UK "culture"

[Conchis]

Any largely white what? UKIP branch?

Missing noun now added.

[Lat-Literal]

Missing noun now added.

Area.

[Conchis]

I don't agree with what has been said on Powell. When it comes to those on the right of the spectrum, I see the 70 somethings as having got the PM they wanted. It was Mrs Margaret Thatcher. They would campaign to have her resurrected. The 80 somethings never thought that anyone would fit the bill. Powell was too divisive. Mostly, they couldn't stand Tony Blair.

We are told that there are millions of right wing 60 somethings. Everyone I meet who is in that age bracket is an ardent Blairite. Powell did have moderate support from the generations which are now largely deceased but mainly as a statement of protest against an establishment which had sent them off to war and then had never done enough to win their trust again.

This is not to say that I haven't detected Powellite leanings in some 70 somethings. The ones who succeeded under Thatcher have a golden age of politics and economics as they see it. It is not wholly dissociated from various definitions of whiteness. That makes them unique. Those older had a war as children. And most younger than 70 have had high housing costs.

Anyone who knew anything about Powell appreciated that he would not have made a good PM, regardless of whether you agreed with his stances or not (and very few people, possibly no-one except EP, agreed with ALL of them). Apart from lacking the necessary collegial spirit to fulfil such a role, he would've been unable to form a convincing cabinet from the elements available to him.

He might have made a decent dictator, for those who like such things. But even there, I don't think he was emotionally equipped for leadership of any kind.

That doesn't matter to his millions of armchair followers, who only associate him with one policy.

[Conchis]

I think people who say they 'aren't interested' in politics are, effectively, conservatives. Because these people don't watch the news ('because it's 'boring and depressing'), they will take in their knowledge of current affairs by osmosis, when they pass the newsstands displaying the tabloids in Lidl or Aldi or when they read the Thoughts of Chairman Martin while noshing on their slap-up meal in Wetherspoons. And that's all they need to know that Corbyn is a wuss who supports the IRA, that Brexit's gonna be great (but only it's hard), and that Trump would be a better negotiator than Theresa May.

[Lat-Literal]

Anyone who knew anything about Powell appreciated that he would not have made a good PM, regardless of whether you agreed with his stances or not (and very few people, possibly no-one except EP, agreed with ALL of them). Apart from lacking the necessary collegial spirit to fulfil such a role, he would've been unable to form a convincing cabinet from the elements available to him.

He might have made a decent dictator, for those who like such things. But even there, I don't think he was emotionally equipped for leadership of any kind.

That doesn't matter to his millions of armchair followers, who only associate him with one policy.

You sound like you may have been more mature than I was in his heyday.

From what I can recall and know, your analysis seems sound to me.

BUT do you really meet a sufficient number of people these days who lead you to believe he has millions of armchair followers?

I don't!

(Bear in mind that Powell's extremeness can be defined by his upset about 30,000 extra people per year and not what has become more recently an extra 300,000 people per year.)

[Conchis]

You sound like you may have been more mature than I was in his heyday.

From what I can recall and know, your analysis seems sound to me.

BUT do you really meet a sufficient number of people these days who lead you to believe he has millions of armchair followers?

I don't!

(Bear in mind that Powell's extremeness can be defined by his upset about 30,000 extra people per year and not what has become more recently an extra 300,000 people per year.)

Believe me, they are everywhere and they never sleep - even on crack-of-dawn Radio 2!

https://youtu.be/_cdcQGjDPz8

[Lat-Literal]

Believe me, they are everywhere and they never sleep - even on crack-of-dawn Radio 2!

https://youtu.be/_cdcQGjDPz8

And with that she herself was a ship - one that passed us in the night.

Game for a laugh!

[MrGongGong]

Interesting that a discussion of culture ends up (predictably ?) with folks going on about EP

[vinteuil]

Interesting that a discussion of culture ends up (predictably ?) with folks going on about EP

... well, EP did write The Guide to Kulchur ....

https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/isbn/9781942954385/

[doversoul1]

We may try and/or manage to defend and preserve what we value as UK’s or whoever’s culture but does it not all depend on what those who come after us think and value? Things can be preserved but not often to be used for what they are meant to be used. The same can be said about a lot of ‘traditions’. Stately homes and grand parks are highly valued as ‘cultural heritage’ but very conveniently without what they stood for.

But I suppose if we make effort to defend and preserve what we value, at least those who come after us will be able to choose. So there is that to it. I think Marmite will survive.

[MrGongGong]

Stately homes and grand parks are highly valued as ‘cultural heritage’ but very conveniently without what they stood for.
\.

Indeed

What often astounds me (though given the level of cultural education in much of England... less so in Scotland, NI and Wales) is the lack of understanding of the interconnectedness of cultures. People really are completely unaware that much of the stained glass in "our" cathedrals was made by Flemish craftsmen, or even that the quintisentially "English" tradition of Morris Dancing owes much to the Middle East (Morris / Moorish) and the dances themselves are often known (in my experience) by those who have come here as refugees.

Given the current climate I would be inclined to lay in a stock () of Marmite.

[Richard Barrett]

Interesting that a discussion of culture ends up (predictably ?) with folks going on about EP

Actually this forum is the only place I spend any time in where his name comes up so often. I wonder why that is. Some people seem to have what I would call an unhealthy obsession with him. 99% of the time I don't think about him or hear about him from anyone.

[teamsaint]

Indeed

What often astounds me (though given the level of cultural education in much of England... less so in Scotland, NI and Wales) is the lack of understanding of the interconnectedness of cultures. People really are completely unaware that much of the stained glass in "our" cathedrals was made by Flemish craftsmen, or even that the quintisentially "English" tradition of Morris Dancing owes much to the Middle East (Morris / Moorish) and the dances themselves are often known (in my experience) by those who have come here as refugees.

Given the current climate I would be inclined to lay in a stock () of Marmite.

When you talk about cultural education in Scotland Wales and NI, are you talking specifically about education in the culture of those countries, or wider cultural education ?

[Dave2002]

I don't agree with what has been said on Powell. When it comes to those on the right of the spectrum, I see the 70 somethings as having got the PM they wanted. It was Mrs Margaret Thatcher. They would campaign to have her resurrected. The 80 somethings never thought that anyone would fit the bill. Powell was too divisive. Mostly, they couldn't stand Tony Blair.

I'll own up - I'm over 70.

I thoroughly disliked Thatcher, and almost all of the things she stood for and did. However, she did get seat belts in cars sorted - as miss d, aged not a lot at the time, kept reminding us whenever we played the Monty Python - "What did Mrs Thatcher ever do for us?". I may not feel quite the same now. I really wished that some sort of statute of limitations existed to limit the number of terms a PM could stand.

Rather oddly, do people know that she and Harold Wilson were actually friends? They carried on being so after both had left office.

[Conchis]

Enoch Powell was many things, but it's a strange sort of racist who consciously sets out to learn as many Middle Eastern languages as he did.


Personally, I have a lot of symphony with heritage-baiters who think stately homes and the big monuments of Britain's imperial past are oppressive.

If someone bombed St. Paul's, a significant part of me would feel pleased and exhilarated, provided (of course) there were no casualties.