vote for and might vote Green. If we had a good local Tory or Labour candidate and they had better leaders I would vote for either Tory or Labour but will probably stick with libdems despite their flagship policy.
The Lib Dem policy is to revoke if they win the election and to continue support a People's Vote if they don't - so you are probably pretty safe backing them without fear of revoke happening.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
From talking to friends I think the unsettled feeling derives almost entirely from the total Horlicks the Government has made of sorting out the status of EU citizens here and the fact they have tried to use them as bargaining counters in negotiations. It is not public attitude to them that they fear but utter incompetence by the Government in making sure they are clear to stay after Brexit. And of course this is all fed by the Windrush scandal as well. But again that is politics and Government incompetence rather than public attitude.
As I have said often before May has a huge amount to answer for when it comes to damaging trust in the system amongst minorities in Britain.
I thought it was just Austin having a heart to heart on the radio but it looks like a co-ordinated campaign to torpedo Corbyn. Will it get traction? It bloody should, but I'm biased.
It's why Priti will be doing any debates Boris isn't doing.
Patel is telegenic and fluent (albeit with narrow vocab and rather noddy sentence construction) but the downside with her is that she is EXTREMELY thick for a front rank politician.
If the Cons are planning to use her in TV debates they need to be sure that the format will not be conducive to 'debate' in its traditional sense. If things stray into a genuine discussion of any depth whatsoever, she will struggle and there is a risk of something quite embarrassing taking place.
But so long as it's a matter of just delivering pre-prepared soundbites in a confident unruffled manner - which let's fact it, it probably will be - then, yes, she will be highly effective and is a great choice.
I honestly don't know. I do know that my parents and others they knew and around whom I grew up embodied a decency and politeness which seems quaintly old-fashioned now. I do know that in the area of London where I have lived most of my life, when I was young, you did not have guards outside synagogues; when I went to Barmitzvahs for Jewish friends you did not have your bag searched. And yet, when my children reached the same age and I took them to such events, as my parents did, guards were needed and bags were searched because - well, because, it was no longer inconceivable that people who were often the children or grandchildren of those who had fled here from persecution might face the sorts of attacks which their parents/grand-parents had fled from.
There are also guards outside some churches and even some (non-religious) schools. We need to be careful about suggesting there is any specific threat to any particular community, unless there is other intelligence available. Rather, life is just more dangerous, which in some ways is even more depressing.
I thought it was just Austin having a heart to heart on the radio but it looks like a co-ordinated campaign to torpedo Corbyn. Will it get traction? It bloody should, but I'm biased.
Well Isobel Hardman alone should ensure it gets some coverage!
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
Islam is a religion.
Be interested to see where Cleverly has made that argument.
Having looked at most of them, I would say that the initial claims by MCB last year were quite disingenuous - they were stating "things emerging every week" when many of them were back as far as 2010 and disciplinary action had been taken years before.
The more recent ones have some traction, but are far less serious than the stuff that is around Corbyn - much of which is to do with the commanding heights of the party.
I was not aware that James Cleverley had made that argument.
I thought it was just Austin having a heart to heart on the radio but it looks like a co-ordinated campaign to torpedo Corbyn. Will it get traction? It bloody should, but I'm biased.
I honestly don't know. I do know that my parents and others they knew and around whom I grew up embodied a decency and politeness which seems quaintly old-fashioned now. I do know that in the area of London where I have lived most of my life, when I was young, you did not have guards outside synagogues; when I went to Barmitzvahs for Jewish friends you did not have your bag searched. And yet, when my children reached the same age and I took them to such events, as my parents did, guards were needed and bags were searched because - well, because, it was no longer inconceivable that people who were often the children or grandchildren of those who had fled here from persecution might face the sorts of attacks which their parents/grand-parents had fled from.
There are also guards outside some churches and even some (non-religious) schools. We need to be careful about suggesting there is any specific threat to any particular community, unless there is other intelligence available. Rather, life is just more dangerous, which in some ways is even more depressing.
Life is actually far safer, indeed it has never been safer than the present time.
24 hour news and global live tv feeds makes us feel it is more dangerous.
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
Replacing geography with environmental studies seems extremely retrograde to me. One of the issues we have is that environmental studies are seen too much in isolation from all other aspects of both human and physical geography and to be successful in understanding environmental impacts our students need that grounding in basic geographic principles.
Saying the study of geography should be replaced with the study of environment is like saying the study of chemistry should be replaced by the study of only hydrocarbons.
If we were starting building a curriculum for modern day life from a blank sheet of paper there is no way geography would be in the top ten.
What? Geography is crucial to understanding a huge amount about why the world is as it is.
As a matter of interest what would your top ten look like?
43:10 Liberal Democrat:Green is more generous to the Greens then I expected, even if some of them are forlorn hopes.
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
I can't wait to hear her reaction.
I'm interested in Hitchen and Harpenden. I'm in neighbouring St Albans, which looks to go Con -> LD, I wonder if they think they can shift some activists from St Albans up to H&H and win there. It looked like a promising seat when the 4 parties were at somewhat evens in the polls; now Tories are steaming ahead and BXP are falling, I'm not too sure.
Ah, yes, there are quite a lot of interesting seats missing form the list. As well as St Albans there is no Cities of Westminster/London, Wokingham, St Ives, Eddisbury, Vauxhall, Leeds North West or Lewes.
I thought it was just Austin having a heart to heart on the radio but it looks like a co-ordinated campaign to torpedo Corbyn. Will it get traction? It bloody should, but I'm biased.
I suppose it was inevitable that Lab Civil War would re-ignite. Those exiting have nothing to lose.
I clearly need to stock up on election snacks if both parties continue ballsing things up like this.
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
I’d forgotten that Corbyn had waded into the Kashmir conflict. Someone should have had a word a long time ago about self inflicted wounds
Yes - though I wonder what influence the BJP have in the UK? Is this likely to have an impact on British Indians? Genuinely don't know. Are there any marginals where a British - Indian Con-Lab swing might be significant? And does the preaence ofthe BJP in the campaign have an influence in shoring up the Islamic vote for Labour?
We have several British Hindu clients and members of staff and this has been a burning issue for a while. The outright anger at Corbyn (and indeed Watson) shown is sometimes over this issue very surprising.
I shared the Sky link with one of them and its apparent it might get a lot of support.
Anecdote obviously and our clients/staffers are middle-class affluent Hindu's with mostly dual British/Indian nationality.
It is interesting that this cuts two ways. I play cricket with a lot of lads from Sri Lanka whose attitude to the Indian establishment is 'I am for anything they oppose'. This could drive other minorities in the other direction.
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
Islam is a religion.
Be interested to see where Cleverly has made that argument.
Having looked at most of them, I would say that the initial claims by MCB last year were quite disingenuous - they were stating "things emerging every week" when many of them were back as far as 2010 and disciplinary action had been taken years before.
The more recent ones have some traction, but are far less serious than the stuff that is around Corbyn - much of which is to do with the commanding heights of the party.
I was not aware that James Cleverley had made that argument.
The EU parliament has to ratify aswell so there’s little chance of Brexit happening before the end of January .
EU Parliament can ratify rapidly if its clear the UK Parliament is ratifying. And a healthy Boris majority would be a big sign to the EU Parliament that they can ratify now and they don't need to go through the Queen's Speech rigmarole.
I honestly don't know. I do know that my parents and others they knew and around whom I grew up embodied a decency and politeness which seems quaintly old-fashioned now. I do know that in the area of London where I have lived most of my life, when I was young, you did not have guards outside synagogues; when I went to Barmitzvahs for Jewish friends you did not have your bag searched. And yet, when my children reached the same age and I took them to such events, as my parents did, guards were needed and bags were searched because - well, because, it was no longer inconceivable that people who were often the children or grandchildren of those who had fled here from persecution might face the sorts of attacks which their parents/grand-parents had fled from.
There are also guards outside some churches and even some (non-religious) schools. We need to be careful about suggesting there is any specific threat to any particular community, unless there is other intelligence available. Rather, life is just more dangerous, which in some ways is even more depressing.
The recent release on crimes motivated by religious hatred revealed a particularly high level of threat to the Jewish community.
43:10 Liberal Democrat:Green is more generous to the Greens then I expected, even if some of them are forlorn hopes.
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
I can't wait to hear her reaction.
I'm interested in Hitchen and Harpenden. I'm in neighbouring St Albans, which looks to go Con -> LD, I wonder if they think they can shift some activists from St Albans up to H&H and win there. It looked like a promising seat when the 4 parties were at somewhat evens in the polls; now Tories are steaming ahead and BXP are falling, I'm not too sure.
I would think demographically Hitchin has moved in a LibDem direction over the last few years. Haven't checked the results of local elections to see. No idea on Harpenden
McDonnell really is a nasty piece of work, and extremely dishonest. From the Guardian Live Blog:
Q: " Why have Ian Austin and the Jewish Chronicle both decided that the election choice should not be Labour?"
McDonnell does not refer to Austin by name. But, referring to a “former Labour MP”, he says Austin is now employed by the Tories, and so he speaks on their behalf.
(That is a reference to Austin being a trade envoy to Israel. Trade envoys are unpaid, but their travel costs are covered by the government.)
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
Replacing geography with environmental studies seems extremely retrograde to me. One of the issues we have is that environmental studies are seen too much in isolation from all other aspects of both human and physical geography and to be successful in understanding environmental impacts our students need that grounding in basic geographic principles.
Saying the study of geography should be replaced with the study of environment is like saying the study of chemistry should be replaced by the study of only hydrocarbons.
If we were starting building a curriculum for modern day life from a blank sheet of paper there is no way geography would be in the top ten.
What? Geography is crucial to understanding a huge amount about why the world is as it is.
As a matter of interest what would your top ten look like?
Something like:
Maths English Health Internet Environment Science Arts Sport History Citizenship
43:10 Liberal Democrat:Green is more generous to the Greens then I expected, even if some of them are forlorn hopes.
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
I can't wait to hear her reaction.
Lots of LD targets not on the list. The 43 are obviously just the result of horse trading. Those not on the list include St Albans, Eastleigh, St Ives, North Devon, Sheffield Hallam, Leeds NW......plus a number of existing LD seats.
I honestly don't know. I do know that my parents and others they knew and around whom I grew up embodied a decency and politeness which seems quaintly old-fashioned now. I do know that in the area of London where I have lived most of my life, when I was young, you did not have guards outside synagogues; when I went to Barmitzvahs for Jewish friends you did not have your bag searched. And yet, when my children reached the same age and I took them to such events, as my parents did, guards were needed and bags were searched because - well, because, it was no longer inconceivable that people who were often the children or grandchildren of those who had fled here from persecution might face the sorts of attacks which their parents/grand-parents had fled from.
There are also guards outside some churches and even some (non-religious) schools. We need to be careful about suggesting there is any specific threat to any particular community, unless there is other intelligence available. Rather, life is just more dangerous, which in some ways is even more depressing.
The recent release on crimes motivated by religious hatred revealed a particularly high level of threat to the Jewish community.
This (churches, synagogues, schools) has been going on for years. Whether the absence of any serious incident means the guards are effective or redundant is perhaps unknowable.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
From talking to friends I think the unsettled feeling derives almost entirely from the total Horlicks the Government has made of sorting out the status of EU citizens here and the fact they have tried to use them as bargaining counters in negotiations. It is not public attitude to them that they fear but utter incompetence by the Government in making sure they are clear to stay after Brexit. And of course this is all fed by the Windrush scandal as well. But again that is politics and Government incompetence rather than public attitude.
As I have said often before May has a huge amount to answer for when it comes to damaging trust in the system amongst minorities in Britain.
For once I am in agreement with you. As I said downthread, to most voters perception is everything and the exact details are unimportant to them.
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
Islam is a religion.
Be interested to see where Cleverly has made that argument.
Having looked at most of them, I would say that the initial claims by MCB last year were quite disingenuous - they were stating "things emerging every week" when many of them were back as far as 2010 and disciplinary action had been taken years before.
The more recent ones have some traction, but are far less serious than the stuff that is around Corbyn - much of which is to do with the commanding heights of the party.
I was not aware that James Cleverley had made that argument.
The EU parliament has to ratify aswell so there’s little chance of Brexit happening before the end of January .
EU Parliament can ratify rapidly if its clear the UK Parliament is ratifying. And a healthy Boris majority would be a big sign to the EU Parliament that they can ratify now and they don't need to go through the Queen's Speech rigmarole.
Their last day of sitting this year is the 19th December. There is no chance at all of getting this ratified this year.
Important to note these are not guaranteed new registrations - they are just registrations. Every single one of theses could be someone who is already registered.
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
I’d forgotten that Corbyn had waded into the Kashmir conflict. Someone should have had a word a long time ago about self inflicted wounds
Yes - though I wonder what influence the BJP have in the UK? Is this likely to have an impact on British Indians? Genuinely don't know. Are there any marginals where a British - Indian Con-Lab swing might be significant? And does the preaence ofthe BJP in the campaign have an influence in shoring up the Islamic vote for Labour?
We have several British Hindu clients and members of staff and this has been a burning issue for a while. The outright anger at Corbyn (and indeed Watson) shown is sometimes over this issue very surprising.
I shared the Sky link with one of them and its apparent it might get a lot of support.
Anecdote obviously and our clients/staffers are middle-class affluent Hindu's with mostly dual British/Indian nationality.
It is interesting that this cuts two ways. I play cricket with a lot of lads from Sri Lanka whose attitude to the Indian establishment is 'I am for anything they oppose'. This could drive other minorities in the other direction.
Is this not also driven eg by the Mumbai Hotel atrocity, and that it has been a foundational issue in India-Pak politics since partition?
It has always read across to the UK. Back when I was at Uni in Bradford in the 1980s there were many terraced houses with random bricks painted in the colours of the Pakistan Flag.
The EU parliament has to ratify aswell so there’s little chance of Brexit happening before the end of January .
EU Parliament can ratify rapidly if its clear the UK Parliament is ratifying. And a healthy Boris majority would be a big sign to the EU Parliament that they can ratify now and they don't need to go through the Queen's Speech rigmarole.
I think the point is that the EP will be in recess by the time the 58th UK parliament assembles and won’t return until the new year. So William’s £1,000 looks quite safe.
The question for me in this GE is not remai n or leave pacts nor anything else
This election depends on whether Boris can do a Macron and capture the country thereby securing a reasonable majority, no matter how much the opposition try to reign him in
This is not only the question that has to be answered on the 12th December but will decide Brexit itself.
Brexit can only happen with Boris capturing the mood of the natiom
Boris isn’t Macron Boris is Trump
Boris isn’t Macron Boris isn’t Trump Boris is Boris
Important to note these are not guaranteed new registrations - they are just registrations. Every single one of theses could be someone who is already registered.
Yes, I imagine many (probably most) are. Younger people especially are quite likely to have moved.
"At every opportunity, he backs our country's enemies."
That's potent. Focusses the minds of a lot of wavering Tories.
That is how most Tories know Corbyn, but coming from Ian Austin that is a home truth addressed to Labour supporters.
And it is not just Jews who feel like that. Far right extremism is on the rise, according to reports. EU citizens who have lived here for years feel uncertain and worried.
Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
I honestly don't know. I do know that my parents and others they knew and around whom I grew up embodied a decency and politeness which seems quaintly old-fashioned now. I do know that in the area of London where I have lived most of my life, when I was young, you did not have guards outside synagogues; when I went to Barmitzvahs for Jewish friends you did not have your bag searched. And yet, when my children reached the same age and I took them to such events, as my parents did, guards were needed and bags were searched because - well, because, it was no longer inconceivable that people who were often the children or grandchildren of those who had fled here from persecution might face the sorts of attacks which their parents/grand-parents had fled from.
We have all these events commemorating historical events, all these lessons and films and lachrymose "Never Agains" and yet at an every day level all kinds of people feel it's OK to talk about fellow human beings, whether Jewish or Muslim or foreign or different in some way, in awful terms and instead of feeling ashamed when this is pointed out, they are proud of it and try and justify it. It often seems to me that the more we elevate anti-racism in the abstract, the less we practice decent polite behaviour to real people in our everyday lives.
Maybe people have always been like this and maybe we have to keep relearning these lessons in every generation. I should not be surprised. It is what happens in finance after all. But it is still saddening.
Growing up with a lot of Jews, at school in Hampstead, my impression was that anti-Semitism was viewed as an idiotic throwback. The idea of having guards outside synagogues would have been considered absurd.
The opposite perspective... growing up in Northern Ireland the idea of having armed Police everywhere seemed normal and the idea of an unarmed Police Force seemed absurd.
James Cleverly is as senior as you get - and he deploys an argument from the BNP - and you say the Conservative Party is not as rotten as Labour? Pull the other one.
The mental gymnastics that people like you go to to try to excuse Labour from the inexcusable are wondrous to behold. Rather than scurrying around trying to find the tiniest chink of an argument which, against all logic or common-sense, you can pretend shows the Conserviatves are as bad as Corbyn's Labour in this respect, you'd do better to ask yourself why it is that the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News, Jewish Telegraph, Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger, Tom Watson, Ian Austin, Wes Streeting, Louise Ellman, Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Jewish Labour Movement, the Labour Friends of Israel, and many, many others, think there is a major problem in the Labour Party, and why the ECHR is investigating it.
It all boils down to this, Richard: there is no evidence of institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour party that apologists for institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour party will ever accept. If you think it is bad now, wait for the reaction to the EHRC report.
And there are some people who still don't believe the Zinoviev letter was genuine.
Funnily enough Mrs Nemtynakht has said the same thing. We would normally both vote Libdem in a south-west former marginal that has gone from 8k lib majority to a 13k Tory majority. We both voted remain, yet we don’t like the revoke policy for the Lib Dem’s. Neither of us like Corbyn, and Mrs N cannot stand Boris. She can’t think of who to vote for and might vote Green. If we had a good local Tory or Labour candidate and they had better leaders I would vote for either Tory or Labour but will probably stick with libdems despite their flagship policy.
The Lib Dem policy is to revoke if they win the election and to continue support a People's Vote if they don't - so you are probably pretty safe backing them without fear of revoke happening.
It’s not the end state as such - it’s the intention. Aside from the democratic angle, I would have thought that he Libdems had learnt their lesson ‘promising’ something during an election, and going back on it later.
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
I’d forgotten that Corbyn had waded into the Kashmir conflict. Someone should have had a word a long time ago about self inflicted wounds
Yes - though I wonder what influence the BJP have in the UK? Is this likely to have an impact on British Indians? Genuinely don't know. Are there any marginals where a British - Indian Con-Lab swing might be significant? And does the preaence ofthe BJP in the campaign have an influence in shoring up the Islamic vote for Labour?
We have several British Hindu clients and members of staff and this has been a burning issue for a while. The outright anger at Corbyn (and indeed Watson) shown is sometimes over this issue very surprising.
I shared the Sky link with one of them and its apparent it might get a lot of support.
Anecdote obviously and our clients/staffers are middle-class affluent Hindu's with mostly dual British/Indian nationality.
It is interesting that this cuts two ways. I play cricket with a lot of lads from Sri Lanka whose attitude to the Indian establishment is 'I am for anything they oppose'. This could drive other minorities in the other direction.
Is this not also driven eg by the Mumbai Hotel atrocity, and that it has been a foundational issue in India-Pak politics since partition?
It has always read across to the UK. Back when I was at Uni in Bradford in the 1980s there were many terraced houses with random bricks painted in the colours of the Pakistan Flag.
Watch Leicester?
Not sure. What surprised me was the strong views of the Sri Lankans, given that (in my experience and judging by attitudes on the cricket field) they tend to be very laid back.
Important to note these are not guaranteed new registrations - they are just registrations. Every single one of theses could be someone who is already registered.
Yes, I imagine many (probably most) are. Younger people especially are quite likely to have moved.
Last time I seem to recall quite a high percentage were people registering unnecessarily as they were already registered - forgetfulness and uncertainty rather than duplicity and dishonesty.
43:10 Liberal Democrat:Green is more generous to the Greens then I expected, even if some of them are forlorn hopes.
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
I can't wait to hear her reaction.
I'm interested in Hitchen and Harpenden. I'm in neighbouring St Albans, which looks to go Con -> LD, I wonder if they think they can shift some activists from St Albans up to H&H and win there. It looked like a promising seat when the 4 parties were at somewhat evens in the polls; now Tories are steaming ahead and BXP are falling, I'm not too sure.
Ah, yes, there are quite a lot of interesting seats missing form the list. As well as St Albans there is no Cities of Westminster/London, Wokingham, St Ives, Eddisbury, Vauxhall, Leeds North West or Lewes.
I guess a lot depends on the local associations, I suspect a lot of arm twisting has gone on, but riding totally roughshod over them would be counter productive.
The result, some obvious targets are missing, some less obvious places are in.
I think the balance of potential reward for all the participant parties is a good one.
I wonder if, to calm the Green Socialist vote, we'll see a few exaggerated step asides for Labour as well, a la Calder Valley (which, having commented on how the Pennine valley wards were trending Labour in local elections over a couple of years, I already fancied as one of the against trend Labour gains).
I wonder if this election, and more going forward, will see increasing atomisation of news, with different groups listening mostly/exclusively to different sources (traditional TV, certain Youtubers, Facebook, Twitter, and so on), making it difficult to ascertain the breadth and impact of messages.
For a few months now I've been watching less and less news.
Growing up with a lot of Jews, at school in Hampstead, my impression was that anti-Semitism was viewed as an idiotic throwback. The idea of having guards outside synagogues would have been considered absurd.
There are more fundamentalists nowadays and they are more prepared to use deadly violence.
On the flip side the vast majority of people are far more relaxed and better informed about race than they were a generation or two ago. The idea of landlords openly posting no blacks, no dogs, no irish is long gone, ordinary people have got together to force most racism out of football stadia across the country, there is far greater tolerance of mixed relationships and marriages.
I think that's right. The guards are because of fears of ISIS-supporting nutters - it only takes one. Casual racism is generally seen as an idiotic throwback and socially embarrassing, as Sean F says. You still hear some racist jokes, but they've been driven to the same fake-apologetic margin as jokes about people with Alzheimers etc., self-consciously crossing a boundary of what's normally tolerable.
The question for me in this GE is not remai n or leave pacts nor anything else
This election depends on whether Boris can do a Macron and capture the country thereby securing a reasonable majority, no matter how much the opposition try to reign him in
This is not only the question that has to be answered on the 12th December but will decide Brexit itself.
Brexit can only happen with Boris capturing the mood of the natiom
Boris isn’t Macron Boris is Trump
I’m no big fan of Boris, as you know, but Boris isn’t as bad as Trump.
Trump inhabits his own special circle of delusion, narcissism and bigotry.
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
I’d forgotten that Corbyn had waded into the Kashmir conflict. Someone should have had a word a long time ago about self inflicted wounds
Yes - though I wonder what influence the BJP have in the UK? Is this likely to have an impact on British Indians? Genuinely don't know. Are there any marginals where a British - Indian Con-Lab swing might be significant? And does the preaence ofthe BJP in the campaign have an influence in shoring up the Islamic vote for Labour?
We have several British Hindu clients and members of staff and this has been a burning issue for a while. The outright anger at Corbyn (and indeed Watson) shown is sometimes over this issue very surprising.
I shared the Sky link with one of them and its apparent it might get a lot of support.
Anecdote obviously and our clients/staffers are middle-class affluent Hindu's with mostly dual British/Indian nationality.
It is interesting that this cuts two ways. I play cricket with a lot of lads from Sri Lanka whose attitude to the Indian establishment is 'I am for anything they oppose'. This could drive other minorities in the other direction.
Is this not also driven eg by the Mumbai Hotel atrocity, and that it has been a foundational issue in India-Pak politics since partition?
It has always read across to the UK. Back when I was at Uni in Bradford in the 1980s there were many terraced houses with random bricks painted in the colours of the Pakistan Flag.
Watch Leicester?
Not sure. What surprised me was the strong views of the Sri Lankans, given that (in my experience and judging by attitudes on the cricket field) they tend to be very laid back.
McDonnell really is a nasty piece of work, and extremely dishonest. From the Guardian Live Blog:
Q: " Why have Ian Austin and the Jewish Chronicle both decided that the election choice should not be Labour?"
McDonnell does not refer to Austin by name. But, referring to a “former Labour MP”, he says Austin is now employed by the Tories, and so he speaks on their behalf.
(That is a reference to Austin being a trade envoy to Israel. Trade envoys are unpaid, but their travel costs are covered by the government.)
Looking at the list of trade envoys, I see one Labour MP, one DUP MP, and an awful lot of Conservative MPs. I've not checked the peers: maybe they are more cross-party. Austin was appointed after he left Labour and one imagines CCHQ thought it a jolly wheeze. https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/trade-envoys
43:10 Liberal Democrat:Green is more generous to the Greens then I expected, even if some of them are forlorn hopes.
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
I can't wait to hear her reaction.
I'm interested in Hitchen and Harpenden. I'm in neighbouring St Albans, which looks to go Con -> LD, I wonder if they think they can shift some activists from St Albans up to H&H and win there. It looked like a promising seat when the 4 parties were at somewhat evens in the polls; now Tories are steaming ahead and BXP are falling, I'm not too sure.
Ah, yes, there are quite a lot of interesting seats missing form the list. As well as St Albans there is no Cities of Westminster/London, Wokingham, St Ives, Eddisbury, Vauxhall, Leeds North West or Lewes.
St. Alban's ought to be won by the Lib Dems, but they seem to keep punching below their demographic weight there, In Parliamentary elections.
Corbyn and the fear among british jews if his possible election got a name check in recent interview with NYT editor about the rise of antisemitism across the US and Western Europe.
McDonnell really is a nasty piece of work, and extremely dishonest. From the Guardian Live Blog:
Q: " Why have Ian Austin and the Jewish Chronicle both decided that the election choice should not be Labour?"
McDonnell does not refer to Austin by name. But, referring to a “former Labour MP”, he says Austin is now employed by the Tories, and so he speaks on their behalf.
(That is a reference to Austin being a trade envoy to Israel. Trade envoys are unpaid, but their travel costs are covered by the government.)
He is filth and he’s always been filth.
It’s remarkable he’s now been promoted by some in the Labour campaign as the voice of sanity in any future Labour administration over Corbyn.
And yet, we still have two or three pb regulars who are prepared to campaign for them.
I wish we had sane voices like Southam and Jonathan in charge of the Labour Party.
People I respect.
Thats the worst thing about the past few years, i cant see the Labour party morphing back to that even if jezza gets stuffed in the GE (which he wont). When in reality a Southam Observer style Labour Party would be winning this GE with ease.
And yet, we still have two or three pb regulars who are prepared to campaign for them.
I wish we had sane voices like Southam and Jonathan in charge of the Labour Party.
People I respect.
How is the inquiry into Conservative Islamophobia proceeding? The one Boris pledged to establish -- or did that get filed along with the Russia report?
Lucy Powell desperately trying to stop the Cult jeering and booing the media. Seems to have pretty much worked today.
She's just another so called moderate Labour hypocrite. What on earth is she doing sharing a platform with a Marxist supporter of terrorism against the UK?
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
Replacing geography with environmental studies seems extremely retrograde to me. One of the issues we have is that environmental studies are seen too much in isolation from all other aspects of both human and physical geography and to be successful in understanding environmental impacts our students need that grounding in basic geographic principles.
Saying the study of geography should be replaced with the study of environment is like saying the study of chemistry should be replaced by the study of only hydrocarbons.
If we were starting building a curriculum for modern day life from a blank sheet of paper there is no way geography would be in the top ten.
What? Geography is crucial to understanding a huge amount about why the world is as it is.
As a matter of interest what would your top ten look like?
Something like:
Maths English Health Internet Environment Science Arts Sport History Citizenship
An interesting selection. Most of those are taught already: the awkwardly named PSHCE doing the health and citizenship duty.
What about foreign languages or DT? Why do you think History is more useful than Geography? Does Internet need to be a subject all on its own or could it be part of Computing?
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
I doubt anyone would want BJP as friends currently. The BJP is a broad church, but includes severe racist, culturally-inflammatory, oppressive, and homphobic policies. Including against migrants and poor Indian nationals who have no ID.
I don't know the specifics but is that even legal?
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
I’d forgotten that Corbyn had waded into the Kashmir conflict. Someone should have had a word a long time ago about self inflicted wounds
Yes - though I wonder what influence the BJP have in the UK? Is this likely to have an impact on British Indians? Genuinely don't know. Are there any marginals where a British - Indian Con-Lab swing might be significant? And does the preaence ofthe BJP in the campaign have an influence in shoring up the Islamic vote for Labour?
We have several British Hindu clients and members of staff and this has been a burning issue for a while. The outright anger at Corbyn (and indeed Watson) shown is sometimes over this issue very surprising.
I shared the Sky link with one of them and its apparent it might get a lot of support.
Anecdote obviously and our clients/staffers are middle-class affluent Hindu's with mostly dual British/Indian nationality.
It is interesting that this cuts two ways. I play cricket with a lot of lads from Sri Lanka whose attitude to the Indian establishment is 'I am for anything they oppose'. This could drive other minorities in the other direction.
Is this not also driven eg by the Mumbai Hotel atrocity, and that it has been a foundational issue in India-Pak politics since partition?
It has always read across to the UK. Back when I was at Uni in Bradford in the 1980s there were many terraced houses with random bricks painted in the colours of the Pakistan Flag.
Watch Leicester?
Not sure. What surprised me was the strong views of the Sri Lankans, given that (in my experience and judging by attitudes on the cricket field) they tend to be very laid back.
I wonder if this election, and more going forward, will see increasing atomisation of news, with different groups listening mostly/exclusively to different sources (traditional TV, certain Youtubers, Facebook, Twitter, and so on), making it difficult to ascertain the breadth and impact of messages.
For a few months now I've been watching less and less news.
Yes, me too. Years since I watched the TV news. Radio news bulletins filter through though.
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
Replacing geography with environmental studies seems extremely retrograde to me. One of the issues we have is that environmental studies are seen too much in isolation from all other aspects of both human and physical geography and to be successful in understanding environmental impacts our students need that grounding in basic geographic principles.
Saying the study of geography should be replaced with the study of environment is like saying the study of chemistry should be replaced by the study of only hydrocarbons.
If we were starting building a curriculum for modern day life from a blank sheet of paper there is no way geography would be in the top ten.
I disagree entirely. All the more so given our current interest in environmental and climate matters both of which are fundamentally issues based on both human and physical geography - unless you believe there is no human impact on our environment. Understanding how the physical world around us works and our place within it are the basic principles of geography studies.
The question for me in this GE is not remai n or leave pacts nor anything else
This election depends on whether Boris can do a Macron and capture the country thereby securing a reasonable majority, no matter how much the opposition try to reign him in
This is not only the question that has to be answered on the 12th December but will decide Brexit itself.
Brexit can only happen with Boris capturing the mood of the natiom
Boris isn’t Macron Boris is Trump
I’m no big fan of Boris, as you know, but Boris isn’t as bad as Trump.
Trump inhabits his own special circle of delusion, narcissism and bigotry.
If there is one thing at the moment that annoys me more than anything it is the casual fall from truthfulness, There are genuine differences between systems of socialism, capitalism and a mixed economy which seem to be the systems supported by the various parties. Why do people need to make things up? The biggest one so far is the selling off the NHS nonsense, which just isn’t going to happen and is complete scaremongering. But we will get others including the Tory video showing Keir Starmer not answering a question.
On reflection, I think those two are possibly pretty close to my political centre of gravity. A pity that they are now politically homeless.
The one to watch now is John Mann
If the three of them team up telling labour supporters to vote for Boris it will be remarkable
Yes, John Mann too. And before them, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Austin Mitchell. And as you ho further back the names get less marginal: Bryan Gould, Roy Hattersley, Jim Callaghan. Where has that strand of the Labour Party gone?
I wonder if this election, and more going forward, will see increasing atomisation of news, with different groups listening mostly/exclusively to different sources (traditional TV, certain Youtubers, Facebook, Twitter, and so on), making it difficult to ascertain the breadth and impact of messages.
For a few months now I've been watching less and less news.
Yes, me too. Years since I watched the TV news. Radio news bulletins filter through though.
We are in danger of following America where for the past couple of decades, different sides have their own facts, not just their own opinions, because broadcasters do not need to be impartial, which Fox took as a challenge.
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
I doubt anyone would want BJP as friends currently. The BJP is a broad church, but includes severe racist, culturally-inflammatory, oppressive, and homphobic policies. Including against migrants and poor Indian nationals who have no ID.
It also made it official in India that astrology is a "science"
That keen political animal, Mrs Stodge, has opined on the GE. Now, despite being married to an LD, I'm pretty sure she's no LD - I think in the past she's voted Labour but we genuinely don't talk politics as a couple apart from the very local stuff where her perception of and my knowledge of how local Government functions often collide.
Yesterday, she suddenly piped up she had no one to vote for at the GE and wasn't going to bother. She told me she couldn't vote for that "lunatic" Corbyn and as a LEAVE voter couldn't back the LDs and was going to vote for Johnson until she read up on the changes to IR35 introduced by Philip Hammond which, as a contractor in financial services, are going to make life much harder for her and cost her money.
I advised her she could still go to the polling station and spoil her ballot paper and I advised her as to the best way of doing it (or rather what not to do).
So that's one fewer vote for the Conservatives not that it makes much difference in East Ham but it reminds me it's not all about Brexit and other policy areas can affect people's voting intentions.
It's also got me thinking about numbers of spoilt ballot papers - in East Ham in 2017 56,633 votes were cast and 179 papers were rejected. That's 0.3% of the total and I don't know if that's a representative share for the UK as a whole. I think there could be a lot more spoilt papers but I suspect there's no market. Any thoughts?
Funnily enough Mrs Nemtynakht has said the same thing. We would normally both vote Libdem in a south-west former marginal that has gone from 8k lib majority to a 13k Tory majority. We both voted remain, yet we don’t like the revoke policy for the Lib Dem’s. Neither of us like Corbyn, and Mrs N cannot stand Boris. She can’t think of who to vote for and might vote Green. If we had a good local Tory or Labour candidate and they had better leaders I would vote for either Tory or Labour but will probably stick with libdems despite their flagship policy.
James Cleverly is as senior as you get - and he deploys an argument from the BNP - and you say the Conservative Party is not as rotten as Labour? Pull the other one.
The mental gymnastics that people like you go to to try to excuse Labour from the inexcusable are wondrous to behold. Rather than scurrying around trying to find the tiniest chink of an argument which, against all logic or common-sense, you can pretend shows the Conserviatves are as bad as Corbyn's Labour in this respect, you'd do better to ask yourself why it is that the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News, Jewish Telegraph, Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger, Tom Watson, Ian Austin, Wes Streeting, Louise Ellman, Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Jewish Labour Movement, the Labour Friends of Israel, and many, many others, think there is a major problem in the Labour Party, and why the ECHR is investigating it.
It all boils down to this, Richard: there is no evidence of institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour party that apologists for institutional anti-Semitism in the Labour party will ever accept. If you think it is bad now, wait for the reaction to the EHRC report.
Yes shockingly it reminds me of the SNP and their core principal of independence? Is there any question you could ask that their answer wouldn’t be independence? (Except Brexit of course)
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
Replacing geography with environmental studies seems extremely retrograde to me. One of the issues we have is that environmental studies are seen too much in isolation from all other aspects of both human and physical geography and to be successful in understanding environmental impacts our students need that grounding in basic geographic principles.
Saying the study of geography should be replaced with the study of environment is like saying the study of chemistry should be replaced by the study of only hydrocarbons.
If we were starting building a curriculum for modern day life from a blank sheet of paper there is no way geography would be in the top ten.
What? Geography is crucial to understanding a huge amount about why the world is as it is.
As a matter of interest what would your top ten look like?
Something like:
Maths English Health Internet Environment Science Arts Sport History Citizenship
An interesting selection. Most of those are taught already: the awkwardly named PSHCE doing the health and citizenship duty.
What about foreign languages or DT? Why do you think History is more useful than Geography? Does Internet need to be a subject all on its own or could it be part of Computing?
There is obviously big overlap between different names and what can be taught, but the names set the focus. It seems to me that the things we have realised need to be taught in modern life just get shoved into the ever expanding PSHCE presumably without an ever expanding increase in hours?
I think health is really key, if we can make the next generation 20% less likely to be obese and improve their healthy life expectancy by 5 years is that not far more valuable than teaching them how a volcano works or who was king in 1264 both of which are trivial to find out if you teach internet well.
A lot of geography would still fit nicely into environment but environment is both more a pressing need and kids would be more focused and motivated by learning environment than geography at the moment.
Maybe History could be squeezed into citizenship to make room for a foreign language or DT.
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
Replacing geography with environmental studies seems extremely retrograde to me. One of the issues we have is that environmental studies are seen too much in isolation from all other aspects of both human and physical geography and to be successful in understanding environmental impacts our students need that grounding in basic geographic principles.
Saying the study of geography should be replaced with the study of environment is like saying the study of chemistry should be replaced by the study of only hydrocarbons.
If we were starting building a curriculum for modern day life from a blank sheet of paper there is no way geography would be in the top ten.
I disagree entirely. All the more so given our current interest in environmental and climate matters both of which are fundamentally issues based on both human and physical geography - unless you believe there is no human impact on our environment. Understanding how the physical world around us works and our place within it are the basic principles of geography studies.
To mention a few, it's hard to imagine epidemiology, telecommunications, transportation infrastructure, meteorology, agriculture, mining and oil extraction, economics or political science without a strong knowledge of physical AND social geography.
That keen political animal, Mrs Stodge, has opined on the GE. Now, despite being married to an LD, I'm pretty sure she's no LD - I think in the past she's voted Labour but we genuinely don't talk politics as a couple apart from the very local stuff where her perception of and my knowledge of how local Government functions often collide.
Yesterday, she suddenly piped up she had no one to vote for at the GE and wasn't going to bother. She told me she couldn't vote for that "lunatic" Corbyn and as a LEAVE voter couldn't back the LDs and was going to vote for Johnson until she read up on the changes to IR35 introduced by Philip Hammond which, as a contractor in financial services, are going to make life much harder for her and cost her money.
I advised her she could still go to the polling station and spoil her ballot paper and I advised her as to the best way of doing it (or rather what not to do).
So that's one fewer vote for the Conservatives not that it makes much difference in East Ham but it reminds me it's not all about Brexit and other policy areas can affect people's voting intentions.
It's also got me thinking about numbers of spoilt ballot papers - in East Ham in 2017 56,633 votes were cast and 179 papers were rejected. That's 0.3% of the total and I don't know if that's a representative share for the UK as a whole. I think there could be a lot more spoilt papers but I suspect there's no market. Any thoughts?
Funnily enough Mrs Nemtynakht has said the same thing. We would normally both vote Libdem in a south-west former marginal that has gone from 8k lib majority to a 13k Tory majority. We both voted remain, yet we don’t like the revoke policy for the Lib Dem’s. Neither of us like Corbyn, and Mrs N cannot stand Boris. She can’t think of who to vote for and might vote Green. If we had a good local Tory or Labour candidate and they had better leaders I would vote for either Tory or Labour but will probably stick with libdems despite their flagship policy.
You must be in Sutton and Cheam...
No Thornbury and Yate. We’ve had lots of Lib Dem’s leaflets, and if our numpty non-entity Tory MP Luke Hall is good at anything it is pumping out regular leaflets - they all go straight in the recycling box - I read PB.com to get a broad view of political news!
I wonder if this election, and more going forward, will see increasing atomisation of news, with different groups listening mostly/exclusively to different sources (traditional TV, certain Youtubers, Facebook, Twitter, and so on), making it difficult to ascertain the breadth and impact of messages.
For a few months now I've been watching less and less news.
Yes, me too. Years since I watched the TV news. Radio news bulletins filter through though.
We are in danger of following America where for the past couple of decades, different sides have their own facts, not just their own opinions, because broadcasters do not need to be impartial, which Fox took as a challenge.
Social media plays that role here.
I agree. Much though I may rail at the BBC worldview, when the BBC reports something yoy can be reasonably content it has a significantly higher level of veracity than some post on facebook. And when they do get it wrong (e.g. Lord MacAlpine) they make sure they fully put the record straight. They - and ITN, and Sky - are far from perfect, but better than the model we are moving towards when any half-truth can get an airing
The reason I don't watch the news these days though is that I want news on demand - therefore from the internet.
I wonder if this election, and more going forward, will see increasing atomisation of news, with different groups listening mostly/exclusively to different sources (traditional TV, certain Youtubers, Facebook, Twitter, and so on), making it difficult to ascertain the breadth and impact of messages.
For a few months now I've been watching less and less news.
Yes, me too. Years since I watched the TV news. Radio news bulletins filter through though.
We are in danger of following America where for the past couple of decades, different sides have their own facts, not just their own opinions, because broadcasters do not need to be impartial, which Fox took as a challenge.
Social media plays that role here.
I agree. Much though I may rail at the BBC worldview, when the BBC reports something yoy can be reasonably content it has a significantly higher level of veracity than some post on facebook. And when they do get it wrong (e.g. Lord MacAlpine) they make sure they fully put the record straight. They - and ITN, and Sky - are far from perfect, but better than the model we are moving towards when any half-truth can get an airing
The reason I don't watch the news these days though is that I want news on demand - therefore from the internet.
Where as in the US, it isnt just Fox now. CNN and co have just totally lost their shit. It is 24/7 trump news and regularly so quick to jump on the outrage bus they get it wrong.
There is obviously big overlap between different names and what can be taught, but the names set the focus. It seems to me that the things we have realised need to be taught in modern life just get shoved into the ever expanding PSHCE presumably without an ever expanding increase in hours?
I think health is really key, if we can make the next generation 20% less likely to be obese and improve their healthy life expectancy by 5 years is that not far more valuable than teaching them how a volcano works or who was king in 1264 both of which are trivial to find out if you teach internet well.
A lot of geography would still fit nicely into environment but environment is both more a pressing need and kids would be more focused and motivated by learning environment than geography at the moment.
Maybe History could be squeezed into citizenship to make room for a foreign language or DT.
But that is the cart before the horse. To understand the environment you have to first understand the basics of geography as they are taught in school today. Your suggestion is like saying one should study to be a surgeon without first studying basic medicine.
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
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If we were starting building a curriculum for modern day life from a blank sheet of paper there is no way geography would be in the top ten.
What? Geography is crucial to understanding a huge amount about why the world is as it is.
As a matter of interest what would your top ten look like?
...
An interesting selection. Most of those are taught already: the awkwardly named PSHCE doing the health and citizenship duty.
What about foreign languages or DT? Why do you think History is more useful than Geography? Does Internet need to be a subject all on its own or could it be part of Computing?
There is obviously big overlap between different names and what can be taught, but the names set the focus. It seems to me that the things we have realised need to be taught in modern life just get shoved into the ever expanding PSHCE presumably without an ever expanding increase in hours?
I think health is really key, if we can make the next generation 20% less likely to be obese and improve their healthy life expectancy by 5 years is that not far more valuable than teaching them how a volcano works or who was king in 1264 both of which are trivial to find out if you teach internet well.
A lot of geography would still fit nicely into environment but environment is both more a pressing need and kids would be more focused and motivated by learning environment than geography at the moment.
Maybe History could be squeezed into citizenship to make room for a foreign language or DT.
Foreign languages are likely to be largely redundant over the next few decades, with a combination of increased Sino/Anglification of the world and the rate of development of universal translators.
Far better to teach world history (with some language in that) to understand how the cultures we encounter came to be, surely?
Comments
EDIT:
I mean, #qtwtaiwtf
Does that make the 43 the likely realistic limit to Liberal Democrat ambitions in England & Wales? I guess there are some obvious targets, such as Sheffield Hallam, that aren't on the list.
Dulwich & West Norwood is really going to annoy my step-mother. She's become the most committed Liberal Democrat member since the Brexit referendum, denounces my Dad's decision to stick with voting for the Labour Party as supporting a "Leave Party", and believes that the children on climate strikes should concentrate on stopping Brexit as a higher priority.
I can't wait to hear her reaction.
But my point was that the argument was fallacious anyway.
On the flip side the vast majority of people are far more relaxed and better informed about race than they were a generation or two ago. The idea of landlords openly posting no blacks, no dogs, no irish is long gone, ordinary people have got together to force most racism out of football stadia across the country, there is far greater tolerance of mixed relationships and marriages.
Boris is Trump
However, it quickly became an excuse to defund special schools, which are very necessary and appropriate provision for some children.
I would definitely vote LD on the basis of this if I were still in England.
As I have said often before May has a huge amount to answer for when it comes to damaging trust in the system amongst minorities in Britain.
If the Cons are planning to use her in TV debates they need to be sure that the format will not be conducive to 'debate' in its traditional sense. If things stray into a genuine discussion of any depth whatsoever, she will struggle and there is a risk of something quite embarrassing taking place.
But so long as it's a matter of just delivering pre-prepared soundbites in a confident unruffled manner - which let's fact it, it probably will be - then, yes, she will be highly effective and is a great choice.
24 hour news and global live tv feeds makes us feel it is more dangerous.
As a matter of interest what would your top ten look like?
I clearly need to stock up on election snacks if both parties continue ballsing things up like this.
@alb1on is being overimaginative.
Cleverly is not 'repeating the BNP'. He says he is repeating what he has been told by muslims inside and outside the Tory Party :-) .
https://inews.co.uk/news/james-cleverly-islamophobia-far-right-arguments-politics-live-504603
https://twitter.com/johnmcternan/status/1192408247489236993
Is Corbyn going to stop this, or will this continue all the way to polling day?
No idea on Harpenden
It is an odd constituency.
Q: " Why have Ian Austin and the Jewish Chronicle both decided that the election choice should not be Labour?"
McDonnell does not refer to Austin by name. But, referring to a “former Labour MP”, he says Austin is now employed by the Tories, and so he speaks on their behalf.
(That is a reference to Austin being a trade envoy to Israel. Trade envoys are unpaid, but their travel costs are covered by the government.)
If the three of them team up telling labour supporters to vote for Boris it will be remarkable
Maths
English
Health
Internet
Environment
Science
Arts
Sport
History
Citizenship
It has always read across to the UK. Back when I was at Uni in Bradford in the 1980s there were many terraced houses with random bricks painted in the colours of the Pakistan Flag.
Watch Leicester?
Boris isn’t Trump
Boris is Boris
Funny old thing, life ...
Stay classy Labour
The result, some obvious targets are missing, some less obvious places are in.
I think the balance of potential reward for all the participant parties is a good one.
I wonder if, to calm the Green Socialist vote, we'll see a few exaggerated step asides for Labour as well, a la Calder Valley (which, having commented on how the Pennine valley wards were trending Labour in local elections over a couple of years, I already fancied as one of the against trend Labour gains).
For a few months now I've been watching less and less news.
Trump inhabits his own special circle of delusion, narcissism and bigotry.
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/trade-envoys
And yet, we still have two or three pb regulars who are prepared to campaign for them.
I wish we had sane voices like Southam and Jonathan in charge of the Labour Party.
People I respect.
https://samharris.org/podcasts/173-anti-semitism-discontents/
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/retreating-eurosceptics-now-settle-for-reforms-from-within/?utm_source=EURACTIV&utm_campaign=bb5388ff0a-RSS_EMAIL_EN_Politics&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c59e2fd7a9-bb5388ff0a-114478043
It’s remarkable he’s now been promoted by some in the Labour campaign as the voice of sanity in any future Labour administration over Corbyn.
What about foreign languages or DT? Why do you think History is more useful than Geography? Does Internet need to be a subject all on its own or could it be part of Computing?
Social media plays that role here.
Must be thousands......
https://twitter.com/joswinson/status/1192401647810555905
I think health is really key, if we can make the next generation 20% less likely to be obese and improve their healthy life expectancy by 5 years is that not far more valuable than teaching them how a volcano works or who was king in 1264 both of which are trivial to find out if you teach internet well.
A lot of geography would still fit nicely into environment but environment is both more a pressing need and kids would be more focused and motivated by learning environment than geography at the moment.
Maybe History could be squeezed into citizenship to make room for a foreign language or DT.
Everyone wants Greta's vote.....
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7660017/Boris-Johnsons-poll-lead-dips-Tories-11-points-ahead-Labour.html
The reason I don't watch the news these days though is that I want news on demand - therefore from the internet.
Far better to teach world history (with some language in that) to understand how the cultures we encounter came to be, surely?