UK Politics VII - Going down on Downing Street

[Datepalm]

Wheres Brown on this chart then? Or do the Scottish not count?

[A wilding]

And while it sounds fun, I can't help to wonder if this actually conveys any meaning to you island chaps? If so, who is the most posh and distinguished if this characterization is correct?

Very roughly:

Oxford is aristocratic upper class, and Tory (Tory -> Conservative)

Cambridge is intellectual upper middle class, and Whig (Whig -> Liberal -> LibDem).

Each would claim to be superior to the other.

[Maltaran]

Wheres Brown on this chart then? Or do the Scottish not count?

There's no such thing as a posh Scot.

[Datepalm]

There's no such thing as a posh Scot.

Do you mean to tell me there aren't idiotically infinite subtle gradations of non-poshness? English class sytem, I am dissapointed.

[Liffguard]

Do you mean to tell me there aren't idiotically infinite subtle gradations of non-poshness? English class sytem, I am dissapointed.

Oh, there certainly are. They just don't apply to Scots.

[mormont]

Wheres Brown on this chart then? Or do the Scottish not count?

Brown is very definitely not posh, rumoured to be one of the many reasons the Queen wasn't fond of him. But contrary to Malt's assertion, there very definitely are posh Scots. Technically Tony Blair was one of them, much as we wish to disavow any responsibility. Posh Scots also come in several flavours: the landed tweedy types found throughout the UK (slightly different accents though), the moneyed Morningside types from Edinburgh (who have enormous houses full of the type of furniture that never needs to be replaced), and the nouveau riche Milngavie types in Glasgow are the main ones.

[Zoë Sumra]

Oh, there certainly are. They just don't apply to Scots.

Or only apply to Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, at least.

[ljkeane]

There's no such thing as a posh Scot.

I know a Scottish guy that went to Eton actually, although I'm sure he spent his holidays eating deep fried Mars bars and drinking Buckfast. :unsure:

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

Oh, there certainly are. They just don't apply to Scots.

Tony Blair says you're a damn liar.

The Scots had their aristocracy too guys.

[williamjm]

Wheres Brown on this chart then? Or do the Scottish not count?

He didn't go to a posh school (I think he only went to an ordinary state school?) and then went to Edinburgh University, which may be consider posher than some universities but doesn't compare to Oxbridge.

[Liffguard]

There's more to being posh than being really rich, owning a mansion in the country and being descended from the landed gentry. Tweed for example. If you've never worn tweed you're not posh, just rich.

[Datepalm]

He didn't go to a posh school (I think he only went to an ordinary state school?) and then went to Edinburgh University, which may be consider posher than some universities but doesn't compare to Oxbridge.

I know hes the bad guy and all, but from a purely narrative standpoint, Brown really is the sympathetic one. The other two are too interchangeable. They're like the stock good guys discernable only by their bickering vs an interestingly flawed villain.

(I watch foreign election like i'm reading fanfic. I think i'll start doing the same for local ones too. Its much more fun.)

[HT Reddy]

Very roughly:

Oxford is aristocratic upper class, and Tory (Tory -> Conservative)

Cambridge is intellectual upper middle class, and Whig (Whig -> Liberal -> LibDem).

Each would claim to be superior to the other.

But obviously it's the Cambridge types that are actually superior :)

[john]

Brown is a minister's son which is its own kind of posh in Scotland.

Westminster school and Cambridge seem to produce more media and liberal arts type folks. Most popular comedians seem to have done a stint in the Cambridge Footlights.

James Bond went to Eton (also may or may not have been Scottish).

Hope that helps. :P

[HT Reddy]

Incidentally, wiki tells me Brown has a PhD, so how come we've never called him Dr Brown?

[HT Reddy]

Brown is a minister's son which is its own kind of posh in Scotland.

Westminster school and Cambridge seem to produce more media and liberal arts type folks. Most popular comedians seem to have done a stint in the Cambridge Footlights.

If you look at the current cabinet, there are more Oxons than Cantabs (9 to 6) and most of the Oxford graduates read PPE, which there is no equivalent of in Cambridge really. And of course the two highest profile Cambridge graduates in the cabinet are Nick Clegg and Vince Cable - both LibDems. So to Cambridge's credit, it tends not to educate these politics types to the same extent that Oxford does.

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

Depends what you mean by 'true'. The truth in dispute isn't the figures, it's the narrative. The incoming government want to put forth this narrative about these spending commitments being (as the article has it) 'scorched earth' tactics, etc. But if you look at the figures, it's hard to portray £420m worth of schools building as the sort of thing that could 'deliberately sabotage' the economy.

Remember, Labour openly fought the election on a platform of spending £6bn more than the Tories this year, a plan some economists supported. The firm spending commitments actually detailed in that article (excluding the tanker aircraft programme) are about a third of that figure, which is in turn a very small fraction of annual government expenditure, which is in turn less than half of GDP. And most of the money mentioned would actually have been spent over a few years at least. (The tanker programme would probably have been over 25 years.) It's very hard to see these commitments as making the difference between economic recovery and economic armageddon. It's even harder to suggest that the Labour party was concealing a deliberate wrecking of the economy, seeing as they were entirely open about spending larger sums than this.

Further, some of the complaints appear disingenuous at best. Willetts complains that no substantial work had been done to prepare for the cuts in HE - but all parties, including his own, agreed before the election to bury the issue of HE funding by having a review. If Mandelson had done detailed planning on the cuts before that reported, Willetts would doubtless have complained about him pre-judging matters instead. And the article doesn't differentiate between spending that was discretionary and spending that was unavoidable or part of normal government business, nor between capital spending and recurring spending.

As I say: this isn't about the money, it's about the narrative. It isn't coincidental that the article is laced with warnings about how deep the coming cuts will be. We are being softened up.

Sorry, missed this.

You talk about the narrative as if it was a conservative propoganda letter. I always considered the Times fairly neutral?

[williamjm]

I know hes the bad guy and all, but from a purely narrative standpoint, Brown really is the sympathetic one. The other two are too interchangeable. They're like the stock good guys discernable only by their bickering vs an interestingly flawed villain.

(I watch foreign election like i'm reading fanfic. I think i'll start doing the same for local ones too. Its much more fun.)

If you want a narrative you could include Lord Mandelson as the sinister force pulling the strings of his puppets Blair and Brown. It's a narrative the media tended to be quite fond of, even members of his own party would nickname Mandelson "Voldemort" or "The Prince of Darkness".

Incidentally, wiki tells me Brown has a PhD, so how come we've never called him Dr Brown?

I know a lot of people with PhDs but I don't generally refer to them as Doctor.

You talk about the narrative as if it was a conservative propoganda letter. I always considered the Times fairly neutral?

By the standards of Rupert Murdoch's news sources they're comparatively neutral and they don't have as much of a Conservative bias as some other British papers like the Daily Mail or the Torygraph, but they are still on the Conservative side of the political spectrum.

[mormont]

Sorry, missed this.

You talk about the narrative as if it was a conservative propoganda letter. I always considered the Times fairly neutral?

It's a Murdoch paper. It's not neutral. But my reference to the narrative applies equally to the government: they have a narrative that they're selling to any journalists willing to buy. They have the floor to themselves at the moment and they're taking advantage. Fair enough. But as I say, the figures they're quoting bear some examination. Big figures, but maybe not really showing what the government are suggesting they show.

[The Marquis de Leech]

He didn't go to a posh school (I think he only went to an ordinary state school?) and then went to Edinburgh University, which may be consider posher than some universities but doesn't compare to Oxbridge.

Brown is part of a notable club: he's one of only four post-war British Prime Ministers (the others being Churchill, Callaghan, and Major) not to be a product of Oxford University.