Does the disenfranchisement of UK prisoners make them all Political prisoners?

[teamsaint]

or crackers?

[MrGongGong]

Are you suggesting he's the big cheese?

sorry it should have been this ..........



(quick , before miss gets back from the stock cupboard)

[french frank]

I think S_A might be referring to the distant past where the Left-Right dichotomy and the Derbyshire present reside simultaneously

Moving swiftly in ....

Isn't is simply that the meaning of 'left' and 'right' has evolved? In the times of the development of socialism it didn't mean quite the same as it meant at the time of the Jacobins/Girondins and the monarchist Feuillants, literally located left and right.

But political divisions remain and it's convenient to have an unloaded terminology to distinguish them.

[Serial_Apologist]

Excuse me, not just Ams & MrGG . & less of the distant past - my past is relatively recent.

And in Scotland, where (as also in Wales?) the traditions of radicalism have died out less than in England.

[MrGongGong]

Moving swiftly in ....

Isn't is simply that the meaning of 'left' and 'right' has evolved? In the times of the development of socialism it didn't mean quite the same as it meant at the time of the Jacobins/Girondins and the monarchist Feuillants, literally located left and right.
.

Thanks for this
very interesting stuff .......

[french frank]

Thanks for this
very interesting stuff .......

Well, the really interesting thing is that when you describe your own political stance you emphasise the good and downplay the bad. Other people's beliefs are seen the other way round (if you disagree with them ).


Ed 'you' = 'one'

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for this
very interesting stuff .......

Political techtonics, eh?

As Trots, we always regarded Stalinism as a far-right ideology - similar to fascism, but stemming from a different social and political relationship of forces - another favourite Trot expression! It really used to get up our noses when passers-by shouted, "Get back to Russia!" as we were selling our respective rags in shopping centres.

[Lateralthinking1]

Moving swiftly in ....

Isn't is simply that the meaning of 'left' and 'right' has evolved? In the times of the development of socialism it didn't mean quite the same as it meant at the time of the Jacobins/Girondins and the monarchist Feuillants, literally located left and right.

But political divisions remain and it's convenient to have an unloaded terminology to distinguish them.

Yes - interesting. Actually, it fascinates me. I remember when I was told in the 1970s that the political left and right might not be seen at either end of a straight line but rather at the top of a circle that wasn't quite complete. If that circle were a clock, there would be a tiny gap at 12 o'clock. Far left was at 11 o'clock and far right at 1. The Liberals were at 6. I wasn't wholly convinced.

It is very tempting to see Thatcherism in the 1980s as the beginnings of either a shift of everything along the straight line model or a shifting of the entire line in that model to the right. However, I have often considered whether the left-right spectrum post 1979 is instead a new line either cross-cutting the old one or even entirely separate. In the latter case, another model is to see what has happened in terms of coins. There was one coin with a left and right side. People still speak in terms of it but actually there is now a second coin. It has either replaced it or it sits alongside. Even so, I am still not wholly satisfied with these explanations.

I really go back to an earlier comment to Flosshilde about directional thinking. While that is precisely the way in which politicians and the media think, I don't think it can help to explain the current times in which there can be an accommodation of more liberalism and more authoritarianism and often with the wrong emphases in my humble opinion. It is as if the middle and the right of the earlier line merged, became twice as thick and then pushed forward from the left, possibly with some partial disconnection.

That is my theory. I have further not exactly developed thinking on how the English language may well inadvertently interact with other concepts to give them shape and substance. For example, I do consider that the left as a political term has connections with leaving as in, say, a departure from the old order. That has echoes of liberalism. By contrast, the right as a term has connections with rightness or a feeling of rightness that might imply a rigid or consistent authoritative or authoritarian way. Conservatism.

To many, this will sound rather ridiculous because it is very arguably no more than coincidental and it wouldn't necessarily work in other languages. But I have seen that kind of phenomenon in most aspects of life and have considerable broad-ranging evidence for it. While I would struggle to draw it into a coherent whole, I do think there is something significant in those double workings of the English language. They might help to explain this country's mentality and its instinctive references to frameworks if understood.

All of this could simply be just a different way from counting sheep to get to sleep. But, in fairness, I think many of the key players are confused about their political positions because they don't understand or even think about these things themselves. Only this morning, Godfrey Bloom from UKIP was interviewed by Evan Davies on 'Today'. The former was arguing vehemently against Keynesian economics. The latter was saying that what he was putting forward was Keynesian. I am sure voters feel confused.

[french frank]

I like your etymology. The official one is rather more prosaic: luft or lyft indicated the weaker of the two hands (most people being right-handed). The place of honour was accorded to those sitting on the right of the ruler, which could thereafter have evolved into a social distinction. Aristos on the right, Peeps on the left.

[Lateralthinking1]

I like your etymology. The official one is rather more prosaic: luft or lyft indicated the weaker of the two hands (most people being right-handed). The place of honour was accorded to those sitting on the right of the ruler, which could thereafter have evolved into a social distinction. Aristos on the right, Peeps on the left.

Ah yes. Thank you. I stumbled into this area if one can stumble into something with hours of thought. It came to me first, I delved into it further, and then I noticed more almost without thinking. I rather wished that I had written more of it down but one can't anticipate these things beforehand. It has now been going on for years. I do have the beginnings of a dictionary along these lines.

It has been difficult to define what has happened but what you have said has been helpful to location. I think it does dovetail with "official" etymology. It veers, I think, in the way that most people veer from it, never having studied etymology. It is therefore not merely about knowledge of derivation but instinct in regard to sound. There was a certain time when suddenly I felt I saw it.

How else shall I describe it? There is a sense that in social dialogue, everyone has an understanding of meaning - political left and right are classic examples - and that people tend to believe they mean the same thing, with little scope for exception. What you know well frenchfrank is that such meanings are often very distinct from meaning at its etymological roots. Almost meaningless.

Any newer accepted meaning is clearly reinforced by its repetitive use in modern communication. By inference, it purports to be as arguably distinct as etymology and indeed as scientifically arguable. I think what I am saying is that it cannot be because there is an etymology. At the same time, etymology cannot be true meaning as it is only clear cut in itself. It isn't in common application.

So what interests me is an idea that the truest meaning in verbal communication may reside between the two points. The common usage and the etymology. Not either or both. If it is on that level that societies operate, they frequently don't see it because they have no sense of etymology at all. All conceptual thinking, and doing, in politics or elsewhere are therefore, by definition, muddled.

[cping]

Or don't they "do" music?

Possibly Fidelio

Plenty of theatre in jail... they employ the best companies, but no choir or opera so far as I know. Maybe some for 3'er will set up a group to promote this. I think there is some dance somewhere. There is a fine art provision as well

So 'cultural' prisoners there already. I sure someone knows if the education service provides political studies to turn them into 'political' prisoners.

In general, the Uk has moved to a concept of citizenship from a concept of 'subjection' for identity purposes. The implications of this have yet to be sorted out.

At last the voice of reason! Thank you, FF.

Perhaps some message boarders who have already stated their position on this topic (and one of them at least repeatedly and annoyingly) will put a sock in it.

HS

.... and possibly have something worthwhile to contribute to the output of Radio 3? Or don't they "do" music?

[MrGongGong]

Possibly Fidelio

Plenty of theatre in jail... they employ the best companies, but no choir or opera so far as I know. Maybe some for 3'er will set up a group to promote this. I think there is some dance somewhere. There is a fine art provision as well
.

Well (and not meaning to be rude) you don't know very much then .........

http://glyndebourne.com/discover/prison-projects

http://www.aldeburgh.co.uk/education/current_projects

and so on
though i guess these are small, out of the way, organisations that are unknown to most people who listen to muisc ?

[french frank]

But I suppose that depends on where they (prisons and companies) are situated - is there also a Glyndebourne Touring Company for that - rather than just for HMP Lewes?

[ahinton]

Interesting as these issues are, I think that we are getting away from the fundamental issue raised by this thread, in that references to artistic endeavours and projects in prisons and for the benefit of prisoners risk departing from the fact that, unlike those endeavours, voting in local and general elections is a constitutional right (and some might say also a citizen's moral duty) and that indiscriminately and globally removing it from prisoners represents a denial (and some might say also an infringement) of that right; I should perhaps repeat that, if indeed my view on restoration of prisoners' voting rights is demonstrably a minority one, I have no desire to seek to enforce it on the majority, preferring as I do merely to express it and explain as best I can why I happen to hold it.

[MrGongGong]

But I suppose that depends on where they (prisons and companies) are situated - is there also a Glyndebourne Touring Company for that - rather than just for HMP Lewes?

There's loads of music in prisons
Opera, Choirs , Guitar groups etc etc ......... I used to do some of it, but feel too old for that these days !
There's also lots of research if anyone wants to find out