I don't think they are in the World's top 1%. But what you might call an elite and what somebody else does may be different. You may wish to include those that help them. Anyway, I was merely trying to be helpful by suggesting where I think they might be found.
Meanwhile some important info on the Bavarian elections for those on here who seem to know more about the Germans than the Germans themselves do ( warning: helps if you speak some German...)
I'm not clear what this proves exactly? Asylum and refugees are an issue in Germany and Merkel has lost a lot of support. The AfD and the Greens both increased their share of the vote and the electorate seemed to be dissatisfied with the current coalition.
It proves what the first line of the Tweet says:
Asylum and refugees were a distant 4th in Bavarian voter priorities
Which is not how the results will have been interpreted on Planet @Southbank :-)
OK, to ram home the point. The far Right is noton the march across Europe. In the Czech municipal and Senate elections last week it was halted in its tracks too.
Naked anti immigrant parties manage to pick up about 15% in many countries but do not seem to get much beyond that point. UKIP of course polled 15% in 2015.
I have never claimed that immigration is the biggest issue on people's minds, it is dissatisfaction with the status quo and the sense of not being listened to which is the main driver ( so perhaps listen a little better to what I say, Prague)
What the Bavarian elections mainly show once again is that the main traditional parties of the right and left are seeing their support draining away across Europe to smaller, often populist parties. The far right are part of that in some places, the Greens and others elsewhere. Corbyn's Labour is the closest thing to that we have in the UK, but our Parliamentary system at least for the time being legislates against the European trend happening here in the same way.But remember the last two times people in the UK voted outside the Parliamentary system they voted for UKIP in the last European elections and for Brexit in the Referendum. We are not immune here.
The AfD an anti-immigrant party picked up 10% of the vote which was mainly at the expense of the centre-right parties. The fact that this is happening in a relatively prosperous area such as Bavaria is worrying.
Immigration is a significant issue for a number of voters and it would be naive to ignore this. Germany has absorbed a significant number of migrants in a relatively short period of time and this has not always been popular.
The Italian government is pursuing an anti-immigrant agenda at the present time.
Yes but this does my head in. You, @southbank, @MuttleyCAFC are all talking through a British media prism. For example the British press say it is especially "shocking" that the AfD does well in "prosperous" Bavaria. Well.. it is not so long ago (but before all this immigration stuff) that the Rough Guide felt it appropriate to warn that the area around Bamberg and Bayreuth was a bit of a hotbed of Nazi sympathisers. Ask any German from the North what he or she thinks about Bavarians and you may well get quite a dark answer.
My point here is that there have always been extremists in every European country and as a % of the population they have always been bigger than we might all want to accept. Yes, us. The country of Oswald Mosley, Enoch Powell, Nick Griffin, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Right? Simply, some politicians in recent years have felt more emboldened to embrace these views and make them "mainstream". The British media in particular then makes lazy assumptions about what results in other countries mean, in the context of their British audience's perceptions. "Merkel's Syrian policy has backfired - Germans reject it - the AfD is on the march." Except it isn't. 89% of Bavarians did not vote for them, and they had more important matters on their mind than what the AfD thinks is important.
What you have in that tweet is an intelligent person with a bit more knowledge saying to the British audience, "this result is a lot more nuanced than what you are being told it is" . Reminds me of poor @southbank trying to explain to us that immigration didn't really drive a large number of Brexit votes...it would of course help, @southbank if you were a bit more precise about this "status quo" that the average Brexiteer is so angry with, and how Brexit will make things better, but I long ago lost hope of getting a coherent answer from you on that.
The tweet you refer to is neither intelligent or nuanced - twitter is not really the platform for reasoned political debate and doesn't lend itself to it.
Right wing views on immigration have become more mainstream in the current climate across Europe - it's probably best not to pretend all is okay.
'elites' = 'anyone in a position of power who refutes my nativist biases'
@kentaddick Welcome to Planet Southbank. I've been asking him the same question for ages.
I haven't got any clear answer from him so I have assumed that he thinks either that:
- I must be one of the 'elite' myself, or
- I, you, and the rest of the 48% who are not in the "elite" are too dumb to see what terrible things the "elite" are doing.
Really, Prague.Are you really trying to argue there are not elites in society,really? I would not know where to begin. Whether you think the elites are 'terrible' or not, denying they exist is simply bizarre. I have no idea if you are part of a leadership group or not, but there is no doubt that a majority of the elites across business, politics and academia supported Remain. Many people who voted Remain are not part of the elite and made their own mind's up, as did Leavers. My point is that there is a strong anti-elitist element amongst people who voted for Brexit who think their views are largely ignored and who will continue to feel that way, especially if their vote to leave the EU is ignored, as looks increasingly likely. But feel free to live in your egalitarian dreamworld where if only the BBC would stop carrying pro Brexit views the whole thing would go away. Dream on.
'elites' = 'anyone in a position of power who refutes my nativist biases'
@kentaddick Welcome to Planet Southbank. I've been asking him the same question for ages.
I haven't got any clear answer from him so I have assumed that he thinks either that:
- I must be one of the 'elite' myself, or
- I, you, and the rest of the 48% who are not in the "elite" are too dumb to see what terrible things the "elite" are doing.
Really, Prague.Are you really trying to argue there are not elites in society,really? I would not know where to begin. Whether you think the elites are 'terrible' or not, denying they exist is simply bizarre. I have no idea if you are part of a leadership group or not, but there is no doubt that a majority of the elites across business, politics and academia supported Remain. Many people who voted Remain are not part of the elite and made their own mind's up, as did Leavers. My point is that there is a strong anti-elitist element amongst people who voted for Brexit who think their views are largely ignored and who will continue to feel that way, especially if their vote to leave the EU is ignored, as looks increasingly likely. But feel free to live in your egalitarian dreamworld where if only the BBC would stop carrying pro Brexit views the whole thing would go away. Dream on.
If you won't define who the elites are, how can he agree whether they exist or not?
But lets see what you've said:
Business : Those that employ and generate wealth.
Politics: Those that are elected to represent their constituents and their constituents best interests.
Academia: Those that are literally paid to sit down and think of hypotheticals and working out whether things are a good idea or not.
To be honest you're not selling me this brexit idea if they're the ones against it.
Agreed - what you may think is an elite, others may not. What I normally associate with the word elites is completely different as you can see from my previous post. But others will have their own view.
To be classed as elite you have to be part of a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege and power in a society. So different people could draw the line in different places.
Agreed - what you may think is an elite, others may not. What I normally associate with the word elites is completely different as you can see from my previous post. But others will have their own view.
To be classed as elite you have to be part of a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege and power in a society. So different people could draw the line in different places.
which is why its an absurd and cheap way of pinning blame on something. It's also hypocritical, as the example of JRM and BJ shows. It's utter rubbish and shouldn't be given any oxygen.
If you say the elite are the 1% who hold more than half the worlds wealth, you can pin the blame on them for injustices if you so wish. But you do need to clarify who the elite you are referring to are and why they are guilty of something. Is Southbank saying they are all pro-remain or does he mean somebody else? Who does he mean?
Meanwhile some important info on the Bavarian elections for those on here who seem to know more about the Germans than the Germans themselves do ( warning: helps if you speak some German...)
I'm not clear what this proves exactly? Asylum and refugees are an issue in Germany and Merkel has lost a lot of support. The AfD and the Greens both increased their share of the vote and the electorate seemed to be dissatisfied with the current coalition.
It proves what the first line of the Tweet says:
Asylum and refugees were a distant 4th in Bavarian voter priorities
Which is not how the results will have been interpreted on Planet @Southbank :-)
OK, to ram home the point. The far Right is noton the march across Europe. In the Czech municipal and Senate elections last week it was halted in its tracks too.
Naked anti immigrant parties manage to pick up about 15% in many countries but do not seem to get much beyond that point. UKIP of course polled 15% in 2015.
I have never claimed that immigration is the biggest issue on people's minds, it is dissatisfaction with the status quo and the sense of not being listened to which is the main driver ( so perhaps listen a little better to what I say, Prague)
What the Bavarian elections mainly show once again is that the main traditional parties of the right and left are seeing their support draining away across Europe to smaller, often populist parties. The far right are part of that in some places, the Greens and others elsewhere. Corbyn's Labour is the closest thing to that we have in the UK, but our Parliamentary system at least for the time being legislates against the European trend happening here in the same way.But remember the last two times people in the UK voted outside the Parliamentary system they voted for UKIP in the last European elections and for Brexit in the Referendum. We are not immune here.
Your point about the Alt-right is a phenomenon we can all observe across the whole of Europe except perhaps Spain and Ireland. However, the difference between Italy, the UK and the rest of Europe is that in most countries such as Sweden, Germany and France, the Alt-Right have been successfully quarantined - nobody will work with Le Pen, AfD, Wilders and the Swedish "democrats".
But in Italy the anti Islamic / anti EU League are part of a coalition government. And UKIP have been able to collaborate with other groups to advance this same anti immigration, anti EU agenda. They have most definitely conflated anti-immigrant, anti Islam, nationalist and anti EU sentiment with some nonsense nostalgia view that everything used to be great. And as you state later on, the alt-right agenda driven through Brexit is not simply about leaving the EU. No, Brexit is a vehicle, a pivot to enable the deregulation of the UK economy along with smaller government, lower taxes and more bespoke deals with some fairly dubious regimes across the globe.
One might go into the detail across several European countries but your observation holds: the two centrist traditions of Christian and Social Democrats have each lost 10% of the European electorate - or approximately 30-40M votes (excluding the UK who will not be in the MEP elections in 2019)
As for detail, we might pay particular attention to Italy because it is by no means clear that their populist coalition will remain stable. In parallel with Brexit, they are taking on the money markets with their uber optimistic forecasts whilst trying to bring in a universal credit for the South AND tax cuts amd tax amnesties for business in the North. Italy has many challenges and by definition it has many possible solutions. What they need as a country is growth. But how will their polls evolve should the growth not be as high as forecast and the markets start whacking up interest rates sending the economy into a death spiral?
That is where we are today - the question is where will be in six months time for Brexit and the EU MEP elections and the Italian economy? So we might agree @Southbank that a proportion of the electorate in western democracies is disaffected with the centrist parties amd that disaffection can be quantified in the polls. The Alt-Right will certainly secure gains in next years MEP elections but M5* may well move to a more established and even pro European group away from whatever populist alliance they are currently operating in.
Perhaps traditional mid-term anti establishment behaviour by electorates will actually reset the balance in Italy as voters tend to enjoy giving their governments a good kicking at European and local elections?
If you say the elite are the 1% who hold more than half the worlds wealth, you can pin the blame on them for injustices if you so wish. But you do need to clarify who the elite you are referring to are and why they are guilty of something. Is Southbank saying they are all pro-remain or does he mean somebody else? Who does he mean?
Good luck with that one! But I have actually found one for Southbank...
It is Robert Peston. In his most recent book, "WTF" he fesses up to being part of a "liberal metropolitan elite". Jeez I thought, perhaps I am too in that case. However, not so. His book starts and ends as a rather touching letter to his deceased father, who had quickly become an accomplished academic, and provided a very comfortable home for his children. His Dad sat in the House of Lords. That isn't by any stretch my family background nor that of most on here, I believe.
Peston goes on to effectively agree with @Southbank that people like him did not sufficiently recognise the anger of large chunks of the population that they had been 'left behind' while others prospered, especially post 2008. He berated himself for being so blind and not listening more carefully. But part of that self-criticism is related to his job.
However Southbank argues that all Remainers (on here) are wrong to be Remainers, because we do not understand the 'left behind'. If we did, he somehow seems to argue, we would all shut up and allow Brexit to happen (as if any of us had the power to prevent it!)
That is a very frustrating conceit. I think I understand as well as @Southbank what the average Joe in Sunderland thinks about the UK's political direction. (prove me wrong if you like, SB). But this thread is about whether each of us thinks Brexit is a good idea or not. And one of the many reasons why I think its a bad idea is that Average Joe from Sunderland is going to suffer very badly as a result, while Jacob Rees-Mogg cleans up.
Peston, despite realising his historic mistake as a professional observer, goes on to argue exactly that, and lists a whole raft of practical economic policies which could be implemented, which would help Average Joe. And the point is, as i keep on pointing out on here, none of them require Brexit, in order for them to be implemented.
Some progress over Gibraltar and good news for the people there, who will actually be impacted by Brexit in far more real terms than the rest of the UK (apart from Northern Ireland), no matter if there is a big economic fallout or not.
You are probably part of the Anglo-Czech elite to be fair.
Prazska kavarna spolecnost (Prague Cafe Society), is the Czech populist's version of "liberal metropolitan elite". Goes way back to the early 90s though. You find people in distant villages who consider Vaclav Havel to be some arsehole who opened the gates of prisons in an amnesty.
Most people I've asked who voted Brexit didn't really know what they were talking about but to be fair most people don't when it comes to referendums or elections as the vast majority aren't really that interested.
The Brexit vote seemed to be done largely out of anti-EU sentiment and a desire to turn the clock back to a mythical past that never really existed. Nobody, including politicians, seemed to know what Brexit meant other than it gave us a chance to 'get our country back'.
Farage/Bojo are ideal anti-EU figureheads as they're very good on sentiment but not too keen on the detail stuff. They're exactly the kind of idiots we deserve.
Nor sure if Corbyn has decided his view on Europe yet?
You are probably part of the Anglo-Czech elite to be fair.
I don't even think he ( @PragueAddick ) has been to the Kafka museum yet. Which makes him part of the elite but not part of the liberal metropolitan elite.
You are probably part of the Anglo-Czech elite to be fair.
I don't even think he ( @PragueAddick ) has been to the Kafka museum yet. Which makes him part of the elite but not part of the liberal metropolitan elite.
He doesn't drink cheap Czech beer either.
You wot? 61 pence a half litre on Saturday night after the village table tennis tournament, and nobody in that pub, celebrating one of their number's 75th, was talking about Brexit or Czexit, although they are very concerned about the rising price of beer...
Speaking of beer. Climate change will have a big impact on the worlds barley crop. Very sensitive to weather is barley by all accounts. Being reported that barley is one of the major crops that will take an early hit. Not good news for beer drinkers. Having said that. I am going to plant the Shooters Hill slopes with grapevines and make a killing.
428 pages on and it still boils down to the Brexiters wanting out of Europe because they hate the idea of anyone other than someone from Eton running the show. Hate the idea of being European and not English / British (delete as applicable). See the future through the prism of the 1950’s and would rather the economy flatlines than admit or even recognise that we will all be worse off for a very long time as a result. No amount of expert opinion or economic forecasts are going to make the slightest difference but fuck it. At least we have blue passports and anyway queuing is what the British do best. They won’t admit to this of course. They just re peddle the lies of taking back control and project fear and offer nothing constructive by way of a solution.
I haven't looked at this thread for a couple of months. Read just one comment (this comment) and remember why. Just totally insulting and ignorant. If I had a £ for every time somebody told me why I voted Brexit I would have bought Charlton by now with many million to spare to get us back to the premier!
Just seen there are over 100 posts since this one, but dont need to read anymore. This says it all for me. I hope we crash out without any deal just to annoy all those remainers who are so smug thinking they know best.
Couldn't give a toss anymore. TM will stitch us up. The EU will stich us up. Hope there is a GE & Corbyn gets in. Then you'll really have something to moan about & I'll come back & say......."your problem - you sort it"
428 pages on and it still boils down to the Brexiters wanting out of Europe because they hate the idea of anyone other than someone from Eton running the show. Hate the idea of being European and not English / British (delete as applicable). See the future through the prism of the 1950’s and would rather the economy flatlines than admit or even recognise that we will all be worse off for a very long time as a result. No amount of expert opinion or economic forecasts are going to make the slightest difference but fuck it. At least we have blue passports and anyway queuing is what the British do best. They won’t admit to this of course. They just re peddle the lies of taking back control and project fear and offer nothing constructive by way of a solution.
I haven't looked at this thread for a couple of months. Read just one comment (this comment) and remember why. Just totally insulting and ignorant. If I had a £ for every time somebody told me why I voted Brexit I would have bought Charlton by now with many million to spare to get us back to the premier!
Just seen there are over 100 posts since this one, but dont need to read anymore. This says it all for me. I hope we crash out without any deal just to annoy all those remainers who are so smug thinking they know best.
Couldn't give a toss anymore. TM will stitch us up. The EU will stich us up. Hope there is a GE & Corbyn gets in. Then you'll really have something to moan about & I'll come back & say......."your problem - you sort it"
If you really mean what you say above then you're a dangerous psychopath. You'd happily see yourself, everybody you live or care about and millions of other suffer the consequences of a no-deal scenario, just so you can say "told you so".
And you wonder why leave voters get castigated on here?
Comments
I haven't got any clear answer from him so I have assumed that he thinks either that:
- I must be one of the 'elite' myself, or
- I, you, and the rest of the 48% who are not in the "elite" are too dumb to see what terrible things the "elite" are doing.
The tweet you refer to is neither intelligent or nuanced - twitter is not really the platform for reasoned political debate and doesn't lend itself to it.
Right wing views on immigration have become more mainstream in the current climate across Europe - it's probably best not to pretend all is okay.
So the elites wanted to take us out of the european union? Then why are we leaving the eu if we were tired of them? Seems rather odd.
I have no idea if you are part of a leadership group or not, but there is no doubt that a majority of the elites across business, politics and academia supported Remain. Many people who voted Remain are not part of the elite and made their own mind's up, as did Leavers.
My point is that there is a strong anti-elitist element amongst people who voted for Brexit who think their views are largely ignored and who will continue to feel that way, especially if their vote to leave the EU is ignored, as looks increasingly likely.
But feel free to live in your egalitarian dreamworld where if only the BBC would stop carrying pro Brexit views the whole thing would go away.
Dream on.
Brexit
ˈbrɛksɪt/Submit
noun
a term for the potential or hypothetical departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
"
But lets see what you've said:
Business : Those that employ and generate wealth.
Politics: Those that are elected to represent their constituents and their constituents best interests.
Academia: Those that are literally paid to sit down and think of hypotheticals and working out whether things are a good idea or not.
To be honest you're not selling me this brexit idea if they're the ones against it.
To be classed as elite you have to be part of a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege and power in a society. So different people could draw the line in different places.
But in Italy the anti Islamic / anti EU League are part of a coalition government. And UKIP have been able to collaborate with other groups to advance this same anti immigration, anti EU agenda. They have most definitely conflated anti-immigrant, anti Islam, nationalist and anti EU sentiment with some nonsense nostalgia view that everything used to be great. And as you state later on, the alt-right agenda driven through Brexit is not simply about leaving the EU. No, Brexit is a vehicle, a pivot to enable the deregulation of the UK economy along with smaller government, lower taxes and more bespoke deals with some fairly dubious regimes across the globe.
One might go into the detail across several European countries but your observation holds: the two centrist traditions of Christian and Social Democrats have each lost 10% of the European electorate - or approximately 30-40M votes (excluding the UK who will not be in the MEP elections in 2019)
As for detail, we might pay particular attention to Italy because it is by no means clear that their populist coalition will remain stable. In parallel with Brexit, they are taking on the money markets with their uber optimistic forecasts whilst trying to bring in a universal credit for the South AND tax cuts amd tax amnesties for business in the North. Italy has many challenges and by definition it has many possible solutions. What they need as a country is growth. But how will their polls evolve should the growth not be as high as forecast and the markets start whacking up interest rates sending the economy into a death spiral?
That is where we are today - the question is where will be in six months time for Brexit and the EU MEP elections and the Italian economy? So we might agree @Southbank that a proportion of the electorate in western democracies is disaffected with the centrist parties amd that disaffection can be quantified in the polls. The Alt-Right will certainly secure gains in next years MEP elections but M5* may well move to a more established and even pro European group away from whatever populist alliance they are currently operating in.
Perhaps traditional mid-term anti establishment behaviour by electorates will actually reset the balance in Italy as voters tend to enjoy giving their governments a good kicking at European and local elections?
It is Robert Peston. In his most recent book, "WTF" he fesses up to being part of a "liberal metropolitan elite". Jeez I thought, perhaps I am too in that case. However, not so. His book starts and ends as a rather touching letter to his deceased father, who had quickly become an accomplished academic, and provided a very comfortable home for his children. His Dad sat in the House of Lords. That isn't by any stretch my family background nor that of most on here, I believe.
Peston goes on to effectively agree with @Southbank that people like him did not sufficiently recognise the anger of large chunks of the population that they had been 'left behind' while others prospered, especially post 2008. He berated himself for being so blind and not listening more carefully. But part of that self-criticism is related to his job.
However Southbank argues that all Remainers (on here) are wrong to be Remainers, because we do not understand the 'left behind'. If we did, he somehow seems to argue, we would all shut up and allow Brexit to happen (as if any of us had the power to prevent it!)
That is a very frustrating conceit. I think I understand as well as @Southbank what the average Joe in Sunderland thinks about the UK's political direction. (prove me wrong if you like, SB). But this thread is about whether each of us thinks Brexit is a good idea or not. And one of the many reasons why I think its a bad idea is that Average Joe from Sunderland is going to suffer very badly as a result, while Jacob Rees-Mogg cleans up.
Peston, despite realising his historic mistake as a professional observer, goes on to argue exactly that, and lists a whole raft of practical economic policies which could be implemented, which would help Average Joe. And the point is, as i keep on pointing out on here, none of them require Brexit, in order for them to be implemented.
https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/15/inenglish/1539591316_594879.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CM_EN
The Brexit vote seemed to be done largely out of anti-EU sentiment and a desire to turn the clock back to a mythical past that never really existed. Nobody, including politicians, seemed to know what Brexit meant other than it gave us a chance to 'get our country back'.
Farage/Bojo are ideal anti-EU figureheads as they're very good on sentiment but not too keen on the detail stuff. They're exactly the kind of idiots we deserve.
Nor sure if Corbyn has decided his view on Europe yet?
He doesn't drink cheap Czech beer either.
Couldn't give a toss anymore. TM will stitch us up. The EU will stich us up. Hope there is a GE & Corbyn gets in. Then you'll really have something to moan about & I'll come back & say......."your problem - you sort it"
And you wonder why leave voters get castigated on here?