Been watching Call The Cops on All4, which focuses on Devon and Cornwall police. So understaffed it’s ridiculous. You wouldn’t think so much criminality was going on down there.
The cronyism within the Conservative party is merely a reflection of the way British society, and most of the world, functions. It's about who you know, not what you know. The Conservatives are overwhelmingly from wealthy families with the right connections and they have mostly enjoyed professional success and riches on the back of this happy accident; a letter of recommendation to a school or university, a great first job offered by a family friend, a free place to stay here and there and generous parental handouts while they establish themselves. This is the world in which they live and operate and for them making a contract based on a personal relationship is nothing unusual. It's just how business is done. The idea of personal merit and hard graft will only get you to the highest places if you are exceptionally talented and most wealthy families, perhaps understandably, don't just sit back with their fingers crossed and hope that their child is one of the lucky few blessed with such ability. It's easy to preach equal opportunity but hard to practice it when your own flesh and blood is involved.
That's not a growth wrote:Standing up for the performance is probably the best thing ITV has done in years. I just don't understand how it got so many complaints.
I don't associate too much with 2 of my brothers, especially two of them that have said racist stuff in the past, stuff that I've ALWAYS called out, always stood against, so much so that they don't dare go near anything racist when I'm within ear shot. Not a victory of any sort but at least they know their own brother will not tolerate it, I'm hoping my stance sets a precedence for at least their kids, it seems it has with some but not others but that's a different story. My oldest brother (there's 4 of us) is not racist either but doesn't like to 'rock the boat', and I think that's fair, he's not into conflict.
The problem I'm having is, because my car had a problem I brought it to my nephew (son of racist bro) and he's not racist at all, but I had to spend time with his dad and he was going on about Lewis Hamilton and BLM and that he hates that footballers take a knee, I explained why, the reasons, the facts and figures and he said the usual "politics has no place in sport" crap, again I explained that it's a message that will get to a wider audience but I just got laughed at. I said my piece and let it go, as did he but it's effected my relationship with 2 of my brothers quite badly and that's upsetting. It's a cliche, but he wasn't like this back in the day, well at least not openly when we were growing up.
Now the worst part, I live the furthest from my parents, my 3 brothers all live within walking distance of them. I collect my daughter from my folks daily (she goes to them after school) and we talk a little but just small talk as in how are you, and talk about the news, and covid etc. Yesterday with my car taking a while I popped around to my folks to have a cup of tea and chat longer, my mother was same old worrier and still awesome but, my dad, well, he's taken on this racist rhetoric that my brothers spout and it's harrowing tbh. Growing up he thought me to never tolerate racism of any kind and now his 2 sons have (imo) poisoned his mind. I told him off, which surprised him and then it got worse. I mentioned Phil Thompson and Le Tissier were let go off of Soccer Saturday (a show he used to watch a lot, I think he's forgotten seasons back), and his immediate reaction was "oh no, have they got a woman now?" (I don't know if they do btw) but I answered, yeah I think one of them is a woman and he went into this tirade that women don't know anything about football etc. I tried to keep my cool and calmly said "dad, your grand daughter (my daughter - who he adores) is in the next room, so I'm going to disagree with you strongly here" he semi backed down when he seen how angry I was but again, he'd never say these things before...
I don't want to divorce myself from my family but, how do other people cope? because I can only see things getting worse. My only barometer on how 'well' I'm doing is that my daughter is BANG ON the money on all her views, I'm astonished that she's so well adjusted to racism, why BLM matters, why gay and trans people have a right to love whoever they please. Her two best friends in school are Nigerian immigrants and she comments sometimes about people don't seem to like them and she innocently doesn't know why, which is quite poignant for a 10 year old to observe. The whole situation is depressing me.
It's awful when family members let you down like that.
I'm quite lucky in that my immediate family are all decent. My mum and dad are as liberal thinking as me, my brother doesn't take much interest in politics so doesn't say anything daft. He used to be quite homophobic but his wife has knocked that out of him, she has gay friends and he realised he was being a dickhead.
I have slightly more distant relatives that are banana splits. My mum's cousins (never know the proper term for what relation they are to me!) are twats. Brexit supporting racist twats. But I rarely have any need to be near any of them so it doesn't really matter.
My stepdad has had an amazing transformation over the last few years. He went from a mostly liberal bloke into somebody that voted Tory in 2015 and then for Brexit. It almost split him and my mum up as she couldn't stand his views. He's since turned himself around, we got through to him that he had fallen for a load of bollocks and he listened, reasoned and admitted his mistakes.
So there is hope with your brother and dad, but it's damn hard to breakthrough people that have been brainwashed by bullshit.
I've read about this, has it been decided by referendum? I have a Barbadian friend, and from what he has told me the Monarchy is actually quite well liked (and he isn't particularly a monarchist) , but obviously that's just the view of one person. I don't know what polling in Barbados says.
I've read about this, has it been decided by referendum? I have a Barbadian friend, and from what he has told me the Monarchy is actually quite well liked (and he isn't particularly a monarchist) , but obviously that's just the view of one person. I don't know what polling in Barbados says.
I don't think it was a referendum. If Barbados has learned anything from Britain then it's to avoid referendums...
I've read about this, has it been decided by referendum? I have a Barbadian friend, and from what he has told me the Monarchy is actually quite well liked (and he isn't particularly a monarchist) , but obviously that's just the view of one person. I don't know what polling in Barbados says.
I don't think it was a referendum. If Barbados has learned anything from Britain then it's to avoid referendums...
I think when it comes to issues of constitutional reform, particularly deciding their parliamentary system, referendums are essential.
I've read about this, has it been decided by referendum? I have a Barbadian friend, and from what he has told me the Monarchy is actually quite well liked (and he isn't particularly a monarchist) , but obviously that's just the view of one person. I don't know what polling in Barbados says.
I don't think it was a referendum. If Barbados has learned anything from Britain then it's to avoid referendums...
I think when it comes to issues of constitutional reform, particularly deciding their parliamentary system, referendums are essential.
Photek wrote:I don't want to divorce myself from my family but, how do other people cope?
We did the thing that you don't want to. I tried re-educating my father but he's too entrenched in his views. I wouldn't say he is racist or sexist but some of his views do align with your typical racist/sexist views, like the ones you mentioned.
Then again, he's also unwilling to change his plans or lifestyle to accommodate his granddaughter, so I'm not sure I've lost anything at all.
Check out my YouTube channel! One man should not have this much power in this game. Luckily I'm not an ordinary man.
Moggy wrote:I have slightly more distant relatives that are banana splits. My mum's cousins (never know the proper term for what relation they are to me!) are twats. Brexit supporting racist twats.
Have they not met your wife?
Check out my YouTube channel! One man should not have this much power in this game. Luckily I'm not an ordinary man.
I've read about this, has it been decided by referendum? I have a Barbadian friend, and from what he has told me the Monarchy is actually quite well liked (and he isn't particularly a monarchist) , but obviously that's just the view of one person. I don't know what polling in Barbados says.
I don't think it was a referendum. If Barbados has learned anything from Britain then it's to avoid referendums...
I think when it comes to issues of constitutional reform, particularly deciding their parliamentary system, referendums are essential.
Yeah, it worked out well for us....
I think there are things that could have been done different, for example for a constitutional change it should require a 75% threshold or something.
I'd argue gay marriage wouldn't be legal in Ireland without the referendum. You can't really take one badly managed referendum, and I think almost everyone would agree the EU ref was a mess, and remove the prospect of asking the people.
If you look at the US system, any constitutional reform is now almost impossible without going to the people directly.
Edit: Actually I will correct above, I think I was unfair in saying that the gay rights referendum wouldn't have been possible without the vote. But the vote certainly helped absolutely settle the issue.
I've read about this, has it been decided by referendum? I have a Barbadian friend, and from what he has told me the Monarchy is actually quite well liked (and he isn't particularly a monarchist) , but obviously that's just the view of one person. I don't know what polling in Barbados says.
I don't think it was a referendum. If Barbados has learned anything from Britain then it's to avoid referendums...
I think when it comes to issues of constitutional reform, particularly deciding their parliamentary system, referendums are essential.
Yeah, it worked out well for us....
I think there are things that could have been done different, for example for a constitutional change it should require a 75% threshold or something.
I'd argue gay marriage wouldn't be legal in Ireland without the referendum. You can't really take one badly managed referendum, and I think almost everyone would agree the EU ref was a mess, and remove the prospect of asking the people.
If you look at the US system, any constitutional reform is now almost impossible without going to the people directly.
I'm not taking one. I'm including the AV referendum in my list of stupidity.
A democratically elected government shouldn't need to hold a referendum on ditching a ceremonial monarch that's just a holdover from the days of empire.
I don't really like kind of one-and-done referenda in the context of capitalist democracy. One problem is that they are very easy to swing with a paid-for propaganda blitz. Referenda seem particularly ill-suited to the kind of slow-burn grassroots campaigning that the left is (theoretically) stronger at.
Ultimately elections suffer the same issue to be fair. It's difficult to win against moneyed interests playing the game of capitalist democracy.
