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The Conservative Party - Part Two.

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"The English working classes obsequious deference for the ruling upper class" Anna???#

 

I am working class, my father was a steel worker, my older sister went to Cambridge university. She became a teacher and

refused to take jobs in private schools (where she could have earned a lot more money) 

so that  she could teach in comprehensive schools .I did a degree when I was 50. 

My husband is working class 

What class do you identify as?

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25 minutes ago, RJRB said:

Of course such interviews are represented in the U.K. and of course the emphasis in mainland Europe is to continue to serve the markets which best suit the logistics.

We are also aware that there are currently many non U.K. drivers and vehicles which are stuck over here and the first essential is to get these back over the channel.

Early days but other than the physical limitations imposed by the channel,it is no different to the travel limitations that we have seen imposed all over Europe this year.

No different to travel limitations eatlier this year? It has nothing (much) to do with those travel limitations earlier this year.

 

Covid did not create those queues. UK businesses did, with driving up their stockholding of EU <whatever> in anticipation of the end of the withdrawal agreement, in the continuing absence of Conservative governance about operational customs procedures in...<checks notes now>... 9 days' time.

 

I don't remember 1500 lorries stuck in Kent at any time earlier this year, and that stack was not caused by yesterday's border lockdown: there have been lorry queues of miles upon miles on the A16 in France and the M20 in Kent for a good couple of weeks at least.

 

It is early days, that said, you are right. Just the new normal settling in.

 

This is the Conservatives thread, not the Brexit Consequences thread. So it is apt to remind that this whole logistics bin fire is on them: this is what "having enough of experts" and "****** business" does to a country.

 

Were this the Labour thread, it would be apt to also remind, that this is what not opposing the ruling party, but letting it run unhinged and unchecked, does to a country.

 

Hey-ho. It is what it is.

Edited by L00b

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It is indeed what it is.

We will continue to adjust to the new normal on a day to day basis,and we in the U.K. will have to forgo our lettuce ,cauliflowers,strawberries and raspberries,whilst you will enjoy a glut as the growers need to move their produce.

Perhaps we are heading back to the times of my youth when we accept that crops are seasonal.

But please don’t think that we are totally in the dark about the problems that lay ahead for all of us as the problems are about the only thing that truly unites Europe at the moment.

Just to give a nod to this actual thread rather than Brexit or Covid it might be an enormous challenge for any government at the moment,but this P.M.and his assembled ministers are way over their heads.

 

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44 minutes ago, RJRB said:

It is indeed what it is.

We will continue to adjust to the new normal on a day to day basis,and we in the U.K. will have to forgo our lettuce ,cauliflowers,strawberries and raspberries,whilst you will enjoy a glut as the growers need to move their produce.

Perhaps we are heading back to the times of my youth when we accept that crops are seasonal.

But please don’t think that we are totally in the dark about the problems that lay ahead for all of us as the problems are about the only thing that truly unites Europe at the moment.

Just to give a nod to this actual thread rather than Brexit or Covid it might be an enormous challenge for any government at the moment,but this P.M.and his assembled ministers are way over their heads.

 

 A significant number (majority?) are totally in the dark about the problems that lay ahead for us. 

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39 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

 A significant number (majority?) are totally in the dark about the problems that lay ahead for us. 

‘‘Twas ever thus

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2 hours ago, L00b said:

 

 

I would not be surprised in the least if such interviews/news don't get broadcast in the UK. I understand that the M20 webcam feeds were switched off last night or earlier this morning? 

There is plenty of coverage of this via the multitude of news channels that we have here, so you can relax about that.

 

Oh, the cams are largely fine too. Just avert your eyes if you spot a driver in the hedges.

 

https://trafficcameras.uk/m20/

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2 hours ago, Sidonica said:

"The English working classes obsequious deference for the ruling upper class" Anna???#

 

I am working class, my father was a steel worker, my older sister went to Cambridge university. She became a teacher and

refused to take jobs in private schools (where she could have earned a lot more money) 

so that  she could teach in comprehensive schools .I did a degree when I was 50. 

My husband is working class 

What class do you identify as?

I am definitely working class, also a retired teacher. 

 

I should have differentiated better - 'Certain sections of the working class are deferential....  Of course it was crass of me to generalise. But how else do you account for their support of a useless buffoon like Boris, certainly likeable, but so privileged and full of entitlement it's positively painful. Do they really think he understands the everyday problems of the working class?

I commend your sister's stance, and you're academic success, you obviously believe in the value of a good education for all. I totally agree with that, but do you agree that education doesn't end with school? I believe we have to continue educating ourselves and growing throughout life. 

A lot of people have no interest in politics which of course is their right, but I wish they understood how important it is, how it affects every aspect of their lives, and how easy it is to hoodwink those that take their eye off the ball.

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55 minutes ago, Anna B said:

I am definitely working class, also a retired teacher. 

 

I should have differentiated better - 'Certain sections of the working class are deferential....  Of course it was crass of me to generalise. But how else do you account for their support of a useless buffoon like Boris, certainly likeable, but so privileged and full of entitlement it's positively painful. Do they really think he understands the everyday problems of the working class?

I commend your sister's stance, and you're academic success, you obviously believe in the value of a good education for all. I totally agree with that, but do you agree that education doesn't end with school? I believe we have to continue educating ourselves and growing throughout life. 

A lot of people have no interest in politics which of course is their right, but I wish they understood how important it is, how it affects every aspect of their lives, and how easy it is to hoodwink those that take their eye off the ball.

Anna, if you are a retired teacher by profession there is no way you are categorised as "working class".  It may be the household you were brought up in, it may even be how you choose to define yourself but that is certainly not what the traditional and widely accepted interpretation of a working-class job is.

 

Teaching is a white-collar occupation which at the very least requires a degree level education. It would at the minimum be "skilled profession", if not more likely, middle class category

 

I fully agree with your points about not enough people actually taking an interest in politics and I've often said before the biggest issue is that they don't care because it's boring.

 

However, you query whether our politicians fully understand the needs of the working classes, I would argue that most people don't even know what working class is nor that a great majority of the british public are even remotely close to that classification anyway.

 

Clinging onto some romantic rose-tinted nonsense that the world requires a party who will look after the "real workers' needs to die.  

People now see themselves from a very different position, they are far more aspirational, they don't have any connection or feeling the what is deemed traditional down-to-earth working class. We are educated, we are globalised.

 

Whether you like to agree with it or not the world is more right wing, more capitalist, more self interested than you like to think it is. Whatever their methods the Tories got it right. They judged the mood of the electorate and knew what they wanted.

 

I don't go in for all this nonsense that only people from a certain background can make a good politician. It may well be that some low-level factory worker doing the 12-hour 6-day weeks packing boxes on minimum wage has brilliant experience about what it's like and the hardship that face their community..... but at the same time if said person has never once so much read anything more than the Daily Star or drafted wording on anything beyond a christmas card -  how can we deem them suitable for doing  a debate in Parliament and dealing with vast amounts of documents on extremely complicated contentious issues.

 

A doctor doesn't need his leg chopped off before they know the best way of dealing with his patient. 

 

People should only care about who is best for the job not their background not their personality not what class they define themselves in.

 

At the moment, there is no clear alternative who is offering what the majority of the electorate want. That is all that matters. That is the only prize. Nobody cares about pleasing the membership or trying to comply with a load of nonsensical allegiances or trying to show support to protest groups and social campaigns.

 

Winning the election and pleasing the electorate is all that matters. Telling said majority electorate they are stupid and all wrong and repeatedly insulting their intelligence just because they voted the opposite way doesn't get very far either.

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Boris is under fire for the way he understated the number of lorries waiting  on the M20 in his press conference, at the time he said there was 170 there were 500 lorries stuck on the motorway.

 

‘Liar Johnson’: PM facing backlash after drastically underplaying scale of lorries stranded on motorway (msn.com)

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4 hours ago, RJRB said:

It is indeed what it is.

We will continue to adjust to the new normal on a day to day basis,and we in the U.K. will have to forgo our lettuce ,cauliflowers,strawberries and raspberries,whilst you will enjoy a glut as the growers need to move their produce.

Perhaps we are heading back to the times of my youth when we accept that crops are seasonal.

But please don’t think that we are totally in the dark about the problems that lay ahead for all of us as the problems are about the only thing that truly unites Europe at the moment.

Just to give a nod to this actual thread rather than Brexit or Covid it might be an enormous challenge for any government at the moment,but this P.M.and his assembled ministers are way over their heads.

 

I don't think that.

 

But looking at where the Conservatives are taking you all, still without any opposition -political or otherwise- and with ever less accountability over time, one simply cannot help but wonder at times.

 

This is why I said "it would not surprise me", instead of asserting the notion as fact.

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58 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

Anna, if you are a retired teacher by profession there is no way you are categorised as "working class".  It may be the household you were brought up in, it may even be how you choose to define yourself but that is certainly not what the traditional and widely accepted interpretation of a working-class job is.

 

Teaching is a white-collar occupation which at the very least requires a degree level education. It would at the minimum be "skilled profession", if not more likely, middle class category

 

I fully agree with your points about not enough people actually taking an interest in politics and I've often said before the biggest issue is that they don't care because it's boring.

 

However, you query whether our politicians fully understand the needs of the working classes, I would argue that most people don't even know what working class is nor that a great majority of the british public are even remotely close to that classification anyway.

 

Clinging onto some romantic rose-tinted nonsense that the world requires a party who will look after the "real workers' needs to die.  

People now see themselves from a very different position, they are far more aspirational, they don't have any connection or feeling the what is deemed traditional down-to-earth working class. We are educated, we are globalised.

 

Whether you like to agree with it or not the world is more right wing, more capitalist, more self interested than you like to think it is. Whatever their methods the Tories got it right. They judged the mood of the electorate and knew what they wanted.

 

I don't go in for all this nonsense that only people from a certain background can make a good politician. It may well be that some low-level factory worker doing the 12-hour 6-day weeks packing boxes on minimum wage has brilliant experience about what it's like and the hardship that face their community..... but at the same time if said person has never once so much read anything more than the Daily Star or drafted wording on anything beyond a christmas card -  how can we deem them suitable for doing  a debate in Parliament and dealing with vast amounts of documents on extremely complicated contentious issues.

 

A doctor doesn't need his leg chopped off before they know the best way of dealing with his patient. 

 

People should only care about who is best for the job not their background not their personality not what class they define themselves in.

 

At the moment, there is no clear alternative who is offering what the majority of the electorate want. That is all that matters. That is the only prize. Nobody cares about pleasing the membership or trying to comply with a load of nonsensical allegiances or trying to show support to protest groups and social campaigns.

 

Winning the election and pleasing the electorate is all that matters. Telling said majority electorate they are stupid and all wrong and repeatedly insulting their intelligence just because they voted the opposite way doesn't get very far either.

I agree that the old class definitions are way out of date, but I simply don't know how better to define the people I am talking about. 

That said, in spite of your comments about aspirations, there are still a huge and growing number of people in need who need help and support but have very little in the way of useful representation. I do think it's important that politicians, as well as being educated and capable, understand the needs of all people in this country, and should IMO be from a range of backgrounds. They should be able to understand the problems of ordinary people in a way that I don't think the majority of the ruling class do: 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/28/rich-born-to-rule-fatal

 

You might be interested to glance at the above article as an example of what I mean.  

 

As Tinfoilhat says above in post 709, we are heading for some dark times,  and it is going to be more important than ever we have politicians that understand what their legislation looks like from the bottom, not just from the protected environs of the wealthy top. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Anna B

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3 hours ago, L00b said:

I don't think that.

 

But looking at where the Conservatives are taking you all, still without any opposition -political or otherwise- and with ever less accountability over time, one simply cannot help but wonder at times.

 

This is why I said "it would not surprise me", instead of asserting the notion as fact.

It’s a fact that political change in a democracy is a slow process.

This lot are in for another 3 years or so and the best that some of us can hope for is that Johnson is ousted together with his low calibre ministers.

I think that they would make up a good cast for a sit com based on a third rate public school.

Boris the bumbling head,Raab the gym teacher, and Shapps,Williamson,Hancock Sunak As house masters .I will give some thought to the house names but suggestions welcome.

Priti Patel would of course be the matron,and Dominic Cummings the scheming janitor.

So unless we roll out the tumbrels that’s the way it is,unless you have some advice for us.

 

 

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