Latest update ...

[Dave2002]

I am getting more and more ashamed of belonging to this country - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49393556

Another very recent article on the same theme showed a tweet from Nigel Farage which said that if Brexit was a mess he would leave the country. Why hasn’t he gone?

[Serial_Apologist]

I am getting more and more ashamed of belonging to this country - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49393556

Another very recent article on the same theme showed a tweet from Nigel Farage which said that if Brexit was a mess he would leave the country. Why hasn’t he gone?

Pandering to nationalism is what Johnson and his ilk are doing. Up to the time of Blair, for several decades we'd been told by the commentariat that patriotism, let alone nationalism - and for me the line dividing the two is a threadbare one - were outdated by the coming of economic globalism, in which the mega corporations could move their operations and investments anywhere at the touch of a button, out of the control of any government, and we had to lump it: as with new technology this was the way the world was going and had been going for a long time. This was a long way from an age when the capitalist state underpinned the interests of firms operating within its aegis, who "gratefully" repatriated earnings accrued abroad to fund the nation's welfare, and political parties campaigned for office on the basis of either controlling their excesses or alllowing them freer play. Then along came the international banking crisis, and the banks, which had up to that point literally operated like there was no tomorrow, had to fall back on national governments to bail them out. Out of nostalgia many people had never got used to the idea of the death of the nation state as a proudly self-governable entity competing through its productive sector in a world of apparently boundless opportunity, and it is to these potential voters that the political class is now appealing by pedalling nationalism and populism, both of which are false myths, unless people really think countries can become forever self-sufficient.

Just to add that self-sufficiency within reason has its merits, in principle being in greater accordance with a world whose ecological support systems, if they are to survive, will necesitate shorter transporting distances for essential produce. But while control rests in the hands of mega corporations, this is unlikely to happen.

[jayne lee wilson]

Our only hope is the apparently diffuse opposition of Libdem, Labour, Rebel Tory, Green etc., who have a few weeks to get themselves sorted and mount the no-confidence challenge with some hope of succeeding....

Would they really let us down now, just by arguing over who should lead....?

I follow developments every day but it has become difficult to face, hasn't it? So upsetting....

[LMcD]

I am getting more and more ashamed of belonging to this country - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49393556

Another very recent article on the same theme showed a tweet from Nigel Farage which said that if Brexit was a mess he would leave the country. Why hasn’t he gone?

I've come to the conclusion that, although I live here, I no longer belong here. I travelled to London every weekday when the IRA were letting off bombs and when the miners were causing mayhem, but I didn't feel as gloomy - or angry - about the country's future as I do now.

[muzzer]

Agree wholeheartedly. Can’t remember a time like it. Do not like this helplessness one bit.

[Wychwood]

Would they really let us down now, just by arguing over who should lead....?

I follow developments every day but it has become difficult to face, hasn't it? So upsetting....

1. Yes, I fear they would.
2. That's putting it mildly: utterly depressing, profoundly worrying, shameful for our country.

[Jazzrook]

Views from various writers in the London Review of Books on 'How bad can it get?':

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n16/the-state-were-in/how-bad-can-it-get

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Our only hope is the apparently diffuse opposition of Libdem, Labour, Rebel Tory, Green etc., who have a few weeks to get themselves sorted and mount the no-confidence challenge with some hope of succeeding....

Would they really let us down now, just by arguing over who should lead....?

I follow developments every day but it has become difficult to face, hasn't it? So upsetting....

Without the forces of opposition marshalled, at least one takes some grim satisfaction from the psychological support of some fifty years of having a political compass with which to make sense of what is going on. Having fall-back positions as buffers against disappointments of one kind or another have been my salvation... along with having polymath interests that seem to go together, such as architecture, local history, meteorology, philosophy and music.

[Dave2002]

Without the forces of opposition marshalled, at least one takes some grim satisfaction from the psychological support of some fifty years of having a political compass with which to make sense of what is going on. Having fall-back positions as buffers against disappointments of one kind or another have been my salvation... along with having polymath interests that seem to go together, such as architecture, local history, meteorology, philosophy and music.

It's not the leaving/not leaving bit which particularly upsets me, but the thought that we now have a PM who it seems is prepared to play "silly games" in order (perhaps - huh!) to get his own way. I think we have a baby throwing toys out of the pram, but the pram may well topple over, and the toys won't be recovered, and the pram will be trashed.

Perhaps the EU would play sensible, and not impose similar constraints on UK citizens travelling in each of the member states, but with this wonderful example, why should they?

There's no reason that I can see why each EU country shouldn't do that individually - not just the EU as a bloc. Holiday travel would become more of a nightmare, while workers, such as lorry drivers, who may have to transport goods across several EU countries, would have a very hard time - and we'd all suffer as a result.

[MrGongGong]

It's not the leaving/not leaving bit which particularly upsets me, but the thought that we now have a PM who it seems is prepared to play "silly games" in order (perhaps - huh!) to get his own way. I think we have a baby throwing toys out of the pram, but the pram may well topple over, and the toys won't be recovered, and the pram will be trashed.

Perhaps the EU would play sensible, and not impose similar constraints on UK citizens travelling in each of the member states, but with this wonderful example, why should they?

There's no reason that I can see why each EU country shouldn't do that individually - not just the EU as a bloc. Holiday travel would become more of a nightmare, while workers, such as lorry drivers, who may have to transport goods across several EU countries, would have a very hard time - and we'd all suffer as a result.

The one thing we can be certain of is that those who are making this happen will get richer as a result.
So we won't all suffer.
It's a shame that we don't have an opposition.

[LMcD]

[QUOTE=MrGongGong;752173]The one thing we can be certain of is that those who are making this happen will get richer as a result.
So we won't all suffer.
It's a shame that we don't have an opposition.[/QUOTE]

Quite!

[Dave2002]

The one thing we can be certain of is that those who are making this happen will get richer as a result.
So we won't all suffer.
It's a shame that we don't have an opposition.

Quite!

A few points.1. There is an opposition, of a sort. 2. In its current form, the major component of that “opposition” is not one which many would be too happy to support

As a result we are stuffed, between a rock, a hard place, and ... mmm ... I’d better not say.

[vinteuil]

Views from various writers in the London Review of Books on 'How bad can it get?':

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n16/the-state-were-in/how-bad-can-it-get

JR

... thank you, Jazzrook. A good selection, extremely depressing. But thank you!


.

[MrGongGong]

A few points.1. There is an opposition, of a sort. 2. In its current form, the major component of that “opposition” is not one which many would be too happy to support

As a result we are stuffed, between a rock, a hard place, and ... mmm ... I’d better not say.

The "opposition" is quite happy to go along with what those they supposedly "oppose" want
that's NOT an "opposition" then, is it ?

[Padraig]

A few points.1. There is an opposition, of a sort. 2. In its current form, the major component of that “opposition” is not one which many would be too happy to support

As a result we are stuffed, between a rock, a hard place, and ... mmm ... I’d better not say.

Of course there's an opposition, Dave. They just have to stand up. But, watch that calendar! The Halloween masks are in the shops.