Anger grows at The Boomers EU vandalism

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I don't want to agree with Generali's immigrant thing, but that really just seems to be what it boils down to.

I turns out Britons want to live next door to Peter not Piotr. It seems to be a mental reason to slice 3% minimum off GDP.

DTDfanBoy

It really is a bit scary talking to the older generation about their reasons for voting for Brexit, I genuinely think that some of them do live in an entirely different reality to the rest of us.

My MIL was quite excited about a reduction in trade with the EU as she hoped it would lessen the effects of operation stack in the area they live in, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or slap her :eek:

Generali

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

It really is a bit scary talking to the older generation about their reasons for voting for Brexit, I genuinely think that some of them do live in an entirely different reality to the rest of us.

My MIL was quite excited about a reduction in trade with the EU as she hoped it would lessen the effects of operation stack in the area they live in, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or slap her :eek:

Ol' ma Generali (herself well into her seventies and not taking Brexit well) was chatting with a contemporary that voted Leave so she could buy petrol in gallons once again.

:T

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

A nanny is a servant. Since when did a servant need to have a !!!!!!!g degree?

(Before someone gets outraged, I married a nanny and have a lot of friends that are or were nannies).

If you want to be a nanny then good on you. Leave school at 16, a year at college (or two if you want to work in a nursery while you're doing it so you can earn 'n' learn) and you're there.

Same sort of thing if you want to be a chef or a plumber or a chippie or a sparkie. I have the utmost respect for people who have trades and take their trades seriously but that doesn't mean I think they need to study until age 23 to cook my dinner.

At the time Blair was in power the generational decline was beginning. This should have meant that FE colleges and universities responded by laying off staff and closing courses.

However this wouldn't have helped New Labour's election prospects so they increased demand to cover supply.

Actual population growth is now hitting the sector again, but we now exist in a world where employers want someone to do data entry and expect a graduate to fill the role.

It is very disappointing for everyone. Many kids who go to university now are first generation. Both they and their parents think that going to university will lead to a good job, and are utterly bewildered at their graduate prospects.

Few of them have an understanding of the glass ceiling you hit, and how fast you hit it, if you graduate in a non traditional subject from a Post 92 institution. Of course they will have the same level of debt as if they'd gone to Cardiff to read Physics.

I don't want to knock post 92s. Many of them are excellent. But they just can't offer the route into a middle class life that many working class kids think that they can. Because the facts are that CVs from Southampton go in one pile and Southampton Solent go in another, and it doesnt matter how hard you have worked or how good your 1st is.

Scarpacci

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The nation states delivered centuries of wars including two that finished off hundreds of millions of people in the most horrible ways imaginable.

No, the great age of wars was between European empires which consumed nation states. They were not the embodiment of nation states - an empire by definition can not be acting in the interests of all the nation states. If you accept the right of the British to rule Britain, the right of the French to rule France, you can't support one of those nations trying to invade the other.

Despite what the continent of Europe would suggest, we're in the age of the nation state right now. There are more independent, democratic sovereign nations right now than ever before in history. This has coincided with the most peaceful era in modern history and, outside of the Eurozone, generally strong economic growth.

The European Union was such an empire-building project. It did not respect the right of the Italians to rule Italy, the right of the Dutch to rule the Netherlands. It was an empire project by the back door.

ruggedtoast wrote: »

In the post war pre EU period the UK suffered from political unrest, awful poverty, and an economy that couldn't even keep the lights on for more than 3 days a week.

That was mismanagement at the national level and seems unlikely to be repeated now. Nobody would claim every nation state will be working well all the time, but better to fail on your accord than have failure inflicted on you.

The comparison, back then, was to European nation states (since this was before the EU superstate project) which were doing better than us. That they were individual nation states at the time, though working together in some areas, arguably offers a blueprint for how Europe should look now.

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The thing you need to realise is that most younger people feel that the fact you consider that was somehow preferable to now is unbelievable.

The fact that very few older people are in any way vulnerable to any of the economic shocks that Brexit will cause is hardly making it much better.

I don't want to agree with Generali's immigrant thing, but that really just seems to be what it boils down to.

I fear that's down to questionable teaching of history and an insular focus on Europe. The nation state is alive and well in the rest of the world. It's only Europe where it's become an object of fear.

It's not completely clear that the older are less vulnerable to economic shocks. They might not have a job to lose, but they may have, over generations, built up more wealth which is invested in the stock market. They're often more dependent on state spending, which the chancellor threatened to cut immediately in an emergency budget.

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I don't want to knock post 92s. Many of them are excellent. But they just can't offer the route into a middle class life that many working class kids think that they can. Because the facts are that CVs from Southampton go in one pile and Southampton Solent go in another, and it doesnt matter how hard you have worked or how good your 1st is.

I'm not going to gown down the class road because one of the reasons I hate to live in the UK is the sucky class stuff.

However you're absolutely right to say that the dullard from a London Uni college or that was coached to get into Durham is likely to be much better looked upon than a bright spark that goes to Neasden Uni.

The bright spark used to get a three or four year head start at work over the dim private school kid but that advantage has been stripped from them now and more.

Bring back Grammar schools and a meritocracy.

ruggedtoast

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

It really is a bit scary talking to the older generation about their reasons for voting for Brexit, I genuinely think that some of them do live in an entirely different reality to the rest of us.

My MIL was quite excited about a reduction in trade with the EU as she hoped it would lessen the effects of operation stack in the area they live in, I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or slap her :eek:

I have heard:

"We don't want the EU making our rules" from people who can't name one single of our rules the EU has made or how it has inconvenienced them.

"We should be able to trade with India" From people who don't know that we do more trade with Luxembourg than with every Indian state put together, and we can trade with India

"Food went up when we joined the EU" from people who seem to be unaware that food in real terms is cheaper an of a better quality than at any time in British history

Ah, its all nonsense anyway. What they all mean is "I don't like foreigners."

Scarpacci

mwpt wrote: »

Do you have any basis for reaching such a conclusion? Any papers or studies you could mention? Is it just your opinion based on your observations of the world condensed into a truism?

We only need to look outside Europe to see the nation state alive and well. Europe is the exception that proves the rule. The only continent where a body similar to an empire has gained power of the past few decades. The only continent where the powers of the nation state have been abdicated.

mwpt wrote: »

Which particular glorious period in British history are you now hoping to emulate where we had it better than now?

Unfortunately, Britain didn't have a long era as an independent nation state. For a long time we were too busy taking such a right away from others. We only had a few decades after the war. An era that, although it did deliver growing prosperity, was marked by union unrest and a difficulty reorienting the economy.

For example, if you want statistics, look at a chart of UK GDP from the post-war period to now. You can see the 70s strike action with the three-day work week, etc. but it's noticeable primarily because it was an aberration. We had grown strongly up to that point and then we started growing again afterwards. In other words, it was a minor blip brought on by political leadership. It shouldn't completely colour our view of Britain's ability to go it alone.

mwpt wrote: »

In my opinion you guys are selling snake oil based on emotional pleas that life right now is worse than in the past and that the EU is to blame for that.

It could be something to do with our bailed out finance sector. It could be do to our high (est ever) welfare and pensions bill. It could be due to the skewed incentives working tax credits and housing benefit create. It could be due to billions of Indians and Chinese working for cheaper than you would. It could be due to mega corporations concentrating profit in the hands of fewer people. It could be due to automation reducing labour's bargaining power.

But no, it is the EU and immigrants.

Some of those are real problems and will be even as an independent country. I would disagree that we should pin blame on our welfare system. This was an argument many of the European countries tried to put across as a reason why the UK was such a draw (though it ignored the fact everybody in this country was saying it had nothing to do with benefits). I don't think we should cut standards for the British people to make it more inline with poorer countries. Nation states move prosperity up, not down. There are problems with working tax credits encouraging a proliferation of jobs which pay too little, but this is a problem which goes hand-in-hand with the business attitude which enjoyed (and campaigned strongly for) cheap EU migrant labour.

China and India are going to offer competition, no doubt. We can't lower our standards in a race to the bottom and hope to win that way. Unfortunately, that's what the EU was doing on a continental level. Wages came down to a level where EU migrants would work them, at lower working conditions than British people would. The same goes for corporate profits concentrating profits. These are the very companies who campaigned to stay in the EU. They loved the ability to move factories to cheap areas, bring cheap workers in the reverse direction, and shift their profits around Europe. Automation will pose problems no doubt, whether we're in the EU or not.

Just because we face other problems doesn't the EU wasn't a problem.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

I'm not going to gown down the class road because one of the reasons I hate to live in the UK is the sucky class stuff.

However you're absolutely right to say that the dullard from a London Uni college or that was coached to get into Durham is likely to be much better looked upon than a bright spark that goes to Neasden Uni.

The bright spark used to get a three or four year head start at work over the dim private school kid but that advantage has been stripped from them now and more.

Bring back Grammar schools and a meritocracy.

Considering social mobility now is at its lowest level since the war I suppose I must agree with you, with one caveat.

As Gen X I vaguely remember when there was still a bit of a tradition of apprenticeships as careers. Someone from Barclays came in and talked to my class and she said that they would ideally prefer that we applied to them direct from school rather than did A levels and a degree, as they would rather spend that 5 years training us, and paying us while they did so.

When she left, our teacher told us that would mean we were stuck working for Barclays forever and to go to university after which we could work where we liked. And that people who worked in banks were really square. (I feel my school could have invested more in careers advice)

Anyway, there simply isn't the kind of job security in the UK now to go back to the apprenticeship route.

spadoosh

@generalli and @ruggedtoast. I know your free to do what you please but are you not ready for some timeout from the internet? I cant imagine your enjoying yourselves arguing with people you think are stoopid when they are pretty easily able to gloat and walk off leaving you in your rages. Out of curiousity did you spend this much time discussing the matter with people on the street? Had you, you mightve encouraged more to your way of thinking.

Ive always found it incredibly difficult to have a reasoned discussion on the internet and the chances of you changing someones argument osnt even worth a punt.