The Political Thread

[Funt Solo]

After my North Korea jibe, I did explain that growing up in Scotland we had a weekly religious assembly and a mandated Religious Education class - which is weird shit for US school students to hear (again - for federally-funded school). Plenty of private religious schools over here that lay it on thick, of course.

My daughter has had an interesting time navigating a friendship because her pal has been taught that my daughter is going to hell. Being kids, and being sympathetic beings who care for each other, they both feel for the other. The pal is worried about my daughter's eternal soul, and my daughter is worried that her pal's been brainwashed. I love that they are still friends, that mostly just enjoy playing.

[IndigoPrime]

A friend’s young kid returned home in floods of tears one day, because the teacher had informed them that their dad was “going to hell”. So that was a thing.

The Welsh look like they’re getting on top of this. Eradicate religious studies and replace it a broader class that includes social, ethical and religious topics. Ensure humanism is part of it. And stop fucking up children with tales that were first penned close to 2000 years ago and heavily rewritten much more recently to align with the thinking of the day (something that, I note, hasn’t happened more recently, despite many translations in the Christian Bible alone being shown to be wrong).

[JayzusB.Christ]

It's an international clownshow. Over here, despite decades of systematic child abuse, locking up women and burying babies in sewers, along with countless conspiracies to cover up said atrocities, the Pope's lot still own the best schools, to the point where it's difficult to find a secular school while ensuring a good future for your children.  Fortunately, the Christian Brothers here, pointless at best and dangerously psychopathic at worst, who used to teach these schools are on the verge of dying out. 

[IndigoPrime]

Here, my annoyances stem not from faith schools (although I’m not a fan) but that the daily acts of worship are mandated at state schools. The state has no business inserting its ideas about religion into my kid’s head.

[Mister Pops]

I think having religion in schools has been great for Northern Ireland. It keeps us all separate and stops vulnerable young minds from being exposed to themmuns.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I think having religion in schools has been great for Northern Ireland. It keeps us all separate and stops vulnerable young minds from being exposed to themmuns.

Shhh! Or Garth Ennis will come and write about you.

[Rara Avis]

It's an international clownshow. Over here, despite decades of systematic child abuse, locking up women and burying babies in sewers, along with countless conspiracies to cover up said atrocities, the Pope's lot still own the best schools, to the point where it's difficult to find a secular school while ensuring a good future for your children.  Fortunately, the Christian Brothers here, pointless at best and dangerously psychopathic at worst, who used to teach these schools are on the verge of dying out.

Upsetting idea you may not want to read: Do we know if the babies in the sewer were dead when they were thrown in there?


The Church are down but they're not out : https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/new-catholic-primary-school-sex-education-programme-published-1.4547221

"The programme for senior classes states that “puberty is a gift from God. We are perfectly designed by God to procreate with him”; while a lesson on safety and protection advises senior infant children to say the “Angel of God” prayer."

[Funt Solo]

Talking of themmuns, C4 News did a predictably divided set of interviews (by Paraic O'Brien) this week with da yout of NI - the second of which was hilarious mostly because the lairy one with more front than Tescos had a lot of chutzpah: "What sort of question is that to ask me, Paraic - how the fuck would I know?"

100 years on: How do today’s Loyalist teenagers see their Northern Irish identity?

100 years on: where do the allegiances of Northern Ireland’s young Catholics lie?

It wasn't until this week that I knew when NI came into being.

[TordelBack]

It wasn't until this week that I knew when NI came into being.

That's not unlike impulse-buying the prog because of Manco's Sláine cover only to discover it's the last-ever episode...

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Well, Brexit still lingers on, as the Hartlepool result demonstrates. Poor Labour; they can't seem to win under any Leader at the moment. To see such a result during the reign of the most inept, vainglorious Tory Leader ever to disgrace politics is even more galling. With boundary changes in the offing, you wonder if the country might be renamed 'Toryshire', such is the seemingly unstoppable march of the Conservative party.

[IndigoPrime]

The boundary reforms are absurdly cyclical, to the point they plan to carve Brighton Pavilion in half. Can’t have a Green MP with a majority, can we? (The proposed new boundary aims to gift half the seat to Con and half to Lab. Really, really shitty.)

Thing is, across England and Wales, the numbers aren’t there for the Tories to win in a straight fight. All that needs to happen is for Labour to finally recognise that it cannot win alone. But seeing as the previous three leaders hurled the notion of cooperation into the sea, with Corbyn’s lot being particularly vicious and arrogant when votes were ‘loaned’ (to the point the Greens needed to crowdfund for Lucas’s staff, since they’d lost so much short money), I don’t see that happening any time soon. Which is bonkers, since Best for Britain research suggests a pact might even lead to a Labour majority. That said, it’d be the last, so Labour would probably prefer to lose instead and blame voters of other parties for not backing Labour.

[Barrington Boots]

It's another depressing morning in politics. I'm struggling to see a way back for Labour now, at least within a generation: they've repeatedly shot themselves in the foot so many times they can't have anything left below the proverbial knee but bloodied stumps.
Meanwhile the Tories have essentially normalised lying and the sort of blithe incompetence that kills vast swathes of people. Things feel pretty grim atm.

[Professor Bear]

"Electable" is such a weird word.  It can mean anything.

[CalHab]

Thing is, across England and Wales, the numbers aren’t there for the Tories to win in a straight fight. All that needs to happen is for Labour to finally recognise that it cannot win alone. But seeing as the previous three leaders hurled the notion of cooperation into the sea, with Corbyn’s lot being particularly vicious and arrogant when votes were ‘loaned’ (to the point the Greens needed to crowdfund for Lucas’s staff, since they’d lost so much short money), I don’t see that happening any time soon. Which is bonkers, since Best for Britain research suggests a pact might even lead to a Labour majority. That said, it’d be the last, so Labour would probably prefer to lose instead and blame voters of other parties for not backing Labour.

This is key. Labour need to realise that they need to cooperate in elections with other parties and, crucially, agree to electoral reform. Instead they are stuck in a 90s mindset.

[IndigoPrime]

Add to that Labour not recognising that it was Corbyn many people didn’t like rather than (most of) his policies, and you’ve a recipe for electoral disaster—a shrinking opposition that has nowhere to go in England. The Libs remain a busted flush that look vanishingly unlikely to poll much above 10% ever again (which presents a BIG problem in the south, where Labour remains weak), and the Greens might gain in vote share but they can’t win a seat outside of Brighton, unless something VERY strange happens. (Wales will, I suspect, shift quite heavily Plaid in the west and Con in the east, but the numbers there won’t move the needle significantly.)

I’d like nothing more than waking up to a Labour-led coalition, promising electoral reform and progressive policy, with Libs and Plaid cabinet members to present a new era of cooperation and consensus. Alas, a pipe dream. It’s never going to happen while political parties remain wedded to our country’s archaic electoral process.