UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Blair]

The BTEC disaster is magnitudes worse than what happened with A-levels but I doubt the government will take it as seriously because it's working class kids getting f-ed. Makes me so angry.

I seem to remember Gavin Williamson, who I understand is still (somehow) the Secretary of State for Education, make a Big Public Statement the other month about the Importance of Vocational Education, that it was as valid as the academic route and so on. And yet now... silence, inaction. What a surprise.

Yes this is actually one of the most frustrating things that happens in education & wider politics.

The Government (and various outriders) often hit out at Universities, the humanities, the civil service or some other target of choice by saying they're all useless & unworthy, and what Britain really needs is to 'go back the days of focusing on proper vocational training'... to which they then get presented with the sweeping cuts to FE colleges, the poorer pay & conditions for staff and general gutting of the sector etc... all of which they ignore & blame on some previous government.

I mean does anyone even know what's happening with the much heralded T-Levels? I just read now they're being offered from this September but in only three subjects...

[CumbrianLefty]

Not to worry all, the PM is going to PERSONALLY TAKE CHARGE of our schools! We are saved!!

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Not to worry all, the PM is going to PERSONALLY TAKE CHARGE of our schools! We are saved!!

There was this incredible line in the FT the other day:

https://twitter.com/marinahyde/status/1297092719815340033?s=21

We're getting near the point where the PM might start doing his job!

[CumbrianLefty]

His job today seems to be opining on a BASICALLY NON-EXISTENT "threat" to the Proms singalong.

[Cassius]

His job today seems to be opining on a BASICALLY NON-EXISTENT "threat" to the Proms singalong.

As far as I’m aware he was simply responding to a question put to him by a journalist, so I don’t think it’s fair to criticise him for opining in this particular instance.

There appear to be two variants of explanation for why there will be no singing of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory. One, which has come from Tony Hall and others, is that, without an audience, it doesn’t make much sense to have a singalong as much of the power of those pieces when sung derives from being sung by a crowd, which I kind of buy. The other, which has been proffered by various people (including the conductor!) is that the lyrics need to go because apparently they’re not suitable for ‘modern, diverse, multicultural Britain’ (TM). I hope it’s the former.

[Blair]

I wonder how many people know that Rule Britannia was in a way a protest song against defence cuts... a rather fitting & modern song in a sense.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

My main feeling about the Proms is that I miss it and that I'm not entirely sure what the point is in having the closing night to a festival without, you know, having the actual festival.

Anyway, the timeline to this nonsense runs as follows:

1. A music critic employed by The Times wrote a 'some people are saying' article about these particular songs in the BBC Music magazine. As is nearly always the case with 'some people are saying' articles, before he wrote the article no one was actually saying anything. However...

2. As always ends up happening, some people were lured by this incredibly obvious bait into advocating the position in question, almost certainly because they thought it would be beneficial to their careers. Given the state of crisis that the musical world is in as a result of the pandemic, one might question whether this was entirely responsible.

3. The Times then triumphantly runs a story about the 'controversy', talking heads start yelling, No. 10 wags its fat finger, the tabloids run outraged headlines.

Essentially a classic piece of Culture War dialectic.

[DaWN]

Well, it's less stupid than the Fawlty Towers row a few months ago, I'll give them all that

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One thing that's quite clear from how this has played out is that many people who have decided to weigh in have never actually watched the Last Night. Because while certain elements of the programme are taken very seriously (Auld Lang Syne and the National Anthem), these particular songs are not: they're always played for laughs - with stupid costumes, car horns going off all the time, and, occasionally, even deliberate bad-playing from the orchestra - and have been ever since they became regular fixtures in the 1950s. It's a Post-Imperial joke.

[EastAnglianLefty]

This is probably to be expected - most of the most eager combatants in culture wars don't seem to have any interest in actual culture, of any variety.

[Silent Hunter]

Well, it's less stupid than the Fawlty Towers row a few months ago, I'll give them all that

The irony with that is that there's far more "questionable" stuff in Monty Python's Flying Circus and that's not been touched.

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/25/boris-johnson-will-quit-dominic-cummings-father-in-law-reportedly-says

Downing Street probably hoped Dominic Cummings’ family would not provide any more headaches after the furore prompted by Boris Johnson’s adviser’s lockdown dash to his parents’ Durham farm this year.

But, in a fresh blow to No 10, the top aide’s father-in-law has reportedly said Johnson will stand down as prime minister in six months.

The claim – strenuously denied by Downing Street and, later, Johnson – was apparently delivered by Sir Humphry Wakefield to a visitor to the family’s 13th-century Grade I-listed Chillingham Castle, in Northumberland, last week.

The 84-year-old baronet, father of Cummings’ wife, Mary, told visitor Anna Silverman Johnson was still struggling badly after having coronavirus and would step down in six months, according to a report in the Times.

The Prime Minister, for his part says he is feeling "far better" and calls the claim "utter nonsense".

[brucejoel99]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/25/boris-johnson-will-quit-dominic-cummings-father-in-law-reportedly-says

Downing Street probably hoped Dominic Cummings’ family would not provide any more headaches after the furore prompted by Boris Johnson’s adviser’s lockdown dash to his parents’ Durham farm this year.

But, in a fresh blow to No 10, the top aide’s father-in-law has reportedly said Johnson will stand down as prime minister in six months.

The claim – strenuously denied by Downing Street and, later, Johnson – was apparently delivered by Sir Humphry Wakefield to a visitor to the family’s 13th-century Grade I-listed Chillingham Castle, in Northumberland, last week.

The 84-year-old baronet, father of Cummings’ wife, Mary, told visitor Anna Silverman Johnson was still struggling badly after having coronavirus and would step down in six months, according to a report in the Times.

The Prime Minister, for his part says he is feeling "far better" and calls the claim "utter nonsense".

10 PMs in 10 years? Strong & stable indeed. Little did we all know, there was simply no escaping the Miliband Chaos whichever way the UK voted in 2015. Scientists will one day refer to this as the Miliband Paradox.

[CumbrianLefty]

10 PMs in 10 years?

Not *quite*, though at times it has seemed a bit like that I will admit

[Blair]

fwiw a very good tick to spot in politicians/spokespeople is when someone says something is nonense it isn't actually a denial!

[Cassius]

10 PMs in 10 years?

Not *quite*, though at times it has seemed a bit like that I will admit

I seem to remember that way back when (ie two years ago), there were mutterings on the Tory benches about levering our May and replacing her with either David Davis or David Lidington as a caretaker for a couple of years until the party could fix upon a suitable long term leader. One ex-cabinet minister apparently dismissed this possibility by saying something along the lines of ‘we’re not Italy for God’s sake!’.

[EastAnglianLefty]

fwiw a very good tick to spot in politicians/spokespeople is when someone says something is nonense it isn't actually a denial!

Under ordinary circumstances this is true, but given that neither Johnson nor his inner circle have any hesitation in lying any time it's convenient, trying to tease out hidden meanings in their statements isn't that useful.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

One thing that's quite clear from how this has played out is that many people who have decided to weigh in have never actually watched the Last Night. Because while certain elements of the programme are taken very seriously (Auld Lang Syne and the National Anthem), these particular songs are not: they're always played for laughs - with stupid costumes, car horns going off all the time, and, occasionally, even deliberate bad-playing from the orchestra - and have been ever since they became regular fixtures in the 1950s. It's a Post-Imperial joke.

the main thing I get out of the debate is that nobody knows how to spell "Britannia".

[Blair]

10 PMs in 10 years?

Not *quite*, though at times it has seemed a bit like that I will admit

I seem to remember that way back when (ie two years ago), there were mutterings on the Tory benches about levering our May and replacing her with either David Davis or David Lidington as a caretaker for a couple of years until the party could fix upon a suitable long term leader. One ex-cabinet minister apparently dismissed this possibility by saying something along the lines of ‘we’re not Italy for God’s sake!’.

I know Stephen Bush made quite a convincing case that William Hague would have ended up as Prime Minister if he'd remained an MP after 2015.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

What was the case? Wouldn't he have been too Remainy?

[Cassius]

What was the case? Wouldn't he have been too Remainy?

I assume, had he remained in frontline politics, that he may well have trimmed his sails on the issue à la May. Given that he had fairly strong eurosceptic credentials dating back to his first stint as leader and had seen his reputation improve drastically with the party and the public from that rather disastrous period (as perhaps will happen for Ed Miliband), I imagine the party would’ve been perfectly willing to accept him if they accepted May, perhaps more so.

[Blair]

What was the case? Wouldn't he have been too Remainy?

More so just as a caretaker Prime Minister for that weird period when May was Prime Minister but had power; he was seen as a safe pair of hands, relatively unfactional & had no desire to do the job forever. He was pretty much a more talented & dynamic version of David Liddington; and certainly never drifted to the remain cause in the same sense that some senior Tories did (Hammond, Gauke etc)

The shocking thing is that I just read that Hague is only two years older than Starmer...

[brucejoel99]

The shocking thing is that I just read that Hague is only two years older than Starmer...

[CumbrianLefty]

The shocking thing is that I just read that Hague is only two years older than Starmer...

Well, that's more a comment on how young he was when he entered top level politics than anything else - equally, its pretty remarkable to think Starmer didn't even become an MP until he was over 50.

[afleitch]

What people forget is that Michael Howard was supposed to be the dark horse against Ken Clarke with Hague as his deputy but a combination of that Paxman interview and an anti-semitic dogwhistle from the dreaded Strictly woman sunk him.

Howard, when he eventually got the chance, was actually quite effective against Blair. Perhaps pre Iraq crisp jeans and guitar case Blair would have been more of a match, but had Howard made it, 2001 would have been quite different.