Off Topic Politics Thread

Fair enough, it was only a partial fabrication on Boris' part.


And you are right that the tone of the Brexit debate is frequently too shrill to allow for much real communication.

The country really is more divided than it has ever been, but maybe that actually predates June 2016. Maybe the divide isn't really between pro and anti Europeans, maybe it's between those who, despite this long drawn out recession, are generally quite optimistic about the modern world, and those who feel left behind.

A US journalist recently described Seattle as a place full of people doing really well, and other people selling lattes to the people doing really well. Maybe add to that, the people who claim they can't get a job selling lattes because the immigrants have taken all the jobs.That last bit is the oldest con in capitalism's armoury btw, but they say the old ones are the best.

 

The population growth mirrors the release of greenhouse gases, bring the population down to 3 billion, wait a couple of hundred years for the planet to sort itself out and the seas to cool down a tad and problem solved

 

No I agree on that he took a small part of just 1 regulation and then embellished it to emphasise the point. But bananas wasn't the target. It was "needless regulations" that was the target.

I think it is longer than that. This has been brewing since the nineties. The eighties were grim but people knew they had the chance. Since the nineties those at the top have seemed further and further away. Even with more Uni places and more "quotas" it has seemed further away and most definitely for someone that was in the generation before the mass Uni degree push because not only is someone from my generation (or earlier) now falling further away from the higher echelons. There is now a new generation of younger people, that in many cases are not more intellectual, intelligent or able to do jobs but have a piece of paper that employers seem to love. This generation HAS been given an advantage.

Far from it being babes vs babyboomers It is a 3 way thing. The babyboomers (that worked hard to get what they want) that are now nearing or in retirement. The new generation that are jumping ahead of my generation because they have a piece of paper and then my generation that is having to fend off the generation below because they have that qualification AND because we now can't get those middle jobs (as we have families, mortgages, commitments etc) that are fighting for the bottom jobs because we can;t get the middle ones (unless we are incumbent) and have those graduates that can't get a job AND influxes of migration to compete with.

Yet all we hear on the TV is how THIS generation has it the worst!!! I would say that those who schooled in the 80s/90s had it the worst (if we discount how the babyboomers had nothing) because if you lose your job you have to go down the ladder. Added to that we have this constant blah about how the modern business world is and government can't do anything about it, which many translate as don't want to rather than can't.

And thus the people you see and hear moaning are not the 65+ so much. It is people like me in their 40s / 50s!!!

When I was made redundant in '95 and '2001 I moved straight into a different job. My experience counted for a lot. (Admittedly I made a decision to ditch ambition and work in a food factory the second time.) 16 years with 2 redundancies but never once claimed nor needed to claim dole.

Since the mid noughties that has all changed. My experience counts for nought though because there is a flood of graduates out there and they seem to be a prestigious addition to the workforce. Can't move down because I can't compete with migrant workers and thus agencies go through the motions of taking my name.

I don't blame immigrants for "taking my job." I blame business for utilising every avenue to shame British people.

I would bet there are many more people in the 40-50 age range that are being vocal on the EU, politics and all other things than the older lot. They can paint it as babyboomers vs babes all they want. It is Generation X in the middle that they ignore despite Generation X being the ones hardest hit from the past 2 decades of "progress." Trapped in the mire because we can't afford to retrain ourselves and ignored by government and employers because they don't care anymore. They don't need to care because they've created so many myths (lazy Brits, boomers vs millenials) that no-one is talking about generation X.

I am no kipper nor EDL or any other madcap leaning however it seems a fair chunk of both Momentum and the madcaps are generation Xrs.

 

I blame Billy Idol myself...

 

Personally I think that global warming has been going on since the Ice age............Predictably it has grown at a similar rate as homo-sapians I've probably spelt it wrong ...sorry........ So yes I guess we are to blame........We are trying to do something about it ...sad it doesn't seem to be enough...and a few won't even recognise it.......

 

why is there no popcorn emoticon?

 

Grandad's been drinking again:

 

The classification of bananas into different catagories (as with all other fruit and veg) is demanded by the retail industry. If it were not done by the EU. it would have to be done by national governments. The only good result of Brexit may be that people will shortly run out of scapegoats for everything which goes wrong. During my lifetime the 'scapegoats' have changed - once it was the Unions, the 'loony' left, the immigrants, now it is the EU. and the politicians. But you get the government you deserve and, in the end, if a country goes tits up then every citizen is responsible in some way. The people do not have to believe the lies, or swallow what the gutter press feeds them with. If there is one thing which you can say about Germany, for all its faults, it is that history forced them to accept a collective responsibility, and this is the source of their present relative success.

 

But you get the government you deserve
-------------------------------------------------------
I disagree. I don't deserve this rabble. I didn't vote for them either.
Now where's my high viz top...............

 

I have 4 grand kids. I told the eldest, I'm a grandad now, i don't need to eat broccoli if I don't like it. Boy was I in trouble!

 

I agree with most of that, especially the bits I have bolded.

As someone who is 50 next year and working in IT, I have noticed a shift towards trying to push me down a pure management role or project management role. I don't want that. I am a techie. I am a geek. I want to be a techie.I want to be a geek. I have over 20 years hard core extremely technical IT experience, from maintaining an IT infrastructure of 200 users to architecting & supporting the current 25,000 world wide users (I am not saying it is single handed as we are a team). I have mentioned on here before that our parent company has put us in 'rundown' and my company do not sell anything anymore, so sometime in the next 6 months I get my redundancy (lol don't worry I'm happy about that as it is virtually a whole years salary). But the reality is that it isn't enough to give up work on. So aged 50 I will need another job for a few years - admittedly I can take a pay cut and still live better than I am today, but I am up against 20 somethings that have just left Uni and think that they know more than me as they have a shiny degree. I am not knocking that as they have had to study for a few years on the theory, but 20+ years of dealing with the issues, designing the systems, understanding the legacy systems etc, is in my mind worth more than any degree. The problem is without generalising, those 20 somethings expect to step in at my level as they have a degree. The other issue is that companies now look at that piece of paper as more important to my experience. All I can say is that piece of paper shows that maybe, in theory, they can recover the systems when the datacentre that houses applications for about 10,000 users dies at 2am, but have they proved that they can invoke the Disaster Recovery plan (that they designed and put to the business) and have it back before the end users start work at 8am (THAT was a long and stressful night trust me).

Brexit will just makes things harder. Jobs won't be there, and employers will look to qualifications over experience. I am trying not to generalise of the 20 somethings as in them our future lies and there are some geniuses coming though. It is just that business need to realise the value of the experience and realise that aged 50 I still have another 15-20 years to give and although IT may be seen as a young person's game, not all 'oldies' are dinosaurs.

And breathe. Rant over.

 

....add to that the new lot coming through with their new GCSE grading system (9+ -W1) and it makes me feel a little sorry for the buggers at the opposite end.

 

oh yes they are! if you're good at your job but un-assuming, you hang on at the back of the office and are known as that old bloke who knows a bit if you want advice. Should you make a bit of a noise and get noticed some Oxbridge twat will promote you to Project Manager. You'll then have to manage all the 20 somethings who think you're an old twat and only know how valves work, wonder why you can't do any engineering anymore, cos that's what you born to do, go slightly off the rails, think **** it, and run away to a really odd country not in the EU!

 

I remember those old guys at Dorman Diesels when I worked there constantly getting told off for getting their hands dirty as they had been promoted to non shop floor roles. I felt sorry for all of those guys when Perkins closed Dorman down. Guys in their 50s, worked there since being apprentices. Yes they had a great pay off, yes they had bumper pensions to look forward to at 60-65 BUT in an engineering city with all the engineering closing down, they were so down. What chance did they have of retraining? They lived here all their life, Engines had been their life! Me being 21 and in the accounts department I didn't have that problem.

Young, accounts, loads of jobs around..........so I went into something different. Accounts was boring. Blagged that I could use MS Access and learnt it on the job.

 

I do remember in the early 90s as a Ward Manager being solemnly being told by new student nurses that I'd be unemployable within 5 years as "Project 2000" super nurses would oust us all with their fancy bookish ways.

The new training was all a bit carp it turned out.

We are now lurching into chaos as all those "useless" nurses trained in the 80s are retiring and taking their expertise with them. As a 61 yr old retired nurse I'm being begged to re-register, at their expense. I refuse and continue in my current 'lowly' part time support role, it's fun and you don't get blamed when people die.

 

My wife trained in the 80’s and double-qualified as an RGN/RMN. After too many years of being shat on by management as a CPN she retired and now does 3 shifts a week in a care home, who worship the ground she walks on. First time I’ve seen her happy in her work.

 

As I would expect, Imps, you make some excellent points. For me society is more fragmented than it has ever been. We all live in bubbles. No-one seems to have a ****ing clue what someone else's life is like. Those of us in comfortable lives sail on and nothing touches us. Crime rates? Happen to someone else. Benefit sanctions? Doesn't affect me. And so on.

I spend two afternoons at my local Foodbank - smug middle class volunteer that I am - and hear stories to make your hair curl. When I finish I can go across to M&S and hear people discussing whether the £12 meal deal is good value. Surreal.

 

I think my main point may just come across as me saying "people are angry and lashing out" which might actually be what I type. But it isn;t the reality. Yes people are angry, lots of people and while their reasoning and understanding might take different routes the end result is probably the same for all of them. Those at the top. People have varying levels of trying to advance but the wall is there for everybody. Accepting your lot is the hard part. accepting that you are OK, that you are doing alright.

Different expectations for different people.

Some blame it on capitalism, some globalisation, some our corrupt politicians etc but at the end of the day they are all angry at the divide, the lack of real opportunity and the constant talk about nice things (equality, opportunity etc) by the very people that could not care less about these things because it is $$$ that drives them.

Politicians are driven by $$$ too. If they weren't then they would not spend a minimum of 50% of every argument talking numbers and monetary amounts.

And yes of course there are some that just blame brown faces / strangers / people that aren't like them. There are nasty people that hate anyone not like them and then there are supposedly nice people that hate people for being posh, or rich or anything other.

I don;t think many actually hate those at the top because they are rich or got a lift or were born into it. They hate the opportunity and the ladder being kicked away. How can you hate someone for having more than you when everybody wishes they had more (I don't just mean money.) Would we hate ourselves if we got there?

To be honest I wish money would disappear (sounding communist now) and maybe a human emotion / nature of wanting to be better than others would disappear with it. Because at the end of the day most of the misery in this world is either caused because people haven't got enough money / pride to survive or they are not happy with what they have. Is anybody really happy? If so then would they hit the stop button or keep trying to improve their stash /"standard of living" etc?

Right. I have had 2 beers so not drunk if you are thinking that but I must get off to find my teepee and insense sticks and chant "I am quite literally a capitalist." Or at least I will when this poker tourney finishes. lol. I might be $6k richer with any luck in a couple of hours. At the mo I am only $30 richer.

 

Anyone see Billy Connolly on Thursday night? His very last sentence was something to the words of:

“People need to stop fearing a foreigner and religions just need to settle themselves down a bit.”

Wise words.

 

Brilliant summary! Exactly this. Social mobility is becoming a mythological animal. The classic Marxist analysis was always that a few of the proles would be allowed to advance in order that the rest would think that the system is fair but they lack the gumption to make it work for them.

So have you become a multi-millionaire? If so, will you continue to post?