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My point, as before, is that a significant segment of the population feels it's been left behind and in many ways it has.
I can't see how anyone can dispute this, as large swathes of the country have never recovered from the Thatcher led devastation of heavy industry and manufacturing. Change will have to come as fewer and fewer people are able to get well paid jobs that allow them to do the basics their parents did, like buying their own house.
I was very fortunate as I was the first person from my family to ever go to university, and I benefitted from free university education and maintenance grants and when I graduated I had debts of less than £250. If I'd faced possible debts of £30k at the end of it there is no way on earth I'd have taken that route. Social mobility like that has all but gone now, and that is not good for our society.
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I think though that people can also be nicer about agriculture and fishing, manufacturing etc... there's an element in the UK and other countries that such work means you aren't intelligent in any way and less of value (see the bollocks about unskilled aka cleaning / agricultural / hotel etc job immigrants etc...) as a person.
It's hard graft and I couldn't handle a cow or fishing ship, a bit of respect for each other is good too.
I'm just 3 generations away from farmers and my partner two.
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We need someone or something to really unify the electorate. I have no idea what the fuck that would look like.
I gather beer and skittles have proved successful traditionally. Or bread and circuses if you have a classical education and know Juvenal.
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We need someone or something to really unify the electorate.
The break up of the UK.
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@t_w
We need someone or something to really unify the electorate. I have no idea what the fuck that would look like. The vote split since the referendum has tended to be 52-48. The country is divided and ruled, there's a massive schism between city and country, regional working class non-university educated and metropolitan university educated. It's fucking obvious.
And before @fizzy.bleach jumps down my throat, I'm not university educated and also from Wales so by his rationale would be calling myself thick (many would argue that this is correct, however).
My point, as before, is that a significant segment of the population feels it's been left behind and in many ways it has. This dictates their voting habits entirely. My point about higher education, making it free, giving people a different perspective, hopefully driving true social mobility through developing learning and skills as well as providing them "skin in the game." They'll have an investment in the game.
Fuck knows this will never happen now, the Tories have got this sewn up for decades. Further savage cuts and alignment with the U.S. will produce ever more disenfranchised "slugs for salt" who can't fathom that they're being abused and lied to by power.
They'll only value "strength" as they know, deep down, they're powerless.
Looking into the work of Paolo Ferreire is instructive on what I mean. The regional working class doesn't value learning for learning's sake, critically; it doesn't value reading for reading's sake: the very basis of study. Apart from the very few acknowledged "swots" in my class in the Welsh valleys (that's another interesting aspect to anti-education culture in traditional working class society, being called a "swot") I was the only one who read books for enjoyment. I had a lot of abuse for it from other pupils. And I think I internalised these values as I never went to Uni, which I should have.