I've been listening to The Today programme this morning. It's coming from Teesside and, not surprisingly given the date, Brexit is a main theme. At one point it turned into a kind of focus group featuring a bunch of workers in a factory. Now before any anti-BBC agendas kick-in I don't think that they were set-up in any way. And anyway my impressions will be music to the ears of Leavers.
- they sounded like decent ordinary folk; they could well be representative of a big slice of the Brexit vote in the north
- they deserve to be listened to
- they have no enthusiasm whatever for a 2nd referendum
- the overwhelming view is that 'we should just get on with it'; that Brexit might not work out but it was worth it
- one respondent (even) said that if he lost his job as a direct result of Brexit he would still think it was worth it (there's a good chance of this happening)
These are my impressions. It made for depressing listening for me. The 'just get on with it' phrase has replaced 'take back control' as a very powerful 'common sense' framing device. There's a passive stoicism tinged I think with resentment that anyone should want to stir things up or make life more complicated.
This made for hard listening for the likes of me. But then I thought about us lot on this thread. We are highly untypical; we are the odd ones. How many people contribute to NSC threads? Of those how many come on this thread? I don't know but my guess is a very low proportion. And of those who visit this thread, how many contribute? My guess would be that about 90% of the stuff on here comes from about the same 10 people; we probably have some sort of mental disorder.
It's a bit like being stuck in a lift with 10 people - 5 that you like and 5 you don't. And here we all are having the same arguments over and over again (or variations) while the rest of the world (and NSC) just........gets on with it. We might just have a lot more in common with each other than we have with the rest of the population.
Bloody hell: that is scary and rather depressing. The one thing we can't get on with is each other. But at least we care.
Full credit for them saying that and standing by what they voted for.
It’s madness though, utter madness - are some people totally taken in by Farage etc?