the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

just checked the abc website and the express has - i shit you not - 581 paid subscribers

It would have been fair for Corbyn to point out as LotO that in an era when the UK has dropped below Romania in the EU child food insecurity table and repulsive aberrations such as the 3rd child tax credit rape clause exist, that perhaps another rich pampered brat being squeezed out isn't exactly the big whoopee the right wing press paint it as.

lol why does it bother? can’t wait for the day when it becomes the ex-press tbh

xp

I'm amazed any Express readers know how to get on the internet, turn on a computer, recall the names of their great-grandchildren.

the only time i hear anything about the express it's either yet another piece in private eye about what a hellhole it is to work at or it's some utterly egregious clickbait ad headline that bears virtually no resemblance to the story it links to

sounds like they're pretty sussed on the internet media world then

i wonder if you could make a good quiz by taking the names out of Canary and Express headlines then getting people to guess which one was produced headline?

Probably.

Front of the Express today

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/D96C/production/_101006655_eex24p001-1st.jpg

Actually the front of the Sun is much more effective in its emetic power

https://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/1007C/production/_101006656_sun-front-page-for-24_04_20.jpg

the worst of it is my conviction that nobody involved in putting those pages together gives a flying one about the baby or its parents or its extended family

Re: Oxbridge, I moved to Cambridge last year and have met quite a few current students, none of whom seem to be anything like the kind of person described above, but maybe I'm just not mixing with the right crowd (or the wrong crowd).

my friends who went to cambridge are just as normal/weird as before except now they like port

I hear there are a fair few punts in Cambridge.

there is a strong possibility that my experience was dictated by having come straight out of boarding at an independent school without so much as a gap year (i did work in a warehouse for six weeks in between mind you)

also i now like port too ffs

wtf at the 'much ado about nothing' line on the sun cover there, someone's having a laugh there with the link to shakespeare's birthday

i guess i fell in with the wrong crowd over and over again, like a moth to flame

anyway sorry for dragging this off-topic

kinda disappointing that the new royal only just overshot hitler's birthday, would have loved to see the sun's royalbabymania front cover on 4/20

Nothing is a double entendre; "an O-thing" (or "n othing" or "no thing") was Elizabethan slang for "vagina", evidently derived from the pun of a woman having "nothing" between her legs.

as a key ingredient in a Cheeky Vimto i think we can safely say that port is not just for poshos and olds any more

Port is a fantastic drink, but it makes my cheeks go rosy red and it is so easy to down fast - it could quite easily become one's ruin.

Rudd repeatedly using this gritted passive aggressive tone in her statements e.g. "Today I set out how we will offer the Windrush Generation greater rights than they currently enjoy". Fucking disgrace.

"gritted passive aggressive tone"

I think that is her only setting tbh.

I would be interested in polling how much they’re enjoying them right now. Which, I’m aware, is entirely the fucking point.

JRM's take on this is unsurprisingly terrible:

I do not believe that the interests of the collective allow you to crush individuals who may get in your way. I believe that we are a nation built on the individual, so that the rights of each individual are a valuable and important thing, to be protected by the government ...

I will draw a parallel with the Windrush issue. The Windrush issue came about because the state put the interests of the collective ahead of those individuals who had come here perfectly legally prior to 1973, and that it was more convenient for the Home Office to make them prove who they were and show their papers. This is socialism.

God help me I can hear it in his voice and cadences.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/24/sleeping-rough-comfortable-army-exercises-tory-mp-adam-holloway

I’m 52, I was in the army; to be honest for me sleeping rough in central London is a lot more comfortable than going on exercise in the army.

That's ok then as so many ex-army soldiers end up homeless.

i guess i fell in with the wrong crowd over and over again, like a moth to flame

solitary posts that effortlessly sum up

there are maybe ~50 undergrads each year at oxford who went there with the accrual of political power in mind when they applied at 17. they certainly exist, but it's not why i or anyone else i was friends with went there.

there's a bigger group of undergrads who had in mind the cultural sphere they'd find easier to enter post-oxford thanks to networking while at oxford. they weren't that bothered about the education or the academic "atmosphere". most state school kids don't understand this networking opportunity is one of the "benefits" of going there until they get there, so these were all private school kids who arrived knowing the lay of the land in terms of things like student journalism. obviously some state school kids figure it out once they get there.

all of which is not to say the whole setup is benign, but this...

Thing about Oxbridge grads like JHB is, there are many ways to get a fine education if you were interested in an education. That interest alone doesn't explain their choice of Oxford or Cambridge! They clearly wanted to be around powerful and wealthy people, and to acquire or maintain power and wealth. That's what Oxbridge is for.

is not at all true for the vast vast majority of kids there. oxbridge is a unique academic/intellectual opportunity for kids who are passionate about that. i think that's what draws most of the applicants. and they're not wrong. i have taught at several universities including oxford. the undergrad experience at oxbridge is light years ahead of even the ivy league.

I wonder if the oxbridge culture imago describes is largely on the arts/humanties side of things, not so much science?

― lana del boy (ledge), Tuesday, April 24, 2018 8:50 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ding ding

probably wearing my shit-tinted glasses tbh

caek otm.

the undergrad educational experience at ivy leagues is in many cases an afterthought, both for professors and the administrations

i'm not sure if i knew what an ivy was at 17, but i definitely thought oxbridge was the best place to learn physics in the UK.

i do think in hindsight i was right, but regardless of that, it's a less cynical motive than lust for power, and i think it's more common.

Millionaire backbencher refuses to not be on camera for more than a minute.

This woman tells how she was unable to attend her own mother's funeral due to immigration problems related to the Windrush scandal. #FightingToBeBritish pic.twitter.com/iGGQXQK5l9

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) April 24, 2018

main politics story on BBC

Corbyn anti-Semitism meeting 'disappointing', Jewish leaders say - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43887223

yesterday, when I checked, top story on times and guardian was windrush. nothing on the BBC. nothing today

this is actually a very big story just saying

yep, same this morning on R4, plax. Privatise these fucks.

it sortof makes you feel really hopeless, voiceless

again and again I realise that how I feel is how I'm intended to feel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F9bWzD_IUI

some peak Amber Rudd lols here to cheer up plax, possibly the last time she ever said "judge us on our record".

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/24/beyond-belief-brexit-app-for-eu-nationals-wont-work-on-iphones?CMP=share_btn_tw

After arriving late for a meeting in Brussels to reassure MEPs of the efficiency of the British government, officials from Amber Rudd’s department conceded that a key function on the app would not work on the phone brand used by more than half of the adult population in the UK.

as easy as LK Bennett eh?

Lol.

Also, "the £72 cost of registering", is that for real?

sounds about right for this lot.

I've heard lots of commanding speak from them that friction-less borders are a piece of piss etc, perhaps better judging their grasp on technology on their record, rather than the bluster.

so how much public money do we think went to some godawful private contractor like capita to develop this not-fit-for-purpose app

The government has its own digital service, launched a few years ago, which I assume was responsible. It's one of the few things they've chosen to do in-house over the last few years.

Just so they can fuck everything up and say: See I told you outsourcing is more efficient than big govt.

It won’t be the Government Digital Service. They’ve got a strong objection to apps and prevent departments building them whenever they can. More likely a Home Office Digital project that was pushed out to look like something whizzy was happening.

what on earth is their problem with apps?