theaspiringpolymath:

jeparletoutesleslangues:

heliodurus:

quiet-turtle:

sprachtraeume:

langsandlit:

linguine-linguistics:

Esperanto

Why do people dislike Esperanto?

Yeah idk why people dislike it :/ could someone explain?

^ i seriously wanna know. Do you guys not appreciate its grammar, its simplicity while still being inclusive, or its mission for peace? Because langblr is all about being open to languages until it comes to Esperanto.

I fucking hate it because a language without virtually any grammar is not a language!!!!

Seriously, THREE tenses? Are you crazy? Why the fuck would i learn a language

Themainreason I love it is because of the concept and accessibility, it is simplistic because L.L Zamenhof wanted people to learn it, he wanted people from different cultures to speak, it makes international culture (admittedly it’s easier for European language speakers to mix than non-European language speakers to mix) more accessible and in my mind I can’t see how that could be a bad thing. Also surely is the perfect time (speaking at a Brit) to unite Europe?

The Queen’s Speech has been delayed.

Hold up, isn’t the Queen’s Speech just a Christmas thing?

This has been a common question today, so if you’ve been wondering the same thing, you weren’t alone! The Queen gives her Christmas speech every year (makes sense, right?) but to get full value for money on the royal family, she’s also brought out after each general election.

Makes sense. So what does she actually talk about?

The post-election Queen’s Speech is a quick summary of all the major policies the party-in-power hope to implement over their term. Not everything will make it in: the past two Tory manifestos pledged to repeal the ban on fox hunting, but the policy never featured in the speech.

When was it meant to happen?

The speech was originally scheduled for June 19th (next Monday). No date has been set yet for when we’ll end up hearing it.

Okay, but why has this one been delayed then?

Right, so this is where it gets a bit more complicated, mostly because at this point we move into the realm of speculation. Never a good thing for an article on politics, y’know? 

Theresa May ran on a promise of strength and stability. She was hoping to get a huge majority for the Tories to (a) put Britain in a better negotiating position with the EU and (b) bolster her self-esteem. This didn’t go to plan: we now have a ‘hung parliament’.

All those policies the Tories could have put in the Queen’s Speech suddenly look doubtful to pass a vote in the House of Commons. Right now, senior Tories are going over and over their manifesto looking for the bits and pieces that stand a chance and coming to terms with the policies they’ll have to lose. This is one of the reason’s it’s going to take longer than usual to prepare the speech.

Didn’t the Tories make that deal with the DUP to avoid this sort of thing though?

The DUP agreement is a Confidence and Support deal rather than a full on coalition. What this means is that the 10 DUP MPs in the Commons keep their right to vote against Tory policies if they don’t agree with them.

A good example is triple-lock pensions. This is a promise by the government to increase state pensions each year in line with inflation or wage growth, or by 2.5% (whichever of the three is highest). The Tory manifesto pledged to do away with this, whereas the DUP strongly support keeping the protection. In a Commons vote, the Tories will face a real struggle to secure the majority vote needed to scrap the scheme.

It’s also likely that the delay is partly because of this deal: the DUP will be making some demands of the Tories in exchange for their support that the Tories just won’t be that willing to accept. 

So what does this mean for the government then?

As of right now, Theresa May’s Tory party still hold the power. The delaying of the Queen’s Speech has made them look weaker to the public and has potentially put a dent in the timetable for Brexit negotiations (will we even have an official Prime Minister when they’re due to start in 9 days?). 

There’s rumour that Corbyn is poised to take full advantage of this perceived instability. Labour are supposedly planning to try and block each and every policy the Tories try to include in their Queen’s Speech. If a speech cannot be agreed upon, then there’s a series of steps that could be followed to give Corbyn a chance to form his own minority government.

That’s only a very remote possibility though!

tl;dr The Conservative Party have delayed the Queen’s Speech as they struggle to edit their manifesto to a more centrist position.

Got a question about GE17? Ask us here orsend us a tweet!

There’s a lot of interest at the moment on who exactly these mysterious 10 MPs are that the Conservatives have teamed up with to get their majority. A lot of misinformation is spreading, so here’s a quick run-down of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

• The DUP were established in 1971 by Ian Paisley, the leading figure for loyalism during the Troubles. Although he would later be instrumental in the peace process in Northern Ireland, in 1971 he was involved with paramilitary groups fighting to keep NI under British rule.
• Theyopposed the Good Friday Agreement due in party to the allowance for Sinn Fein to hold government. Other reasons included clauses for the early release of paramilitary political prisoners and lack of accountability of the Northern Ireland Executive and the North/South Ministerial Council.
• The majority of their support is in the North of Northern Ireland, with border constituencies voting in Sinn Fein MPs in the 2017 general election.
• Theirleader is Arlene Foster, who serves as the First Minister of Northern Ireland.
  
• Theyadvocate for the union of Northern Ireland with the UK. Arlene Foster said during the 2017 election campaign that she does not intend for NI to have a border poll (a referendum on reunification of Ireland) in her life-time.
  
• The DUP were at the centre of the Renewable Heating Incentives scandal. Arlene Foster, as Minister for the department in charge of the scheme, was heavily implicated. The poorly worded RHI scheme went over budget by £400m and the poor structure of the scheme made it prime fodder for fraudsters. Foster personally campaigned to keep the scheme open even after experts pointed out its flaws.
• In 1977 the DUP campaigned against the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Ireland. They no longer follow this policy, although many DUP members still see homosexuality as a sin due to strong religious ties.
• In terms of Brexit, the DUP oppose a hard Irish borderandsupport a soft-Brexit.
• The DUP support triple-lock pensions and the Winter Fuel Allowance, in direct opposition to current Conservative policies.
• They have vetoed same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland since 2015, despite its legalisation in the rest of the UK and in the Republic.
• The DUP are strongly ‘pro-life’, and unanimously voted against a proposal by Labour to protect women from prosecution who abort their foetuses using pills bought online. Their stance on abortion also led to opposition to extra funding for international family planning programmes.

tl;dr The DUP are social (very) conservatives but will not support the Tories in every vote.

Thank you for your understanding during our brief absence. 

This week we’ll be covering the second round of Brexit negotiations, updates on the leaks from government meetings, as well as exploring more of the issues young voters care about.

So, we want to know: what is it you care most about in politics? Tell us here.

Long-awaited (and for once not all that long-winded) the Queen’s Speech was finally revealed at 11:30am today. So just what did it contain?

Brexit

8 out of the 24 bills in the speech related to plans for UK policy after leaving the EU. We’ve broken down the main aspects of each bill below:

1. Repeal Bill – turns EU law into UK law so UK Parliament can make changes
2. Customs Bill – UK takes control of import and exports
3. Trade Bill – lets the UK make trade deals with other countries
4. Immigration Bill – allows UK government to end free movement of EU nationals into UK
5. Fisheries Bill – gives UK control of its waters and fishing quotas
6. Agriculture Bill – a system will be put in place to protect UK famers
7. Nuclear Safeguards Bill – creates a UK nuclear safeguards regime to replace the EU one
8. International Sanctions Bill – gives government final say on imposing non-UN sanctions to the UK and ensures sanctions can still be challenged
   

Economy

This was a stripped back speech, with very little change in economic policy. Only 5 bills related to the economy:

1. Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill – service stations will, at some point, need to install charge points for electric vehicles
   
2. Space Industry Bill – new commercial spaceflight to be licensed, including rockets
   
3. HS2 Phase 2A Bill – the high speed railway will extend to Crewe sooner than planned
   
4. Smart Meter Bill – every household will be offered smart meters by 2020
   
5. National Insurance Contributions Bill – allows for the changes announced in 2016 budget

Other

There were 11 miscellaneous policies. More notable bills include the Courts Bill, which will remove the right of partners accused of domestic violence to cross-examine their alleged victim in court. 

On a similar vein, the Draft Domestic Violence and Abuse Bill will introduce new measures to protect victims of domestic violence. 

For younger voters, the Data Protection Bill is very interesting - it will require social media accounts to delete information held about you at the age of 18.

What does this all mean?

Legally, not very much. Not until next week anyway, when the MPs in the House of Commons will have the chance to vote for or against each bill individually. With a majority not yet secured, there’s a chance not all of these proposed bills will pass. Even then, these are just a snapshot of proposed government policy over the next 2 years.

What the Queen’s Speech does tell us is that the Tories are not having a very happy time at the moment. A large chunk of their manifesto has gone missing:

• New grammar schools
  
• The ‘dementia tax’
  
• Scrapping triple lock pensions
  
• Replacing free school lunches with free breakfasts
  
• Energy price caps
  
• Voting to remove ban on fox hunting
  
• Means testing winter fuel payments
  

The suggestion is that the Tories did not think they would be able to pass these policies through the Commons - the more liberal parties were all very vocal in their opposition to these proposals during election campaigning, and even the DUP do not agree with scrapping triple lock pensions.

Through the Queen’s Speech, we’ve been given a little glimpse of the state of the Conservative Party: a monstrous papier-mâché parody of an unpopular manifesto.

Yes, it’s the first day of the long anticipated Brexit negotiations and the first in our series of Brexit related posts. First days are always tricky. Both parties sizing the other up, looking for an angle to put their team ahead - so how did everyone get on?

Representing the UK is David Davis, veteran MP for the Conservative party and May’s Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. His approach? Well, no one reallyknows. It looks like we’re in for a ‘hard’ Brexit, with Davis opening the discussion with talk of leaving the customs union and the single market - to the universal agreement of the EU team. When it comes to borders, movement and human rights? No word yet.

What we do know is that UK’ first aim is to build the Brexit schedule on theirterms, not the EU’s. The UK went into today’s talks hoping to get permission to discuss trade agreements with various EU countries at the same time as discussing the possible ‘divorce bill’ they might or might not owe. This is the big power play of the day - whoever gets their way gets the upper hand going forward.

And the winner is?

On the first day of negotiations, the winner was the EU by a landslide. Chief negotiator for the EU, Michael Barnier, stated that the UK, as the leaving party, were not in a position to determine the timetable. 

Compounding the strategic loss, the Conservative government has also suggested it will U-turn on its stance not to guarantee the right to remain of EU citizens currently in the UK. Theresa May herself is expected to fly out to Brussels over the next few days to unveil the reversal. 

The rights of EU citizens is something many opponents to the Tories promised in party manifestos leading into GE2017, particularly Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour. Maybe we’re seeing the first signs of the impact of May’s hung parliament.

And if things didn’t look like they could get any worse for Davis and the UK, the issue of the Irish border just became a whole lot more complicated. Negotiations are now expected to take a lot longer than the UK team predicted. How this news will affect the DUP’s deal with the Conservatives is yet to be seen.

Join us tomorrow for another edition of The Brex-Files

Sources:

• The Guardian
  
• BBC News
• The Telegraph

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