Do you want to discuss boring politics? (74 Viewers)

[shmmeee]

With respect, the pot is calling the kettle black.

Starmer and Reeves’ personal ratings and the overall polling of ‘is the country moving in the right direction’ tells a v different story. Starmer is more unpopular than Sunak after 1 year in the job. Sunak’s ratings were a record low and this was after 13 year of Tory rule and 4 PMs, including Truss whose premiership damaged the Tory’s polling beyond repair, which were in the toilet anyway.

I’ve spoken to friends who worked with MPs and the Tory-lot specifically did not see Reform as being an existential threat to them last year. Now the polls have Reform consistently above the Tories.



This is where we disagree. Immigration is the number 1 issue in this country that has fundamentally eroded trust in ‘the system’. Even under New Labour in the Blair/Brown years, concerns over immigration has been ignored when the economy was growing. It’s stalled and has exacerbated the feelings in the first place. Paul Embery touched on this, it’s v much a cultural issue because there are places up and down that no longer ‘feel’ English/British anymore.

Give the electorate what they want, which is lower immigration. Trust is restored and immigration ceases to be an issue. That was the case in 2019/20 when the Tories promised an Aussie points system and then loosened the definition of ‘high skilled’ workers to allow record numbers of immigration.



Then his MPs kick off, he U-turns and we’re back to square one…

This is exactly my point. Starmer beats Farage head to head on popularity. You’re claiming a four point lead three or four years from an election means a reform govt is likely. Please go read any polling history or understand anything about the voter groups in this country.

 

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[fernandopartridge]

By funding public services paid for by taxing the wealthy?

I don’t think anyone disagrees that elections are a judgement as to whether people’s lives have improved. I’m not sure having not done so 12 months into a five year term is too relevant.

People who have been anti Labour since before they’re elected please keep telling me how if you personally don’t stop being anti Labour then it’s over. It’s very funny.

Your bar is so low that just funding public services to a paltry level of provision is good enough for you.

Anyway, meanwhile whilst poor people are being made even poorer, we're falling into line exactly how Trump wanted

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

Happy to disagree on that one. My belief remains that people have rightly noticed that they’re getting screwed over, but have been led astray in assigning blame and identifying solutions. I see the immigration issue as one of many symptoms that the country is in bad shape, not the cause.

Often a correlation between how voters feel financially (normally the main issue in any election) and issues like immigration. If they're doing well, economy is doing well etc then immigration slides down the list of priorities. The opposite then immigration rises in the list of priorities - something "simple" for voters to understand rather the complexities of the economy.
Support for Reform may be primarily down to dissatisfaction with the main parties and potential voters holding them responsible for the various messes but come a General election they are going to have to offer a lot more substance than they offer now if they think they want to win - they took the "easy" votes last year but will have to work a lot harder to get enough votes to even be the 2nd biggest party, let alone become a Govt.

Yes and mass immigration has coincided with flatlining of GDP per capita, longest period of stagnating living standards since the Napoleonic era, declining access and quality of public services.

Immigration has scored high up on people’s priorities since 2005 and because it hasn’t been addressed meaningfully, it’s an issue that’s gradually become more and more toxic, unfortunately.

 

[SBAndy]

The latest from Reform: public petitions if they feel prison sentences are too harsh or too lenient. Only require 500 signatures. Absolute ‘pants on your head’ stupid.

Also raises the question as to whether that is an efficient use of public resources.

 

[shmmeee]

Yes and mass immigration has coincided with

No it hasn’t. The timelines don’t match up at all. Stagnation mostly started post 2008.

 

[CCFCSteve]

No it hasn’t. The timelines don’t match up at all. Stagnation mostly started post 2008.

Both can be true. The great financial crisis no doubt caused productivity issues/stagflation from 2008 but population growth since 2010 is also up 10%+ which would also negatively impact GDP per capita (especially if it’s the wrong type of population growth)

So you had a squeeze on spending following the financial crisis during a period of rapid population growth, throw in Covid and to different extents Brexit and Ukraine war and it’s no surprise as a country we’re creaking

 

[shmmeee]

Both can be true. The great financial crisis no doubt caused productivity issues/stagflation from 2008 but population growth since 2010 is also up 10%+ which would also negatively impact GDP per capita (especially if it’s the wrong type of population growth)

So you had a squeeze on spending following the financial crisis during a period of rapid population growth, throw in Covid and to different extents Brexit and Ukraine war and it’s no surprise as a country we’re creaking

Almost like austerity during a major recession was a really bad idea.

The rate of change has been pretty constant.



And doesn’t seem to correlate at all with GDP per capita:



I know the new woke is everything must be foreigners fault but I just don’t see the correlation in the data. Post Brexit immigrants are definitely lower skilled, but not sure how you can tease that out from general post Brexit economy shitness.

 

[CCFCSteve]

Almost like austerity during a major recession was a really bad idea.

The rate of change has been pretty constant.

View attachment 43894

And doesn’t seem to correlate at all with GDP per capita:

View attachment 43895

I know the new woke is everything must be foreigners fault but I just don’t see the correlation in the data. Post Brexit immigrants are definitely lower skilled, but not sure how you can tease that out from general post Brexit economy shitness.

Im not ‘everything’s foreigners fault’, never have been, never will be. But to not recognise that uncontrolled, unplanned population growth doesn’t cause major issues is also wrong in my book

edit - in terms of the data it’s impossible to tell what impact individuals elements have had. Whats the 0.8% annual change figure ?