Do you want to discuss boring politics? (22 Viewers)

[Grendel]

Pete may be sniggering but Reeves is viewed as a disaster - no business big or small has any confidence in her whatsoever- she is pitifully out of her depth

 

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[Brighton Sky Blue]

Not at all, far from breaking up the Union, Brexit was implicitly saved it. The nationalists in Scotland and Wales can’t credibly argue that they’ll join the EU because that would mean hard borders with England. Which is just not realistic.

NI will probably be lost, with or without Brexit.

It pulled NI and Scotland out of the EU against their wishes and has dragged NI in particular through the ringer. I'd argue that if British governments generally gave more of a shit about NI then it would probably remain for the foreseeable future, but that's a separate issue.

All Brexit has done is have more small c conservative voters in England drag half of the home nations out of Europe against their will. It was a gift wrapped present for Sinn Fein and the SNP in particular. One of the big arguments leading to the Scottish referendum was that independence would take Scotland out of Europe and it'd have to reapply. It wasn't the argument I preferred to use on the doorstep but it was one we were encouraged to go with. Then 2 years later it's dragged out anyway when it voted strongly in favour of remaining.

 

[Grendel]

It pulled NI and Scotland out of the EU against their wishes and has dragged NI in particular through the ringer. I'd argue that if British governments generally gave more of a shit about NI then it would probably remain for the foreseeable future, but that's a separate issue.

All Brexit has done is have more small c conservative voters in England drag half of the home nations out of Europe against their will. It was a gift wrapped present for Sinn Fein and the SNP in particular. One of the big arguments leading to the Scottish referendum was that independence would take Scotland out of Europe and it'd have to reapply. It wasn't the argument I preferred to use on the doorstep but it was one we were encouraged to go with. Then 2 years later it's dragged out anyway when it voted strongly in favour of remaining.

Didn’t more Scottish people vote to leave the EU than voted for the SNP?

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Of course one thing is for certain. If Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was PM he’d be sucking up to The Donald like no tomorrow.

You only have to look how he dribbled over George Dubya Bush to agree with that. Two brain cells meet and unite.

Do you think using his full name somehow makes him a better or worse politician? We can play the same game with Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and George Gideon Oliver Osborne if you wish.

 

[Grendel]

Do you think using his full name somehow makes him a better or worse politician? We can play the same game with Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson if you wish.

I did two posts above?

 

[Grendel]

It pulled NI and Scotland out of the EU against their wishes and has dragged NI in particular through the ringer. I'd argue that if British governments generally gave more of a shit about NI then it would probably remain for the foreseeable future, but that's a separate issue.

All Brexit has done is have more small c conservative voters in England drag half of the home nations out of Europe against their will. It was a gift wrapped present for Sinn Fein and the SNP in particular. One of the big arguments leading to the Scottish referendum was that independence would take Scotland out of Europe and it'd have to reapply. It wasn't the argument I preferred to use on the doorstep but it was one we were encouraged to go with. Then 2 years later it's dragged out anyway when it voted strongly in favour of remaining.

The Brexit debate must of course be very conflicted for you

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Didn’t more Scottish people vote to leave the EU than voted for the SNP?

By percentages the SNP usually collect about half of the Scottish vote, but 62% voted to remain in the EU. My wife's constituency was one of the highest Leave-voting areas in Scotland but still didn't get more than half even there.

It is fair to say however that the SNP's traditional heartlands pretty much all kicked them out over their Brexit stance. Some recovery since.

 

[Grendel]

By percentages the SNP usually collect about half of the Scottish vote, but 62% voted to remain in the EU. My wife's constituency was one of the highest Leave-voting areas in Scotland but still didn't get more than half even there.

It is fair to say however that the SNP's traditional heartlands pretty much all kicked them out over their Brexit stance. Some recovery since.

That’s not what I asked?

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

That’s not what I asked?

For the 2017 election about 40,000 fewer votes for the SNP than Brexit in 2016. When you compare the 2015 election, there were about 450,000 more votes for the SNP than Brexit 2016.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

Pete may be sniggering but Reeves is viewed as a disaster - no business big or small has any confidence in her whatsoever- she is pitifully out of her depth

Not sniggering just smile emoticon

 

[Grendel]

Not sniggering just smile emoticon

She is the big problem and needs to go.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Didn’t more Scottish people vote to leave the EU than voted for the SNP?

There's more options in elections and lower turnout.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

There's more options in elections and lower turnout.

In 2015 450,000 more voted for the SNP anyway. Hence he’s gone a bit quiet

 

[Grendel]

In 2015 450,000 more voted for the SNP anyway. Hence he’s gone a bit quiet

Surely it would have strengthened post then not gone down?

 

[chiefdave]

this is quite an interesting read

Who supports Reform and why? The charts that show who favours Farage’s party

Based on largest poll of supporters, these charts and maps show five distinct groups that could hand Reform a majority

www.theguardian.com

 

[CCFCSteve]

this is quite an interesting read

Who supports Reform and why? The charts that show who favours Farage’s party

Based on largest poll of supporters, these charts and maps show five distinct groups that could hand Reform a majority

www.theguardian.com

The ‘working right’ sound like old school traditional Labour voters to me

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

The ‘working right’ sound like old school traditional Labour voters to me

Find it interesting to see the divide between those who prioritise cost of living and immigration.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Summoning @TomRad85 to the politics thread. That’s @TomRad85 to the politics thread, thank you.

 

[fernandopartridge]

The problem with Reeves is that she only sees the economy through the eyes of the city and / or her Thatcherite philosophy on government spending.

She has no clue about the real world impact of any decisions on people or businesses.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

The problem with Reeves is that she only sees the economy through the eyes of the city and / or her Thatcherite philosophy on government spending.

She has no clue about the real world impact of any decisions on people or businesses.

Do you think maybe we ought to start looking at the real world record of the economics put forward over the last few decades and suggest that the main proponents behind them ( like PPE and LSE Economics) are actually at best massively flawed and at worst rubbish.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Find it interesting to see the divide between those who prioritise cost of living and immigration.

These are the people that are in competition with low income migrants so they’ve put 2+2 together and made the link between mass immigration and cost of living.

The ‘working right’ sound like old school traditional Labour voters to me

Indeed. The Labour Party and indeed wider trade union movement had generally been “right wing” on immigration by today’s standards. Blair changed that fabric and social liberalism is so entrenched in the party it’s chased away of working class voters.

The labels used by this article is a bit patronising too. For example, ‘Contrarian Youth’. Overall, Gen Z voters are surprisingly a lot more right wing than previous generations, specifically on immigration. My expectation is that this is because they’re the first generation who grew up in the era of mass migration but that’s conjecture. In Germany, the AfD polled surprisingly well among young male voters but even its standing among female voters was unexpectedly high.

In any case, Reform and Greens do v well with Gen Z voters so rather than being “contrarian”, UK politics is changing in a v fundamental way.

UK politics has been realigning since Brexit and for a moment, the Tories had ‘won’ momentarily but because of its betrayal on immigration, faced annihilation. The findings on the article are interesting but unsurprising. I’d expect v similar results if prospective Green voters were polled.
Many Labour voters share a similar disgust to this Labour government as was the case with Tory voters and the last Tory one.

The main parties can no longer gaslight the electorate by saying “Vote Reform, get Labour” or “Vote Green, get Reform”. The electorate is rightly washing their hands of a decrepit ancien régime until they offer policies they actually want.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

These are the people that are in competition with low income migrants so they’ve put 2+2 together and made the link between mass immigration and cost of living.

No, my point was some have a top priority of cost of living and for others it’s immigration. Low income migrants aren’t the reason behind high living costs anyway, but that’s the Reform grift summed up quite neatly anyway.

 

[Sick Boy]

The problem with Reform is that they don’t really have anything apart from going on about immigration. Their councils seem to be a shambles; I’m no longer convinced they’ll maintain the momentum for the GE - maybe we’ll end up with a coalition of all parties!

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

No, my point was some have a top priority of cost of living and for others it’s immigration. Low income migrants aren’t the reason behind high living costs anyway, but that’s the Reform grift summed up quite neatly anyway.

Agreed. However, there is one massive exception where immigration is absolutely increasing costs: housing provision.

The average cost of a house is 9x the average salary. You’d have to go back to the 19th century to find a time it was less expensive.

It’s not all about immigration, but when housebuilding targets are premised on 300k net migration and not only are the targets not met, net migration is significantly higher than 300k.

Reform isn’t grifting the electorate. The Tories and Labour grifted the electorate when continually promising to lower migration but delivering the exact opposite. The Greens don’t have a winning message imo, but they are unashamedly pro-immigration and don’t see a need to reduce migration.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Agreed. However, there is one massive exception where immigration is absolutely increasing costs: housing provision.

The average cost of a house is 9x the average salary. You’d have to go back to the 19th century to find a time it was less expensive.

It’s not all about immigration, but when housebuilding targets are premised on 300k net migration and not only are the targets not met, net migration is significantly higher than 300k.

Reform isn’t grifting the electorate. The Tories and Labour grifted the electorate when continually promising to lower migration but delivering the exact opposite. The Greens don’t have a winning message imo, but they are unashamedly pro-immigration and don’t see a need to reduce migration.

Guess that's where we'll have to agree to disagree really, I just see the people in charge of Reform as snake oil selling charlatans.

 

[mmttww]

Reform isn’t grifting the electorate.

a platform which amounts to 'the foreigners are the problem' and a leader that spreads stories about immigrants killing and eating swans from Royal parks instead of talking about how they'll get houses built, services and infrastructure sorted and long term quality jobs secured feels like a bit of a grift to me.

You're talking about a party selling Reform football kits while dodging VAT, with a track record of focusing their hours in office on making and maintaining alliances with far right nutters around the world and paving the way for their rich pals to stay rich and get more rich. Oh, and flags. I forgot flags.

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

Agreed. However, there is one massive exception where immigration is absolutely increasing costs: housing provision.

The average cost of a house is 9x the average salary. You’d have to go back to the 19th century to find a time it was less expensive.

It’s not all about immigration, but when housebuilding targets are premised on 300k net migration and not only are the targets not met, net migration is significantly higher than 300k.

Reform isn’t grifting the electorate. The Tories and Labour grifted the electorate when continually promising to lower migration but delivering the exact opposite. The Greens don’t have a winning message imo, but they are unashamedly pro-immigration and don’t see a need to reduce migration.

Labour have significantly reduced immigration

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

a platform which amounts to 'the foreigners are the problem' and a leader that spreads stories about immigrants killing and eating swans from Royal parks instead of talking about how they'll get houses built, services and infrastructure sorted and long term quality jobs secured feels like a bit of a grift to me.

You're talking about a party selling Reform football kits while dodging VAT, with a track record of focusing their hours in office on making and maintaining alliances with far right nutters around the world and paving the way for their rich pals to stay rich and get more rich. Oh, and flags. I forgot flags.

Effective though

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

a platform which amounts to 'the foreigners are the problem' and a leader that spreads stories about immigrants killing and eating swans from Royal parks instead of talking about how they'll get houses built, services and infrastructure sorted and long term quality jobs secured feels like a bit of a grift to me.

You're talking about a party selling Reform football kits while dodging VAT, with a track record of focusing their hours in office on making and maintaining alliances with far right nutters around the world and paving the way for their rich pals to stay rich and get more rich. Oh, and flags. I forgot flags.

That isn’t their platform at all. The polling data shared on here shows that they cut through on other issues.

Comments like yours show just how disconnected many people on the left are in relation to understanding why people support Reform.

Labour have significantly reduced immigration

Have they? What policies have they implemented that have had an impact?

The last figures were 400k and that was mostly a continuation of the last governments policy. Besides, the electorate consistently wants immigration at 0-100k and that’s been the case since 2010.

Guess that's where we'll have to agree to disagree really, I just see the people in charge of Reform as snake oil selling charlatans.

Interesting. See, I wouldn’t call Polanski a “snake oil selling charlatan”, his ideas are just wrong and wouldn’t benefit the country.

You know and iirc, have posted about the difficulties of running a household, just how expensive it is to rent/own a home. For the vast majority of people, the highest outgoing is easily their housing costs and there’s significant evidence that immigration has driven us up. For the best part of a decade or two, house building has not kept up with net migration.

There are other economic issues at play, QE has had the unintended impact of transferring assets to wealthy individuals/companies. Home ownership is down 5% from 10-20 years ago which is sad.

 

[CCFCSteve]

The problem with Reeves is that she only sees the economy through the eyes of the city and / or her Thatcherite philosophy on government spending.

She has no clue about the real world impact of any decisions on people or businesses.

Thatcherite spending philosophy?! What, trying to grow the economy? (Not sure that’s working so far) Come on FD. They’re already borrowing and taxing £70bn more per year over the parliament (let’s say £300-350bn). I’d imagine tax will increase further this budget. As the party hasnt shown any semblance of ability in even minimising spending increases, we’re already probably paying billions more in servicing debt.

Let’s hope the government spends all this extra cash wisely

ps nobody’s moving to MMT any time soon so let’s not go round all that again

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Thatcherite spending philosophy?! What, trying to grow the economy? (Not sure that’s working so far) Come on FD. They’re already borrowing and taxing £70bn more per year over the parliament (let’s say £300-350bn). I’d imagine tax will increase further this budget. As the party hasnt shown any semblance of ability in even minimising spending increases, we’re already probably paying billions more in servicing debt.

Let’s hope the government spends all this extra cash wisely

ps nobody’s moving to MMT any time soon so let’s not go round all that again

I nearly spat out my coffee seeing Rachel Reeves described as “Thatcherite”. Ultimately, this government is in a mess because it’s massively increased spending and borrowing without a plan to pay for it. The tax rises in the last budget was highest tax raids in decades and it’s still not enough.

The gilts are spiking already over the budget because they don’t view UK government spending as sustainable. What FP proposes is fantasy land and the UK would be punished by financial markets.

 

[fernandopartridge]

I nearly spat out my coffee seeing Rachel Reeves described as “Thatcherite”. Ultimately, this government is in a mess because it’s massively increased spending and borrowing without a plan to pay for it. The tax rises in the last budget was highest tax raids in decades and it’s still not enough.

The gilts are spiking already over the budget because they don’t view UK government spending as sustainable. What FP proposes is fantasy land and the UK would be punished by financial markets.

Clueless

 

[fernandopartridge]

Once again MMT is a description of how currency creation works not a policy

 

[Sky Blue Pete]

That isn’t their platform at all. The polling data shared on here shows that they cut through on other issues.

Comments like yours show just how disconnected many people on the left are in relation to understanding why people support Reform.


Have they? What policies have they implemented that have had an impact?

The last figures were 400k and that was mostly a continuation of the last governments policy. Besides, the electorate consistently wants immigration at 0-100k and that’s been the case since 2010.


Interesting. See, I wouldn’t call Polanski a “snake oil selling charlatan”, his ideas are just wrong and wouldn’t benefit the country.

You know and iirc, have posted about the difficulties of running a household, just how expensive it is to rent/own a home. For the vast majority of people, the highest outgoing is easily their housing costs and there’s significant evidence that immigration has driven us up. For the best part of a decade or two, house building has not kept up with net migration.

There are other economic issues at play, QE has had the unintended impact of transferring assets to wealthy individuals/companies. Home ownership is down 5% from 10-20 years ago which is sad.

What’s driving the fall in net migration? | National Statistical

blog.ons.gov.uk

no one wants 100k net I don’t think they just want zero small boat crossings

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Clueless

I’m enjoying that you’re saying this with no irony whatsoever.

If you want to continue believing Reeves is “Thatcherite”, crack on mate. I won’t break that delusion.