General British politics discussion thread

Tell me how

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

The more conservative when you get older is primarily because you become more protective of what you have when older so are less willing to potentially risk it all by voting for people or groups who might talk about notions like redistributing wealth etc. Simple things like becoming a home owner is enough to make some one a bit more conservative.


Problem facing conservatives at the moment is people are getting less to be protective about as they get older because of how f*cked things are these days that simple things like being a home owner is a distant thought for people even at the age of 40.

So the rate of people becoming conservative as they get older is dropping.

Same sense of protectiveness over other social/culture aspects tend to apply in the same logic which has not reduced as rapidly which is why I think a lot of right wing groups have leaned much more on the culture war these days.

That's part of it.
But there's also an element I think of getting worn down, a bit disillusioned and not having the energy to protest and kick up a fuss in a positive manner that you had when you were 21 and also not having the belief that things will change.

We've probably all met young college graduates or aspiring entrepreneurs who think they have an idea, it's a no brainer and they're going to change the world. This is particularly the case with college graduates who have learned how to do things and the correct procedure and then they get their first job and try to tell those there about the 'right way' to do something and the old hands laugh and say sure, if you want it to take 3 times as long.

A good portion of the anger aimed at Greta was because of her age with people frustrated at this upstart saying how things should be done with no experience of how the world really works. Unfortunately, many of those who stood beside her at protests could become less encouraging of change in later years after they've lived a couple of decades of being knocked back and when they then hear teenagers telling them they must change at least some will be like; 'This is our time'.
And so the cycle continues.

bewareofthedog

Real balanced opinions in this thread, I give Leroy some credit. Personally I believe people end up more conservative because they have more experience of how the world works.

listermint

bewareofthedog wrote: »

Real balanced opinions in this thread, I give Leroy some credit. Personally I believe people end up more conservative because they have more experience of how the world works.

There is no conservative party in the UK.

There is however a Tory party who are operating mistakenly under that banner.

breezy1985

pixelburp wrote: »

That's true re. the Olympics though honestly? I had genuinely forgotten about them. Maybe due to Brexit trumping the zeitgeist; but probably as well because aside from that brief bump in optimism, the Games have increasingly been seen as a drain on national resources, a pox on urban development at the expense of local amenities. Once the pageantry disappears, cities are left with colossal facilities going to waste. I believe London was no different, but open to correction.

Besides, not like London isn't seen as a different planet to the rest of England, whereas "Cool Britannia" seemed more of a sustained, top-to-bottom sense of cultural impact; of a Britain ascendant in a collaborative, artistic & expressive sense with many of its key characters like the Gallaghers from outside London. While the flag remained an antagonistic symbol to many across the globe, the nature of the movement more well-meaning and good-intentioned than naked jingoism. Nationalism that now appears to have taken over the outward mood of the country.

I think the London Olympics were one of the few where they country could actually afford it and the transport upgrades and infrastructure were put to good use after. No crazy white elephants like Greece or social problems like Brazil.

As for the second part you are right and I later learned just how different London and the rest are. A way bigger gap to what we might have with Dublin

L1011

London didn't manage the games legacy well if you exclude comparison to how much worse everywhere else did it! Expensive rework of the stadium removing it from most non football uses, chaotic management of the redevelopment of the Olympic Park and so on

The LA decision was based on them needing very little new infrastructure and I expect that to become more normal going forward, or a nation rather than a city hosting to allow less concentration of development

Strazdas

Not a 'politics' story as such, but Johnson now has a big problem on his hands with Covid-19 and the Delta variant. 9000 new cases today.....that's quickly heading up to where the UK was in March-April 2020.

LuckyLloyd

Cummings releasing some interesting screenshots of text messages with Johnson.

Seriously wondering what Cummings has on Johnson et al. Used up a ridiculous amount of capital on the Barnard Castle scandal last year and now he’s gone completely off the reservation without serious challenge.

Strazdas

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Cummings releasing some interesting screenshots of text messages with Johnson.

Seriously wondering what Cummings has on Johnson et al. Used up a ridiculous amount of capital on the Barnard Castle scandal last year and now he’s gone completely off the reservation without serious challenge.

The Daily Mail has the full 7000 word article by Cummings. Whatever you think of him, it's a fascinating read : portrays Hancock as a pathological liar who frequently lied through his teeth to his own cabinet colleagues, never mind the media, and Johnson being not much better.

Joe_ Public

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Cummings releasing some interesting screenshots of text messages with Johnson.

Seriously wondering what Cummings has on Johnson et al. Used up a ridiculous amount of capital on the Barnard Castle scandal last year and now he’s gone completely off the reservation without serious challenge.

It's kind of interesting but really only on a theatrical level now. It changes nothing, if Johnson didn't take action against hancock when he was ballsing things up last year, he's certainly not going to do so now on the back of Cummings' interventions. Isn't Cummings implementing some kind of paid subscription service sometime soon, so i could see this sort of drip feed of titillating exchanges being used to drive it. I imagine he has reams and reams of such material, but a smoking gun or anything close? Seriously doubt it at this stage.

breezy1985

Strazdas wrote: »

The Daily Mail has the full 7000 word article by Cummings. Whatever you think of him, it's a fascinating read : portrays Hancock as a pathological liar who frequently lied through his teeth to his own cabinet colleagues, never mind the media, and Johnson being not much better.

Could describe any of the three of them

Tell me how

breezy1985 wrote: »

Could describe any of the three of them

And Priti Patel and Dominic Rabb aren't a whole lot better.

dogbert27

Tell me how wrote: »

And Priti Patel and Dominic Rabb aren't a whole lot better.

And Gove

weemcd

dogbert27 wrote: »

And Gove

He may be the worst of the lot but it's very difficult to tell.

Gerry T

dogbert27 wrote:

And Gove

David frost, David "easiest trade deal in human history" Davis, liz truss, dominic 'wheres Dover' raab.
I could go on !

20silkcut

Strazdas wrote: »

Something that also gets overlooked is the age gap factor. Most of the bigots, racists, intolerant cretins, uneducated idiots etc seem to be much older or OAPs. It's anyone's guess how this age cohort in England became so radicalised and hate filled.

The big hope for the future is the younger generation. They seem far more liberal and tolerant : many of them have black and Muslim friends and are at ease with themselves. Very noticeable that the Johnson and Farage disciples mostly seem to be ageing cranks.

That age cohort were the football hooligans of the 70’s and 80’s. Not necessarily suggesting you could garner anything from that but there is no doubt that generation of football hooligans were an absolute disgrace to the reputation of the country.
Maybe they are not representative of that generation but they were definitely of their time and that time and of that generation and were drawn from a wide strata of society. And they were dreaded all over the world when ever the European championships or World Cup came around. Remember the ranks of west German police massed on the sidelines when they played us in 1988.
You can be sure the vast majority of those hooligans voted leave in 2016.

Joe_ Public

The list of tory fibbers is indeed an august and lengthy one, but i would argue Hancock uniquely holds the trophy for most shameless u turn when he went from the position that proroguing parliament would be "the end of the conservative party as a serious party of government" and an affront to "everything those who waded onto the beaches fought and died for" to being an enthusiastic supporter not 3 months later. I'm sure there is a distinguished field of challengers, but you would really have to go some to beat that.

L1011

So there was a by election yesterday in a safe Tory, albeit Remain seat. Got fairly little coverage, should have been a routine win for the Tories what with the "vaccine bonus" PR and so on

Landslide Lib Dem win

16k Tory majority evaporated to an 8k Lib Dem one

listermint

Cheshire and Almersham.


Really brings into question the yougov polls that are used as a windvane. Owned and funded by Tories....

Peregrinus

L1011 wrote: »

So there was a by election yesterday in a safe Tory, albeit Remain seat. Got fairly little coverage, should have been a routine win for the Tories what with the "vaccine bonus" PR and so on

Landslide Lib Dem win

16k Tory majority evaporated to an 8k Lib Dem one

Chesham and Amersham. It was remain constituency in the 2016 referendum, but not massively so - 55% to 45%. And, since the referendum, the Tories held it very comfortably in 2017 (majority of 20,000) and 2019 (majority of 15,000). The Tory vote has exceeded the vote of all other parties combined at every election since the seat was created, and until today they've never had a majority of less than 10,000; it would normally be regarded as a rock-solid Tory safe seat. So this is pretty seismic. OK, it's a bye-election, and weird things happen at bye-elections, but, still.

Obviously there's tactical voting going on here - the Lib Dems gained one vote from Labour for every two votes they gained from the Tories, but the scale of the victory is such that, even if the Lib Dems hadn't gained any votes at all from Labour, they would still have beaten the Tories. This loss is due to large-scale Tory disaffection.

cml387

The by-election loss is more a "return to situation normal" really and I doubt it will cause that many sleepless nights in Tory HQ.
I've seen enough Liberal/ Lib Dem victories in the past being hailed as "historic"
when they turn out to be no such thing.

listermint

cml387 wrote: »

The by-election loss is more a "return to situation normal" really and I doubt it will cause that many sleepless nights in Tory HQ.
I've seen enough Liberal/ Lib Dem victories in the past being hailed as "historic"
when they turn out to be no such thing.

I think the return to normal is disingenuous tbh, the statistics don't back up your claim.

Peregrinus

cml387 wrote: »

The by-election loss is more a "return to situation normal" really and I doubt it will cause that many sleepless nights in Tory HQ.
I've seen enough Liberal/ Lib Dem victories in the past being hailed as "historic"
when they turn out to be no such thing.

How in God's name is this result "situation normal"? The Tories have never lost that seat since its creation. Not only that, but their vote has always exceeded the votes of every other candidate combined, and they have never had a majority of less than 10,000. And now the Lib Dems have taken it with a majority of 8,000.

Anybody who tells you that this is "situation normal" is telling you bare-faced lies, and you should not be so gullible as to believe him, or so lacking in self-respect as to pretend to.

cml387

Peregrinus wrote: »

How in God's name is this result "situation normal"? The Tories have never lost that seat since its creation. Not only that, but their vote has always exceeded the votes of every other candidate combined, and they have never had a majority of less than 10,000. And now the Lib Dems have taken it with a majority of 8,000.

Anybody who tells you that this is "situation normal" is telling you bare-faced lies, and you should not be so gullible as to believe him, or so lacking in self-respect as to pretend to.

Wow. I take the gibe as my lacking self respect as borderline personal abuse.

I say situation normal in that governments tend to lose by elections mid term they subsequently win back. Christchurch in 1993 is just one example.

Leroy42

cml387 wrote: »

The by-election loss is more a "return to situation normal" really and I doubt it will cause that many sleepless nights in Tory HQ.
I've seen enough Liberal/ Lib Dem victories in the past being hailed as "historic"
when they turn out to be no such thing.

I do wonder how the UK media will treat this. The Hartlepool bi-election was reported as a stinging rebuke of Starmer, that Johnson was laying waste to all his political opponents etc etc.

Will this signall days of coverage comtemplating the cracking of the blue wall, that Johnson needs to seriously up his game and reevaluate his leadership.

We all know the answer. This will simply be ignored, 'return to normal' narrative out out. Already the line that it was a remain constituency (though apparently that didnt seem to matter in either 2017 or 2019!) and as such remoaners are just having a winge.

Does it signal a change? I wouldn't bet on it, but what it should signal is that by being tactical with each other there are plenty of votes out there for an alternative to the Tories.

What should worry the Tories, is there is little to feel confident about in the next few years that would swing seats like this back in their favour. Brexit will continue as the mess that it is, the bounce of the vaccine will be ling forgotten and people will still be awaiting a review of the policies.

Taxes are likely to be increased to deal with the Covid costs.

Peregrinus

cml387 wrote: »

Wow. I take the gibe as my lacking self respect as borderline personal abuse.

I say situation normal in that governments tend to lose by elections mid term they subsequently win back. Christchurch in 1993 is just one example.

Oh, yeah; that's common. But it's usually governments on the nose that suffer spectacular mid-term election losses. They may win back that seat at the ensuing election, but they lose many others. The Tories won back Christchurch at the ensuing general election, but they lost that general election, so the particular example you've chosen does not suggest that they shouldn't or won't be worried.

The shifts the Tories have made in their policies, positions and values to pick up votes in traditional Labour seats, and so take the "Red Wall" also tend to lose them votes in traditional Tory seats of the kind they hold in (non-London) South of England - which is still their heartland, without which they cannot win elections. The calculation up to now has been that their domination in the shires has been so great that they can afford to lose votes there, so overall the strategy will still pay off. But this bye-election defeat will be much worse than they had feared, suggesting that the erosion of their support in the shires may be greater than they have been banking on up to now.

The surprise here is not that the Tories lost. The Tories thought that they were going to win but accepted the possibility that they might lose. The surprise is that the loss is not due to tactical voting - Labour supporters voting Lib Dem as the party most likely to win - but is entirely accounted for by Tory voters deserting the Tory party. Tactical votes from Labour and the Greens are just icing on the cake for the Liberals; they won this by winning Tory votes. That was not expected.

PommieBast

L1011 wrote: »

So there was a by election yesterday in a safe Tory, albeit Remain seat. Got fairly little coverage, should have been a routine win for the Tories what with the "vaccine bonus" PR and so on

My brother lives in that constituency. From what I can gather London-influenced southern Remainer seats like this one are expected to lose out badly to the northern Leaver focused levelling-up agenda of the government. On top of this even some blue-blooded Conservatives living there have decided that they are not going to swallow all the BS Johnson and co have been shovelling out since the general election. Opposition to HS2 probably made a lot of Conservatives stay at home as well.

Joe_ Public

Can we start talking about the tories losing touch with their professional, middle class suoporters, taking their white collar base for granted? Too soon to tell, obviously. A lot easier for disaffected blue voters in those constituencies to switch to lib dems, of course, which augurs well for them, though unwise to get carried away on the basis of tactical voting having any big effect, not really borne out here at all i don't think.

Also, some council elections last night. Norwich result particularly illuminating and more bad reading for Labour with another vital by election coming up.

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1405671897334009866?s=20

cml387

Peregrinus wrote: »

Oh, yeah; that's common. But it's usually governments on the nose that suffer spectacular mid-term election losses. They may win back that seat at the ensuing election, but they lose many others. The Tories won back Christchurch at the ensuing general election, but they lost the General election.

The shifts the Tories have made in their policies, positions and values to pick up votes in traditional Labour seats, and so take the "Red Wall" also tend to lose them votes in traditional Tory seats of the kind they hold in (non-London) South of England - which is still their heartland, without which they cannot win elections. The calculation up to now has been that their domination in the shires has been so great that they can afford to lose votes there, so overall the strategy will still pay off. But this bye-election defeat will be much worse than they had feared, suggesting that the erosion of their support in the shires may be greater than they have been banking on up to now.

The surprise here is not that the Tories lost. The Tories thought that they were going to win but accepted the possibility that they might lose. The surprise is that the loss is not due to tactical voting - Labour supporters voting Lib Dem as the party most likely to win - but is entirely accounted for by Tory voters deserting the Tory party. Tactical votes from Labour and the Greens are just icing on the cake for the Liberals; they won this by winning Tory votes. That was not expected.

The history of the Conservative party, and its success over the centuries, has been its ability to redefine itself.
Way way back, it claimed to stand up for the individual against the elites (represented by the Liberals) and an ideal of a rural England, honey for tea and cricket on the village green. Quite anti business actually.

It's no surprise that it's returning to its roots.

Peregrinus

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Can we start talking about the tories losing touch with their professional, middle class suoporters, taking their white collar base for granted? Too soon to tell, obviously. A lot easier for disaffected blue voters in those constituencies to switch to lib dems, of course, which augurs well for them, though unwise to get carried away on the basis of tactical voting having any big effect, not really borne out here at all i don't think.

I have to disagree. This isn't a case of tactical voting. Tactical voting is where opponents of the incumbent party for the opposition party most likely to defeat the incumbents, even if it's not the party they prefer. So, Labour supporters voting Lib Dem, or vice versa, in order to oust the Tories.

But what we have here is Tory voters voting Lib Dem in order to oust the Tories. That's not tactical voting; that's (previous) Tory voters turning against the party.

There was also tactical voting going in - Labour's vote slumped to nearly nothing. That could be previous Labour supporters disillusioned by Labour under Starmer, or it could be current Labour supporters voting Lib Dem to defeat the Tories, or (probably) a bit of both. But, whatever the scale of tactical voting, it didn't affect the outcome. On the figures, even if no Labour supporters had switched to Lib Dem, the Lib Dems would have won this purely on the backs of former Tories switching to Lib Dem.

This result is not an example of tactical voting; it's an example of Tory disaffection.

Peregrinus

cml387 wrote: »

The history of the Conservative party, and its success over the centuries, has been its ability to redefine itself.
Way way back, it claimed to stand up for the individual against the elites (represented by the Liberals) and an ideal of a rural England, honey for tea and cricket on the village green. Quite anti business actually.

It's no surprise that it's returning to its roots.

Except Chesham and Amersham is hardcore honey-still-for-tea country! And yet they have lost it pretty comprehensively.

And it's definitely wrong to see the class rural, honey and cricket Tories as anti-business. Historically, the elites represented by the Whigs/Liberals were the established landowning elites, not the up-and-coming commercial/industrial classes.

Basically, the Whigs originated as the political party that supported the turfing out of the Stuart monarchs and the installation of the Hanoverians, and the idea of a monarchy with limited powers. The more the power of the monarch was constrained, of course, then the more power/freedom/influence other groups in society had, in particular wealthy landowners and local dignitaries, so these tended to be the most enthusiastic Whigs. The small guy didn't like being subject to local tyrants defending their own privilege, so favoured a strong national government that could rein in the local bigwigs. And in those days a strong national government meant a strong monarchy. And a strong monarchy was supported by ideas like the divine right of kings, rather than kings ruling only if they were acceptable to powerful nobles. So, in opposition to the Whigs you have the Tories, who tended to support the Stuart cause or, failing that, to support the monarchy in any tussle with nobles and landowners.

So, basically, Tories supported the monarchy and believed in controlling the powers of nobles and landowners. Whigs supported the interets of nobles and landowners (which they naturally equated with the interests of the nation at large) and favoured a limited monarchy. Neither party was particularly interested in business, as such, but businessmen tended to be Tories, and therefore the Tories to favour business, simply because the business/industrial classes were not the noble/landowning classes, and didn't spring from those classes.