Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Richard Hakluyt]

Kind of weird info in the UK pamphlet. The only thing that's of interest when it comes to education is if people went to Oxbridge or not. Not what they studied. And when you look at professions scientists and engineers are lumped together with God knows what in some general group, but heaven forbid you don't distinguish between barristers and solicitors.

I think I see one of the problems with British politics.

As identified back in 1959 by C P Snow and bemoaned ever since :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

[The Brain]

Kind of weird info in the UK pamphlet. The only thing that's of interest when it comes to education is if people went to Oxbridge or not. Not what they studied. And when you look at professions scientists and engineers are lumped together with God knows what in some general group, but heaven forbid you don't distinguish between barristers and solicitors.

I think I see one of the problems with British politics.

As identified back in 1959 by C P Snow and bemoaned ever since :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

Hard to beat a good moan.

[Tamas]

Drove to pick up our weekly click and collect groceries.

Fuel panic is on.

The small Shell I drove past had so many people queuing they blocked one of the lanes. Ridiculous. It's the A4, a very busy main road if you want to leave greater London westward without going on a motorway this is your only road. 90% of the country's gas stations will be shut down before they get to the ones around here.

Also I hadn't seen this many people collecting click and collect since the heydays of lockdown last year.

[garbon]

Drove to pick up our weekly click and collect groceries.

Fuel panic is on.

The small Shell I drove past had so many people queuing they blocked one of the lanes. Ridiculous. It's the A4, a very busy main road if you want to leave greater London westward without going on a motorway this is your only road. 90% of the country's gas stations will be shut down before they get to the ones around here.

Also I hadn't seen this many people collecting click and collect since the heydays of lockdown last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/24/uk-prime-minister-shortage-crisis-boris-johnson-new-york

If only the UK could panic-buy prime ministers who know what they're doing

Is the government's fabled Nudge Unit on a paddleboard somewhere in Crete? You have to ask, after Downing Street urged people not to panic-buy petrol, a piece of behavioural science almost guaranteed to make people panic-buy petrol. If only there'd been some kind of rehearsal event last year, when telling people not to fight over bog roll generated counterintuitive scenes of Andrex-fuelled violence in the supermarket aisles.

[Sheilbh]

I assume this would be similar in Germany, too. Current parliament has 82% academics (vs 18% academics in the population), but I couldn't find numbers for a working class background (because you could for example be an entrepreneur without a degree who took over a family business, or you could be an academic from a blue collar family).

Yeah it's difficult to measure. For example I suspect the most under-represented "class" group is the service-sector working class.

There's often a question in the UK if you're the first in your family to go to university but I'm not sure that's quite right either.

I've always wondered about German politicians doing PhDs (I assume it's not the same in Austria given the age of Kurz) - what do they normally do them in?

Someoe did a list in the UK from about a decade ago - where it's far more rare (and obviously no-one uses their title - so I discovered Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, has a PhD). It was sort of interesting. Lots of history PhDs as I suppose you'd expect.

[Syt]

For Austria there's these stats (and they're similar for Germany IIRC), comparing the number of people from university educated families (green) to non-university families:



(Matura is the school exam that allows you to go to university, equivalent to Abitur in Germany.)

To compare, after elementary school I had a strong recommendation to go to Gymnasium (the school branch in Germany that leads directly to Abitur), but my parents insisted I go to Realschule instead (a middle school, that at the time mostly led into low to mid tier office jobs) and - if I was good enough - do Abitur afterwards. So I sailed through Realschule, really bored and then added three more years to get my Abitur.

As for going to university ... I thought about it, but had no idea what to study. Macroeconomics or IT stuff would have been up my alley, but either way even with universities being (almost) free in Germany, and BAFÖG (government support to help finance education for low income family kids) I would have had to work at least a 20 hour job because my family sure couldn't support me and pay my bills. Among my family, or friends, there were none who had gone to university who I could have asked for advice. And at the time I was not self-directed enough to seek such advice from outside my comfort zone (and this was in 1995/96, so no hopping onto the internet to see what the options were).

In the end I went for public administration as it gave a sort-of bachelor's degree while collecting a paycheck, and kind of having a somewhat secure career ahead of me. And then I never worked in that field. But yeah, I could have benefited from more guidance and advice at the time, but I had no idea where to look, and my school wasn't much help, either.

[Duque de Bragança]

This report has the details https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.pdf

So in 1979 15.8% of MPs were from manual trades, this had fallen to 3% by 2015. There used to be a lot of miners, electricians and so on in the Labour ranks.

Not just in the UK. In France, the so-called  "progressive ethnic diversification", more or less mandatory, backfired, since it  has nearly eliminated working-class backgrounds in the Assemblée Nationale, not just because the PCF nearly disappeared. PS was never really a working class party, unlike Labour in the UK.
You get beurgeoisie (north African origin bourgeoisie) or black bourgeois instead, specially in Macron's clique or rump party.

In the '80s, there was  for instance a centre-right/right minister of education, René Monory, who was car mechanic for instance.
Yet he spoke better French than most Macronistas nowadays, only good at newspeak or franglais.

[Josquius]

Education is absolutely the wrong way to go about measuring this.
If you must use that then it's not the person in question but their parents education.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe - though literally a day or two ago I saw a big thread by a social scientist on why that doesn't work (I can't find it now )

I think it also bleeds into that self-perception thing where obectively successful, well-educated, well-paid, capital-owning individuals perceive of themselves as "working class" because their parents were, or even sometimes because their grandparents were. Which is a nonsense - you have Oxbridge educated (but first generation) partners of law firms proclaiming they feel working class because their parents were.

But obviously the big thing in the UK is that a big chunk of MPs were sort of in the pipeline from the trade unions into a safe Labour seat and parliament - especially back in the days when different unions would sponsor candidates. That's kind of withered away a little bit - and to the extent it exists it tends to be in the more middle class/public sector unions.

Looking at that paper it's sort of interesting how there is a little bit of Piketty's "merchant right" v "brahmin left" going on. So 41% of Tory MPs' background is generally business (with another 12% of lawyers and 2% from agriculture/farming); while 40% Labour MPs are from more public/third sector positions (education, NHS, local councillors and the voluntary sector) with only 6% in business (plus 10% lawyers).

[Zanza]

I've always wondered about German politicians doing PhDs (I assume it's not the same in Austria given the age of Kurz) - what do they normally do them in?

Plagiarism.

[Sheilbh]

[Josquius]

Maybe - though literally a day or two ago I saw a big thread by a social scientist on why that doesn't work (I can't find it now )

I think it also bleeds into that self-perception thing where obectively successful, well-educated, well-paid, capital-owning individuals perceive of themselves as "working class" because their parents were, or even sometimes because their grandparents were. Which is a nonsense - you have Oxbridge educated (but first generation) partners of law firms proclaiming they feel working class because their parents were.

But obviously the big thing in the UK is that a big chunk of MPs were sort of in the pipeline from the trade unions into a safe Labour seat and parliament - especially back in the days when different unions would sponsor candidates. That's kind of withered away a little bit - and to the extent it exists it tends to be in the more middle class/public sector unions.

Looking at that paper it's sort of interesting how there is a little bit of Piketty's "merchant right" v "brahmin left" going on. So 41% of Tory MPs' background is generally business (with another 12% of lawyers and 2% from agriculture/farming); while 40% Labour MPs are from more public/third sector positions (education, NHS, local councillors and the voluntary sector) with only 6% in business (plus 10% lawyers).

I see those cases as time spent in the situation.
If your parents work in a factory and have no education then you can go to Cambridge and become a world leading super succesful figure and you'll stay working class... Until you've lived most of your life in this new higher situation. Then it becomes iffy.

There is a lot of self defining in it too of course but only within the bounds of reason. It's very fluffy stuff.

One thing I'm seeing a lot of these days though and pisses me off to no end is working class gate keeping by fascists (often not working class themselves) who have this idea that if you're not a racist manual worker then you can't be working class. If you go to university you instantly lose being working class.
It's wrong. And also kind of saying working class by definition can never be succesful without selling out so what's the fucking point. This thinking really does infect a lot of young boys these days and it's seriously toxic.
We need to bring back the whole idea of the working class dream which Keir starmer epitomises really. You work your arse off so your kids can get the better life you couldn't. I've definitely had this in my upbringing and I'd go as far to say its a primary distinguishing feature of the working class as opposed to the non working class.

Incidentally something I worried about a lot before having kids and is on my mind a fair bit is how to avoid my son growing up to be a rah. I need to keep the working class values there whilst keeping him clear of the temptations of  swamp dwellers.

[Tamas]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/25/european-lorry-drivers-will-not-want-to-come-to-uk-warn-haulage-chiefs

The government's emergency programme to issue temporary visas to thousands of lorry drivers is far too little to resolve Britain's supply-chain crisis and is unlikely to attract them to the UK, haulage chiefs have warned.

Downing Street on Saturday night confirmed hastily compiled plans to add 5,000 HGV drivers and 5,500 poultry workers to a visa scheme until Christmas, to help the food and fuel industries with shortages.

However, even as the plans were formally announced, Marco Digioia, the head of the European Road Haulers Association which represents more than 200,000 trucking companies across the continent, told the Observer that "much more would be needed" than a temporary relaxation of immigration rules. "There is a driver shortage across Europe," he said. "I am not sure how many would want to go to the UK."

Digioia said European driver salaries were generally higher than in Britain; new EU rules had improved working conditions; and billions of euros had been offered to fund parking areas and support companies.

"The UK doesn't have access to any of that," he said. "Tempting European drivers back to the UK when they also have to face the reality of customs and border checks, all the uncertainties of Brexit ... We have to be realistic."

Higher salaries, and perhaps tax incentives, might help in the short term, he said, but "a lot of money is being thrown at this whole problem in Europe right now. There's a level playing field, and none of the Brexit-related hassle".

[Sheilbh]

It's not a European specific visa is it?

I agree that's probably true because there are other countries with this issue like Germany and the Netherlands where there'll be no visa hassle. But doesn't that just mean you advertise in, say, Ukraine or Turkey or the Western Balkans? Isn't that sort of the consequence of Brexit?

This might be the right decision - but I still hope unions are organising these sectors to drive up conditions and pay in the long run.

[The Larch]

Incidentally something I worried about a lot before having kids and is on my mind a fair bit is how to avoid my son growing up to be a rah. I need to keep the working class values there whilst keeping him clear of the temptations of  swamp dwellers.

Translation, please?