British farmers are being hit by a shortage of migrant workers and are warning a dysfunctional Brexit will have a devastating impact on their industry. They are calling on the government to provide direction and answers on the future of British farming after the U.K. leaves the European Union. Bloomberg’s Angus Bennett travelled to Kent, in Southern England, to meet the farmers and migrant workers on the front lines of Brexit.
5 December 2017
The Guardian: Would a gay monarch cure the church of its homophobia?
The higher levels of homelessness among the gay community would remain. Austerity, which disproportionately affects LGBT people, would still be in place. Hate crimes against LGBT people wouldn’t become any less regular. A same-sex royal wedding would stop homophobia no more than Prince Harry marrying Meghan Markle will end Britain’s inherent racism. [...]
If a gay king stands any chance of middle England embracing him he’d need to be the “right kind of gay”. He’d need a flawless, palatable narrative, starting with a well-managed coming-out arc and an inoffensive, “straight-acting” partner who didn’t challenge gender norms or stereotypes too much. I’m sure this would probably still be a struggle for some.
In Holdsworth’s blogpost he assumes that influential gay public figures automatically inspire positive shifts in attitudes. He forgets that gay men can be just as terrible as their straight counterparts, and that their actions can often do the community – and the attitudes towards the community – more harm than good (see: Kevin Spacey, Milo Yiannopoulos, Perez Hilton). [...]
The reaction to Holdsworth’s suggestion from figures within the church once again emphasised how difficult instilling such change would be. Gavin Ashenden, a former chaplain to the Queen, told Christian Today that Holdsworth’s comments were unkind, destructive and the “theological equivalent of the curse of the wicked fairy”. Lee Gatiss, director of the Church Society, described the comments as sinister and claimed that “to coopt the royal children to service a narrow sexual agenda seems particular tasteless”.
Statista: The Czechs Are Europe's Top-Beer Drinkers
Which European countries tend to drink the most beer every year? The Czech Republic is well known as a haven for beer lovers, tracing its brewing history all the way back to the Břevnov Monastery in 993. Today, Czechs are Europe's biggest beer drinkers, consuming 143 litres per capita every year, according to the Brewers of Europe. Germany comes second with people drinking an average of 104 litres each year, just ahead of neighbouring Austria where they drink marginally less each.
Bloomberg: Here's Why Theresa May Is So Furious at Trump
The Dutch political scientist Cas Muddle says that right-wing extremist movements advocate at least three of the following five doctrines: nationalism, racism, xenophobia, opposition to democracy and support for strong states. Using this definition, researchers from the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue recently analyzed over 5,000 pieces of far-right content gathered from over 50 different platforms used by these groups. Their findings are striking.
What's new is the level of cooperation and cross-pollination among groups that gather for crowdfunding on alternative platforms such as the Twitter-like Gab.ai and Hatreon, and on Discord, a chat application originally developed for gamers. The research suggests that the Daily Stormer — the neo-Nazi website associated with the alt-right — made the fourth-most-frequent use of the hashtag #MGGA (Make Germany Great Again) to help promote the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party that just entered the German parliament. The alt-right hacker Andrew Auernheimer (best known by his pseudonym weev) reached out to French and Germans to build troll armies that could influence European elections. [...]
The U.K. has experienced a rise in hate crimes (which also spiked during the 2016 campaign that preceded the vote to leave the European Union) following terrorist attacks on Manchester and London Bridge in May and June this year. The U.K. government reports a 27 percent increase in hate crimes this year over last year. [...]
Trump's retweets and his subsequent defense of them undermined British policies to counter far-right extremism at home. They have thus prompted the most serious diplomatic row between the two allies since Ronald Reagan had to apologize for leaving Margaret Thatcher out of the loop in the 1983 invasion of Grenada. That was short-lived. Thatcher and Reagan had a strong friendship and working relationship and were united against a common enemy. Trump and May have no friendship, a strained working relationship and now Trump seems to have taken up with the enemy. No wonder May is struggling to find common ground.
Business Insider: Brexit will never happen, according to the only analyst to call the last general election correctly
Samuel Tombs, an economist renowned for correctly predicting the result of June's general election, has a fresh prediction: Brexit isn't actually going to happen.
Writing in a note circulated to clients of Pantheon Macroeconomics on Sunday evening, Tombs — Pantheon's chief UK economist — argued that Brexit will be so damaging to Britain's economy in the short term that no politician will feel comfortable actually pulling the UK out of the bloc when push comes to shove, both for the sake of their own reputations, and the UK's economic health.
Tombs writes that he believes the UK and EU will eventually agree to a transition deal to smooth Britain's passage out of the EU, but once Britain reaches the intended end of the transition period, it will then stay in the EU. [...]
"The key issue is that leaving the single market would entail short-term economic pain in return for the possibility of long-term gain, in the form of closer ties with fast-growing emerging market economies. This sequencing of the costs and benefits means Brexit always will be unpalatable for any politician, given their myopia. It will be particularly unattractive for the Conservatives to implement Brexit in 2021, one year before the deadline for the next election."
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