[Tubby Isaacs]

Customs union and EFTA would be enough for most people. Even the immigration headbangers would be mollified if the government started using the powers they've always had. The problem there was that while anyone with half a brain knows that immigration is a natural and useful thing, and that being a racist shitbag isn't much of a life goal, they had to sell the image that they totally understood the thick cunts and sympathised with them, but couldn't do anything about it because of the nasty EU, see? And if people pointed to other EU states enforcing borders, well, that was those sneaky forrins not playing by the rules. Not like us Brits, straight bat and all that.

It's not really what the rules are that's important, but where people think they're coming from.

I don't think Customs Union and EFTA work. Keeping out Poles and "doing trade deals that suit us" (details dependent on who you're talking to at that moment) are hard to argue against, which is why soft Brexit wasn't a runner before.

[mr angry manchester]

Wait until the Covid prop up money dries up and the effects of a bad Brexit deal starts hitting people in the pocket.

[Andy McDandy]

Average brexiter wouldn't know a hard or soft deal from a hole in the head, as sudden shock over customs queues and suchlike show. They didn't take it because they were told not to take it. As long as the impression of sovereignty and independence is upheld, they'll be happy.

See also: Lawson shadowing the Deutsch mark throughout the 80s.

[mr angry manchester]

Aye, give em blue passports and they're like a dog with two dicks

[youngian]

Average brexiter wouldn't know a hard or soft deal from a hole in the head, as sudden shock over customs queues and suchlike show.

Do most people even know what FoM is? Something to do with letting Muslim terrorists in.

[mattomac]

To me it’s all a bit nit picking, we are so far from an election, I hate the way Family entered into everything Brown said at the end so Starmer has to watch that, at least he isn’t saying hard working family.

Labour left need to find a term like “middle class” in America, it bulks me when I see it but then you read who it means and it’s effectively anyone below about 80k in wage. I’ve been reading Kamala Harris book and it’s obvious she doesn’t mean what we would mean.

[Kreuzberger]

Quite, "family" is fast becoming irrelevant, especially as a parish pump around which millennials can meaningfully gather. "The makers and doers", would do it for me.

[The Weeping Angel]

Remember that whole Keir should have called out that LBC listener row from a couple of months ago. Well it turns out LBC set him up.

[Oblomov]

https://labourlist.org/2021/01/starmer- ... e-in-2010/

[Bones McCoy]

To me it’s all a bit nit picking, we are so far from an election, I hate the way Family entered into everything Brown said at the end so Starmer has to watch that, at least he isn’t saying hard working family.

Labour left need to find a term like “middle class” in America, it bulks me when I see it but then you read who it means and it’s effectively anyone below about 80k in wage. I’ve been reading Kamala Harris book and it’s obvious she doesn’t mean what we would mean.

Middle class does have a different meaning in the American context, but it's one that's entered common British use in the last 30 years.
How many times do we hear the callcentre shift-leader describe themselves as middle class.
(Or the office admin who gets to change the coloured ink cartridges).

The American use needs to be seen in the context of the American dream and the Monroe Doctrine.

You want to be the Waltons - owning the local shop, not the Simpsons with your well paid, but dead-end union job.

The classic view of those nations to the south, is one of hordes or peons rules by a class of latifundistas.
Popular economists will explain their relative poverty by a "failure to develop a middle class".
This is supported by popular images of the ruling class savagely oppressing aspirations of the lower orders.
Echoed to some extent by Tea Party gripes about the Liberal Elites crushing the American middle class.


I rather prefer our older Marxian definitions.
A few tests would be.

You own your business / source of income.
You have control over your hours and conditions of work (e.g. can do more/less as workload / life dictates).
You can hire other people and delegate work to them.
And probably - you have flexibility in when and how much to be paid.

[davidjay]

And here we enter into the Mailite double standard - I am middle class because I'm better than you. Labour don't speak for me because they're only interested in the middle-class elite.

[youngian]

And here we enter into the Mailite double standard - I am middle class because I'm better than you. Labour don't speak for me because they're only interested in the middle-class elite.

Politics of envy and resenment (of educational attainment). Smarty pants grandchildren at uni are a particular bug bear of elderly white men who grew up in a world where their views were never challenged. Wadda kids today know about real life? blah blah.

[crabcakes_windermere]

My nan was very much the archetype of the market the Mail wants to serve - simultaneously very proud of the fact I did well at school, but absolutely scathing of anyone who she perceived as getting "above their station" for no other reason than how it reflected on her for *not* getting "above her station".

[davidjay]

My nan was very much the archetype of the market the Mail wants to serve - simultaneously very proud of the fact I did well at school, but absolutely scathing of anyone who she perceived as getting "above their station" for no other reason than how it reflected on her for *not* getting "above her station".

My mum, bless her, is like that. Totally deferential to bosses and the Establishment, yet if anyone tries to better themselves. "Oh, he is a big head".

[Andy McDandy]

Parental snobbery here too. Proud of me and my brother going to uni, but dismissed the neighbours' daughter as stuck up for going to an independent school and then to Cambridge (which of course was a source of family pride when my cousin went there).

They were both relieved that I got rejected by Oxford - the cost for one, the danger of turning into a wanker too.