Potholes in Milton; Pothole avoided by Parliament Brexit vote; and EU nationals negative attitudes to immigration from Muslim countries.
For nearly a week, strange yellow lines have encircled, or rather ensquared the growing number of potholes in our short close. Today the team arrived in two lorries, clad in waterproof high visibility suits, with circular saws and pneumatic drills. It was very impressive to see the flurry of activity as pothole after pothole was squared and filled in. Then, as suddenly as they had come, the team disappeared. It was only when I had to go out on another computing errand that I discovered that the major and most abundant potholes at the entrance to the close were still untouched. Perhaps there will be a revisit to finish of the job tomorrow.
Potholes also featured largely on Paul Stainton's Big Conversation on Radio Cambridgeshire, especially as a major pothole near Huntingdon had caused cars to be damaged and ultimately incapacitated a lorry and therefore caused traffic chaos for a large part of yesterday.
Jane having done the first setting of the history catalogue project, I began reading it in detail and checking both images and text.
The main news item for Brexit today is the momentous decision by Parliament to pass the Brexit Bill, without amendments at the third reading. It now goes on to the House of Lords for consideration. It left behind a satisfied government, and the Labour front bench lost another cabinet member who defied the three line whip. The SNP was bluntly reminded by PC May that they had no say in the decision, as per an earlier court ruling. The finger is on the trigger for Article 50.
Perhaps the most disappointing and shameful thing is that an amendment to the Bill guaranteeing security of residence for EU nationals was voted down by 332 votes to 290. Shamefully, that included our Conservative MP Heidi Allen.
Apart from using his presidential twitter account to support his daughter's business, Trump has been tweeting actively about misrepresentations and other news in the media. One item did however stand out, and that was the Chatham House survey of 10,000 citizens across the EU. It was on whether they thought that all further migration from Muslim countries should be stopped, i.e. similar to Trumps proposed ban. To quote the study:
"Overall, across all 10 of the European countries (surveyed) an average of 55% agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped, 25% neither agreed nor disagreed and 20% disagreed.
"Majorities in all but two of the ten states agreed, ranging from 71% in Poland, 65% in Austria, 53% in Germany and 51% in Italy to 47% in the United Kingdom and 41% in Spain. In no country did the percentage that disagreed surpass 32%."
Source: https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/what-do-europeans-think-about-muslim-immigration#sthash.nmt9OBat.dpuf
A sad but realistic reflection of current attitudes in our increasingly intolerant and polarised world.
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