We're not telling the kids when they will go back to school.
They're eager to go back as they want to see their friends and as far as they are concerned they've had Christmas now so why aren't they going back yet? Then again one of them is ruthless, she asked on Boxing Day why we still have the Christmas Tree up?
But we're not telling them when they're due to go back. Officially the school still says they're going back next Monday but I would rather tell them on Sunday that they're going back tomorrow - than have them eager and excited to go back only to have it cancelled.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
If having distinct legal traditions means you can't be in a union together then it's bad news for the Anglo-Scottish union. The Irish drive on the left, and seem to quite like being in the EU. Every country thinks it is exceptional (the French are as boring as we are on this subject, possibly more so).
In my experience, some countries are more prone to exceptionalism than others. Of the old Western-allied countries of Europe of the cold war, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Greece are particuiarly prone to historical exceptionalism, in my experience.
They all have reason to think they are exceptional. Britain had the world's largest empire and started the industrial revolution, France's revolution transformed Western history, the Germans are the most successful country in Europe and would dominate the continent if not for their mid century over reach, Italy had Rome and the Greeks invented Western civilisation. The tragedy for the UK is that while we sit around pleasuring ourselves about our glorious past, the world moves on without us. No country in Europe is more than a mid tier power these days. Combined, the EU has significant economic and regulatory clout, but no real political or military power at the moment. Brexit is a gamble that the EU will never become a real power, and that we are better off as a small power in the US orbit.
Or better off as the small, agile mammal running between the feet of the dinosaurs.
My thoughts: 1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline 2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on) 3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength. 4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
THERE has been a Covid outbreak at Shanklin Conservative Club, with three confirmed cases and several members self-isolating and awaiting test results.
With rumours of a private event at the club, prior.
As for our exceptionalism, as @contrarian has pointed out, being an island has contributed hugely to that feeling and rightly so everything from the Battle of Britain to the famous (apocryphal?) newspaper headlines.
I have no doubt that an element of this thinking was behind our Brexit vote.
I just find it disappointing that many leavers were so shit scared of being part of the EU.
@Richard_Tyndall, as we know, famously compared it to being a slave ffs.
Why aren't we allowed to talk about it? As a working class lad from the Midlands, Erasmus was an opportunity that changed my life, but it's a door that's been slammed shut for my son. I have as much right to air my dismay at this as anyone else has to air their particular grievances.
The new scheme being introduced is actually focused more on working class families, so the door is certainly not being slammed shut.
In what way is it focussed more on working class families?
No details yet, but the objective is clear:
The new scheme will also target students from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas which did not previously have many students benefiting from Erasmus+, making life-changing opportunities accessible to everyone across the country.
So just a soundbite. Unless your taking about affirmative action of some kind, it's hard to imagine how Erasmus could be made any fairer. It was open to all students on the relevant courses and covered almost all the costs involved. It was perfectly designed for working class students like me.
But it sounds like it will be affirmative action, perhaps by allowing different numbers from different universities. if Erasmus was perfectly designed, then why were those taking advantage of it often more well-off?
Official data is hard to come by, but a large study in 2006 found that of those taking part in Erasmus from the UK, around 50 per cent were from families with a high or considerably higher than average income. Across all countries sampled, only 14 per cent of respondents reported their income being lower than average while almost two thirds had at least one parent who held a job as an executive, professional or technician.
It was pretty expensive for us. The funding didn't go very far and I think we ended up doing 3 trips to Holland and back delivering, visiting and collecting the stuff. A very good experience for my daughter and we had a great time when we visited but it wasn't cheap.
I drove myself to Germany in a Morris Ital that was a month away from an MOT that it hadn't a hope of passing, the keys to which I'd won in a game of poker. The car was subsequently abandoned, and I drove myself back in a rented van at the end of the year.
The following year, a girl I'd met in Germany become my girlfriend while she was on her Erasmus year in the UK. She later became my wife.
My daughter made some excellent friends through it and they are planning a reunion post Covid. Its great but its a middle class jolly, no doubt about it.
Is it any more middle class than going to university in the first place, though?
Seems likely it is, along with years abroad after studying and gap years etc. Perhaps too the middle classes instill a slightly more adventurous mindset into their children too - more likely to have been on interesting holidays.
I'd hope that with Turing the government does something that's a little better than Erasmus. It'd be a poor show if they didn't given the great name they've associated with the scheme.
It's possible. But the only data points we have are the total number of students and the total budget, and from those, we get a budget of £3000 per student, which won't go far at MIT. Oh, and the name of the scheme.
Conclusion: there's a lot less to this than meets the eye, but it's done its job of keeping the culture war bubbling away.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Most important for me is geography. Being an island has shaped our history, mentality and culture enormously.
Must be why Ireland, Malta and Cyprus want to leave the EU too, and why landlocked Switzerland is so keen to join. Oh wait...
History shows that if you are on mainland Europe, a huge army somewhere on that continent is a very big problem
If you're offshore with a decent Navy, its a good deal less of a problem.
That can't help but shape how people look at life.
I am sure it has had an impact, but I think it is too simplistic. After all, you and I both live on this island and have taken completely different lessons from this experience. I suspect that forty years of anti EU propaganda in the newspapers (much of it completely untrue) is a pretty important factor, even if it was amplifying sentiments that already existed.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Doesn't it occur to you that the people of every country see their own as exceptional though? Certainly the ones I have experience with (Germans and Americans) do. Germans, for example, tend to automatically see themselves as the only ones who are capable of doing a job properly. They just don't crow about their supposedly innate exceptionalism as much as Brits do.
One benefit that Erasmus brings is the realisation that aspects of life that you thought were uniquely British are actually shared by others, and also the discovery that things you thought were commonplace are actually uniquely British!
Of course it does!
Every country should see their own as exceptional. It is a good thing not a bad thing!
I don't frame exceptionalism as a negative or a uniquely British philosophy.
Anyone who thinks only the British think they are exceptional has evidently never been to La France.
Another interesting implication of The Sun story is that the UK only plan to have about 18m vaccinated in the first 5 months (which jibes with the 1m a week vaccinations in the Sunday Torygraph story)
At 2 injections each person, 5 months is more than a million injections per week.
I think the Sun are just making it up, but it will be a grim year if their timeline is correct.
If, once they get going, the UK is only vaccinating a million a week, and assuming we have no shortage of doses, I think the government will have failed badly. Based on flu jabs, GPs alone should be able to do a million a week without breaking sweat, and that should be a small part of the total. It really should be a national effort to get the doses, as they are delivered, into arms. (I could imagine a million a week is more reasonable if they only had access to the Pfizer jab, because of both cold chain and supply.)
On the subject of travel, I assume that quarantine periods will *not* be removed until or unless the vaccine is shown to prevent asymptomatic transmission. Such evidence would take a long time to accrue. So skiers would still have to quarantine for 10 days when they get there, and 10 days when they get back. That's assuming that non-essential travel is permitted at all, of course.
Fair play, the polls have shown huge majorities behind lockdown, despite my best efforts (and goodness knows, I have tried).
But I dunno. Now vaccines are a reality, I suspect the government is going to run into more opposition here. A lot more. A poll for the Express yesterday suggested that.
Majid Nawaz now pushing the anti-lockdown case very hard. Not on Talk Radio. On LBC.
THERE has been a Covid outbreak at Shanklin Conservative Club, with three confirmed cases and several members self-isolating and awaiting test results.
With rumours of a private event at the club, prior.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Three of those four are true of Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which seem happy in the EU.
And the Swiss and the Norwegians do all of those the European way, but never joined the EU.
So I don't think we're exceptional, as opposed to different, and even if we were it wouldn't determine whether we remained in the EU or not.
Different is exceptional. Exceptional means unusual or not typical - the UK is not usual or typical within the EU, nothing wrong with that. But then every country can have its own differences that make it exceptional - nothing wrong with that either.
If you think the UK is not exceptional then you are saying it is unexceptional - and I would ask you to defend that frame of thought. It certainly isn't mine, why would you consider the UK to be unexceptional?
You said "we are more different", giving four examples of that. I showed how in at least three of those we are not different from all other EU member states, and in any case there's no evidence that they would make a difference to our views on EU membership, which aiui was the OP's point.
But you are wrong.
In three of those there are other nations that are also exceptional on those issues. That doesn't stop us from being exceptional too.
There is no monopoly on exceptionalism. Being exceptional is in fact unexceptional, every nation is exceptional.
It was the OP who is obsessed with the UK's exceptionalism which he views as a negative. I do not. Yes we are exceptional. But yes so too are other nations.
This is getting painful to watch - like a rat on a wheel - so I'm going to offer you a closer that saves face.
When you said "WE are MORE exceptional than other countries" you did not for one second mean to imply we are in any sense better than other countries.
All you meant by "exceptional" was different to the norm, not mundane and run-of-the-mill, and so by saying what you said all you truly meant deep down was that we - England and the English - are less mundane and less run-of-the-mill than other countries.
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
Different is exceptional. Exceptional means unusual or not typical - the UK is not usual or typical within the EU, nothing wrong with that. But then every country can have its own differences that make it exceptional - nothing wrong with that either.
If you think the UK is not exceptional then you are saying it is unexceptional - and I would ask you to defend that frame of thought. It certainly isn't mine, why would you consider the UK to be unexceptional?
Well, yes, and it was probably unwise to try to frame our future relationship with the EU in terms of the relationships enjoyed by others, We are not Norway or Switzerland or Canada or Turkey - they have relationships which work for them and that's fine.
The Trade Deal is the beginning of the definition of our future relationship with the European Union. There's much it covers and much that will evolve over time. I'm warming to it slowly though I'm not keen on the triumphalism of the pro-Johnson supporters.
I've never wanted the EU to fail nor to be in an unnecessarily adversarial relationship. I don't think many do but there's an undercurrent - we're outside now and the EU members must be allowed to evolve the organisation as they see fit.
I'm cautiously optimistic the political climate will also improve and in time all thoughts of re-joining will be set aside in favour of periodic re-negotiation to the Trade Deal to increase our alignment with the EU.
Well said.
I actually think its wise to frame the UK's trade style similar to other nations - eg Norway, Switzerland, Canada or Australia - as it makes it easier to understand. We have ended up Canada-style, which is what I think most Brexiteers wanted, but it was always going to be only that style. It will of course be a unique and exceptional UK/EU agreement - and again nothing wrong with that exceptionalism. But it is helpful for a frame of reference to think what else it is similar to.
But I 100% agree on that I don't want the EU to fail. The EU succeeding is good for us, not bad for us. Better neighbours is a good thing that makes us safer and richer. But it doesn't need to succeed with us as members. The same is true in reverse - the UK succeeding makes the EU safer and richer.
There is nothing wise in wishing states to fail. Failed states are rarely safe for their citizens or their neighbours.
I have little doubt that we will see future revisions to our arrangements, but I don't expect it to be a one-way ratchet anymore. Sometimes we may move closer together, others further apart.
Why aren't we allowed to talk about it? As a working class lad from the Midlands, Erasmus was an opportunity that changed my life, but it's a door that's been slammed shut for my son. I have as much right to air my dismay at this as anyone else has to air their particular grievances.
The new scheme being introduced is actually focused more on working class families, so the door is certainly not being slammed shut.
In what way is it focussed more on working class families?
No details yet, but the objective is clear:
The new scheme will also target students from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas which did not previously have many students benefiting from Erasmus+, making life-changing opportunities accessible to everyone across the country.
So just a soundbite. Unless your taking about affirmative action of some kind, it's hard to imagine how Erasmus could be made any fairer. It was open to all students on the relevant courses and covered almost all the costs involved. It was perfectly designed for working class students like me.
But it sounds like it will be affirmative action, perhaps by allowing different numbers from different universities. if Erasmus was perfectly designed, then why were those taking advantage of it often more well-off?
Official data is hard to come by, but a large study in 2006 found that of those taking part in Erasmus from the UK, around 50 per cent were from families with a high or considerably higher than average income. Across all countries sampled, only 14 per cent of respondents reported their income being lower than average while almost two thirds had at least one parent who held a job as an executive, professional or technician.
It was pretty expensive for us. The funding didn't go very far and I think we ended up doing 3 trips to Holland and back delivering, visiting and collecting the stuff. A very good experience for my daughter and we had a great time when we visited but it wasn't cheap.
I drove myself to Germany in a Morris Ital that was a month away from an MOT that it hadn't a hope of passing, the keys to which I'd won in a game of poker. The car was subsequently abandoned, and I drove myself back in a rented van at the end of the year.
The following year, a girl I'd met in Germany become my girlfriend while she was on her Erasmus year in the UK. She later became my wife.
My daughter made some excellent friends through it and they are planning a reunion post Covid. Its great but its a middle class jolly, no doubt about it.
Is it any more middle class than going to university in the first place, though?
Seems likely it is, along with years abroad after studying and gap years etc. Perhaps too the middle classes instill a slightly more adventurous mindset into their children too - more likely to have been on interesting holidays.
I'd hope that with Turing the government does something that's a little better than Erasmus. It'd be a poor show if they didn't given the great name they've associated with the scheme.
It's possible. But the only data points we have are the total number of students and the total budget, and from those, we get a budget of £3000 per student, which won't go far at MIT. Oh, and the name of the scheme.
Conclusion: there's a lot less to this than meets the eye, but it's done its job of keeping the culture war bubbling away.
Of course the top US universities will be the great prizes to be had - much in the way Oxbridge is sought after by those US students. However who knows what good things might come of exchanges with all sorts of Universities in all sorts of countries. Quite cool to spend a year in India for example, or maybe Uruguay, or Uganda!
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
I posted a link earlier that the EU has finalised its plans to treble the number of students using Erasmus+ over the next 6 years. I wondered if that was why the cost was tripling rather than bad EU.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
If having distinct legal traditions means you can't be in a union together then it's bad news for the Anglo-Scottish union. The Irish drive on the left, and seem to quite like being in the EU. Every country thinks it is exceptional (the French are as boring as we are on this subject, possibly more so).
In my experience, some countries are more prone to exceptionalism than others. Of the old Western-allied countries of Europe of the cold war, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Greece are particuiarly prone to historical exceptionalism, in my experience.
They all have reason to think they are exceptional. Britain had the world's largest empire and started the industrial revolution, France's revolution transformed Western history, the Germans are the most successful country in Europe and would dominate the continent if not for their mid century over reach, Italy had Rome and the Greeks invented Western civilisation. The tragedy for the UK is that while we sit around pleasuring ourselves about our glorious past, the world moves on without us. No country in Europe is more than a mid tier power these days. Combined, the EU has significant economic and regulatory clout, but no real political or military power at the moment. Brexit is a gamble that the EU will never become a real power, and that we are better off as a small power in the US orbit.
Their "mid century over reach" - talk about your detached prose.
Thanks. I hate it when people bring emotional crap into what is supposed to be a rational discussion.
Or better off as the small, agile mammal running between the feet of the dinosaurs.
My thoughts: 1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline 2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on) 3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength. 4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
Perhaps we may be entering a period with no Rome or perhaps many smaller versions of Rome.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Three of those four are true of Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which seem happy in the EU.
And the Swiss and the Norwegians do all of those the European way, but never joined the EU.
So I don't think we're exceptional, as opposed to different, and even if we were it wouldn't determine whether we remained in the EU or not.
Different is exceptional. Exceptional means unusual or not typical - the UK is not usual or typical within the EU, nothing wrong with that. But then every country can have its own differences that make it exceptional - nothing wrong with that either.
If you think the UK is not exceptional then you are saying it is unexceptional - and I would ask you to defend that frame of thought. It certainly isn't mine, why would you consider the UK to be unexceptional?
You said "we are more different", giving four examples of that. I showed how in at least three of those we are not different from all other EU member states, and in any case there's no evidence that they would make a difference to our views on EU membership, which aiui was the OP's point.
But you are wrong.
In three of those there are other nations that are also exceptional on those issues. That doesn't stop us from being exceptional too.
There is no monopoly on exceptionalism. Being exceptional is in fact unexceptional, every nation is exceptional.
It was the OP who is obsessed with the UK's exceptionalism which he views as a negative. I do not. Yes we are exceptional. But yes so too are other nations.
This is getting painful to watch - like a rat on a wheel - so I'm going to offer you a closer that saves face.
When you said "WE are MORE exceptional than other countries" you did not for one second mean to imply we are in any sense better than other countries.
All you meant by "exceptional" was different to the norm, not mundane and run-of-the-mill, and so by saying what you said all you truly meant deep down was that we - England and the English - are less mundane and less run-of-the-mill than other countries.
There. My Big Softy side wins out yet again.
Nothing wrong with that.
As many others have said: The French would say the same thing - and for good reason.
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
That will be interesting information indeed if people have it and will be important in knowing if the government can deliver on what it has now promised, however 'the jam will not be as plentiful or as sweet tomorrow' is a different level of outrage to 'we will be deprived of jam', which is why it remains tactically a poor choice to focus on.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Most important for me is geography. Being an island has shaped our history, mentality and culture enormously.
Must be why Ireland, Malta and Cyprus want to leave the EU too, and why landlocked Switzerland is so keen to join. Oh wait...
History shows that if you are on mainland Europe, a huge army somewhere on that continent is a very big problem
If you're offshore with a decent Navy, its a good deal less of a problem.
That can't help but shape how people look at life.
I am sure it has had an impact, but I think it is too simplistic. After all, you and I both live on this island and have taken completely different lessons from this experience. I suspect that forty years of anti EU propaganda in the newspapers (much of it completely untrue) is a pretty important factor, even if it was amplifying sentiments that already existed.
Quite.
In the end, Brexit was a stake, no stake game. Many people, mainly working class people, felt they had no stake in the European game and resented paying for it.
Many of the most passionate Europeans had a stake there. A property they owned. A job they coveted. A lifestyle they aspired to. Politics they agreed with. Frequent travel. Educational opportunities.
Mr. glw, this does make me wonder: how strong does a torch have to be before vampires are vanquished by one?
If vampires shy away from the light around sunrise, which isn't very bright, then I'd say one of the cheap LED torches you can pick up in a supermarket should do the job. You can damn near blind yourself with a torch that costs just a few quid.
It it light in general that is supposed to vanquish vampires, or some specific property of sunlight? Does it just need to be bright, or is the spectral distribution important? What about the UV and IR components?
I don't think Stoker was specific about it. It seems to come down to the notion that sunlight is life-giving and therefore good, and in comparison moonlight (despite it being reflected sunlight) is somehow sinister. I dare say someone has written a vampire novel which tries to pin down exactly what it is about sunlight that harms them.
In the modern stuff, it is all about UV. UV flashlights and flash bangs etc....
As Eddie Izzard famously asked, and what we would all like to know re crosses warding off vampires: do fingers work?
In one film (IIRC), the hapless protagonist discovers that chipboard doesn't "count" as a stake - too much non-wood.
The excellent discussion in Gremlins II about feeding after midnight, date lines & airplanes comes to mind...
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
If having distinct legal traditions means you can't be in a union together then it's bad news for the Anglo-Scottish union. The Irish drive on the left, and seem to quite like being in the EU. Every country thinks it is exceptional (the French are as boring as we are on this subject, possibly more so).
In my experience, some countries are more prone to exceptionalism than others. Of the old Western-allied countries of Europe of the cold war, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Greece are particuiarly prone to historical exceptionalism, in my experience.
They all have reason to think they are exceptional. Britain had the world's largest empire and started the industrial revolution, France's revolution transformed Western history, the Germans are the most successful country in Europe and would dominate the continent if not for their mid century over reach, Italy had Rome and the Greeks invented Western civilisation. The tragedy for the UK is that while we sit around pleasuring ourselves about our glorious past, the world moves on without us. No country in Europe is more than a mid tier power these days. Combined, the EU has significant economic and regulatory clout, but no real political or military power at the moment. Brexit is a gamble that the EU will never become a real power, and that we are better off as a small power in the US orbit.
Their "mid century over reach" - talk about your detached prose.
Thanks. I hate it when people bring emotional crap into what is supposed to be a rational discussion.
You 'hate' it? Far too emotional. You consider it disadvantgeous to rational discussion perhaps?
Or better off as the small, agile mammal running between the feet of the dinosaurs.
My thoughts: 1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline 2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on) 3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength. 4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
Perhaps we may be entering a period with no Rome or perhaps many smaller versions of Rome.
If we want an analogy then Greek antiquity would be a better one than Roman antiquity.
No single dominant city state. Athens, Sparta, Syracuse, Rhodes, Thebes and many more co-existing.
Finland has become the latest country to confirm a case of the new Covid-19 variant that was first identified in the UK.
The larger European countries have probably all had low levels of it for a while. The flight ban from most of them was obviously necessary to be seen to be doing something about it, but it was definitely a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted.
Or better off as the small, agile mammal running between the feet of the dinosaurs.
My thoughts: 1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline 2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on) 3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength. 4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
Perhaps we may be entering a period with no Rome or perhaps many smaller versions of Rome.
There certainly appears no shortage of putative barbarians.
Those allergic to assertions of national exceptionalism would do well to avoid Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered when the Parthenon was new and Athens boasted more talent per head than just about any other place of Earth. From Jowett's translation, written when Britain was in a not-entirely-dissimilar position:
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
I posted a link earlier that the EU has finalised its plans to treble the number of students using Erasmus+ over the next 6 years. I wondered if that was why the cost was tripling rather than bad EU.
Missed that, could be I guess.
The piece I found in the Indy (what a fucking awful site that is) is annoyingly vague. One line that stuck out was 'But critics immediately questioned whether 35,000 students could really take part in a scheme costing only £100m – working out at only £2,850 each.' I don't think £2,850 is going to cut it in the further afield cities of the world.
Those allergic to assertions of national exceptionalism would do well to avoid Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered when the Parthenon was new and Athens boasted more talent per head than just about any other place of Earth. From Jowett's translation, written when Britain was in a not-entirely-dissimilar position:
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
And then they had the Pelopponesian War and the [edit:] or, rather, a plague.
Why aren't we allowed to talk about it? As a working class lad from the Midlands, Erasmus was an opportunity that changed my life, but it's a door that's been slammed shut for my son. I have as much right to air my dismay at this as anyone else has to air their particular grievances.
The new scheme being introduced is actually focused more on working class families, so the door is certainly not being slammed shut.
In what way is it focussed more on working class families?
No details yet, but the objective is clear:
The new scheme will also target students from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas which did not previously have many students benefiting from Erasmus+, making life-changing opportunities accessible to everyone across the country.
So just a soundbite. Unless your taking about affirmative action of some kind, it's hard to imagine how Erasmus could be made any fairer. It was open to all students on the relevant courses and covered almost all the costs involved. It was perfectly designed for working class students like me.
But it sounds like it will be affirmative action, perhaps by allowing different numbers from different universities. if Erasmus was perfectly designed, then why were those taking advantage of it often more well-off?
Official data is hard to come by, but a large study in 2006 found that of those taking part in Erasmus from the UK, around 50 per cent were from families with a high or considerably higher than average income. Across all countries sampled, only 14 per cent of respondents reported their income being lower than average while almost two thirds had at least one parent who held a job as an executive, professional or technician.
It was pretty expensive for us. The funding didn't go very far and I think we ended up doing 3 trips to Holland and back delivering, visiting and collecting the stuff. A very good experience for my daughter and we had a great time when we visited but it wasn't cheap.
I drove myself to Germany in a Morris Ital that was a month away from an MOT that it hadn't a hope of passing, the keys to which I'd won in a game of poker. The car was subsequently abandoned, and I drove myself back in a rented van at the end of the year.
The following year, a girl I'd met in Germany become my girlfriend while she was on her Erasmus year in the UK. She later became my wife.
My daughter made some excellent friends through it and they are planning a reunion post Covid. Its great but its a middle class jolly, no doubt about it.
Is it any more middle class than going to university in the first place, though?
Seems likely it is, along with years abroad after studying and gap years etc. Perhaps too the middle classes instill a slightly more adventurous mindset into their children too - more likely to have been on interesting holidays.
I'd hope that with Turing the government does something that's a little better than Erasmus. It'd be a poor show if they didn't given the great name they've associated with the scheme.
It's possible. But the only data points we have are the total number of students and the total budget, and from those, we get a budget of £3000 per student, which won't go far at MIT. Oh, and the name of the scheme.
Conclusion: there's a lot less to this than meets the eye, but it's done its job of keeping the culture war bubbling away.
Of course the top US universities will be the great prizes to be had - much in the way Oxbridge is sought after by those US students. However who knows what good things might come of exchanges with all sorts of Universities in all sorts of countries. Quite cool to spend a year in India for example, or maybe Uruguay, or Uganda!
Fair point, though one of the sour grapes comments about Erasmus has been that few of the Really Top Universities are in continental Europe. But the general principle still holds; I can see 3k per student working as a topup, but not covering the complete costs of being abroad for a year. In which case, we have to ask who can arrange the rest of the cost?
Until the full details are released, the facts so far look like a cat in terminally poor health...
Or better off as the small, agile mammal running between the feet of the dinosaurs.
My thoughts: 1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline 2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on) 3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength. 4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
Perhaps we may be entering a period with no Rome or perhaps many smaller versions of Rome.
During COVID I have binge-watched the Expanse. One interesting idea in it is that Mars' social cohesion only held so long as their was a huge social imperative - the need to terraform. Once that need was removed, because of the opening up of new habitable worlds, social cohesion collapsed.
Perhaps global warming or some other global existential crisis will, ironically, turn out to be humanity's salvation.
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
So "WE are more exceptional" means this sort of thing, does it. Counting in miles and driving on the left but sitting on the right and stuff. Sounds a bit prosaic. I sense there's a little more to it than that. I mean, we are hardly going to "unleash our potential" outside the EU by copying their road rules and driving habits.
Why do YOU keep capitalising the WE inside quotes as if Phil's doing that?
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Those doing well saw globalisation (overlapping but not the same as the EU) as great because they had more opportunities and could hire a great Polish chap to do the decking. Those lower down the scale saw increased competition for work cutting down wages and reducing living standards. Likewise factories closing in the West and new ones springing up in China.
Mr. Carnyx, the Peloponnesian War saw the Athenian Empire/Protection Racket lose from a seemingly unassailable position thanks to a needless invasion of Sicily. Hubris ever precedes nemesis.
Anyway, I must be off. The galaxy isn't going to conquer itself.
I actually think its wise to frame the UK's trade style similar to other nations - eg Norway, Switzerland, Canada or Australia - as it makes it easier to understand. We have ended up Canada-style, which is what I think most Brexiteers wanted, but it was always going to be only that style. It will of course be a unique and exceptional UK/EU agreement - and again nothing wrong with that exceptionalism. But it is helpful for a frame of reference to think what else it is similar to.
But I 100% agree on that I don't want the EU to fail. The EU succeeding is good for us, not bad for us. Better neighbours is a good thing that makes us safer and richer. But it doesn't need to succeed with us as members. The same is true in reverse - the UK succeeding makes the EU safer and richer.
There is nothing wise in wishing states to fail. Failed states are rarely safe for their citizens or their neighbours.
I have little doubt that we will see future revisions to our arrangements, but I don't expect it to be a one-way ratchet anymore. Sometimes we may move closer together, others further apart.
Broadly agree - I think my initial point is I would have preferred the debate around the future relationship to be more about the bespoke UK-EU relationship and less about Canada + and the like. As you say, remaining in the SM and CU was never an option but those countries which want that relationship are perfectly entitled to have it and the perspective from Norway and Switzerland is unquestionably different from that of the UK.
In the same way, the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eritrea and Libya is as much a concern to the UK as it is to the EU and I'd have no issue supporting humanitarian actions as well as actions aimed at preventing people trafficking.
I'd also argue relationships constantly evolve - ours with the EEC and EU changed markedly from 1973 and let's not forget when it was the EEC we voted strongly to stay in and Mrs Thatcher was one of the leading supporters. That's ancient history but to assume we could never have a closer relationship short of re-joining is equally false. It would be a brave individual to have any certainty about the EU might be like in 20-30 years. Perhaps it will devolve back to be more like it was originally planned - a free trade area. Were that to be the case, I could imagine a future UK Government wishing to be part of that.
If they are one of the primary routes of infection then having the students go back seems ludicrous to me.
I tested positive in November, in the near four weeks prior to that the only times I had left the house was to pick up and drop off the kids at school.
A friend, her son has only been in school three days since the October half term due to the number of times he has had to self isolate.
Amazing that there are still people travelling from the UK to go skiing. And now they want their refunds after evading Swiss quarantine illegally. Let them GF themselves.
There is stupidity; there is blonde-shocked Johnsonian stupidity; there is monumental incoherent Trumpian stupidity.
And finally there is the stupidity of the skiers who need to have their selfish time in the mountains, even as pandemic rages.
I bet they nearly all voted Remain.....
Just so we’re clear, is that your take or “the ordinary public’s”?
I think it was tongue in cheek. Or am I being too generous?
The anti-skiing brigade on here amuses me. There is something about skiing that really riles them. I assume it an anti-elitist thing. I bet they nearly all voted Leave ..
Skiing, like golf, is the ultimate socially distanced sport in the fresh air. The problem, like golf, is in the apres-ski bar or club house. Avoid that, and you are safer than staying at home.
It's not skiing people are against. It's the fact that there is a certain section of skiiers even on here that seem to think its perfectly ok to go on foreign skiing trips during a global pandemic when travel isn't in the least advisable.
If the UK government or the government of the skiing resort advises against it, then you shouldn't go. That's very clear. But if some anonymous bloke on the internet advises against it, well ....
The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to:
the whole of Switzerland based on the current assessment of COVID-19 risks.
Are people able to get travel insurance? I know people do go abroad without insurance, but I certainly wouldn't want to go skiing without it.
It would be rather brave to go anywhere near a ski slope without sufficient insurance to cover a helicopter ride off the mountain, should one be required.
Travel against official government advice can and will leave policies torn up by insurers, just as the helicopter gets called for...
If they are one of the primary routes of infection then having the students go back seems ludicrous to me.
The greater good is the psychological wellbeing of the country's children. We don't know if they are a primary route of infection but if they are then in the calculus of the pandemic that wellbeing must be preserved.
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
I posted a link earlier that the EU has finalised its plans to treble the number of students using Erasmus+ over the next 6 years. I wondered if that was why the cost was tripling rather than bad EU.
Missed that, could be I guess.
The piece I found in the Indy (what a fucking awful site that is) is annoyingly vague. One line that stuck out was 'But critics immediately questioned whether 35,000 students could really take part in a scheme costing only £100m – working out at only £2,850 each.' I don't think £2,850 is going to cut it in the further afield cities of the world.
Aren't most of the costs borne by the universities in reciprocal arrangements with other universities abroad? So someone coming to study here for a year doesn't get charged by LSE for a year's tuition; LSE gets to send one of its students to Berlin Uni for a year instead.
During COVID I have binge-watched the Expanse. One interesting idea in it is that Mars' social cohesion only held so long as their was a huge social imperative - the need to terraform. Once that need was removed, because of the opening up of new habitable worlds, social cohesion collapsed.
Perhaps global warming or some other global existential crisis will, ironically, turn out to be humanity's salvation.
It's often the case global crisis brings unity. We've seen that to an extent with the response to Covid and the need to get the vaccine to all peoples who need it.
The point about global warming is fair but the problem is its impacts are insidious and disproportionate. Some in the UK may be concerned about the lack of winter snow but I'd be more concerned about the health impacts of prolonged heat (say 14 days or more with maximum temperatures in London above 40c).
For other parts of the world, the impact of climate change is even more dramatic. Sea level rises threaten the hundreds of millions who live in coastal areas and for some islands it's an existential threat.
Then there's pollution in general and the health impacts of breathing bad air so you have a series of interconnected issues which to me cry out for global action but as we're seeing they aren't by themselves severe enough yet to overcome the narrow nationalism and populism of some (indeed many) world leaders.
Those allergic to assertions of national exceptionalism would do well to avoid Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered when the Parthenon was new and Athens boasted more talent per head than just about any other place of Earth. From Jowett's translation, written when Britain was in a not-entirely-dissimilar position:
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
And then they had the Pelopponesian War and the [edit:] or, rather, a plague.
Come on, not you too: it's Peloponnesian, as in Pelopos Nēsos assimilated into one word.
Boris also managed to outdo Pericles by not snuffing it from his plague
Those allergic to assertions of national exceptionalism would do well to avoid Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered when the Parthenon was new and Athens boasted more talent per head than just about any other place of Earth. From Jowett's translation, written when Britain was in a not-entirely-dissimilar position:
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
Was it Jowett of whom someone said they made him Regius professor of Greek to give him an opportunity to learn the language?
Pericles was a demagogue and an imperialist and you shouldn't take him or Athens at his own valuation. The whole 5th c enterprise ends with losing the war and murdering Socrates.
I actually think its wise to frame the UK's trade style similar to other nations - eg Norway, Switzerland, Canada or Australia - as it makes it easier to understand. We have ended up Canada-style, which is what I think most Brexiteers wanted, but it was always going to be only that style. It will of course be a unique and exceptional UK/EU agreement - and again nothing wrong with that exceptionalism. But it is helpful for a frame of reference to think what else it is similar to.
But I 100% agree on that I don't want the EU to fail. The EU succeeding is good for us, not bad for us. Better neighbours is a good thing that makes us safer and richer. But it doesn't need to succeed with us as members. The same is true in reverse - the UK succeeding makes the EU safer and richer.
There is nothing wise in wishing states to fail. Failed states are rarely safe for their citizens or their neighbours.
I have little doubt that we will see future revisions to our arrangements, but I don't expect it to be a one-way ratchet anymore. Sometimes we may move closer together, others further apart.
Broadly agree - I think my initial point is I would have preferred the debate around the future relationship to be more about the bespoke UK-EU relationship and less about Canada + and the like. As you say, remaining in the SM and CU was never an option but those countries which want that relationship are perfectly entitled to have it and the perspective from Norway and Switzerland is unquestionably different from that of the UK.
In the same way, the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eritrea and Libya is as much a concern to the UK as it is to the EU and I'd have no issue supporting humanitarian actions as well as actions aimed at preventing people trafficking.
I'd also argue relationships constantly evolve - ours with the EEC and EU changed markedly from 1973 and let's not forget when it was the EEC we voted strongly to stay in and Mrs Thatcher was one of the leading supporters. That's ancient history but to assume we could never have a closer relationship short of re-joining is equally false. It would be a brave individual to have any certainty about the EU might be like in 20-30 years. Perhaps it will devolve back to be more like it was originally planned - a free trade area. Were that to be the case, I could imagine a future UK Government wishing to be part of that.
Perhaps it will but I find that extremely unlikely. Evolution and integration is part of the DNA of the European Union - for it to devolve back into a free trade area alone would require some sort of complete catastrophic system failure to make it go that way; which is not something we should wish upon them.
Considering the love of analogies and comparisons I think a good comparator for the EU is not to Rome - but to the Holy Roman Empire. Famously neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
In many ways as a lover of Paradox Games like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis the shape of modern Europe bears parallels to the past. The UK cutting its own path on the outside, the French seem to envisage Europe coming together in a French vision a la Charlemagne while the German vision of Europe seems more akin to the historically German HRE states. I expect the Germans will get their way but it isn't going to go the UK route and it is long past time we acknowledged that and moved on now.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Most important for me is geography. Being an island has shaped our history, mentality and culture enormously.
Poor old Norns, the most British of all and excluded again.
Would land barriers have stopped Philip II, Napoleon or Hitler?
Unlikely.
William the Conqueror, William of Orange? We're defined by the invasions that succeeded, not the ones that didn't.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Three of those four are true of Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which seem happy in the EU.
And the Swiss and the Norwegians do all of those the European way, but never joined the EU.
So I don't think we're exceptional, as opposed to different, and even if we were it wouldn't determine whether we remained in the EU or not.
Do you think Brexit will make Ireland and the Irish happier with their EU membership?
They seem happy enough so far. After all, the EU appears to have made sure that Eire has got what it needed out of the Brexit Deal. The UK defending the interests of Ulster Unionists... rather less so.
The DUP will likely vote for the Deal, it was only the WA they opposed
I'm sure they will. After all, the alternative is even worse, and the Deal reduces the sting of the NI Protocol. Which, thanks to President-Elect Biden, wasn't going in the bin, deal or no deal.
But- the Brexit Package as a whole is formalities between GB and NI and a Stormont Lock which looks pretty inoperable.
The 2021 arrangements are much closer to the Nationalist vision of Ireland than the Unionist one.
It would be in all of our interests to have a united Ireland - except probably a majority of the people who live in the north. Of course economically the main beneficiary would be the rest of the UK.
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
Being a smaller scheme starting from scratch it will probably be costlier to administer so the idea that you can pay much less and get something equivalent seems implausible.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Most important for me is geography. Being an island has shaped our history, mentality and culture enormously.
Must be why Ireland, Malta and Cyprus want to leave the EU too, and why landlocked Switzerland is so keen to join. Oh wait...
History shows that if you are on mainland Europe, a huge army somewhere on that continent is a very big problem
If you're offshore with a decent Navy, its a good deal less of a problem.
That can't help but shape how people look at life.
I am sure it has had an impact, but I think it is too simplistic. After all, you and I both live on this island and have taken completely different lessons from this experience. I suspect that forty years of anti EU propaganda in the newspapers (much of it completely untrue) is a pretty important factor, even if it was amplifying sentiments that already existed.
Quite.
In the end, Brexit was a stake, no stake game. Many people, mainly working class people, felt they had no stake in the European game and resented paying for it.
Many of the most passionate Europeans had a stake there. A property they owned. A job they coveted. A lifestyle they aspired to. Politics they agreed with. Frequent travel. Educational opportunities.
Yeah, Brexit always was the politics of envy. Nobody hates their countrymen more than a "patriot".
It doesn't matter how many times you tell remainers you didn't vote for Brexit because you're obsessed with rebuilding the British Empire, you may as well be talking to a brick wall. They appear to believe that being part of an empire, or having one, is a necessary prerequisite for being alive - or at least being satisfactorily alive.
Those allergic to assertions of national exceptionalism would do well to avoid Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered when the Parthenon was new and Athens boasted more talent per head than just about any other place of Earth. From Jowett's translation, written when Britain was in a not-entirely-dissimilar position:
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
And then they had the Pelopponesian War and the [edit:] or, rather, a plague.
Come on, not you too: it's Peloponnesian, as in Pelopos Nēsos assimilated into one word.
Boris also managed to outdo Pericles by not snuffing it from his plague
Ah, thanks - I had been wondering why it seemed misspelt. I should have checked my references.
Why aren't we allowed to talk about it? As a working class lad from the Midlands, Erasmus was an opportunity that changed my life, but it's a door that's been slammed shut for my son. I have as much right to air my dismay at this as anyone else has to air their particular grievances.
The new scheme being introduced is actually focused more on working class families, so the door is certainly not being slammed shut.
In what way is it focussed more on working class families?
No details yet, but the objective is clear:
The new scheme will also target students from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas which did not previously have many students benefiting from Erasmus+, making life-changing opportunities accessible to everyone across the country.
So just a soundbite. Unless your taking about affirmative action of some kind, it's hard to imagine how Erasmus could be made any fairer. It was open to all students on the relevant courses and covered almost all the costs involved. It was perfectly designed for working class students like me.
But it sounds like it will be affirmative action, perhaps by allowing different numbers from different universities. if Erasmus was perfectly designed, then why were those taking advantage of it often more well-off?
Official data is hard to come by, but a large study in 2006 found that of those taking part in Erasmus from the UK, around 50 per cent were from families with a high or considerably higher than average income. Across all countries sampled, only 14 per cent of respondents reported their income being lower than average while almost two thirds had at least one parent who held a job as an executive, professional or technician.
It was pretty expensive for us. The funding didn't go very far and I think we ended up doing 3 trips to Holland and back delivering, visiting and collecting the stuff. A very good experience for my daughter and we had a great time when we visited but it wasn't cheap.
I drove myself to Germany in a Morris Ital that was a month away from an MOT that it hadn't a hope of passing, the keys to which I'd won in a game of poker. The car was subsequently abandoned, and I drove myself back in a rented van at the end of the year.
The following year, a girl I'd met in Germany become my girlfriend while she was on her Erasmus year in the UK. She later became my wife.
My daughter made some excellent friends through it and they are planning a reunion post Covid. Its great but its a middle class jolly, no doubt about it.
Is it any more middle class than going to university in the first place, though?
Seems likely it is, along with years abroad after studying and gap years etc. Perhaps too the middle classes instill a slightly more adventurous mindset into their children too - more likely to have been on interesting holidays.
I'd hope that with Turing the government does something that's a little better than Erasmus. It'd be a poor show if they didn't given the great name they've associated with the scheme.
Some posters were concenred that Turing liked younger men and that the scheme should not be associated with him. I found it quite bizarre.!
It doesn't matter how many times you tell remainers you didn't vote for Brexit because you're obsessed with rebuilding the British Empire, you may as well be talking to a brick wall. They appear to believe that being part of an empire, or having one, is a necessary prerequisite for being alive - or at least being satisfactorily alive.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
If having distinct legal traditions means you can't be in a union together then it's bad news for the Anglo-Scottish union. The Irish drive on the left, and seem to quite like being in the EU. Every country thinks it is exceptional (the French are as boring as we are on this subject, possibly more so).
In my experience, some countries are more prone to exceptionalism than others. Of the old Western-allied countries of Europe of the cold war, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Greece are particuiarly prone to historical exceptionalism, in my experience.
They all have reason to think they are exceptional. Britain had the world's largest empire and started the industrial revolution, France's revolution transformed Western history, the Germans are the most successful country in Europe and would dominate the continent if not for their mid century over reach, Italy had Rome and the Greeks invented Western civilisation. The tragedy for the UK is that while we sit around pleasuring ourselves about our glorious past, the world moves on without us. No country in Europe is more than a mid tier power these days. Combined, the EU has significant economic and regulatory clout, but no real political or military power at the moment. Brexit is a gamble that the EU will never become a real power, and that we are better off as a small power in the US orbit.
Their "mid century over reach" - talk about your detached prose.
Thanks. I hate it when people bring emotional crap into what is supposed to be a rational discussion.
You 'hate' it? Far too emotional. You consider it disadvantgeous to rational discussion perhaps?
Ha ha good point. I was trying to adopt the dominant language of political discussion on the Internet.
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
Being a smaller scheme starting from scratch it will probably be costlier to administer so the idea that you can pay much less and get something equivalent seems implausible.
Good thread here from someone who knows the scheme:
It doesn't matter how many times you tell remainers you didn't vote for Brexit because you're obsessed with rebuilding the British Empire, you may as well be talking to a brick wall. They appear to believe that being part of an empire, or having one, is a necessary prerequisite for being alive - or at least being satisfactorily alive.
Or better off as the small, agile mammal running between the feet of the dinosaurs.
My thoughts: 1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline 2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on) 3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength. 4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
I think the world is reverting to the kind of position it was in c.1700 or so, with a number of great powers (eg France, the Spanish monarchy, the Ottoman Empire, China) and not so great but pretty significant powers (England, Holland, Sweden, Persia, Austria).
I believe Rishi has said that the Turing scheme will be more than £100m a year. I've still not been able find out what Erasmus cost the UK previously, whether the EU offer to the UK as a non member was 3 times that and how it compared to charges for other non EU participants. I'm hoping the Turingistas, passionately convinced as they are of the virtue of their jam tomorrow cause, will have these numbers at their fingertips. Any of you lads able to help out?
Being a smaller scheme starting from scratch it will probably be costlier to administer so the idea that you can pay much less and get something equivalent seems implausible.
Good thread here from someone who knows the scheme:
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Most important for me is geography. Being an island has shaped our history, mentality and culture enormously.
Poor old Norns, the most British of all and excluded again.
Would land barriers have stopped Philip II, Napoleon or Hitler?
Unlikely.
William the Conqueror, William of Orange? We're defined by the invasions that succeeded, not the ones that didn't.
Surely we're defined by both.
While our islands haven't been impervious to invasions we're far more used to evolution than revolution - and evolving down our own path most of the time.
Even the invasion of William of Orange was with the blessing of Parliament. The last successful invasion without invitation was William the Conqueror nearly a millennia ago: there isn't to my knowledge a single European Union nation that could suggest that.
But we don't need to go back a thousand years. There are a negligible amount of European nations not to face foreign occupation since the start of the 20th century alone.
Interestingly across the entire continent the nations to face the least amount of foreign occupation since the start of the 20th century are those most divorced from European integration. Are there any Eurozone members not to have been occupied by a foreign power since the start of the 20th century?
Those allergic to assertions of national exceptionalism would do well to avoid Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered when the Parthenon was new and Athens boasted more talent per head than just about any other place of Earth. From Jowett's translation, written when Britain was in a not-entirely-dissimilar position:
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
Was it Jowett of whom someone said they made him Regius professor of Greek to give him an opportunity to learn the language?
Pericles was a demagogue and an imperialist and you shouldn't take him or Athens at his own valuation. The whole 5th c enterprise ends with losing the war and murdering Socrates.
Paradoxically, by 300 BC, Athens had never been so wealthy, nor had such a large navy, and yet had been completely overhauled by the new superpowers, Macedon, Egypt, and the Seleucid monarchy.
Why aren't we allowed to talk about it? As a working class lad from the Midlands, Erasmus was an opportunity that changed my life, but it's a door that's been slammed shut for my son. I have as much right to air my dismay at this as anyone else has to air their particular grievances.
The new scheme being introduced is actually focused more on working class families, so the door is certainly not being slammed shut.
In what way is it focussed more on working class families?
No details yet, but the objective is clear:
The new scheme will also target students from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas which did not previously have many students benefiting from Erasmus+, making life-changing opportunities accessible to everyone across the country.
So just a soundbite. Unless your taking about affirmative action of some kind, it's hard to imagine how Erasmus could be made any fairer. It was open to all students on the relevant courses and covered almost all the costs involved. It was perfectly designed for working class students like me.
But it sounds like it will be affirmative action, perhaps by allowing different numbers from different universities. if Erasmus was perfectly designed, then why were those taking advantage of it often more well-off?
Official data is hard to come by, but a large study in 2006 found that of those taking part in Erasmus from the UK, around 50 per cent were from families with a high or considerably higher than average income. Across all countries sampled, only 14 per cent of respondents reported their income being lower than average while almost two thirds had at least one parent who held a job as an executive, professional or technician.
It was pretty expensive for us. The funding didn't go very far and I think we ended up doing 3 trips to Holland and back delivering, visiting and collecting the stuff. A very good experience for my daughter and we had a great time when we visited but it wasn't cheap.
I drove myself to Germany in a Morris Ital that was a month away from an MOT that it hadn't a hope of passing, the keys to which I'd won in a game of poker. The car was subsequently abandoned, and I drove myself back in a rented van at the end of the year.
The following year, a girl I'd met in Germany become my girlfriend while she was on her Erasmus year in the UK. She later became my wife.
My daughter made some excellent friends through it and they are planning a reunion post Covid. Its great but its a middle class jolly, no doubt about it.
Is it any more middle class than going to university in the first place, though?
Seems likely it is, along with years abroad after studying and gap years etc. Perhaps too the middle classes instill a slightly more adventurous mindset into their children too - more likely to have been on interesting holidays.
I'd hope that with Turing the government does something that's a little better than Erasmus. It'd be a poor show if they didn't given the great name they've associated with the scheme.
It's possible. But the only data points we have are the total number of students and the total budget, and from those, we get a budget of £3000 per student, which won't go far at MIT. Oh, and the name of the scheme.
Conclusion: there's a lot less to this than meets the eye, but it's done its job of keeping the culture war bubbling away.
Of course the top US universities will be the great prizes to be had - much in the way Oxbridge is sought after by those US students. However who knows what good things might come of exchanges with all sorts of Universities in all sorts of countries. Quite cool to spend a year in India for example, or maybe Uruguay, or Uganda!
Fair point, though one of the sour grapes comments about Erasmus has been that few of the Really Top Universities are in continental Europe. But the general principle still holds; I can see 3k per student working as a topup, but not covering the complete costs of being abroad for a year. In which case, we have to ask who can arrange the rest of the cost?
Until the full details are released, the facts so far look like a cat in terminally poor health...
The fact that so many have honed in on it as if it is a big failing the deal or Brexit or whatever goes a long way to explaining the failure of the remain campaign in 2016.
Someone earlier opined it would have been so much nicer if the Europeans had held a national day of gratitude to Britain for their liberation from tyranny in the second world war.
What was it someone said - the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and the British provided the time.
I must have forgotten our Day of Gratitude to the Soviet Union and our Day of Gratitude to the United States as well as our day of thanks to the Canadians, Australians, Indian, South African, New Zealand and other Commonwealth (sorry, Empire) forces for their not inconsiderable assistance.
There's an article in this month's History magazine opining WW2 has become our new religion. We use it as a moral compass - evil is defined in terms of Hitler, Naziism and the Holocaust. Calling someone a "Nazi" for example is the ultimate insult. Denying the Holocaust is considered morally abhorrent in a way 9/11 conspiracy theorists aren't.
That's how we frame evil - we ignore all the myriad other instances of human brutality in the 20th Century and settle on the Third Reich as the ultimate manifestation of inhumanity.
It then becomes quasi-religious and self-perpetuating in the individual and collective psyche. We call those who fought Naziism as "the greatest generation" which implicitly suggests past and future generations don't measure up. Verbal imagery conjuring notions of events from 80 years ago remains commonplace - the exhortations of our current Prime Minister are soaked in those cultural references.
And, that probably lies at the heart of differing attitudes towards European integration. Most European systems of government either succumbed to tyranny, or failed to protect their populations. Ours did not.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Most important for me is geography. Being an island has shaped our history, mentality and culture enormously.
Poor old Norns, the most British of all and excluded again.
Would land barriers have stopped Philip II, Napoleon or Hitler?
Unlikely.
William the Conqueror, William of Orange? We're defined by the invasions that succeeded, not the ones that didn't.
Someone earlier opined it would have been so much nicer if the Europeans had held a national day of gratitude to Britain for their liberation from tyranny in the second world war.
What was it someone said - the Americans provided the money, the Russians provided the blood and the British provided the time.
I must have forgotten our Day of Gratitude to the Soviet Union and our Day of Gratitude to the United States as well as our day of thanks to the Canadians, Australians, Indian, South African, New Zealand and other Commonwealth (sorry, Empire) forces for their not inconsiderable assistance.
There's an article in this month's History magazine opining WW2 has become our new religion. We use it as a moral compass - evil is defined in terms of Hitler, Naziism and the Holocaust. Calling someone a "Nazi" for example is the ultimate insult. Denying the Holocaust is considered morally abhorrent in a way 9/11 conspiracy theorists aren't.
That's how we frame evil - we ignore all the myriad other instances of human brutality in the 20th Century and settle on the Third Reich as the ultimate manifestation of inhumanity.
It then becomes quasi-religious and self-perpetuating in the individual and collective psyche. We call those who fought Naziism as "the greatest generation" which implicitly suggests past and future generations don't measure up. Verbal imagery conjuring notions of events from 80 years ago remains commonplace - the exhortations of our current Prime Minister are soaked in those cultural references.
And, that probably lies at the heart of differing attitudes towards European integration. Most European systems of government either succumbed to tyranny, or failed to protect their populations. Ours did not.
The First World War was a collective failure. The fact that the Western Front wasn't in Britain wasn't any consolation for the British troops who died there.
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
So "WE are more exceptional" means this sort of thing, does it. Counting in miles and driving on the left but sitting on the right and stuff. Sounds a bit prosaic. I sense there's a little more to it than that. I mean, we are hardly going to "unleash our potential" outside the EU by copying their road rules and driving habits.
Why do YOU keep capitalising the WE inside quotes as if Phil's doing that?
Fair cop. It's the MORE that merits attention not so much the WE.
And, that probably lies at the heart of differing attitudes towards European integration. Most European systems of government either succumbed to tyranny, or failed to protect their populations. Ours did not.
The Russians didn't yield either of course.
On the substantive, I'd argue it the other way - we have no comprehension of what it is like to be defeated, occupied, humiliated, reduced to being second class citizens in our own country. Yes, the Channel Islands were occupied but that's a tiny fraction of the entirety of the United Kingdom.
If you look at the experience of the islands, many fled before the Germans arrived - those that stayed were forced to "accommodate" and many were unwilling to reveal what happened and what they had to do to survive and relationships with those who escaped weren't easily repaired.
We've not known a significant military reverse since Yorktown - even Dunkirk, by any reasonable measurement a catastrophic defeat, has been culturally transformed into a victory. Even Suez was a military victory but a political disaster.
We cannot know how we would have responded had German troops landed and occupied our country - I suspect there'd have been as much resistance and collaboration as there was in other countries.
And, that probably lies at the heart of differing attitudes towards European integration. Most European systems of government either succumbed to tyranny, or failed to protect their populations. Ours did not.
The Russians didn't yield either of course.
On the substantive, I'd argue it the other way - we have no comprehension of what it is like to be defeated, occupied, humiliated, reduced to being second class citizens in our own country. Yes, the Channel Islands were occupied but that's a tiny fraction of the entirety of the United Kingdom.
If you look at the experience of the islands, many fled before the Germans arrived - those that stayed were forced to "accommodate" and many were unwilling to reveal what happened and what they had to do to survive and relationships with those who escaped weren't easily repaired.
We've not known a significant military reverse since Yorktown - even Dunkirk, by any reasonable measurement a catastrophic defeat, has been culturally transformed into a victory. Even Suez was a military victory but a political disaster.
We cannot know how we would have responded had German troops landed and occupied our country - I suspect there'd have been as much resistance and collaboration as there was in other countries.
Singapore, but I agree with your general points. The alchemical transformation of the happy accident of having several billion cubic tons of water between us and mainland Europe into some sort of unique martial vigour and virtue is just one aspect of the exceptionalism vibe.
Those allergic to assertions of national exceptionalism would do well to avoid Pericles' Funeral Oration, delivered when the Parthenon was new and Athens boasted more talent per head than just about any other place of Earth. From Jowett's translation, written when Britain was in a not-entirely-dissimilar position:
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
Yep. This is more or less what is felt in the bones down at The Den even though they would articulate it somewhat more directly and straightforwardly - e,g, by booing what they perceive to be displays of empty virtue signalling by non patriots. You again demonstrate that you have the common touch of a Julius Caesar.
Mr. kinabalu, I think that underestimates the unwitting nudge effect pro-EU politicians had over decades. Vowing to stand up to Brussels and for Britain (necessarily creating an adversarial rather than co-operative narrative) in opposition then doing the opposite in office. Blair's surrendering of half the rebate for nothing was astoundingly stupid.
Stoke up resentment, frustrate hopes of relief in office, refuse to even try and make an argument *for* the EU, promise then renege upon a referendum in a manifesto: these things were marvellous for opposition to the EU.
UKIP and Farage get headlines and loom large in the popular imagination but the fertile soil was cultivated and the seeds planted by short-sighted pro-EU politicians. In much the same way as the foolish Blair planned to 'kill nationalism stone dead' with devolution in Scotland, operating on the blithe assumption it would be a Labour fiefdom in perpetuity.
As an aside, that's also why advocates of English regional assemblies are wrong, and shockingly, obviously wrong at that. Slam down political dividing lines and political divisions will grow as a matter of course. Holyrood is a golden, shining example of this.
No, I don't think it does. There's some truth in what you say here - "not a lot" as Paul Daniels used to go but definitely some - and of course there were 17.4m reasons for voting Leave, none of them precisely identical, however I'm looking for the main overarching sentiment that binds the Brexit proposition into such a powerful and appealing whole.
And it's this. Exceptionalism. If we were to drill down deep into the entrails of a Leaver drawn at random from that 17.4m - metaphorically, I mean, not as a means of causing a prolonged and agonizing death - we would to a very high degree of probability find the belief that England and the English are not really European in the sense that, say, France and Germany are. The belief that, in terms of more than geography, we stand apart and a little above.
I wouldn't say above but it is blindingly obvious we do stand apart.
We are exceptional. There's nothing to be denied or ashamed about that. That doesn't mean we are better than others though, they can be exceptional in their own ways too.
If we feel exceptional only to the same degree other European nations feel exceptional the Brexit rocket would not have had sufficient fuel to gain lift-off let alone punch through the clouds and inner and outer space to reach its ultimate destination in its own new universe.
We are more exceptional than most continental European nations but so what? That doesn't make us better, it just makes us exceptional.
There is nothing wrong with being different. Why would you hate differences?
Most of your Brexit output is imbued with a sense that England is a cut above the Continentals. Sometimes it is there but passably subtle, and at other times it positively reeks of it. As in your "WE are more exceptional" opening sentence here.
What does more exceptional even mean?
It means we are more different.
We have Common Law they have Civil Law. We have miles. We drive on the left. We drive right hand drive vehicles.
I could go on. We are just more different than they are. Nothing either good or wrong with that, it just is what it is.
Most important for me is geography. Being an island has shaped our history, mentality and culture enormously.
Must be why Ireland, Malta and Cyprus want to leave the EU too, and why landlocked Switzerland is so keen to join. Oh wait...
History shows that if you are on mainland Europe, a huge army somewhere on that continent is a very big problem
If you're offshore with a decent Navy, its a good deal less of a problem.
That can't help but shape how people look at life.
I am sure it has had an impact, but I think it is too simplistic. After all, you and I both live on this island and have taken completely different lessons from this experience. I suspect that forty years of anti EU propaganda in the newspapers (much of it completely untrue) is a pretty important factor, even if it was amplifying sentiments that already existed.
Quite.
In the end, Brexit was a stake, no stake game. Many people, mainly working class people, felt they had no stake in the European game and resented paying for it.
Many of the most passionate Europeans had a stake there. A property they owned. A job they coveted. A lifestyle they aspired to. Politics they agreed with. Frequent travel. Educational opportunities.
Yes that's probably right. In the end I think that the EU was good for working class people like it is good for all of us (except perhaps fishermen, they definitely got screwed in 1973). But many of them didn't see it that way. I know the Remainer of popular imagination has a Tuscan villa and an army of underpaid Poles at their beck and call, but personally I don't have much to lose materially from Brexit - I rarely even go to the Continent on holiday. I just liked the way the EU brought people together (many friends and family from the EU) and I am a big believer in free trade. I also think a medium sized nation state like the UK is both too large and too small to provide effective government in an era of globalisation.
Comments
They're eager to go back as they want to see their friends and as far as they are concerned they've had Christmas now so why aren't they going back yet? Then again one of them is ruthless, she asked on Boxing Day why we still have the Christmas Tree up?
But we're not telling them when they're due to go back. Officially the school still says they're going back next Monday but I would rather tell them on Sunday that they're going back tomorrow - than have them eager and excited to go back only to have it cancelled.
My thoughts:
1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline
2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on)
3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength.
4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
THERE has been a Covid outbreak at Shanklin Conservative Club, with three confirmed cases and several members self-isolating and awaiting test results.
With rumours of a private event at the club, prior.
https://www.countypress.co.uk/news/18970156.covid-outbreak-shanklin-conservative-club/
I have no doubt that an element of this thinking was behind our Brexit vote.
I just find it disappointing that many leavers were so shit scared of being part of the EU.
@Richard_Tyndall, as we know, famously compared it to being a slave ffs.
Less hot on treating prisoners well, mind...
Conclusion: there's a lot less to this than meets the eye, but it's done its job of keeping the culture war bubbling away.
If, once they get going, the UK is only vaccinating a million a week, and assuming we have no shortage of doses, I think the government will have failed badly. Based on flu jabs, GPs alone should be able to do a million a week without breaking sweat, and that should be a small part of the total. It really should be a national effort to get the doses, as they are delivered, into arms. (I could imagine a million a week is more reasonable if they only had access to the Pfizer jab, because of both cold chain and supply.)
On the subject of travel, I assume that quarantine periods will *not* be removed until or unless the vaccine is shown to prevent asymptomatic transmission. Such evidence would take a long time to accrue. So skiers would still have to quarantine for 10 days when they get there, and 10 days when they get back. That's assuming that non-essential travel is permitted at all, of course.
--AS
But I dunno. Now vaccines are a reality, I suspect the government is going to run into more opposition here. A lot more. A poll for the Express yesterday suggested that.
Majid Nawaz now pushing the anti-lockdown case very hard. Not on Talk Radio. On LBC.
https://twitter.com/hsobejon/status/1343573300124000256
When you said "WE are MORE exceptional than other countries" you did not for one second mean to imply we are in any sense better than other countries.
All you meant by "exceptional" was different to the norm, not mundane and run-of-the-mill, and so by saying what you said all you truly meant deep down was that we - England and the English - are less mundane and less run-of-the-mill than other countries.
There. My Big Softy side wins out yet again.
I actually think its wise to frame the UK's trade style similar to other nations - eg Norway, Switzerland, Canada or Australia - as it makes it easier to understand. We have ended up Canada-style, which is what I think most Brexiteers wanted, but it was always going to be only that style. It will of course be a unique and exceptional UK/EU agreement - and again nothing wrong with that exceptionalism. But it is helpful for a frame of reference to think what else it is similar to.
But I 100% agree on that I don't want the EU to fail. The EU succeeding is good for us, not bad for us. Better neighbours is a good thing that makes us safer and richer. But it doesn't need to succeed with us as members. The same is true in reverse - the UK succeeding makes the EU safer and richer.
There is nothing wise in wishing states to fail. Failed states are rarely safe for their citizens or their neighbours.
I have little doubt that we will see future revisions to our arrangements, but I don't expect it to be a one-way ratchet anymore. Sometimes we may move closer together, others further apart.
As many others have said: The French would say the same thing - and for good reason.
The French would be right to say it to.
In the end, Brexit was a stake, no stake game. Many people, mainly working class people, felt they had no stake in the European game and resented paying for it.
Many of the most passionate Europeans had a stake there. A property they owned. A job they coveted. A lifestyle they aspired to. Politics they agreed with. Frequent travel. Educational opportunities.
The excellent discussion in Gremlins II about feeding after midnight, date lines & airplanes comes to mind...
No single dominant city state. Athens, Sparta, Syracuse, Rhodes, Thebes and many more co-existing.
'To sum up: I say that Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is verified by the position to which these qualities have raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her. No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please for the moment, although his representation of the facts will not bear the light of day. For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that she might be taken from them; and every one of us who survive should gladly toil on her behalf...'
The piece I found in the Indy (what a fucking awful site that is) is annoyingly vague. One line that stuck out was 'But critics immediately questioned whether 35,000 students could really take part in a scheme costing only £100m – working out at only £2,850 each.' I don't think £2,850 is going to cut it in the further afield cities of the world.
Until the full details are released, the facts so far look like a cat in terminally poor health...
Perhaps global warming or some other global existential crisis will, ironically, turn out to be humanity's salvation.
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Just in case you added it for emphasis.
If they are one of the primary routes of infection then having the students go back seems ludicrous to me.
Those doing well saw globalisation (overlapping but not the same as the EU) as great because they had more opportunities and could hire a great Polish chap to do the decking. Those lower down the scale saw increased competition for work cutting down wages and reducing living standards. Likewise factories closing in the West and new ones springing up in China.
Mr. Carnyx, the Peloponnesian War saw the Athenian Empire/Protection Racket lose from a seemingly unassailable position thanks to a needless invasion of Sicily. Hubris ever precedes nemesis.
Anyway, I must be off. The galaxy isn't going to conquer itself.
In the same way, the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, Eritrea and Libya is as much a concern to the UK as it is to the EU and I'd have no issue supporting humanitarian actions as well as actions aimed at preventing people trafficking.
I'd also argue relationships constantly evolve - ours with the EEC and EU changed markedly from 1973 and let's not forget when it was the EEC we voted strongly to stay in and Mrs Thatcher was one of the leading supporters. That's ancient history but to assume we could never have a closer relationship short of re-joining is equally false. It would be a brave individual to have any certainty about the EU might be like in 20-30 years. Perhaps it will devolve back to be more like it was originally planned - a free trade area. Were that to be the case, I could imagine a future UK Government wishing to be part of that.
A friend, her son has only been in school three days since the October half term due to the number of times he has had to self isolate.
She and her son are not alone.
Travel against official government advice can and will leave policies torn up by insurers, just as the helicopter gets called for...
The point about global warming is fair but the problem is its impacts are insidious and disproportionate. Some in the UK may be concerned about the lack of winter snow but I'd be more concerned about the health impacts of prolonged heat (say 14 days or more with maximum temperatures in London above 40c).
For other parts of the world, the impact of climate change is even more dramatic. Sea level rises threaten the hundreds of millions who live in coastal areas and for some islands it's an existential threat.
Then there's pollution in general and the health impacts of breathing bad air so you have a series of interconnected issues which to me cry out for global action but as we're seeing they aren't by themselves severe enough yet to overcome the narrow nationalism and populism of some (indeed many) world leaders.
https://twitter.com/KennyFarq/status/1343536816859836417?s=20
Boris also managed to outdo Pericles by not snuffing it from his plague
Pericles was a demagogue and an imperialist and you shouldn't take him or Athens at his own valuation. The whole 5th c enterprise ends with losing the war and murdering Socrates.
Considering the love of analogies and comparisons I think a good comparator for the EU is not to Rome - but to the Holy Roman Empire. Famously neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
In many ways as a lover of Paradox Games like Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis the shape of modern Europe bears parallels to the past. The UK cutting its own path on the outside, the French seem to envisage Europe coming together in a French vision a la Charlemagne while the German vision of Europe seems more akin to the historically German HRE states. I expect the Germans will get their way but it isn't going to go the UK route and it is long past time we acknowledged that and moved on now.
https://twitter.com/Cardwell_PJ/status/1342917640797483008?s=19
Or better off as the small, agile mammal running between the feet of the dinosaurs.
My thoughts:
1. The US is in a long moral and economic decline
2. China does not have its shit in gear, with its internal repression of anyone who gets out of line (Uyghars, citizen journalist, uppity entrepreneurs, political activist, the list goes on)
3. The EU will become so rule-bound that it will struggle to maintain its current world standing, and slowly slide backwards in relative standing, while internal tensions sap more of its strength.
4. The UK will fail to take advantage of the limited flexibility the Brexit deal offers it and will follow a similar glide path the the EU/US in terms of relative decline.
I have no idea who the next Rome will be. A superpower needs an organizing principle that powers its populace to action. I don't see one to rival the American Dream atm. And the Americans are losing faith in it.
I think the world is reverting to the kind of position it was in c.1700 or so, with a number of great powers (eg France, the Spanish monarchy, the Ottoman Empire, China) and not so great but pretty significant powers (England, Holland, Sweden, Persia, Austria).
NEW THREAD
While our islands haven't been impervious to invasions we're far more used to evolution than revolution - and evolving down our own path most of the time.
Even the invasion of William of Orange was with the blessing of Parliament. The last successful invasion without invitation was William the Conqueror nearly a millennia ago: there isn't to my knowledge a single European Union nation that could suggest that.
But we don't need to go back a thousand years. There are a negligible amount of European nations not to face foreign occupation since the start of the 20th century alone.
Interestingly across the entire continent the nations to face the least amount of foreign occupation since the start of the 20th century are those most divorced from European integration. Are there any Eurozone members not to have been occupied by a foreign power since the start of the 20th century?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Julius_Wilson
On the substantive, I'd argue it the other way - we have no comprehension of what it is like to be defeated, occupied, humiliated, reduced to being second class citizens in our own country. Yes, the Channel Islands were occupied but that's a tiny fraction of the entirety of the United Kingdom.
If you look at the experience of the islands, many fled before the Germans arrived - those that stayed were forced to "accommodate" and many were unwilling to reveal what happened and what they had to do to survive and relationships with those who escaped weren't easily repaired.
We've not known a significant military reverse since Yorktown - even Dunkirk, by any reasonable measurement a catastrophic defeat, has been culturally transformed into a victory. Even Suez was a military victory but a political disaster.
We cannot know how we would have responded had German troops landed and occupied our country - I suspect there'd have been as much resistance and collaboration as there was in other countries.
The alchemical transformation of the happy accident of having several billion cubic tons of water between us and mainland Europe into some sort of unique martial vigour and virtue is just one aspect of the exceptionalism vibe.
I know the Remainer of popular imagination has a Tuscan villa and an army of underpaid Poles at their beck and call, but personally I don't have much to lose materially from Brexit - I rarely even go to the Continent on holiday. I just liked the way the EU brought people together (many friends and family from the EU) and I am a big believer in free trade. I also think a medium sized nation state like the UK is both too large and too small to provide effective government in an era of globalisation.