Difficulties reconciling the Irish border with Brexit, inequality across the UK and articles on finishing audiobooks and Star Wars have provoked some of the most interesting conversation on the Guardian so far today.
To get involved in discussions you can click on the links in the comments below to expand and add your thoughts. We’ll continue to highlight more comments worth reading as the day goes on.
Disadvantaged children face worse outcomes in some rich areas – report
Young people are at the most risk of problems arising from inequality, with coastal regions and rural areas apparently being left behind, according to Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility Commission. He has warned of a country “in the grip of a self-reinforcing spiral of ever-growing division”, where children are plunged into a postcode lottery from birth.
‘These children have already fallen behind before they start school’
The grim reality is that these children have already fallen behind before they start school, something mentioned in the BBC’s report on this but not in the article above, which is largely down to the parents. Many will never catch up.
The issue isn’t entirely to do with money, as in you can get books from the library for free or a charity shop for peanuts - it costs nothing to spend quality time with your childre, but more to do with poverty of ambition and opportunity. It’s inverse snobbery and revelling in anti-intellectualism. If you throw money at the problem then you simply kick the can down the road rather than breaking the cycle and tackling the underlying issues; it would eventually happen again and again.
Unless these children are engaged with and encouraged to value education then they will be stuck in the crab pot, as will their children. The reason Chinese and Indian kids do so well at school is because their children tell them they can achieve and can be a success. They haven’t subscribed to the class system.
FatherChewyLouie
The Irish question may yet save Britain from Brexit
Polly Toynbee writes as Leo Varadkar stands his ground over the Northern Irish border, angering some in Westminster.
Here is some of your reaction:
‘The problems of the Irish border are typical of Brexit’
The problems of the Irish border are typical of Brexit. The leave campaigners either ignored the issue or blandly claimed that there would be no problem. As always they either ignored or lied about all the contradictions and lunacies of Brexit. The issue was sealed when May declared in March that the UK would leave both the customs union and the single market, this ensuring that the EU had absolutely no room to manoeuvre and putting the UK on the rails for a hard Irish border or a border in the Irish Sea. But of course, rather than ruing their own shortsightedness, the brexiters blame the EU, the Irish and Remainers.
HarryTheHorse
‘There’s no reason Ireland should suffer a decision that was never theirs’
You’d think that after one and a half years since the referendum some UK politicians and members of the press would have educated themselves on what exactly the EU is, and on how it works.
The whole EU stands beside Ireland, their will to defend peace on the island, and also their own legitimate economic interests. There’s no reason Ireland should suffer a decision that was never theirs, because some fantasists do not have the intellectual capabilities to face the problems they have created.
gl1977
Speaker grants Commons urgent question on Brexit impact reports - Politics live
Andrew Sparrow’s politics live blog reports that John Bercow, the speaker, has granted an urgent Commons question on the Brexit impact papers. It has been tabled by Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, and you’ve been reacting in the comments.
‘If these were great news, Westminster would be shouting that from the chimney tops’
So now we have it. Redacted reports under the specious grounds that revealing these could adversely affect negotiating powers. What negotiating powers? Have the EU27 not already carried out their own impact assessments? It can only be from the UK electorate that this information is being kept. And look at the lack of trust. Terrified that fellow members of Parliament might reveal what’s in these. They must be horrific, because not for one instant do I believe that, if these were great news, Westminster would be shouting that from the chimney tops. And did we as tax payers not pay for these? What right has anyone to keep this information from the people who paid for it? Any respect I ever had for Westminster is now dead and buried. The damage this fiasco has and is causing will take generations to heal – if indeed it ever can be healed.
Movy176
From Rey’s dark side to Snoke’s identity – all the questions Star Wars: The Last Jedi must answer
The new Star Wars film has divided opinion before it’s even out, but many of you have enjoyed discussing this piece on plotlines that may or may not work as we move on from 2015 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
‘The biggest problem with TFA wasn’t the plot holes, it was just the plot’
The biggest problem with TFA wasn’t the plot holes, it was just the plot. A bad rehash of Star Wars. For 30 years we assumed the rebels won, the Empire was toppled, and our heroes lived happily ever after.
Now we find out Luke’s spent much of that time alone on an island, Han and Leia had the antichrist as a child and broke up, and the Empire rebranded itself as the First Order and built an even bigger Death Star.
They could have made a great movie that was different, that didn’t blow the victory in RotJ away, that showed the rise of the First Order and a new menacing villain, and built up to end with an even bigger Death Star. Instead they just hammered a Star Wars remake into a galaxy where it didn’t really fit, and we have whiny villain who throws hissy fits more like Alan Rickman’s sheriff of nottingham than Darth Vader.
CaptainFlack
‘I’m a grown up and no longer expect kids’ films to be aimed at me’
My kids can’t wait to see this. Youngest is about age I was when ROTJ came out. Funnily enough, she seems no more fussed by plotholes than I was then; I imagine she and her brothers’ll be happy with an exciting adventure set in space, which is all Star Wars ever was.
As for me, I’m a grown up and no longer expect kids’ films to be aimed at me. If I enjoy it, so much the better - but I really hope it gives kids as much pleasure as the original trilogy did back in the day.
diotavelli
At what point do we give up on books? Big data has the answer
Made it to the end of this roundup? That’s more than can be said for many people’s “reading” habits. This piece focuses on a study released by an audiobook company, but it got readers and writers alike among you talking.
‘If I could get an idea of points readers tend to give up I could identify and fix problems’
I’d pay good money for this kind of information about my own books, especially in today’s market. The majority of my novels are sold through Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, for which I’m paid not per copy but per page read. If I could get an idea of key points at which readers tend to give up I could identify and fix problems, possibly increasing my income by thousands of dollars a month. Unfortunately Amazon jealously guards such data.
KeithTaylor
This article will be updated throughout the day with some of the most interesting ways readers have been participating across the site.
