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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Patched with virtue. Britain’s historical legacy and how black
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Patched with virtue. Britain’s historical legacy and how black lives matter
Hong Kong has been much in the news recently, with the Chinese government looking to unilaterally set aside part of the “two systems” approach that it agreed to when Britain ceded it in 1997 by imposing new national security laws on it. British public opinion is rightly deeply concerned. The British government has offered Hong Kongers with a British National Overseas passport the right to live and work in the UK. This is an admirable and principled stance by the current government.
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I thought that the crossover might take 3 months. At this rate it will be within another month. That is a staggering seismic shift from the polls of the last few months when Johnson's tories regularly led by 20%, even by 26% as recently as the 20th April.
In all my years of watching politics I have never seen such a dramatic, sudden shift. Not even Black Wednesday.
And, for the record, I know plenty of people who are still talking about it, with anger and incredulity.
As own goals go, the Cummings saga beats everything.
In the days before 16 September 1992, the Tories were about level with Labour (some polls had them ahead, some had them behind). All of the polls that followed had Labour ahead. By November Labour were 20 points clear.
If you look carefully at the polls in autumn 1992 you will in fact see that the slide in Conservative support happened nowhere near so fast as the Cummings saga.
Black Wednesday was 16th September 1992. Conservative leads in the month leading up to that date were:
-6
-3
-4
2
(A mean Labour lead of +3)
The slide did not happen immediately. The polls in the month after were:
-8
-2
-4
-5
-7
-6
0
-9
(A mean Labour lead of +4)
The first big poll shift occurred exactly a month after Black Wednesday on 19th October 1992 when Gallup had Labour on a lead of +22. Thereafter the polls mostly started to show substantial Labour leads, although not all did.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/historical-polls/voting-intention-1992-1997
When I was growing up, there used to be arguments about social issues such as single parents. John Major even made it a central part of his policy agenda:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_to_Basics_(campaign)
I think Osborne may have changed the tax system to recognize marriage.
The video at the top of the thread cites home life as being an important part of a child's chances in life. This is undoubtedly true.
Yet all through my life, the Left have opposed the use of policy to reduce single parents households, for example. Clearly it's a difficult thing to change. But it fucks me off beyond belief for the Left to tell people who have had a stable upbringing to feel guilty about it.
They are sort of c*nts who think parents shouldn't help their children with their homework.
The best source for the history of the opium wars is of course Flashman and the Dragon.
The history of Empire is an ignoble one, and one sadly neglected in schools, yet critical to understanding our place in the world.
There is room for a certain amount of derring do, end even some back patting, but there needs to be a recognition that our legacy in the world is a Curates egg at best.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8395143/Tory-MPs-fear-growing-cracks-Boris-Johnson-Rishi-Sunak-China-negotiations.html
The facts of Cummings journeys may well be yesterday's news. But jokes are still being made about his eye test, and that jokes being made and laughed at suggest that something has settled in the public mind.
"our legacy in the world is a Curates egg at best."
That applies to every country in the world. But the nonsense of apologising for what your antecedents did is nonsensical. Tony did it for the Irish famine. So some of my great-great grandfathers did something nasty to some of my other great-great grandparents? Who should I apologise to?
I did tell my Danish daughter-in-law that I'd forgiven her completely for the Danish Viking raids on England and Ireland a few years ago, and I'm sure she was very pleased. But I did suggest she bought the next round in recompense.
This suggests to me that current sociological factors, rather than past treatment by the British Empire, explains the experiences of immigrant groups today. The latter may be one factor determining the former, but it is only one of many.
I agree though that a loving and stable family life is the basis of childhood advantage. It is certainly an advantage that I have had, and think it is the biggest advantage that I have passed on to Fox jr.
There is a lot of literature to support this, but I see it also in how children, and adolescents in particular, are adversely affected by parental break up at critical points in their lives.
No one wants to trap people in unhappy or even abusive homes, and the welfare state rightly has a role in mitigating that damage.
The pleasures of a long relationship are not as obvious as the hedonistic pleasures of youth, but are much more valuable.
How do we structure a society that encourages and supports happy families? Economics clearly come into it, as so many family fights are about money. It isn’t the only thing though, as we see in poor immigrant households. A culture that values deferred gratification over transient pleasures succeeds, and very often the foundation of that is religiosity.
Religion of any sort can have a toxic side, but does generally foster and support family life. In all social classes and ethnic groups it is a predictor of success in life. There is a chicken and egg issue too, in that relationship breakdown can shake religious faith.
More confident: 59%
Less confident: 22%
2019 Labour voters:
More confident: 56%
Less confident: 26%
(Panelbase; 1-5 June; 1,022 Scottish adults)
Labour voters are key to the result of the next independence referendum. Just as the party veers BritNat, their voter base continues to drift to a pro-Scotland stance.
Not unique to us of course. The hostile relationship between Greece and Turkey, or Russia and Poland have strong relationships with their experience of empire.
It is not about apology, or even restitution, more one of understanding and empathy.
https://twitter.com/electionmapsuk/status/1269406969317769217?s=21
Trevor Phillips made a programme about these issues a few years ago. A lot of people didn’t like what he had to say.
Alastair has written threads in the past about Britain going the way of Argentina. He’s right to say that we have no god given right to be a significant player. We have to work hard to be successful as a nation. I’d suggest the black community should look at itself as well as the forces of oppression.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-51797316
Yes, I heard what Lammy said on QT, very commendable.
Notwithstanding your language your simplified stereotyping is not helpful either. Modifying the tax system to benefit married couples won't stop a poorly educated girl from a sink estate becoming pregnant from multiple partners.
It is notable that black African communities are more academically successful than black Caribbean. There may be some legacy of colonialism, in that both slavery, and the pattern of men being absent abroad working disrupt family life.
Much as I admire and appreciate black British sporting and musical success, these are not realistic ambitions for a much broader success of the rest of a community. Too often the only entrepreneurial openings are criminal ones.
Mr. Observer, I also recall Lammy criticising the choice of the Grenfell Tower inquiry judge on various grounds, including being white (2 mins 52s):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqHnuyJko8c
From second hand reports I read here, Lammy's comments on why black people get longer sentences, on average, seem more reasonable (essentially, lack of trust is a contributory factor as guilty pleas take longer to come in, leading to longer sentences).
As for the atrocities of the past, which we can do little to change, we might do better to concentrate on the atrocities of now. In Nigeria for example, 600 black Christians have been killed since the beginning of 2020 - victims of persecution by Jihadist groups. I might be missing them, but I don't see the mass protests demanding we do something about this. The African continent is utterly forgotten in all this, and if I were a Nigerian Christian, I would be feeling quite angry about the whole BLM movement, which in Britain at any rate, is seems to be toxically self-indulgent and obsessed with trivialities.
Go and have a cup of coffee, snog the wife/husband and acquire a little joie de vivre.
I didn’t say I supported the Tory policies. I was saying that the Left don’t want to tackle the issues that affect life chances. It is very tough to do, and I don’t know how to do it. But people shouldn’t feel guilty about having something that we should be promoting.
Your gentle suggestion at the end seems to have provoked vehement opposition.
The cohesiveness of society is strengthened when we focus on what we have in common, not our differences.
There is a culture war in America that Trump has very much been a part of making. But the Left have played their part too. And they are trying to bring it here.
No wonder they want a culture war.
"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Scottish independence rising as a political force rather than being destroyed by devolution is a matter of public record, and as is the increase in migration (notably by no transitional limits on new EU member states), with the desire to rub the right's face in diversity thereby revealed through leaks.
If you meant I was either too ambiguous or broad brush over the culture war comment then fair enough, that could've been more precise.
https://twitter.com/yaskamacaan/status/1269330819102973952?s=09
SNP at 54% in last three polls
Opinium on 4th June, with don’t knows removed has this
Con: 24%
Lab: 12%
LD: 7%
SNP: 54%
Greens: 2%
https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/06/07/snp-at-54-in-last-three-polls/
For contemporary polling.
All in all, do you feel the demonstrations by Negroes on civil rights have helped more or hurt more in the advancement of Negro rights?
85% Hurts Negro
15% Helps Negro
Subpopulation: Whites
All the benefits of public restraint over the last three months being thrown away.
That is certainly a take.
What other problems can you defeat by ignoring them? Fascism? Boulders rolling down hills? Gravity?
What I have shouldn't be unreachable to others because of their class, creed or colour. I am uncomfortable with the notion of social engineering, however some sort of rebalancing needs to be considered to ensure fairness to all.
Remember how this whole issue started in Minneapolis, and just keeps on happening. But why protest in the UK? Racial stereotyping goes on here too. Some years ago a nice middle-class lady I knew from University was on holiday with her family in Cornwall, they were black. She, along with some 20 other drivers ran a faulty red temporary traffic light. Her car was the only one pulled over by Devon and Cornwall Police and she got the fine and the points. She accepted she was wrong and joked she was pulled over because she was black, and she was joking. I thought, no, you're right!
Is that for Westminster or Holyrood please?
@Dura_Ace even helpfully posted a King quote for you to show how wrong you are.
PS: Did you see the state of Murdo in his regalia
The first time I went to Boston (the little one in Massachussetts),I was surprised how the black kids spoke with a different accent to the white ones.
That photo surprised me a bit - but I was too busy trying to find the info to look much at it. Now I look again, I suspect it's an old Photoshop job actually. There's something wrong ablout the way the sash hangs on the shoulder.
Is there evidence for teachers viewing black pupils as less intelligent?
If she's referring to British history then complaining because it's white is nonsense because historically this country has been white. If it's more global, then it depends on the balance of the curriculum, but I'd want to see the detail. She's right that black history isn't just slavery.
I'd also be interested to know whether the broad white-black (and other ethnicities which curiously seem to go missing) differences are smaller or larger than the male-female differences. Of course, girls doing better than boys is seen as a failing of boys, because it's fashionable to knock masculinity (contrary to whites seemingly doing better than black, in which case that's attributed to bigotry rather than a failing of the worse performing group), but it'd still be good to know.
"If you put a knife in my back and then pull it out we are not even."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html
And notice that there isn't an AsianLivesMatter - a demographic who have the opposite likelihood to dying in police custody as black people do:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52890363
Why do different immigrant communities have such different experiences and levels of achievement ?
I agree that there is a lot of lip service to diversity. We have an Asian Chancellor, but possibly the wealthiest one ever, and that is not atypical of MPs, or for that matter the Civil Service and professions like my own.
Of course, there is a point at which class changes, so whatever their roots Starmer or Javid are no longer working class by any reasonable interpretation. Class diversity and diversity of outlook are both neglected in favour of more visible differences.
...to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans and secure legal recognition and federal protection of the citizenship rights enumerated in the Constitution and federal law.
Those changes represent justice before the law.
We have taken our immigrants, and we have empowered them. We have put huge trust and faith in them
Those are not cheap words or meaningless take a knee gestures they are actions.
They are powerful anti-racist actions undertaken by the British people.