The British Politics Thread
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poprock wrote:Let’s have something truly fucking depressing to start the week, shall we? Some choice results from YouGov’s poll of Conservative party members: 58% would like the return of the death penalty. 46% believe concerns about climate change have been exaggerated. 49% believe schools should not be required to teach children about LGBT relationships. 42% believe having people from a wide variety of racial and cultural backgrounds has damaged British society. 56% believe Islam is a threat to the British way of life. 40% want limits on the number of people of the Islamic faith entering the country. 43% would prefer to not have the country led by a Muslim. 45% believe that “there are areas in Britain in which non-Muslims are not able to enter.” 67% believe that “there are areas in Britain that operate under Sharia law.” Of course, ‘fucking depressing’ is only one way to look at this. The other way is to rightly let it make you fucking furious.
Yossarian wrote:OTOH, most of these people will be dead within the next ten years.
After they’ve chosen the next Prime Minister, whose actions are poised to screw the UK for the next half century. -
Assuming he isn’t toppled within minutes. -
Well that can’t happen if Westminster are closing for their holidays within minutes of his appointment though, can it?
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Yossarian wrote:OTOH, most of these people will be dead within the next ten years.
Good job there’s a right wing press to ensure the next generation and the wider public are indoctrinated into those reactionary beliefs through endless repetition.
There’s loads of ‘edgy’ young folk online who believe all those things and worse too. Becoming a Tory member would be a bit lame for them though.
Reactionary politics won’t magically die out when the blue-rinsed biddy’s and gammon faced old duffers of the Tory membership pass away, sadly. -
Thing is, people’s personal views tend to drift to the right as they get older. That’s why ‘waiting for the tories to die off’ isn’t a realistic strategy.
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I’m not so sure. I think that the younger generations are far more accepting and tolerant than we were at that age, plus we’ve made the world so shit for them that there is little for them to buy into that might lead them to be more reactionary as they get older. I’m not about to claim that this is about to be eliminated or that there isn’t a right wing push back against this, but I think that these sorts of attitudes are, for the most part, on the wane.
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I wish I could share your optimism, Yoss.
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The next generation will be offered handy scapegoats for their misery, like the Mail readership were handed immigrants, Europe, lefty’s, Islam, political correctness et al.
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Except they’re being offered those now and, by and large, aren’t taking them.
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My point was that as they grow older, more of them will lap up the promoted scapegoating. More of us might. It happens.
Every generation thinks they are different. Every generation ends up largely the same. -
There are still plenty of utterly lunatic right-wing youths out there, frequently labelling themselves as centrist. I think it's prevalent enough to make it so attitudes won't change for a good long time. They channel their resentment at the exact same targets the papers trained their adults to, but this time they fall into hermetic echo chambers online that do nothing but reinforce their prejudices. Dismantling that will take a herculean effort from educators, and I doubt they'll ever be paid enough or given enough resources to keep up with the ever shifting online bullshit that kids lap up.
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But my point is that life experience shapes that shift. If your life experience is that you had a secure job which allows you to get on, own your own home and support a family, you are going to start to feel more open to the idea that you have succeeded on personal merit, and, by extension, failure to succeed is down to personal failings, at which point scapegoating comes more easily.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to succeed yourself, you’re far less likely to be open to that sort of mindset. IMO, ofc. -
Tempy wrote:There are still plenty of utterly lunatic right-wing youths out there, frequently labelling themselves as centrist. I think it's prevalent enough to make it so attitudes won't change for a good long time. They channel their resentment at the exact same targets the papers trained their adults to, but this time they fall into hermetic echo chambers online that do nothing but reinforce their prejudices. Dismantling that will take a herculean effort from educators, and I doubt they'll ever be paid enough or given enough resources to keep up with the ever shifting online bullshit that kids lap up.
This entirely does exist, but by all accounts at much lower rates than it did in previous generations. -
I think being denied the things that the prior generation had easily is easily weaponisable against - the poor, muslims, immigrants.
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Yossarian wrote:If you’ve never had the opportunity to succeed yourself, you’re far less likely to be open to that sort of mindset. IMO, ofc.
Or, alternatively, you’ve never had the opportunities your parents enjoyed, everything is shit, yet the culture surrounding you is entirely based on consumer aspiration and so you naturally look for scapegoats to blame as blaming yourself seems ridiculous when you actually haven’t done anything wrong.
Edit: Yeah, what Tempy said more succinctly. -
That is possible too, TBF.
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I just don’t see much evidence of that happening as yet, beyond a few fringe groups, which I doubt even have the reach of say, the NF in our youth.
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You know me though, relatively young, incredibly dumb, absolutely full of... hope for the youth of the future, but I live in Glasgow where left leaning youth attitudes are rather prevalent. I'm back in Notts at the minute and it's a grimmer state of affairs mostly.
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Again, I’m not trying to downplay issues or claim that things have been fixed, but I think it’s pretty easy for us to forget just how prevalent these sorts of intolerant attitudes were even 20 or 30 years ago. We’ve come a massively long way in a short space of time, and all large-scale surveys suggest that the young are far more liberal and accepting now than they were at any point in the past.
There is still work to do, certainly, but things are heading in the right direction. -
I think that certain things, like the "bring back 'anging" brigade are forever done for. Currently, those who are in favour of it are largely those who remember it. I think when we get to a point that no living person was around when we were still executing people, the support for it will be minimal.
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poprock wrote:I wish I could share your optimism, Yoss.
Basically worth putting in a sig at this point. -
Didn’t Gove talk about bringing back hanging not that long ago?
I reckon with the right sensationalist crime, the right amount of media outrage and a well timed posing of the question you’d see support for the idea go through the roof. Not enough bring it back maybe, but enough to question how supposedly tolerant Brits are.
But then I am tremendously cynical and have next to no faith in the British electorate. -
When I was doing Philosophy at college level a few years ago a good portion of the class were well up for capital punishment.
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Aye. That particular Overton window is always open because of watching TV dramas from America.
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LarryDavid wrote:Didn’t Gove talk about bringing back hanging not that long ago? I reckon with the right sensationalist crime, the right amount of media outrage and a well timed posing of the question you’d see support for the idea go through the roof. Not enough bring it back maybe, but enough to question how supposedly tolerant Brits are. But then I am tremendously cynical and have next to no faith in the British electorate.
It does flare up when there are certain well publicised crimes. But support is still weighted to those who who can remember the early 60's and before when we still did it.
I'm not saying it will disappear to zero, but it will go much lower than it is now. -
Yossarian wrote:Things really are improving: https://twitter.com/KateHoeyMP/status/1148198081143476225
This is excellent news.
Just hope the local party don't pick another shithead. -
To be fair, the shithead was voted in. So maybe the majority of locals want another shithead?
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poprock wrote:To be fair, the shithead was voted in. So maybe the majority of locals want another shithead?
Well, this is the problem. Labour have held that seat since 1950. Kate Hoey has held the seat for Labour since 1989. What are you supposed to do if you want a Labour government but don't want Kate Hoey?
Incumbents essentially hold seats hostage. There isn't any we we could get an AOC here. This is about the only time anyone will ever say this but... the American system is better. -
If enough Tory MPs (Ken C, Grieve, Gayle etc) vote a no deal brexit govt down, will Hoey vote with labour against that govt?
Probably not.Don't wank. Zinc in your sperms
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