Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Youngian wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 10:01 pm All social democrat parties in Europe have seen their blue collar vote dwindle with deindustrialisation. Labour hold up quite well among people who work in comparison. Including its middle class vote not fragmenting to Green and liberal parties. Probably FPTP to thank for that.

That'll be Labour with upward of half a million members.
Compare with the Conservatives small membership, but plenty of thinktank and donor padding.

Bones McCoy wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 9:27 am

Youngian wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 10:01 pm All social democrat parties in Europe have seen their blue collar vote dwindle with deindustrialisation. Labour hold up quite well among people who work in comparison. Including its middle class vote not fragmenting to Green and liberal parties. Probably FPTP to thank for that.

That'll be Labour with upward of half a million members.
Compare with the Conservatives small membership, but plenty of thinktank and donor padding.

Labour people live in "fashionable towns".

Is High Wycombe fashionable? Never had it down as the Haight-Ashbury myself, but Steve Baker seems worried.

It's their way of saying "bloody students and clever people".

Well, I should clarify. It's not just student towns that are "fashionable" in their eyes - it's anywhere that doesn't fall into the core constituencies of the current right:

1. Cosy villages and market towns with a thriving Conservative club, a necessarily discreet gay pub, and lots of bored young people kicking the shit out of anyone a bit different on a Friday night.

2. Urban dumps with a closed bingo club, some anti-gay graffiti, and lots of bored young people kicking the shit out of anyone a bit different on a Friday night.

"Fashionable" thus extends to anywhere a bit Bohemian, studenty, posh, smart, laid back, hippyish, comfortable or busy.

Looking at the Brexit Referendum in the district next door, the local MP, Harriet Baldwin, reckoned the towns (Malvern, Upton, Tenbury) voted Remain, villages voted Leave, with a narrow Leave vote overall.

Are those fashionable? Is the "Upton Set" a thing?

What does "fashionable" even mean in this context? I have a mental picture of Q7s, Osbourne & Little wallpaper, and England rugby shirts.

This is not a positive impression; these are the self-entitled tossers who have made rural Umbria a nightmare. I'm out, thanks.

God knows. It's like Clarkson's cool wall with cars.

Fashionable-

Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud, Malvern, Upton, Ledbury

Unfashionable

Gloucester, Cinderford, Leominster.

Never heard of Cinderford. Looks ‘up and coming.’

Edge of the Forest of Dean, I’ve had to visits precious metal recycling plant a few times

There’s more to the Forest of Dean than grim shags with Dennis Potter’s mum.

I used to live there. I'd rather not again.

Beer and fights?

Much snow, nothing to do, horrible pubs, everything on a slope, plus beer and fights.

Is that the weather snow? I keep hearing that the other sort only exists at Islington dinner parties.

I only went to Cinderford once, in 1994 to see Sham 69. Quite a tough looking crowd.

When we visited it resembled a former northern mining town or one in Wales, my mums relatives came from near there so it wasn’t surprising they ended up in a carbon copy up north some decades later.

Much of the family on my mother's side came from Cinderford. There had been some massive scandal just before the Great War which caused my direct descendants to move to the desperate slums of - er - Maida Vale, but they started to move back in the late seventies. My mother and sister are laid to rest close to the Speech House which, of all the places to be dead, must rank amongst the bestest imaginable

But yes, Cinderford is a reasonably desperate place unless you are comfortably off which we were not. Granted, I haven't been there in decades but I have been to far worse, and I would imagine that a ready supply of pills and a mountain bike could keep even the most surly of teenagers happy. Not the scrumpy through, that stuff is lethal and I can still barely face an apple, let alone a glass of Calvados, the thick end of 45 years later.

I spent many a summer there as a kid and thoroughly enjoyed it - except the aftermath of the scrumpy, obvs - and I do still have a degree of affection for the old place. I can still remember the smell of the stale pale ale rising toxically from the foundations of the The Woodlands boozer, and the week-old boiled ham from the Bristol House offy-cum-corner shop. From about the age of thirteen, there was no problem getting served in either.

On a Friday, the whole place came to a standstill, as least for us. My grandfather would get the fresh batch of faggots from the butcher in Minsterworth and they were, beyond question, the best in all Christendom. Fresh from the gas oven with mash and peas from the garden, I can taste them even now.

Now that we are pretty much done with the funerals, there is little reason for me to ever go back to Cinderford, especially as the uncle who fucked me as a child is still drawing breath. Moreover, Samothraki is firmly in my sights and how the hell we are going to pull that off before the end of the summer.

I wouldn't say never though, old butt.

Pleased for Paul winning an unfair dismissal case. Good to see the rule of law prevail over elected officials wielding arbitrary executive power. That’s not how Embery and his pals congratulating him would see it if a Remainer was wearing his shoes.

Youngian wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 10:50 am Pleased for Paul winning an unfair dismissal case. Good to see the rule of law prevail over elected officials wielding arbitrary executive power. That’s not how Embery and his pals congratulating him would see it if a Remainer was wearing his shoes.

Why did the FBU have to sack him? They should have put out a statement saying Paul Embery's views do not represent the FBU's.

If they were thick enough to have him in the first place, well, anything is possible.

His sacking did sound like it might not be legit, in fairness.

Can they not sack him in account of him not putting any fires out for ages?