theresa may: is her project subtly machiavellian or merely cunning, baldrick-style?

not exactly: back in the first half of the 19th century, a third son of the aristocracy would probably be steered towards the church (second went into the military) -- but this meant bishops not vicars on the whole, and didn't survive into the 20th century (also you p much had to pass exams to go into the church from the 18th century onwards, not all effect sons of baronets could manage this)

the early part of james woodforde's diary of a country parsonage is about securing the money to live as he wanted -- it's basically family money and he was very uncertain that any of it would come his way (in the end i think some did)… it mainly went on staff and upkeep of the parsonage ands its lands AND of the church (these were often in terrible condition)

(lol i read this bcz it was an xmas present to me from the father of my first gf: it is interesting though on daily life -- woodforde ate a COLOSSAL amount of meat and his daily regime included five regular meals a day)

effect = effete

My knowledge of C of E vicars is largely based on Kind Hearts and Coronets tbf.

Anglicanism is a mystery to me, frankly.

if Fielding's to be believed then the majority of country parishes where low-paid and low-prestige in the 18th century, I suspect that's generally been true of the church's foot soldiers throughout its existence

My cousin is married to the dean of the next parish over. Seems about the most middle-class existence imaginable, albeit without any money, though i don't know if Eastbourne is notably different from slightly further inland.

That LRB article is really great. Lots to digest and actually the curious class/wealth position of the English clergy seems to explain a lot about how May's been received even though she hasn't had to explicitly define herself in those terms.

(As the son of a rural CoE vicar it is surprisingly difficult to actually explain those terms: yes, social status with no actual money is completely true, but there's this incredibly weird way in which clergy families are both integral to and separated from rural communities - ie regardless of actual church attendance or belief the idea that the vicar is some sort of figurehead is crucial, but due to the nature of clergy work and the tortuous politics of rural parishes I think most clergy families deliberately (possibly are told??) don't socialise with their parishioners or educate their kids at the village school etc - and doubtless there's an element of snobbery here too. But maybe more to the point w/r/t the acceptance of May by the rural Tory grassroots is that the "clergy family" as an institution might float slightly above the rest of the community, might invite a weird kind of deference (or outright hatred if village politics end up that way) but it's such a known, familiar factor compared to eg Cameron's PR career. This is kind of garbled, it's weirdly hard to explain when you've lived through it.)

my experience again -- so very much not trying to trump lex's -- but "deference" isn't quite the word: more like an unquestioned pre-set recognition that this was a person who was going to be included in all kinds of events and discussions (social and occasionally local-political), and was often practically speaking going to given the final say as of right (even if the decision wasn't one which this or that senior villager at all liked)

Don't some vicars get assistance with private school places, to avoid kids at local schools?

yeah that's right, deference isn't quite the word but I couldn't think of any other

xp and yes, though I don't think that was the stated reason

lots of private schools -- many of which are religious foundations historically -- have long-standing little scholarships available for the children of parents of various backgrounds, via old-pupil bequests and such

the money involved is mostly pretty limited though, in relation to modern-day fees for such schools (and the child in question will also have to pass the entrance exams same as everyone else, so it's not a stress-free shoo-in necessarily)

https://mobile.twitter.com/1030/status/848953002706829314

^ Hysterical.

further subterranean evidence the snap election was more about panic than planning as two of the top figures in may's communications team (katie perrior and lizzie loudon) quit within three days of one another

She has been so smug and triumphalist in the past week, it is good to see some trouble at t'mill.

They're likely to run a shambolic campaign- May herself is a very awkward performer in the spotlight and won't enjoy the next few weeks at all. But it probly won't make much difference :-(

http://cdn2.theweek.co.uk/sites/theweek/files/2017/02/170216-may_0.jpg

what a natural, Obama crossed with Princess Di right there

She just repeatedly kept using the words leadership + stability mixed with platitude heavy waffle without explicit references to any policies - then that old chestnut "the coalition of chaos". Not very good at this game at all, even a Beeb correspondent admitted earlier that Corbyn has been "energetic" and had another good day.

coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos

Didn't they use that last time as well?

yep.

theres a lovely photo going around of corbyn today reading to kids
he looks very comfy in it

They're likely to run a shambolic campaign- May herself is a very awkward performer in the spotlight and won't enjoy the next few weeks at all. But it probly won't make much difference :-(

Yeah, I don't want to get my hopes up but she's a car crash campigning-wise, this is obviously why they're trying to get this over as quickly as they can, before anyone realizes.

She is dreadful as a public performer.

It's like when Farage tries to 'smile charmingly and optimistically'.

I guess in fairness I would argue the same for May as I do for Corbyn: it's supposed to be about the policies, not congeniality.

of course I know which policies are still far ahead in the polls, or rather the nebulous belief in policies

it seems important to remember that the obvious awfulness we're laughing at is invisible to the Britain's Got Austerity massif

this is the thread for noting instances of that obvious awfulness and incompetence, if only for our own mental health

brexit/weimar -- WHICH NEEDS A NEW THREAD BTW -- is where we note how awful and incompetent everything else is, inc.seamus milne if/wjhen applicable

nah that's fair but it's the hope that kills

we need a Brelection thread but not starting one on this stupid phone

It's like when Farage tries to 'smile charmingly and optimistically'.

Whenever he does this he looks like he's leering at your wife's cleavage.

he is

Provided your wife isn't British.

Theresa May's charmless incompetence makes me despair even more tbh, just knowing how little the electorate holds it against her (compared to what they've held against Miliband, Corbyn, ABBOTT etc etc)

I mean, with Cameron at least there was that hammy Blairy PR sheen. May is delivering economic disaster with fascist overtones without even any charisma or whatever "likeability" is! The entire appeal of her persona is that headmistressy sternness - the "safe pair of hands" - but everything she actually does, whether pursuing hard Brexit or doing so with pig-headed, religious fervour - completely undermines that. And yet it doesn't!

:(

Compare and contrast May with Corbyn at Brentry children's centre, easy to see who's the more relatable. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ec2c46fd80364299bcf321ccab244d5536219fdf/0_136_3500_2100/master/3500.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=9c0cea3907162de5c8e0e24a1780a734

Headmistressy severity has an unfortunate history of popularity in this godless country

up until not that long ago, the GBP was largely willing -- sometimes thru gritted teeth -- to outsource their judgment of competence to the "establishment"*

i: mood of GBP is as angrily suspicious of the "establishment" as it's been in my lifetime and probably ever (original peasants' revolt notwithstanding)
ii: the "establishment" as a institutional generator of (and therefore judge of) competence is in fact now very highly corroded
iii: the best real-talk guide to competence is always going to come after the fact (hence is not really particualrly helpful)
iv: we are all -- inc everyone in this thread -- somewhat reduced either to kremlinological inspection of entrails (omigod s/he is bad at picking/running his/her staff) and/or big-brother-style snapshot shortcuts (omigod bacon sandwich, can't engage w/schoolchildren w/o lookin like an alien etc)

*i know this is a woolly stand-in for something more concrete but harder to pin down**: but change -- for example -- in nature of the times over the last two decades, the BBC in the last decade, the telegraph in the last two or three years, plus corrosion of civil service as an institution dense w/expertise all agreed more or less to respect despite grumbling, plus (less immediately but still relevantly i suspect) the mounting disenchantment with e.g. cap-S Science as a space in which politics held only minimal sway, plus the general neoliberal rot with higher ed, plus BANKERS… anyway you see where i'm going maybe, that a largeish if often semi-invisble bunch of ppl you might think are crusty old squares who nevertheless knew something abt how things best got done, are now simply not much acquiesced to, in re what should happen and what alarmingly may happen
**probably another name for it is the TECHNOCRACY -- anyway its day is largely done, its empire toppled, and we all scrabble in the horrible ruins (empires are a bad thing; largely bcz when they fall is often worse)

it's arse-backwards - and the consequences are more dire than good right now but my inner child can't bring itself to regret the passing of that establishment

This is occurring everywhere, so perhaps a Longstanding Global Technocratic Hegemon into the shitbin thread is due

There is the 'is the west experiencing a rightward drift one' but I am not sure that really captures it

feel the title s/b more like "desperately we looked to the grown-ups to step back in and take charge, but the grown-ups was just us, so that was no good"

i don't regret its passing either, but i do think things are going to bumpy before they settle (and i'm well aware they'll be a LOT more bumpy for others than me personally)

"we paged arnold toynbee, we got polly"

Ironically enough I think people having some idea of what "semi-invisible" looks like isn't helping things.

Yes as I approach the age of my management I am sickeningly familiar with that feeling - these people have little applicable experience, no vision or thoughtfulness, just ambition and the sense of entitlement engendered by "putting the time in" and it basically seems to be everywhere and everyone is gradually realizing it

Institutional failures without real consequences for the institutions themselves can only go on so long

actually another route into the wider idea -- put back into my head* by scanning the chapo trap vs west wing thread -- is that a lot of polities have passed from being high-trust to semi-low-trust societies within as little as a generation, and nearly nothing institutional is at work to reverse this

*i had a plan to start a thread about this a few months back, but then had actual stupid work to do and never got round to it

The narrative of 'the grown-ups taking charge' is central to May's message. It feels more like the birth of a different authoritarian technocracy than the death of technocracy itself - still tied to an underlying faith that the market will provide. The same is true of Trump to some extent - the solution to problems is to get 'the best people' to fix them, steamrollering dissent and legal niceties. The civil service (or what is left of it) will still negotiate Brexit, Goldman Sachs heads will still be deferred to on the US economic agenda.

There was a good point made recently that the vision of the UK as a lean, market-oriented Singapore without the humidity always overlooks how interventionist the model of Singaporean authoritarian capitalism (also adopted in part by Russia) actually is. You can have a low tax economy with limited worker's rights, etc, but you probably can't sustain it without the provision of high quality social housing, massive investment in education and public works, etc.

The narrative of 'the grown-ups taking charge' is central to May's message.

@MrHarryCole 6h6 hours ago
Had second old school Tory MP - in all seriousness - refer to the Prime Minister as "mummy" on the phone today. That's twice in a week.

well that's ruined my weekend

"we paged arnold toynbee, we got polly"

TOYNBEE IDEA
IN YEAR 2019
RESURRECT EUROPEAN UNION
ON PLANET JUPITER

Polly/Arnold was beautiful btw and I salute whoever posted that