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  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983

    If we’re going to give bits of the UK away let us start with Northern Ireland.

    No, let us not do that. I like Northern Ireland and I think we should keep it.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129
    @DecrepitJohnL

    That's certainly not true. There is a world of difference between a Minister provided with a salary and housing (and often other significant expenses) by their church/chapel and a preacher who works at something else for a living and has to fund their own rent.

    May and Brown come under the former category, Lloyd George and Thatcher emphatically didn't.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,983
    ydoethur said:

    My point really was to ask, more simply, what do we mean by 'working class?' .

    lower-working class: will never buy a house (insufficient funds)
    upper-working-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but saves up for own deposit
    lower-middle-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but parents gift them the deposit
    upper-middle-class: parents buy the house for them
    upper-class: will never buy a house (will inherit one from dead relative)
  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    ydoethur said:

    @DecrepitJohnL

    That's certainly not true. There is a world of difference between a Minister provided with a salary and housing (and often other significant expenses) by their church/chapel and a preacher who works at something else for a living and has to fund their own rent.

    May and Brown come under the former category, Lloyd George and Thatcher emphatically didn't.

    It certainly is true that all four were raised by preachers, and that is the point.
  • rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 8,615
    viewcode said:

    lower-working class: will never buy a house (insufficient funds)
    upper-working-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but saves up for own deposit
    lower-middle-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but parents gift them the deposit
    upper-middle-class: parents buy the house for them
    upper-class: will never buy a house (will inherit one from dead relative)
    My totally unscientific version:
    Working class - none of the below.
    Middle class - has a cleaner/can easily afford a cleaner.
    Upper class - doesn't need to/didn't need to work for a living.
  • PurplePurple Posts: 150
    ydoethur said:

    Stalin's father was a cobbler as well, although that's apropos of nothing.

    I think a lot of these definitions of 'class' - which ultimately derive from Karl Marx and his belief that factory workers (whom he called 'the workers' for short) would one day rule the world and build a new economic and social system, tend to obscure as much as they inform. They're also capable of doing dreadful damage in the wrong hands (Stalin springs to mind). They exclude, rather than include. For example they do not include agricultural workers, one reason why Marxism has tended to be weak in rural areas.

    For Marx those who worked for a wage were proletarians and working class. That definition excluded peasants who owned some land or who were allowed to reap the product from land that they worked on for some of the time so long as they worked on other land for a guy higher up the chain the rest of the time, and it excluded serfs, but it included landless agricultural wage-labourers, who by 1750 in England were the majority of workers in agriculture.

    Before he was a cobbler, Stalin's father was born a serf, although he'd been emancipated by the time Stalin was born.



  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 65,179
    SeanT said:

    If the British Museum gives back the Marbles, the Louvre should return the Mona Lisa to Italy, the Met should return Monet's lilies to France, the Hermitage should return its Gainsboroughs to England, and the Bayeux Tapestry should come home to an abbey in Kent though we don't know which.

    It's ludicrous. Repatriate sacred totems and human remains, sure. But if you go beyond that, you destroy every major museum in the world, and they become narrow, nationalistic repositories of solely native works. Depressing.

    The whole point of a great world museum is that you can the entire splendour and rich diversity of human civilisation, so many ages and cultures, in one single place.

    Swedish museums full of Russian icons iirc. Bought up at ludicrous low prices in street markets after the Bolsheviks raided all the churches and stripped them.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 65,179
    viewcode said:

    lower-working class: will never buy a house (insufficient funds)
    upper-working-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but saves up for own deposit
    lower-middle-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but parents gift them the deposit
    upper-middle-class: parents buy the house for them
    upper-class: will never buy a house (will inherit one from dead relative)
    Voting wise there seems to be growing evidence that class is fading as a factor. College or not, educated is developing key dividing line.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,647
    SeanT said:

    If the British Museum gives back the Marbles, the Louvre should return the Mona Lisa to Italy, the Met should return Monet's lilies to France, the Hermitage should return its Gainsboroughs to England, and the Bayeux Tapestry should come home to an abbey in Kent though we don't know which.

    It's ludicrous. Repatriate sacred totems and human remains, sure. But if you go beyond that, you destroy every major museum in the world, and they become narrow, nationalistic repositories of solely native works. Depressing.

    The whole point of a great world museum is that you can admire the splendour and rich diversity of human civilisation, so many ages and cultures, in one single place.

    Wouldn’t it all be a wash in the end? A bit like the Tate rehang.
  • William_HWilliam_H Posts: 346
    SeanT said:

    If the British Museum gives back the Marbles, the Louvre should return the Mona Lisa to Italy, the Met should return Monet's lilies to France, the Hermitage should return its Gainsboroughs to England, and the Bayeux Tapestry should come home to an abbey in Kent though we don't know which.

    It's ludicrous. Repatriate sacred totems and human remains, sure. But if you go beyond that, you destroy every major museum in the world, and they become narrow, nationalistic repositories of solely native works. Depressing.

    The whole point of a great world museum is that you can admire the splendour and rich diversity of human civilisation, so many ages and cultures, in one single place.

    The decorations of the temple of Athena aren't sacred?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,236
    viewcode said:

    lower-working class: will never buy a house (insufficient funds)
    upper-working-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but saves up for own deposit
    lower-middle-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but parents gift them the deposit
    upper-middle-class: parents buy the house for them
    upper-class: will never buy a house (will inherit one from dead relative)
    viewcode said:

    lower-working class: will never buy a house (insufficient funds)
    upper-working-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but saves up for own deposit
    lower-middle-class: will buy a house via a mortgage but parents gift them the deposit
    upper-middle-class: parents buy the house for them
    upper-class: will never buy a house (will inherit one from dead relative)
    The only definition of class that has any utility is the relation to the means of production.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 62,396
    Good afternoon, fellow Apocalypse enthusiasts.
  • MJWMJW Posts: 2,008
    SeanT said:

    If the British Museum gives back the Marbles, the Louvre should return the Mona Lisa to Italy, the Met should return Monet's lilies to France, the Hermitage should return its Gainsboroughs to England, and the Bayeux Tapestry should come home to an abbey in Kent though we don't know which.

    It's ludicrous. Repatriate sacred totems and human remains, sure. But if you go beyond that, you destroy every major museum in the world, and they become narrow, nationalistic repositories of solely native works. Depressing.

    The whole point of a great world museum is that you can admire the splendour and rich diversity of human civilisation, so many ages and cultures, in one single place.

    Indeed. Although I can see why it annoys citizens of certain countries that significant treasures are all housed in museums in nations that happened to be wealthy during the 19th and early 20th Century. Arguably what I'd like to see now technology probably allows is an expansion of what happens on an ad-hoc basis now, so that works that are of worldwide significance tour and swap museums so we all got the chance to see more great art/artefacts and you got an acceptance that they were treasures of our shared civilisations rather than trophies to be hoarded or pined for.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MJW said:

    Indeed. Although I can see why it annoys citizens of certain countries that significant treasures are all housed in museums in nations that happened to be wealthy during the 19th and early 20th Century. Arguably what I'd like to see now technology probably allows is an expansion of what happens on an ad-hoc basis now, so that works that are of worldwide significance tour and swap museums so we all got the chance to see more great art/artefacts and you got an acceptance that they were treasures of our shared civilisations rather than trophies to be hoarded or pined for.
    Indeed and that does happen more now than it used to though ironically this is discouraged by all the ludicrous "return xyz" claims. Museums are reticent to exchange their prized posessions on a fear they won't get them returned.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600

    Voting wise there seems to be growing evidence that class is fading as a factor. College or not, educated is developing key dividing line.
    No it is age that is the key dividing line, more graduates vote Labour and LD than Tory simply because fewer young people vote Tory and 40% of young people are now graduates compared to about 10% of pensioners who are strongly Tory. In class terms the Tories still always win ABs and Labour still always win DEs but neither by as much as they used to with C1s and C2s the key swing voters, voting for Blair then switching to Cameron and May.

    After age the next most important factor is whether you live in a village or market town in which case you are more likely to be Tory or if you live in an inner city or university town in which case you are more likely to be Labour (though the LDs also can win the latter and spa towns). Suburbs being the key swing areas
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600
    ydoethur said:

    Canning went through school and Oxford paid for by his uncle, although I agree that's not what 'working class' traditionally means.

    Lloyd George's father was a schoolteacher but that didn't automatically confer middle-class status at that time. It was a poorly paid job and didn't always require the level of education you might expect. (Stalin's father was a cobbler as well, although that's apropos of nothing.)

    Macdonald came from a poorer background than any of them but like Disraeli he successfully exploited his career to become comfortably off (although not in Lloyd George's league) - and again, he was a schoolteacher.

    My point really was to ask, more simply, what do we mean by 'working class?' Because in many ways it's a rather unhelpful label. Surely anyone who has to work for a living, because they can't save up enough to not work for a time, is technically 'working class.' On that basis all three fit comfortably into that category until they entered Parliament even if later they moved out of it.

    I think a lot of these definitions of 'class' - which ultimately derive from Karl Marx and his belief that factory workers (whom he called 'the workers' for short) would one day rule the world and build a new economic and social system, tend to obscure as much as they inform. They're also capable of doing dreadful damage in the wrong hands (Stalin springs to mind). They exclude, rather than include. For example they do not include agricultural workers, one reason why Marxism has tended to be weak in rural areas. And they exclude the people whose education and ability to administer such a system would be needed if it were ever imposed.

    It's one reason why Marxism is unattractive to anyone with a brain. It even proved, eventually, unattractive to Marx who implicitly admitted his theories didn't fit the facts (and very bitter he was about it as well).
    Working class is traditionally someone doing manual work, so that automatically excludes schoolteachers who are lower middle class (or upper middle class if they teach in a public school).
  • ExiledInScotlandExiledInScotland Posts: 1,534
    edited June 2018
    rkrkrk said:

    My totally unscientific version:
    Working class - none of the below.
    Middle class - has a cleaner/can easily afford a cleaner.
    Upper class - doesn't need to/didn't need to work for a living.
    Scenario. Your Working class parents win the Euromillions jackpot, buy a mansion and make you the sole beneficiary of their wills. Does that make you Upper, Middle or Working class?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600
    brendan16 said:

    Agreed - but a teacher was apparently always seen as middle class and a taxi driver working class. The point is such dividing lines are no longer relevant. It's property and assets that determine wealth and status - not income or class as the barriers to entry for the former are now so high. As Rachel Reeves put it so well - the hardest way to get rich these days is to actually go out to work!
    Unless your parents are millionaires then you are only likely to get property or assets to a significant degree if you do a middle class or professional job and even most self made entrepreneurs don't do much manual labour
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,030
    SeanT said:

    If the British Museum gives back the Marbles, the Louvre should return the Mona Lisa to Italy, the Met should return Monet's lilies to France, the Hermitage should return its Gainsboroughs to England, and the Bayeux Tapestry should come home to an abbey in Kent though we don't know which.

    It's ludicrous. Repatriate sacred totems and human remains, sure. But if you go beyond that, you destroy every major museum in the world, and they become narrow, nationalistic repositories of solely native works. Depressing.

    The whole point of a great world museum is that you can admire the splendour and rich diversity of human civilisation, so many ages and cultures, in one single place.

    You negotiate a quid pro quo in respect of the giftback.
    Certain artefacts, for whatever reason, retain a disproportionate cultural value to the nation of their origin. We should perhaps take advantage of that, rather than fighting it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,030
    SeanT said:

    Setting aside the fact that the Greeks no longer worship Zeus, etc, the Elgin Marbles were never sacred objects as such: never worshipped as idols or ikons...
    They clearly are today...

  • DecrepitJohnLDecrepitJohnL Posts: 13,300
    brendan16 said:

    Agreed - but a teacher was apparently always seen as middle class and a taxi driver working class. The point is such dividing lines are no longer relevant. It's property and assets that determine wealth and status - not income or class as the barriers to entry for the former are now so high. As Rachel Reeves put it so well - the hardest way to get rich these days is to actually go out to work!
    I'm no expert but is this not marxism? Surely the capitalists he described were the ones with property and assets (or capital)?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 73,129
    HYUFD said:

    Working class is traditionally someone doing manual work, so that automatically excludes schoolteachers who are lower middle class (or upper middle class if they teach in a public school).

    And that is my point HYUFD. It is a cretinous definition because it assumes some kinds of work are not work. (If you think teachers don't do rather a lot of heavy manual work, incidentally, I have a bridge I would like to sell you).

    I was pointing out - again - that we are here lazily adopting nineteenth century definitions of a discredited nineteenth century philosopher who was himself, ironically, somebody who never did a day's work in his life!
  • ElliotElliot Posts: 1,516
    brendan16 said:

    So now we face a famine? Sorry a famine is no food and total starvation and resulting disease and large number of deaths as Ireland experienced in the 1840s - not less choice on the shelves at Waitrose.

    And apparently everyone is going to take up arms and start bombing and killing each other because there might be a few customs checks on the Irish border? That is an excuse not a reason.

    It is just too much really!
    The latest Project Fear shenanigans just make the Remainers look ridiculous.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,160
    edited June 2018
    SeanT said:

    Can anyone recommend a good place to buy bitcoin?

    RCS once suggested a very useful BTC-buying site, which I visited a few times, but my damn laptop has broken and I can't recall the name.

    GDax / Coinbase is the biggest and most reputable (both owned by the same company, Coinbase charges a lot higher fees for basically having a simpler more newbie friendly interface).
  • BigRichBigRich Posts: 3,492
    SeanT said:

    Can anyone recommend a good place to buy bitcoin?

    RCS once suggested a very useful BTC-buying site, which I visited a few times, but my damn laptop has broken and I can't recall the name.

    G-Dax

    Its the exchange behind CoinBase, quite a lot of liquidate but much lower fees that Coin Base.

    https://www.gdax.com/?utm_source=google_search_b&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=1020592481&utm_content=50102454197&utm_term=gdax&utm_creative=240986430383&cb_device=c&cb_placement=&cb_country=uk&cb_city=open&cb_language=en_gb&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIm5iXkdK32wIVjUPTCh2USwy_EAAYASAAEgLMmfD_BwE
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 121,442

    NEW THREAD

  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 10,017

    In Arlene Foster's interview on Sky she spoke as much about domestic politics in the Republic of Ireland as anything else. She's clearly preparing her political brand for an all-Ireland future. :)
    I take it that the smiley face denotes that you're not serious about the DUP looking forward to a United Ireland.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9uHhLe6WE0
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 4,953
    SeanT said:

    Can anyone recommend a good place to buy bitcoin?

    RCS once suggested a very useful BTC-buying site, which I visited a few times, but my damn laptop has broken and I can't recall the name.

    Coinbase for small immediate card purchases of a couple of hundred quid or so, for anything else you're better off using Bitstamp, one of the oldest and most established exchanges, wire transfer so slower but the fees are much, much cheaper. GDAX is also trustworthy.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600
    edited June 2018
    ydoethur said:

    And that is my point HYUFD. It is a cretinous definition because it assumes some kinds of work are not work. (If you think teachers don't do rather a lot of heavy manual work, incidentally, I have a bridge I would like to sell you).

    I was pointing out - again - that we are here lazily adopting nineteenth century definitions of a discredited nineteenth century philosopher who was himself, ironically, somebody who never did a day's work in his life!
    Everybody does some manual work at some point even a barrister carrying a file but the average teacher or barrister spends most of their day in the classroom or the courtroom making their points orally or doing written preparation work not manual labour.

    The definition still holds true today largely and of the most well paid jobs e.g. lawyers, doctors, bankers and stockbrokers, ceos and accountants, IT workers very few require much manual labour
  • dellertronicdellertronic Posts: 133
    Surely you can't have a leave /remain referendum after 30th March 2019. It has to be a re-join/stay out referendum.
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 2,093
    MJW said:

    Indeed. Although I can see why it annoys citizens of certain countries that significant treasures are all housed in museums in nations that happened to be wealthy during the 19th and early 20th Century. Arguably what I'd like to see now technology probably allows is an expansion of what happens on an ad-hoc basis now, so that works that are of worldwide significance tour and swap museums so we all got the chance to see more great art/artefacts and you got an acceptance that they were treasures of our shared civilisations rather than trophies to be hoarded or pined for.
    So when are the Elgin Marbles coming to Glasgow?
This discussion has been closed.