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Looking forward to tomorrow’s locals from Michael Thrasher – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited May 2021 in General
imageLooking forward to tomorrow’s locals from Michael Thrasher – politicalbetting.com

By some margin forecasting this year’s council seat gains and losses in 143 local authorities should be avoided at all costs.  With that caveat in mind, let’s have a go.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Test
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    2nd test
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    It's right because Con gain Hartlepool should have happened in 2019 - the fact it didn't was because of an external factor (Brexit Party) that has now disappeared.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.

    because Freedom - or rather a distraction from questions regarding the Scottish Government which have awkward answers.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    edited May 2021

    I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.

    Not a patriotic Scot, but perhaps it's because the SNP have nothing else to talk about?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
    NEW: Final @IpsosMORI poll before the Scottish Election tomorrow shows chances of an SNP majority are finely balanced. Constituency voting intention:
    •SNP: 50% (-3 compared with our last poll)
    •Lab: 22% (+4)
    •Con: 20% (nc)
    •LD: 6% (nc)
    •Grn: 2% (nc)
    •Other: 1% (nc) https://twitter.com/KellyIpsosMORI/status/1389911944593817603/photo/1
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,702
    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    How ?

    It feels the total reverse. Apathy towards SKS.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    Taz said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    How ?

    It feels the total reverse. Apathy towards SKS.
    That's my impression. too.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    Self-made spoonerisms: I initially read this as tomorrow's thrashing by Michael Locals.

    Aren't Spoonerisms transpositions of sounds rather than entire words?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    RobD said:

    I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.

    Not a patriotic Scot, but perhaps it's because the SNP have nothing else to talk about?
    They certainly don’t want to talk about education, policing, health, or any other area of government they’ve been running for the past decade.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    FPT - different issues move in different ways.

    On the one hand, attitudes are certainly far more liberal on gay marriage and what men/women can and should do than even 15 years ago.

    On the other hand, some attitudes are more conservative - I remember lots of cynicism about marriage in the early noughties with many young progressives saying they'd go for a civil partnership (or nothing) instead. That's almost entirely gone now, and everyone talks about getting married.

    Similarly, many people were saying joining the euro was inevitable and leaving the EU was inconceivable - even I was the proud owner of an EPP umbrella and fountain pen following a tour of the European parliament in 2002.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    FPT
    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    Sean_F said:

    Taz said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    How ?

    It feels the total reverse. Apathy towards SKS.
    That's my impression. too.
    I wonder if there is still the legacy of the parliamentary shenanigans around Brexit.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    Endillion said:

    Self-made spoonerisms: I initially read this as tomorrow's thrashing by Michael Locals.

    Aren't Spoonerisms transpositions of sounds rather than entire words?
    It's this sort of pedantry that makes the site.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    I'm saving this post for Friday.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    Endillion said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    Not energised at all I would say.

    I'm struggling to convince my girlfriend to vote tomorrow, for example.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    On topic, great article from Michael.

    There will be something for everyone on Friday. Scotland is the most nationally significant election, and the English locals will tell us how the voting coalitions are moving in various parts of the country. I don't expect much new on Labour but it could be interesting to see how they trade with the Greens, and in which seats they are creeping up outside the core Mets.

    Watch out for any LD movement in the Shires. If that happens it's as important as Hartlepool in the grand scheme of things.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Endillion said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    Not energised at all I would say.

    I'm struggling to convince my girlfriend to vote tomorrow, for example.
    Tell her that she doesn’t have the right to complain about the council / police / whoever for the next few years, if she doesn’t take the opportunity to decide who runs them.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    edited May 2021
    Taz said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    How ?

    It feels the total reverse. Apathy towards SKS.
    He stands no chance of holding Hartlepool, but Starmer has actually come across quite well in the last week or so.

    And he is not Corbyn and that mob.

    The reasoning for vote in the by election is different than the reasoning in the other elections around country, and both different than how people would vote in GE tomorrow.

    I think tomorrow show nation moving on from Brexit conflict and start of Labour coming back into the picture.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    edited May 2021
    Sandpit said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    Not energised at all I would say.

    I'm struggling to convince my girlfriend to vote tomorrow, for example.
    Tell her that she doesn’t have the right to complain about the council / police / whoever for the next few years, if she doesn’t take the opportunity to decide who runs them.
    Falls on deaf ears.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    I don't think polls have been moving back to labour for long enough to be confident theres a (relative) surge. And I'm not sure they are standing enough in the shire counties to capitalise there if there is a surge.

    So other than Hartlepool, holding up in Wales and beating SCON to taste the SNPs dust, where else would we see the surge manifest?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Sandpit said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    Not energised at all I would say.

    I'm struggling to convince my girlfriend to vote tomorrow, for example.
    Tell her that she doesn’t have the right to complain about the council / police / whoever for the next few years, if she doesn’t take the opportunity to decide who runs them.
    Falls on deaf ears.
    Parties cannot treat but presumably you can - bribe her with brownies?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    On topic, great article from Michael.

    There will be something for everyone on Friday. Scotland is the most nationally significant election, and the English locals will tell us how the voting coalitions are moving in various parts of the country. I don't expect much new on Labour but it could be interesting to see how they trade with the Greens, and in which seats they are creeping up outside the core Mets.

    Watch out for any LD movement in the Shires. If that happens it's as important as Hartlepool in the grand scheme of things.

    They expected some of it last time (as did some Tories) and the brief Maygasm ruined that. Even with the polls still not great they need those inroads.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    On topic, if I follow correctly, the main scenarios see the Cons somewhere between breakeven and a few hundred gains, and even the "doomsday" scenario only has them down 150. Aren't these a huge set of elections with seats last contested in times the Cons mostly did quite well? Isn't it more usual to have the potential for the governing party to lose a thousand seats or more under these circumstances, even in a normal year with only one set of seats up?

    Even with the obvious retorts (pandemic, vaccine bounce, Corbyn hangover etc) that seems like a pretty damning indictment of the Opposition parties.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Endillion said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I suspect that Uni students/graduates are much more likely to vote, than non-Uni.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    gealbhan said:

    Taz said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    How ?

    It feels the total reverse. Apathy towards SKS.
    He stands no chance of holding Hartlepool, but Starmer has actually come across quite well in the last week or so.

    And he is not Corbyn and that mob.

    The reasoning for vote in the by election is different than the reasoning in the other elections around country, and both different than how people would vote in GE tomorrow.

    I think tomorrow show nation moving on from Brexit conflict and start of Labour coming back into the picture.
    I would not know if he had come across well or badly. I like many people have been operating in a political.news blackout. They are all liar's, the lot of them so why listen to what they say?
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Self-ID certainly fits with modern individualism. And if you take the view that much of 'woke' is religion-like then you might expect education to be a bulwark against it rather than an endorsement.

    Dave Rubin shared a video of a black woman pulled over by a white police officer who chastised her the lady for being on her phone whilst driving. She repeatedly accused him of being a murderer who was endangering her and then told his latino colleague that he was a racist who would 'never be white.' Now it was one (supposedly authentic) video about the police that could have been carefully edited. But such is the case with the individual examples of bad police behaviour that the SJWs rely on for their cause. Now I think we can assume that most young people have seen more of the latter type videos than the former. They would argue it's because they are more in line with the general tenor of events than the former. Is that true? I don't know.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    Climate change is a fact.

    White privilege and unconscious bias are simply sociological theories that some loudly agree with and others vociferously disagree with.

    I'd add that whilst young people often have a fresh take on the world, and can see things their elders cannot, they're not always "right" about everything - far from it. I had very black and white views when I was young (you're trying to understand the world so you try and fit it into a theory you can subscribe to and understand) and it's only as you get older that you realise through experience how grey everything is, and how there are no theories and everyone has a point.

    That's why we have democracy: to take the views of all age groups and backgrounds into account, and figure it out.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287

    gealbhan said:

    Taz said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    How ?

    It feels the total reverse. Apathy towards SKS.
    He stands no chance of holding Hartlepool, but Starmer has actually come across quite well in the last week or so.

    And he is not Corbyn and that mob.

    The reasoning for vote in the by election is different than the reasoning in the other elections around country, and both different than how people would vote in GE tomorrow.

    I think tomorrow show nation moving on from Brexit conflict and start of Labour coming back into the picture.
    I would not know if he had come across well or badly. I like many people have been operating in a political.news blackout. They are all liar's, the lot of them so why listen to what they say?
    .. apart from what I read on here. No TV news nor reading political news nor comment.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    Thank you Mr Thrasher.
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 3,870

    Watch out for any LD movement in the Shires. If that happens it's as important as Hartlepool in the grand scheme of things.

    I agree. The fascination with Hartlepool above the locals bemuses me.

    I think the LDs have a good chance of making gains in the shires, not least here in Oxfordshire where we could well see the Conservatives deposed by a rainbow coalition.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    I don't think I'd have any chance with a girl who's in their twenties these days.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    I don't think I'd have any chance with a girl who's in their twenties these days.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    I hope Arsenal cancel him and never mention him or invite to an event again.

    Former Arsenal and Germany keeper Jens Lehmann has been sacked from his role on Hertha Berlin's board after sending a Whatsapp message to pundit Dennis Aogo calling him a "quota black guy".

    Aogo, who works for Sky in Germany, posted a screenshot of the message from Lehmann on Instagram and wrote: "Wow you're serious? The message was probably not for me."

    Lehman has apologised and said he meant that, as ex-Germany defender Aogo was "very knowledgeable", he had helped increase the "quota".

    However, Tennor Holding, the investment group that Lehmann represented on the supervisory board of Bundesliga club Hertha, reportedly said the 51-year-old's "contract will be terminated with immediate effect".


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56967418
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    Climate change is a fact.

    White privilege and unconscious bias are simply sociological theories that some loudly agree with and others vociferously disagree with.

    I'd add that whilst young people often have a fresh take on the world, and can see things their elders cannot, they're not always "right" about everything - far from it. I had very black and white views when I was young (you're trying to understand the world so you try and fit it into a theory you can subscribe to and understand) and it's only as you get older that you realise through experience how grey everything is, and how there are no theories and everyone has a point.

    That's why we have democracy: to take the views of all age groups and backgrounds into account, and figure it out.
    I'd agree except not everyone realises things are greyer as they age, ironically, some get more polarised. Wisdom often comes through experience but is not guaranteed. Likewise, the young can be wise despite less experience, but as you say are not guaranteed to be right.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,012
    One of the big variables seems to be up here in Scotland - how big a majority will we get for independence? Would be delighted to see Alex not become my MSP though.

    At the end of the last thread there was some fantastic project fear stuff about Scotland and money which is exactly how the No camp will persuade the undecided to vote Yes.

    Brexit - which they say is going swimmingly - is the model for where No loses. Apparently Scotland can't afford to vote Yes because what happens to the economy and currency and your pension! To which people will start quoting Brexit back at you. Or perhaps look at Slovakia as an example.

    Dissolves the union and splits from its richer neighbour. Initially both use the same currency, then quickly national versions of the same currency, and later the Euro. Slovakia started as the poor neighbour with GDP per capita 20% lower than the Czechs, but after years of faster growth is now drawing level.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
    I actually think it's more effective if only people who want to draw attention to them put them in their email signatures, because it highlights them. Otherwise people will naturally just skim over it and default to the "presumed" pronouns.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    People always quote gay rights as the paradigm of something where attitudes shifted because it just seemed "obvious" to a new generation unencumbered by the baggage of the old, but the truth is there are many more examples where the new "obvious" ideology eventually fell by the wayside, rejected by the society they assumed would embrace it. Legalising drug use, lowering/eliminating the age of consent, the world lapsing into a new Ice Age, etc. The spontaneous collapse of Western society has been confidently predicted many times as well.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    Its not personal per se, but pronouns honestly dont come up much and it might be something people dont want to get into. Anyone who does will need to do it verbally anyway as no way will most people notice tiny details on someones email signature - just ask those of us who repeatedly get addressed by their surname because it can be a first name.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973

    One of the big variables seems to be up here in Scotland - how big a majority will we get for independence? Would be delighted to see Alex not become my MSP though.

    At the end of the last thread there was some fantastic project fear stuff about Scotland and money which is exactly how the No camp will persuade the undecided to vote Yes.

    Brexit - which they say is going swimmingly - is the model for where No loses. Apparently Scotland can't afford to vote Yes because what happens to the economy and currency and your pension! To which people will start quoting Brexit back at you. Or perhaps look at Slovakia as an example.

    Dissolves the union and splits from its richer neighbour. Initially both use the same currency, then quickly national versions of the same currency, and later the Euro. Slovakia started as the poor neighbour with GDP per capita 20% lower than the Czechs, but after years of faster growth is now drawing level.

    I get the economy argument. I don’t get how brexit relates to pensions and currency, being an Indy Scotland would have to create one / peg to sterling
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,012
    Off-topic, I am having fun* trying to open a bank account for my client's new UK subsidiary. A lot of banks still skittish about foreign ownership/directors. The ones that make me laugh* hardest are where they have drop downs to accept a foreign director and their nationality and their tax number in their home country but still won't let you proceed to the next page of the application unless you state their UK residential address!

    If they won't accept non-UK peeps that is fine. If they do, why not have your systems set up to input non-UK addresses?

  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited May 2021
    There's definitely a broad sympathy for movements like BLM among many younger educated people. Some of the more contentious concepts, like "white fragility" or "cultural appropriation", rather than "white privilege", which I think is relatively uncontroversial , are more contentious across all generational groups, if my own childrens' groups are anything to go by. That's a good thing, I think, in showing nuance. I only find concerns where I see lack of nuance.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,252

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    I don't think I'd have any chance with a girl who's in their twenties these days.
    I think that if the person has been identified as 'girl'(friend) then you're ok saying 'her', but full marks for wokeness with the gender-neutral 'their', Casino :tongue:
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957

    Off-topic, I am having fun* trying to open a bank account for my client's new UK subsidiary. A lot of banks still skittish about foreign ownership/directors. The ones that make me laugh* hardest are where they have drop downs to accept a foreign director and their nationality and their tax number in their home country but still won't let you proceed to the next page of the application unless you state their UK residential address!

    If they won't accept non-UK peeps that is fine. If they do, why not have your systems set up to input non-UK addresses?

    With some banks you can get around that by using the business address.

    Similar the way Companies House lets you use the firm's address for the address of directors and company secretaries.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
    The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,085
    There's another generational educational divide that's relevant.

    The school leaving age was raised to 16 in 1976. You'd have to be 61 to experience that. But for a long time there was a quirk where you could leave at Easter, before doing any exams and without O Level/CSE/GCSE qualifications. That only stopped in 1998 (though it was pretty rare by then), so you'd have to be 39 to experience that.

    The numbers here are about 10 years old, but that's OK- you can just move each cohort along a decade;
    http://www.poverty.org.uk/working-age-adults-without-qualifications/
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    Its not personal per se, but pronouns honestly dont come up much and it might be something people dont want to get into. Anyone who does will need to do it verbally anyway as no way will most people notice tiny details on someones email signature - just ask those of us who repeatedly get addressed by their surname because it can be a first name.
    "4" can be a first name?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    Self-ID certainly fits with modern individualism. And if you take the view that much of 'woke' is religion-like then you might expect education to be a bulwark against it rather than an endorsement.

    Dave Rubin shared a video of a black woman pulled over by a white police officer who chastised her the lady for being on her phone whilst driving. She repeatedly accused him of being a murderer who was endangering her and then told his latino colleague that he was a racist who would 'never be white.' Now it was one (supposedly authentic) video about the police that could have been carefully edited. But such is the case with the individual examples of bad police behaviour that the SJWs rely on for their cause. Now I think we can assume that most young people have seen more of the latter type videos than the former. They would argue it's because they are more in line with the general tenor of events than the former. Is that true? I don't know.
    Or maybe its because we should hold the Police who are in a position of authority to a higher standard of responsibility than the criminals they're pulling over?
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    This is a very interesting read:

    "There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.

    But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.

    Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."


    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/no10-scottish-independence-boris-johnson-nicola-sturgeon-b933342.html
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    Endillion said:

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
    The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
    In the old world, this went out about 15 years ago, you'd simply sign off Mr or Mrs so-and-so.

    Nowadays, it's almost always firstname-lastname.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    edited May 2021
    On Topic, Thresher has got this wrong - even with his trying to cover all options. I think our own HY been explaining Super Thursday more convincingly for a while.

    First chance for Nation to vote Labour since Corbyn and crew moved on. And as HY keeps saying, any swing from last time these stood equates to gain of seats. Overall I think commentators are looking at poll numbers and underestimating how unpopular Boris is.

    And it’s getting a bit lazy to repetitively to slag Starmer off now as boring, charisma less, lack of policies, etc - since when have those things been huge liability in politics? Starmer doing okay really as offering a safe place for a vote, especially mid term.

    We don’t really expect oppositions to be fizzing with policy this stage of the cycle? One year in Cameron was doing the Vote Blue Go Green Nogging Nog thing.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,008
    Selebian said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    I don't think I'd have any chance with a girl who's in their twenties these days.
    I think that if the person has been identified as 'girl'(friend) then you're ok saying 'her', but full marks for wokeness with the gender-neutral 'their', Casino :tongue:
    Very good.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,252
    Endillion said:

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
    The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
    Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"

    My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"

    *I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    FPT - lowest UK share of total to date:

    https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/


  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    I'm saving this post for Friday.
    2017 Jez wasn't taken too seriously by people, but he did get people off their backsides to go out and vote Labour.
    Starmer is looking like a poor version of Miliband.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,702

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    As far as that goes that’s fine. It’s their cultural influences and normal for them.

    But would they automatically label you a homophobe or a racist or a transphobe or whatever if you didn’t adhere to their rather narrow interpretation of what prejudice is, certainly compared to 20 or 30 years ago and I’m not talking followers of our Tommeh or the EDL. Or demand you lose your livelihood for having the wrong views ?
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,012

    One of the big variables seems to be up here in Scotland - how big a majority will we get for independence? Would be delighted to see Alex not become my MSP though.

    At the end of the last thread there was some fantastic project fear stuff about Scotland and money which is exactly how the No camp will persuade the undecided to vote Yes.

    Brexit - which they say is going swimmingly - is the model for where No loses. Apparently Scotland can't afford to vote Yes because what happens to the economy and currency and your pension! To which people will start quoting Brexit back at you. Or perhaps look at Slovakia as an example.

    Dissolves the union and splits from its richer neighbour. Initially both use the same currency, then quickly national versions of the same currency, and later the Euro. Slovakia started as the poor neighbour with GDP per capita 20% lower than the Czechs, but after years of faster growth is now drawing level.

    I get the economy argument. I don’t get how brexit relates to pensions and currency, being an Indy Scotland would have to create one / peg to sterling
    It relates because its the remain campaign saying you can't vote leave because unspecified Bad Things will happen. In this case its impossible to dissolve a union and keep using the old union currency for a bit as proven by all of these other countries who did it just fine.

    Its the currency version of the Brexit trade argument. "You can't quit the EU without knackering our ability to trade". "Bollocks, we'll trade with other people then and how do all these other countries trade if we won't be able to?"

    The detail is irrelevant. The argument is "you are too stupid to have a vote". Which delivered Brexit. I can tell you now what the answer is to the currency debate - "we'll use the pound" where Scotland already issues its own separate banknotes. "Ah but" I hear people who know about economics saying, "that won't work". Except that it has worked for loads of other countries including my Slovakian example.

    No will have to make a Positive case for the Union and not fall into lazy and frankly smug arguments about how the Yes side are stupid.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Selebian said:

    Endillion said:

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
    The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
    Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"

    My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"

    *I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
    Gender/sex-based pricing on personal lines was banned by the EU about ten years ago, so it won't affect your premium. Insurers still ask because it affects the risk, especially for things like life insurance.

    On Medical Malpractice, I imagine that insurers would have a view on whether male and female doctors have similar claims profiles or not, although that would more likely be a reflection of bedside manner rather than skill if they did. I would guess (although I don't know) that MedMal is probably priced on a gender neutral basis, regardless of whether it was affected by the rule change.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited May 2021
    "Do nothing”. That’s how No10 intends to see off Nicola Sturgeon’s bid to force a second Scottish independence referendum, one Cabinet minister tells me. Seriously? That’s the master plan to save the 314-year union of our nations? It really is, but there’s more cunning to it than it seems.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/no10-scottish-independence-boris-johnson-nicola-sturgeon-b933342.html
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,216

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,128

    "Do nothing”. That’s how No10 intends to see off Nicola Sturgeon’s bid to force a second Scottish independence referendum, one Cabinet minister tells me. Seriously? That’s the master plan to save the 314-year union of our nations? It really is, but there’s more cunning to it than it seems.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/no10-scottish-independence-boris-johnson-nicola-sturgeon-b933342.html

    Hmm, doesn't say which EU leaders. Or point out that the Spanish for one denied any opposition to legal (their view) independence for Scotland the last time round.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583
    Taz said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Lab surge incoming. Feels very like GE 2017 to me.

    Con gain Hartlepool is now shorter than Con Maj 2017. It ain't right.

    How ?

    It feels the total reverse. Apathy towards SKS.
    Only on PB.
  • Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    kle4 said:

    I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.

    Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.

    That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.

    After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,598
    Selebian said:

    Endillion said:

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
    The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
    Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"

    My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"

    *I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
    The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.


    *very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    This is a very interesting read:

    "There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.

    But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.

    Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."


    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/no10-scottish-independence-boris-johnson-nicola-sturgeon-b933342.html

    There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards.
    Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.

    If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,012

    "Do nothing”. That’s how No10 intends to see off Nicola Sturgeon’s bid to force a second Scottish independence referendum, one Cabinet minister tells me. Seriously? That’s the master plan to save the 314-year union of our nations? It really is, but there’s more cunning to it than it seems.

    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/no10-scottish-independence-boris-johnson-nicola-sturgeon-b933342.html

    That assumes that there will be a competition as to who can do nothing for the longest. I don't see how a Scottish government elected with a clear majority in favour of independence gets to sit on its hands for long.

    Lets asume (inshallah) that the pox is largely in the past by the end of the summer. The political pressure to get on with it will be there - no point being elected with a mandate to do something and then decide not to. Sturgeon will be carried away and a replacement will get on with it.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    kle4 said:

    I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.

    Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.

    That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.

    After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
    Weren’t you about 14 in 1995?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
    Most of mine do too, apart from the ones who aren't.

    I don't know about who is straight that identifies as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid". I think Leon spends more time on Twitter than with young people.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    Chat shit, get banned.

    Facebook's independent Oversight Board has ruled in favor of upholding the platform's suspension of former President Donald Trump's account.

    https://www.axios.com/facebook-trump-ban-oversight-board-bc239ed4-3b42-4d94-960d-078da5deec3f.html
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Endillion said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    People always quote gay rights as the paradigm of something where attitudes shifted because it just seemed "obvious" to a new generation unencumbered by the baggage of the old, but the truth is there are many more examples where the new "obvious" ideology eventually fell by the wayside, rejected by the society they assumed would embrace it. Legalising drug use, lowering/eliminating the age of consent, the world lapsing into a new Ice Age, etc. The spontaneous collapse of Western society has been confidently predicted many times as well.
    I think we tend to default to assuming there is a march of progress that, bumps on the road aside, is inevitable, so any new trends that become fasionable are assumed to be part of that march. And thus it is presumed opposition to such will be overcome and there will be no more argument.

    A curious counter example though is one area where I think things have moved on quite a bit and so shouldn't cause so much argument, but a lot of people still seem determined to assume it is the be all and end all - class.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,216
    edited May 2021

    Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
    I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK

    Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    kle4 said:

    I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.

    Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.

    That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.

    After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
    And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.

    :lol:
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    Sandpit said:

    kle4 said:

    I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.

    Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.

    That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.

    After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
    Weren’t you about 14 in 1995?
    15, but I took a very active interest in politics, I was always fascinated by things like swings.

    My maths teacher was a legend, he thought us things like averages, statistics, and other similar things using political numbers and cricket scores.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772

    I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.

    As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.

    There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,085

    FPT - lowest UK share of total to date:

    https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/


    My first thought was Bank Holiday, but the UK's daily rate has been drifting down for about a week now;
    https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker/?areas=gbr&areas=fra&areas=deu&areas=esp&areas=ita&cumulative=0&populationAdjusted=1

    Nothing to worry about, for sure, but do we need to get AZ to put another shilling in the meter?
  • CursingStoneCursingStone Posts: 421
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
    I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK

    Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
    Victimhood comes with rewards.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    Selebian said:

    Endillion said:

    kle4 said:

    Endillion said:

    FPT


    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.

    Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
    I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.

    It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.

    Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
    I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?

    Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
    It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.

    I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
    I agree with that, actually.

    Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.

    What you've laid out is fine.
    The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
    Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"

    My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"

    *I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
    The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.


    *very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
    Actresses used to be called actresses, but they are now called "actors". Perhaps they got fed up with being connected to a conversation with a bishop?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,216

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
    I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
    Maybe your daughter's 14 year old friends are winding up the creepy old dude who is talking to underage girls about sexuality?
    lol. I don't talk to them! We'd all die of embarrassment. Their mothers relay the gory details
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,012
    Sandpit said:

    This is a very interesting read:

    "There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.

    But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.

    Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."


    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/no10-scottish-independence-boris-johnson-nicola-sturgeon-b933342.html

    There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards.
    Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.

    If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
    As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.

    We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    tlg86 said:

    kle4 said:

    I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.

    Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.

    That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.

    After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
    And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.

    :lol:
    Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.

    Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.

    Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    Thank you Mr Thrasher.

    Are we barbarians? Professor Thrasher :)

    I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,216
    Endillion said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
    Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.

    It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,957
    kle4 said:

    Thank you Mr Thrasher.

    Are we barbarians? Professor Thrasher :)

    I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
    Professors over here are a lot like doctors over here, they are fine with Mr/Mrs etc but their partners/parents get quite cross when people don't use the correct title.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,786
    Leon said:

    Endillion said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    Endillion said:

    ridaligo said:

    Scott_xP said:

    ridaligo said:

    This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.

    That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.

    Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
    Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
    You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
    Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:

    1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.

    2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.

    3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
    I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.

    My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.

    They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.

    Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
    In some respects, I don't blame them.

    If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.

    You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.

    Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
    Astute


    It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way

    They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.

    And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
    I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
    Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.

    It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
    Interestingly, the transgender Caitlyn Jenner is standing on an anti-woke platform for Governor of California.

    https://twitter.com/Caitlyn_Jenner/status/1389569889799610369
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    This is a very interesting read:

    "There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.

    But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.

    Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."


    https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/no10-scottish-independence-boris-johnson-nicola-sturgeon-b933342.html

    There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards.
    Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.

    If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
    As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.

    We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
    There’s a huge difference between alignment and equivalence. If there wasn’t a huge difference, the EU would have been happy with UK equivalence.
This discussion has been closed.