Inverted

I understand the theory behind a left-wing Brexit. The EU is a fundamentally market-liberal, capitalist institution. Its rules on competition and state aid are explcitly meant to mould member states into liberalised market economies. Its budget deficit limits (when they can be bothered to apply them) are potential hindrances to a stimulus-focused budget approach. But theory is a lot different from reality. To me, being left wing means believing in sheltering the vulnerable and fighting for the greatest collective benefit. There is no scenario, even the most left-wing favourable one, where I see Brexit doing those things. It's better to seek to remould the EU in a less rigidly pro-market direction, than to go off as a lone wolf socialist state.

It's not about socialism vs capitalism. It's about the fact that if economic disaster is met with a response based on an anti-state ideology, rather than actual economic sense, then people die. Invariably. Austerity isn't about balancing the books, it has no function except to make an ideological point of shrinking the public sphere. It continued despite not only the human cost (because the human cost was not a cost but a bonus in the government's eyes), but even increasingly strong economic argument against it. The IMF itself (those famous socialists) has said that austerity was an entirely useless, if not counterproductive, response to the recession. Its not socialist to criticise austerity. It's basically mainstream capitalist economics - even the Tories themselves have realised how much austerity has sullied their reputation.

It amuses me that "people will die" is held up as an extremely, almost comically apocalyptic prediction that could not imaginably happen, when economic hardship and austerity already contributes to thousands of excess deaths.

So that interview process with the firm in Edinburgh went well right enough - they've offered me a job! I start in 2020, so I'll be a fully qualified solicitor in 2022. They do have an office in Glasgow, but their corporate law team is in Edinburgh, which I'd be more interested in. I have a spare year in 2019-20 to work/travel which is also nice. Right now I'm just absolutely buzzing that I don't need to spend hours and hours out of my week making applications and prepping for interviews anymore.

Cheers, I feel like it went well! They told me that they had fast-tracked my application onto the final stage, and that they hadn't finished most of their first-round interviews so far, which sounds promising. They also seemed to be convinced that I had other interview processes going on and seemed paranoid that I was considering other offers, and seemed very determined to get my application dealt with ASAP. In reality, I've got nothing else on the go right now, except a few open applications that haven't been responded to yet. But they seemed to be trying very hard to sell the company to me, and they were being very nice, so I didn't say anything to dispel that notion. It was probably the most pleasant job interview I've ever had. From the sounds of it, they seemed close to deciding I was their guy, so hopefully I've not said anything out of step to change their minds.

Got a job interview tomorrow morning in Edinburgh for a legal traineeship. Got to give a presentation on the effect of Brexit on Scottish legislation, then have an interview with one of the firm's partners and the firm's HR Director. Shiteing it slightly. I'm normally not too nervous for interviews or presentations, and the first round interview I did with the firm was very pleasant. I'm just hoping the interview doesn't get into too much legal technicality, considering that constitutional law is not really my strong point, and I've only prepped this topic over a couple of days. However, it's only got to be a 5-10 minute presentation so I doubt there's really so much that we get into in that time-frame. Plus, the work I would be doing wouldn't have much to do with these kinds of legal issues. It's probably more just to gauge my confidence and speaking skills.

PSG maybe if Areola doesn’t develop to their liking, otherwise I’d say pretty much every top team has a goalie they’d prefer to keep over De Gea. Juve as you say is another.

Puyol was far better in teams which play in the typical way that elite teams do - guarding a high line, dealing with being dribbled at one-on-one, etc. Terry was world class, but in a pretty niche way.

Today volunteering at CAB, we had to phone the police on a client of mine. Apparently only the third time we've phoned the police in 20 years. Had a 20 year-old boy bawling crying, threatening to smash an air conditioning unit, against the wall, showing me the scars on his neck from a suicide attempt, telling me about how his step-dad raped him and how he himself was falsely accused of raping some girl. Ultimately he said he was going to kill himself and we had to phone the police at that point.

Starmer's speech at the conference this morning was really interesting. Says that nobody is ruling-out prospect of Remain being an option on a People's Vote. Gets rapturous reception, seems to surprise even him. Corbyn and McDonnell have been clear as mud on the issue, so it will be interesting to see if this wasn't what the leadership had in mind in pushing for a vote, or if they were just waiting for Starmer to be the one to say Remain would be an option. Of course "not ruling out" isn't a very strong commitment to any particular policy, but it feels like a significant moment to even entertain the idea of giving-up Brexit entirely.

Robertson has been consistently quite good for years. He did alright in a relegated Hull side and then was their best player arguably when they got promoted. He scored against England all the way back in 2014. It's not like Flanagan, where a nobody had one really good season out of nowhere. Robertson has clearly been a quality player for years, but has just went from playing with Hull, to playing under a world class manager with a world class side and logically went up in his own level.

Just finished this. I liked the fairly straightforward way of explaining a lot of the economic developments between the EU and America, and the EU and the southern states, but overall the tone was a bit dull and self-righteous. For a layman like me it was worth the effort of persisting with and reading through, but not the most captivating read. Next up I've got this on loan from the library. I wrote my honours dissertation partly on Walter Eucken's legal thought, so I thought it would interesting to read his major economic work.

Frank Field, an MP who has talked about running as an independent since 2015, and who was about to be deselected for voting with the government to sneak through its Hard Brexit legislation, has gave up the Labour whip citing "antisemitism". Lol, fuck off you old Tory fuck. Regular contributor to the Sun and admirer of Margaret Thatcher says he doesn't feel welcome in Labour because of antisemitism, I'm sure if the facts as they are were properly laid out, people would be able to read between the lines quite easily. The fact that his exit is being presented as part of the "antisemitism row" as opposed to being part of his own self-serving agenda - which has long diverged from the party's - just shows the depth to which the media has uncritically accepted his side's claim as the pre-accepted, objective basis of reporting any story.

Feeling stressed as fuck. Got a telephone interview with Santander for a customer service job on Tuesday, and then a then interview on Friday with a large Scottish commercial law firm for a traineeship (basically, the two-year grad job that qualifies you as a solicitor). I used to be pretty cocksure with interviews, since the first 4 professional interviews I ever had to do all resulted in me getting the job. I never did much prep or adjusted my approach since I figured it would be stupid to change a winning formula. But over the last year I've had a few unsuccessful interviews for part-time jobs, and a couple of failed last-stage interviews with law firms for a traineeship, and now I feel stressed over any kind of interview for any kind of job. I'm constantly torn between doing loads of prep and thinking of how to behave/answer for the kind of company I'm applying to, and just "being myself", since those are the two things people always tell me to do. But when you're a naturally short-sighted, unprepared person, it's hard to do both. All summer I've just been stressing over my job situation. For the first summer in my life it's been a legit struggle to get a part-time job which makes you feel like a fucking idiot. Then it gets to the time of year to start looking for grad jobs, and you're thinking of how you're going to get a law firm to hire you when you can't even get a call-back from Tesco after 20 applications. And it's just annoying because, if next week went perfectly, I'd have a part-time job I could earn a bit of money with as I head into my last year of uni to do my post-grad legal diploma, and a traineeship lined up a year after I finish that. My career situation would be sorted for the next few years, and I could even start saving money rather than using up more of my student finance that I've got stocked up in the account. So close but so bloody far.

Moved to work thread.

She loves cooking Indian food but I think that’s as far as her tastes go Yeah if you’re just there a few days then it’s not so bad shelling out a few extra pounds somewhere more central.

In seriousness I don’t really know anywhere good for food or a drink in Edinburgh, whenever I’m there I’m just having dinner at the girlfriend’s flat. I would say however that any place on or near the Royal Mile will likely be packed with tourists this time of year. Even if you go a few streets away like around the Grassmarket, it will be slightly better.

Yeah I know a great place. Just hop on a train or taxi heading west and you'll be there in about 45 minutes.

@BartraPique1932 I think it’s misguided to attach idpol to leftism necessarily. Idpol is to me apolitical in the sense that it can be coopted by all kinds of people. You can have centre-right neolibs like Clinton using it, the alt-right types in the states are up to their necks in identity politics, except they don’t realise that being anti-diversity is as much idpol as being pro-diversity is. I think that it’s important to realise that leftism should be about trying to draw a majoritarian solidarity, and that minority concerns can only be understood when they are part of chipping away at the fundamental material division in the world: the vast, working majority versus the tiny oligarchical minority. Things like fights against differences between executive pay between men and women don’t tackle any real injustice in the world. Campaigns to equalise the genders at the peak of the pyramid are not progressive - in fact their material effect is to seek to normalise and moralise the basic division of wealth whilst ignoring the most egregious inequality - that of the shareholding rentiers in the corporate structure vs the actual value-generating employees who have almost no control. And that’s just one example. I think people on the left need to be wary of confusing actual progressive politics with ridiculous liberal self-indulgence and individualism.

I can't tell if those black areas in Sicily, Spain, Ukraine etc are lots of black triangles, or black shaded areas.

I’m trying to show that hes being a hypocrite. He advances a position for which he claims nobody can hold him accountable, whilst driving home a sense of artificial urgency on anyone who is opposed to No Deal. There is zero basis for detailed discussion with someone who doesn’t accept any possibility of being found wrong. All one can do is draw attention to the basic hypocrisy. What I meant by good faith is that it should pointless trying to dissect his statements when his statements aren’t designed as sincere argumentation. Liberal hang-wringing over niceties and precise argumentation has a time and a place, and a lack of sense about this has caused enough failure so far.

Rees-Mogg is asking Remainers to wait 50 years for any upside to Brexit, but can't wait a few more months for an agreement. This is exactly why any notion of dealing with his arguments in good faith is utterly pointless.

I live in Britain and don't have any foreign family connections, so I guess that makes all my points valid by default. Or does just having any kind of social connection to any other country, or speaking any other language, devalue your opinion on British issues?

Change my mind on what? That a politician advancing a thus-far disastrous policy which he can offer no real argument in favour of, besides a vague promise of results in a timescale exceeding any adult's working lives, is wrong? Yes, of course my dislike for Jacob Rees-Mogg comes from me simply not being exposed to a high enough level of discourse yet.