The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
1. Housing, with communities. Lots. Turn on the taps, public (with RTB), social, private - attack all the bottlenecks one by one be that planning (tweak what you get), finance etc. Building is the most progressive route to intergenerational fairness. 2. Essential infrastructure, the same. That build and fund some horses public with one eye on future privatisation where appropriate, parallels RTB. 3. The road to Universal Basic Income. Lower tax allowances and link tax rates to accessing the UBI. Low cost elements first, roll out to pensioners, students as rework of pensions, student loans, but the whole proposal should be small net cost to government. 4. Services and systems for people: little money to make the state more generous, but front facing public sector workers to all be registered to a professional body and with a professional obligation to fairness, to avoid the perverse incentive, from the doctors receptionist answering the phone to the Home Office 5. Get tax, borrowing, wealth creation and the scope of the state into proper long term balance, treat it all as one.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
@CorrectHorseBattery - curious about your assertion that Keir turning around midterm polls before other polls is somehow unprecedented.
Jeremy Corbyn overturned a 22% lead at his trough, registering a 2% lead a few weeks later (and years later a 10% lead).
Boris Johnson took over where the Tories had recently polled 10% behind Corbyn's Labour and soon turned that into 15% leads.
David Cameron went from 13% behind Brown's Labour to 13% in front in a couple of weeks.
David Cameron also went from 15% behind Miliband's Labour, to winning a majority on an increased share and lead in the vote.
Oh and relatedly Miliband turned around from Cameron's Tories being 14% ahead of Labour, to 15% behind them.
And Brown turned an 11% deficit into a 13% lead.
25-30% net turnarounds in the polling has been the default in recent years.
So by my reckoning in recent years Boris, Corbyn, Miliband, Cameron and Brown have all turned around similarly significant poll leads. The only leader I can think of who hasn't is Theresa May, and that's only because she started with the lead and squandered it, every single other leader including even Corbyn has done what Keir has "done".
Even May managed to turn an 8 point deficit into consistent leads prior to the deal meltdown during 2017 to 2018. 8 point deficit to Jeremy fucking Corbyn
Labour leads will inevitably be inflated during the Tory leadership contest as the remaining Boris supporters shift to "don't know" until the new leader is chosen.
If you are lucky BJO! But your current crop of Tory runners and riders aren't working class heroes like Boris, they are all silver-spooners like Starmer. Which way to turn eh?
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
I agree 100% with your post. I hope Labour manage to find that compelling vision. I'm not sure they will. Hope I'm wrong.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
To be fair many voted Brexit to stop immigration....they are certainly not free trade ideologues like rees mogg. It was the rise of UKIP due to mass immigration if you remeber that led to Cameron calling the referendum in the first place
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
If any of us or any of them had lied so continually and behaved so badly, where would it have got us?
You are mistaking me for someone who will defend Boris.
I’m trying to point out that from the frame of reference of those red-wallers, it kind of makes sense. As @turbotubbs put it, “They all lie; but he’s our liar”.
Which is what many of the MAGA lot think and say.
What of it?
Its what almost everyone thinks.
Remember when David Cameron outright lied about how he'd stay and invoke Article 50 if we voted Leave and he immediately resigned instead? There were numerous defences here at the time of "well of course he lied, if he told the truth that would have been bad for the campaign".
Not only were people prepared to defend lies, they were prepared to defend politicians lying deliberately in order to swing votes.
If I ask you about something in the past (e.g., did you know about Chris Pincher allegations), then your answer will be true or false at the time you say it. If I ask you about something in the future (e.g., what will you do if Leave wins the referendum), you can make a prediction or even a promise, but there isn't yet a truth. When the event passes and you do something different, that doesn't necessarily mean you were lying: you may have been (when you said you'd do X, you never intended to), but you may merely have been mistaken (you thought you'd do X, but when it came to it, you couldn't).
So, Johnson outright lied. I think it's harder to determine whether Cameron lied or not.
Also, if Cameron did lie... well, he also resigned. He didn't lie and stay in office, like Johnson!
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
1. Housing, with communities. Lots. Turn on the taps, public (with RTB), social, private - attack all the bottlenecks one by one be that planning (tweak what you get), finance etc. Building is the most progressive route to intergenerational fairness. 2. Essential infrastructure, the same. That build and fund some horses public with one eye on future privatisation where appropriate, parallels RTB. 3. The road to Universal Basic Income. Lower tax allowances and link tax rates to accessing the UBI. Low cost elements first, roll out to pensioners, students as rework of pensions, student loans, but the whole proposal should be small net cost to government. 4. Services and systems for people: little money to make the state more generous, but front facing public sector workers to all be registered to a professional body and with a professional obligation to fairness, to avoid the perverse incentive, from the doctors receptionist answering the phone to the Home Office 5. Get tax, borrowing, wealth creation and the scope of the state into proper long term balance, treat it all as one.
6. Reform Council tax into something based on house prices / wealth....
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
It’s possible that Boris going will unlock creative thinking on left and right about the future of the country.
He’s been a massive psychic drain on the country.
I can't say when I thought about what was blocking creative thinking I was going to point to Boris. I don't think he was that powerful a force, even at his peak.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
What's quite interesting about much of that list, is that quite a lot of it is achievable.
Fun fact - the latest trend in IT jobs is not having code tests or x rounds of interviews. If you have a few years working for X, company Y hires you after a single interview. If you can't do the job, they bin you in the probationary period.
That’s not actually an illogical use of resource - hiring is time consuming and should be more about fit than anything else. It’s a reasonable assumption you can “do the job” if you have several years experience
It’s a sane reaction to the 27 rounds of interview bullshit. Plus the proven fact that code tests don’t test for what you need.
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
Labour's problem appears to be that their whole proposition currently boils down to "the other guys have done it for a long time and they are a total joke, so give us a go". It's not even that they're pledging to do everything wildly differently (which maybe would scare off as many as it attracted), just that they'll do what the Tories do but a bit better.
It's sort of understandable - without in of itself presenting a vision that says "god, I should really vote for them".
Boring competence is probably what we need right now, but it seems like we'll only get the potential for boring competence once the other lot have proved themselves so thoroughly unable to deliver boring competence that they lose and Labour inherit victory by default.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
I know people I went to Grammar School with who grew up on council estates in relative poverty but idolise Johnson. Nothing to see there I suppose, but these people detested the uber posh kids who spoke with marbles in their mouth and lived in big houses on the hill. Johnson transcends class boundaries, I am not sure any of his replacements do.
It warms mine too but now they're government in waiting he'll have to make a few important decisions. The first is to keep Angela Rayner off the media. She was on this morning and she is not only inarticulate but almost incoherent. As deputy leader she makes Labours qualification to govern look suspect. In other words if shes one of the best Labour have to offer God help us.
While Starmer speaks to muesli munchers like your good self, Rayner speaks to the lads in the Working Mens Clubs across the red wall. Having different messages and different voices for different audiences - sounds like the sort of thing that might be done in the advertising industry.
I've been watching a Rayner Rant on the Youtube TV-rewind about Lebedev.
Does she really think that a meeting of a FS 4 years ago with a bloke who left the KGB in 1992, has been significantly allied with Mikhail Gorbachov, has been a long-term prominent critic of Putin, and manipulated out of Russian politics on what look like faked-up ground, is a serious threat to the UK in 2022?
As is commented to the 'Tories are a subsidiary of Putin's Government lot', it doesn't seem to have worked very well.
Not very credible.
My (not very charitable, I admit) impression is that Rayner has dug her political cess pit deep enough that all she can do now is fling muck at the walls.
There'd be more mileage in going to Lebedev as an oligarch with a dodgy business background, which might have a smidge of credibility.
Unless she has some evidence beyond ranting, of which there is currently no sign.
BTW in 2010 it was reported that the no of Working Men's Clubs had approx halved from around 4000 in the 1970s to 2200. It is now 1600. That is not the future.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
Exactly. KevB pointed this out, everyone mocked him and whether he is a computer bank in Moscow or some bloke in his undies posting from his mother's basement it is a very good point.
It’s uncomfortable for me. I hate Boris, and am glad to see him go. I think it is right that he goes, chiefly for repeated lying to his colleagues, the House, and the country.
But those redwallers know he’s a liar. And they don’t care; from their perspective it’s part of the game. What’s important to them is that he was on their side, somehow. And now he’s gone, taken down by the same old forces the redwallers were voting against.
Perhaps the argument is that they know he is a liar, but think ALL politicians are liars, and that Johnson was their liar?
There is that, or maybe they follow the to make an omelette you must break a few eggs line.
And also. He was the first PM to actually point out that this is one of the most regionally unequal nations in the Western world. With dire levels of social mobility. And acknowledge this was a bad thing. And repeatedly promise to do something about it. (The fact he hadn't a clue what that was isn't really relevant. He spoke about it).
I watched the key Boris speech on this, and he understood the key issues very well, he literally repeated a lot of the academic analysis.
The problem is that he is so incredibly lazy that he couldn’t be bothered doing anything about it. He left it to Gove to fight it out with Sunak/Treasury (and other naysayers like Kwasi) and it essentially collapsed into a hanging-baskets fund.
If you want to level up you essentially needs to dedicate something like 4% of GDP for a generation to address it; although it would be well worth it.
He found a new tranche of voters. It didn't fail because he was too lazy (although he is), but because it was fundamentally at odds with the ideology of the majority of the Conservative Party, who have kittens at anything even scented with re-distribution. They won't get that tranche back anytime soon. They'll get most of those on this site back. The question is which group is bigger?
I don’t think so.
Boris actually had immense power because of his electoral appeal. He managed to turn the Tories into the “fuck business” party with the full support of supposed life-long conservatives.
He also had the loyalty within the party of the redwall MPs.
From a policy and operational perspective, his biggest mistake was probably not making Gove Chancellor and ceding effective control of domestic policy to him.
But primarily it was because he had no aims or goals other than being Prime Minister. For him what happened in the country was no more important than what happened on a board game. He really didn't have any ambitions for the country.
And like the old Chinese saying goes "For those with no destination no wind is favourable.
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
Boris was Brexit was Boris was Brexit, like a ghastly möbius strip trapping the country into paralysis.
Now that Boris is gone, a lot of the poison leaks out of Brexit. It becomes just another problem which needs mitigating; the best thing for everyone is that Brexit becomes technocratic and boring rather than an unshakeable totem of a cultural war that nobody actually wants.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
I don't care whether you like it or not. And I'm not dismissing these people. They've been badly served for decades. It's nothing to do with 'southern woke liberals' and diversity.
It's 90-odd % white British round here. 98% in the 2011 census and it won't have changed massively in the last decade. Diversity is in the cities. Where the woke liberals live.
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis NEWS: I feel sick writing this! I've just got the latest price cap predictions from @CornwallInsight . A huge spike in the key year-ahead wholesale price means
OCT cap prediction UP 64% (so £3,244/yr on typical bills) JAN cap prediction UP 4% (so £3,363/yr)
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
I don't care whether you like it or not. And I'm not dismissing these people. They've been badly served for decades. It's nothing to do with 'southern woke liberals' and diversity.
It's 90-odd % white British round here. 98% in the 2011 census and it won't have changed massively in the last decade. Diversity is in the cities. Where the woke liberals live.
KevinB / Nadine / Ivan should stop applying US talking points to the UK.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Where did he dismiss them? He said that Johnson is playing them. He has taken their valid concerns about their lives and has used that to gain their support with false promises and false reasoning. He cares not one brass farthing about them or their concerns. All he wants is their votes and if he can do that by lying to them then so what? That at least is his reasoning.
I wrote a thread for PB a couple of years ago about US voters - specifically the 'Middle Class' - and the fact that Trump had played them and played on their legitimate concerns (which to be honest are far worse than most in this country given the lack of any safety net) to get into power. Trump and Johnson both used the same play book. Identify who is hurting, drag up a load of stuff - some valid and some not - about why they are hurting and who they can blame and then promise to make it all better. Whilst at the same time having no intention of doing so and no idea how to do so.
I understand why people fall for it. They are desperate and they work on the basis that the bloke making the promises can't do any worse than the rest of he political class who have failed to help them over the decades. And they are probably right. It probably won't make it any worse. But it sure as hell won't make it any better either. And both Trump and Johnson knew that.
Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis NEWS: I feel sick writing this! I've just got the latest price cap predictions from @CornwallInsight . A huge spike in the key year-ahead wholesale price means
OCT cap prediction UP 64% (so £3,244/yr on typical bills) JAN cap prediction UP 4% (so £3,363/yr)
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
Starmer will peak over the summer. The new Tory leader, whoever they are, will get a honeymoon. It will start to unwind, because the economic and political fundamentals are horrific. The Tory choice will dictate the speed of that unwind. Pick the wrong person and it will be fast. Best case six months. Either way Starmer will start to rise again.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
The problem for both parties comes when the answers to those questions conflict with their ideological comfort zone.
For the Tories, when people just want public services and utilities that work, and don't care about pseudo-competition.
For Labour, when people want the authorities to focus on violent crime, not thought crime, and when they resent people milking the system.
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
The problem for both parties comes when the answers to those questions conflict with their ideological comfort zone.
For the Tories, when people just want public services and utilities that work, and don't care about pseudo-competition.
For Labour, when people want the authorities to focus on violent crime, not thought crime, and when they resent people milking the system.
Both parties have been captured by neo-liberalism and it’s bosom body, identity politics.
But it wasn’t always like that, and it doesn’t have to be like that forever.
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
It warms mine too but now they're government in waiting he'll have to make a few important decisions. The first is to keep Angela Rayner off the media. She was on this morning and she is not only inarticulate but almost incoherent. As deputy leader she makes Labours qualification to govern look suspect. In other words if shes one of the best Labour have to offer God help us.
While Starmer speaks to muesli munchers like your good self, Rayner speaks to the lads in the Working Mens Clubs across the red wall. Having different messages and different voices for different audiences - sounds like the sort of thing that might be done in the advertising industry.
I take your criticism but I'm really not exaggerating. It's nothing to do with accent or snobbery.
Here you go. Starts at 1.38. I'd be interested in your opinion because in many ways I like her
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
He actually can do solemn and serious, he just doesn't do it very often. Best not risk it.
Starmer will peak over the summer. The new Tory leader, whoever they are, will get a honeymoon. It will start to unwind, because the economic and political fundamentals are horrific. The Tory choice will dictate the speed of that unwind. Pick the wrong person and it will be fast. Best case six months. Either way Starmer will start to rise again.
Indeed, a honeymoon Tory lead of circa 6 to 8 points, but a Brown era missed election opportunity won't work as voters are already hurting and that gap will close fast.
Liberal Democrats GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2022.
Interesting one. Labour gained unexpectedly in May and the guy had just accepted a job offer so he stood down immediately. Labour punished for wasting everyones time but LD the beneficiaries given the unelectability of a mid nervous breakdown tory party. Tories put out 'hes gone please vote for us' leaflets on the day NHP is national housing party whos proclamations on twitter want to end immigration and lists some non white politicians and questions their britishness saying it is 'modern day identity theft'. They got ONE vote, presumably the candidate and party founder. Wanker.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Where did he dismiss them? He said that Johnson is playing them. He has taken their valid concerns about their lives and has used that to gain their support with false promises and false reasoning. He cares not one brass farthing about them or their concerns. All he wants is their votes and if he can do that by lying to them then so what? That at least is his reasoning.
I wrote a thread for PB a couple of years ago about US voters - specifically the 'Middle Class' - and the fact that Trump had played them and played on their legitimate concerns (which to be honest are far worse than most in this country given the lack of any safety net) to get into power. Trump and Johnson both used the same play book. Identify who is hurting, drag up a load of stuff - some valid and some not - about why they are hurting and who they can blame and then promise to make it all better. Whilst at the same time having no intention of doing so and no idea how to do so.
I understand why people fall for it. They are desperate and they work on the basis that the bloke making the promises can't do any worse than the rest of he political class who have failed to help them over the decades. And they are probably right. It probably won't make it any worse. But it sure as hell won't make it any better either. And both Trump and Johnson knew that.
I think Johnson has nothing but disdain for the people that voted (indirectly) for him. He at best has a patronising view of them: "Good old British working class...salt of the earth types, whato?" I also think he also has nothing but disdain for his apologists on here. He would run a mile than actually try and get to know them.
I’m the grandson of humble immigrants to this country and within two generations we’re toffs.
So much for elitism in this country.
Back in the late 11th Century you basically needed to be an immigrant to be English nobility. Personally I'm happy in France decides to revisit the theme 🇫🇷
FAKE NEWS!
We were not conquered by the French but the Normans.
I’m the grandson of humble immigrants to this country and within two generations we’re toffs.
So much for elitism in this country.
Back in the late 11th Century you basically needed to be an immigrant to be English nobility. Personally I'm happy in France decides to revisit the theme 🇫🇷
FAKE NEWS!
We were not conquered by the French but the Normans.
Telling myself that is the only way I can get through it.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Don't think they hate foreigners but many of these people don't have the financial resources to escape diversity unlike many of the woke middle class who bleat about how they love it but live well away from it
I also don’t think they hate foreigners, at least not chiefly. Rather, they resent them for bringing un-asked for cultural change and (to their minds) over-burdening public services.
I think their chief hate is for the unaccountable elite in London who have taken away the life they think they knew.
You are wrong about the wokest middle class, though. They tend to live in areas of high multi-cultural diversity and actually can’t fathom why others would not want to do so.
yes they do before they have kids...i agree they happily live in areas like hackney...once they have kids however they either move away from the diversity or send their kids to privare schools to escape the diversity
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
He actually can do solemn and serious, he just doesn't do it very often. Best not risk it.
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
Starmer will peak over the summer. The new Tory leader, whoever they are, will get a honeymoon. It will start to unwind, because the economic and political fundamentals are horrific. The Tory choice will dictate the speed of that unwind. Pick the wrong person and it will be fast. Best case six months. Either way Starmer will start to rise again.
Indeed, a honeymoon Tory lead of circa 6 to 8 points, but a Brown era missed election opportunity won't work as voters are already hurting and that gap will close fast.
If they get a lead, cut and run. They either get 5 years to ride out the storm or minority Labour take the hit. No lead then Jan 25 it is
Liberal Democrats GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2022.
Interesting one. Labour gained unexpectedly in May and the guy had just accepted a job offer so he stood down immediately. Labour punished for wasting everyones time but LD the beneficiaries given the unelectability of a mid nervous breakdown tory party. Tories put out 'hes gone please vote for us' leaflets on the day NHP is national housing party whos twitter wanrs to end immigration and lists some non white politicians and questions their britishness saying it is 'modern day identity theft'. They got ONE vote, presumably the candidate and party founder. Wanker.
LibDems had won in the ward in the past, although it’s usually been Tory. LibDems decided not to target the seat in May as wanted to put effort elsewhere. That paid off in so far as the party gained the neighbouring Belsize Park from the Tories, but other target seats didn’t produce any gains. Had the LibDems targeted Hampstead Town, I think they would’ve won, but it’s easy to say that with hindsight, and maybe effort there would have meant a miss in the next door ward.
Camden overall of course remains massively Labour. This result helps cement the LibDems as the main opposition and sets them up well for 4 years time. Of course, in 4 years time, we could have a Labour/LD coalition in Westminster and the Tories resurgent at the local level. Who knows?
Starmer will peak over the summer. The new Tory leader, whoever they are, will get a honeymoon. It will start to unwind, because the economic and political fundamentals are horrific. The Tory choice will dictate the speed of that unwind. Pick the wrong person and it will be fast. Best case six months. Either way Starmer will start to rise again.
Indeed, a honeymoon Tory lead of circa 6 to 8 points, but a Brown era missed election opportunity won't work as voters are already hurting and that gap will close fast.
If they get a lead, cut and run. They either get 5 years to ride out the storm or minority Labour take the hit. No lead then Jan 25 it is
A bit of a risk to take for the new leader to become PM for only 6 weeks. Mrs May's 2017 effort would be a salutary lesson to anyone who tried.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Don't think they hate foreigners but many of these people don't have the financial resources to escape diversity unlike many of the woke middle class who bleat about how they love it but live well away from it
I also don’t think they hate foreigners, at least not chiefly. Rather, they resent them for bringing un-asked for cultural change and (to their minds) over-burdening public services.
I think their chief hate is for the unaccountable elite in London who have taken away the life they think they knew.
You are wrong about the wokest middle class, though. They tend to live in areas of high multi-cultural diversity and actually can’t fathom why others would not want to do so.
yes they do before they have kids...i agree they happily live in areas like hackney...once they have kids however they either move away from the diversity or send their kids to privare schools to escape the diversity
Not from what I’ve seen. Those that move away tend to be seeking space, rather than a monoculture, indeed that is the quote vocal trade-off you often hear,
“We need more space, but god how will we live in St Albans.”
Some very fortunate ones choose to send their children private but I would argue this is because they simply want the best for their children. The schools are actually very good in London so it’s another difficult choice, even for those who can afford it.
I’m the grandson of humble immigrants to this country and within two generations we’re toffs.
So much for elitism in this country.
Back in the late 11th Century you basically needed to be an immigrant to be English nobility. Personally I'm happy in France decides to revisit the theme 🇫🇷
FAKE NEWS!
We were not conquered by the French but the Normans.
I was aiming for the nearest feasible equivalent, ofc. But I'm not fussy about who lays waste to The South. I had high hopes for Boris but even in this he has let us all down.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
But the whole point of Starmer is that he'll take control of people's lives and give it to a nanny state. Like so many liberal lawyers, he is always for more regulation, more restriction, more nanny knows best, more tax and spend. And, unsurprisingly, big government cocks it up. So I don't think that's a convincing pitch.
Especially as he still can't even tell anybody what a woman is. (Or doubtless he can, but doesn't have the political courage to).
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Where did he dismiss them? He said that Johnson is playing them. He has taken their valid concerns about their lives and has used that to gain their support with false promises and false reasoning. He cares not one brass farthing about them or their concerns. All he wants is their votes and if he can do that by lying to them then so what? That at least is his reasoning.
I wrote a thread for PB a couple of years ago about US voters - specifically the 'Middle Class' - and the fact that Trump had played them and played on their legitimate concerns (which to be honest are far worse than most in this country given the lack of any safety net) to get into power. Trump and Johnson both used the same play book. Identify who is hurting, drag up a load of stuff - some valid and some not - about why they are hurting and who they can blame and then promise to make it all better. Whilst at the same time having no intention of doing so and no idea how to do so.
I understand why people fall for it. They are desperate and they work on the basis that the bloke making the promises can't do any worse than the rest of he political class who have failed to help them over the decades. And they are probably right. It probably won't make it any worse. But it sure as hell won't make it any better either. And both Trump and Johnson knew that.
I think Johnson has nothing but disdain for the people that voted (indirectly) for him. He at best has a patronising view of them: "Good old British working class...salt of the earth types, whato?" I also think he also has nothing but disdain for his apologists on here. He would run a mile than actually try and get to know them.
Although he might s**g their wives or daughters, given the chance.
I’m the grandson of humble immigrants to this country and within two generations we’re toffs.
So much for elitism in this country.
Back in the late 11th Century you basically needed to be an immigrant to be English nobility. Personally I'm happy in France decides to revisit the theme 🇫🇷
FAKE NEWS!
We were not conquered by the French but the Normans.
Telling myself that is the only way I can get through it.
I recently explained the Battle of Hastings to an American colleague as English Danes, having just fought off Danish Danes, losing to Normandy Danes.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Don't think they hate foreigners but many of these people don't have the financial resources to escape diversity unlike many of the woke middle class who bleat about how they love it but live well away from it
I also don’t think they hate foreigners, at least not chiefly. Rather, they resent them for bringing un-asked for cultural change and (to their minds) over-burdening public services.
I think their chief hate is for the unaccountable elite in London who have taken away the life they think they knew.
You are wrong about the wokest middle class, though. They tend to live in areas of high multi-cultural diversity and actually can’t fathom why others would not want to do so.
yes they do before they have kids...i agree they happily live in areas like hackney...once they have kids however they either move away from the diversity or send their kids to privare schools to escape the diversity
Although those London state schools - the ones in "ethnic" areas - are now producing some of the best exam results in the whole of the UK. Which is a complete turn around from 2000, when they had some of the worst results in the country.
I’m the grandson of humble immigrants to this country and within two generations we’re toffs.
So much for elitism in this country.
Back in the late 11th Century you basically needed to be an immigrant to be English nobility. Personally I'm happy in France decides to revisit the theme 🇫🇷
FAKE NEWS!
We were not conquered by the French but the Normans.
OTOH The English holdings in France were conquered by the French.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
But the whole point of Starmer is that he'll take control of people's lives and give it to a nanny state. Like so many liberal lawyers, he is always for more regulation, more restriction, more nanny knows best, more tax and spend. And, unsurprisingly, big government cocks it up. So I don't think that's a convincing pitch.
Especially as he still can't even tell anybody what a woman is. (Or doubtless he can, but doesn't have the political courage to).
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
I actually think Boris is the best man for the job. Monarchy is intrinsically ridiculous, so we need a clown to honk his nose and fart on the coffin.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
But the whole point of Starmer is that he'll take control of people's lives and give it to a nanny state. Like so many liberal lawyers, he is always for more regulation, more restriction, more nanny knows best, more tax and spend. And, unsurprisingly, big government cocks it up. So I don't think that's a convincing pitch.
Especially as he still can't even tell anybody what a woman is. (Or doubtless he can, but doesn't have the political courage to).
I thought the whole point of Starmer was to say as little as possible and hope the Conservatives fuck up.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Where did he dismiss them? He said that Johnson is playing them. He has taken their valid concerns about their lives and has used that to gain their support with false promises and false reasoning. He cares not one brass farthing about them or their concerns. All he wants is their votes and if he can do that by lying to them then so what? That at least is his reasoning.
I wrote a thread for PB a couple of years ago about US voters - specifically the 'Middle Class' - and the fact that Trump had played them and played on their legitimate concerns (which to be honest are far worse than most in this country given the lack of any safety net) to get into power. Trump and Johnson both used the same play book. Identify who is hurting, drag up a load of stuff - some valid and some not - about why they are hurting and who they can blame and then promise to make it all better. Whilst at the same time having no intention of doing so and no idea how to do so.
I understand why people fall for it. They are desperate and they work on the basis that the bloke making the promises can't do any worse than the rest of he political class who have failed to help them over the decades. And they are probably right. It probably won't make it any worse. But it sure as hell won't make it any better either. And both Trump and Johnson knew that.
I think Johnson has nothing but disdain for the people that voted (indirectly) for him. He at best has a patronising view of them: "Good old British working class...salt of the earth types, whato?" I also think he also has nothing but disdain for his apologists on here. He would run a mile than actually try and get to know them.
Although he might s**g their wives or daughters, given the chance.
As long as he doesn't have to listen to their accents while he is doing it ("keep the noise down old thing")
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
I actually think Boris is the best man for the job. Monarchy is intrinsically ridiculous, so we need a clown to honk his nose and fart on the coffin.
[snipped] It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Superb post.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
It warms mine too but now they're government in waiting he'll have to make a few important decisions. The first is to keep Angela Rayner off the media. She was on this morning and she is not only inarticulate but almost incoherent. As deputy leader she makes Labours qualification to govern look suspect. In other words if shes one of the best Labour have to offer God help us.
While Starmer speaks to muesli munchers like your good self, Rayner speaks to the lads in the Working Mens Clubs across the red wall. Having different messages and different voices for different audiences - sounds like the sort of thing that might be done in the advertising industry.
I take your criticism but I'm really not exaggerating. It's nothing to do with accent or snobbery.
Here you go. Starts at 1.38. I'd be interested in your opinion because in many ways I like her
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
I actually think Boris is the best man for the job. Monarchy is intrinsically ridiculous, so we need a clown to honk his nose and fart on the coffin.
Starmer will peak over the summer. The new Tory leader, whoever they are, will get a honeymoon. It will start to unwind, because the economic and political fundamentals are horrific. The Tory choice will dictate the speed of that unwind. Pick the wrong person and it will be fast. Best case six months. Either way Starmer will start to rise again.
Indeed, a honeymoon Tory lead of circa 6 to 8 points, but a Brown era missed election opportunity won't work as voters are already hurting and that gap will close fast.
It very much depends who they choose. If it's anyone you've heard of I can't see a lead. All the knowns are discredited by their association with Johnson. Labour's poll lead might even increase.
I’m the grandson of humble immigrants to this country and within two generations we’re toffs.
So much for elitism in this country.
Back in the late 11th Century you basically needed to be an immigrant to be English nobility. Personally I'm happy in France decides to revisit the theme 🇫🇷
FAKE NEWS!
We were not conquered by the French but the Normans.
OTOH The English holdings in France were conquered by the French.
The (Anglo-)Norman holdings in France were conquered by the French.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Where did he dismiss them? He said that Johnson is playing them. He has taken their valid concerns about their lives and has used that to gain their support with false promises and false reasoning. He cares not one brass farthing about them or their concerns. All he wants is their votes and if he can do that by lying to them then so what? That at least is his reasoning.
I wrote a thread for PB a couple of years ago about US voters - specifically the 'Middle Class' - and the fact that Trump had played them and played on their legitimate concerns (which to be honest are far worse than most in this country given the lack of any safety net) to get into power. Trump and Johnson both used the same play book. Identify who is hurting, drag up a load of stuff - some valid and some not - about why they are hurting and who they can blame and then promise to make it all better. Whilst at the same time having no intention of doing so and no idea how to do so.
I understand why people fall for it. They are desperate and they work on the basis that the bloke making the promises can't do any worse than the rest of he political class who have failed to help them over the decades. And they are probably right. It probably won't make it any worse. But it sure as hell won't make it any better either. And both Trump and Johnson knew that.
I think Johnson has nothing but disdain for the people that voted (indirectly) for him. He at best has a patronising view of them: "Good old British working class...salt of the earth types, whato?" I also think he also has nothing but disdain for his apologists on here. He would run a mile than actually try and get to know them.
Although he might s**g their wives or daughters, given the chance.
Actually, Boris seems to go for women who are as posh as he is, with the possible exception of Jennifer Arcuri. I suspect working class women are beneath him (and no, I don't mean literally beneath him).
Starmer will peak over the summer. The new Tory leader, whoever they are, will get a honeymoon. It will start to unwind, because the economic and political fundamentals are horrific. The Tory choice will dictate the speed of that unwind. Pick the wrong person and it will be fast. Best case six months. Either way Starmer will start to rise again.
Indeed, a honeymoon Tory lead of circa 6 to 8 points, but a Brown era missed election opportunity won't work as voters are already hurting and that gap will close fast.
If they get a lead, cut and run. They either get 5 years to ride out the storm or minority Labour take the hit. No lead then Jan 25 it is
A bit of a risk to take for the new leader to become PM for only 6 weeks. Mrs May's 2017 effort would be a salutary lesson to anyone who tried.
Depends on how bad the projections are for 2023 and 2024......
Have been thinking about the best @Dominic2306-style three-word tag line for Labour and Starmer. Perhaps it’ll work for one of the Tory leadership candidates, too.
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
I actually think Boris is the best man for the job. Monarchy is intrinsically ridiculous, so we need a clown to honk his nose and fart on the coffin.
He'll get a seat as an ex-PM.
I want him front and centre. I want him to slip in the mud and fall in the hole and his trousers to fall down.
Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis NEWS: I feel sick writing this! I've just got the latest price cap predictions from @CornwallInsight . A huge spike in the key year-ahead wholesale price means
OCT cap prediction UP 64% (so £3,244/yr on typical bills) JAN cap prediction UP 4% (so £3,363/yr)
thats about £270 a month on average...the govt will be in big trouble on this by september
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
I actually think Boris is the best man for the job. Monarchy is intrinsically ridiculous, so we need a clown to honk his nose and fart on the coffin.
He'll get a seat as an ex-PM.
I want him front and centre. I want him to slip in the mud and fall in the hole and his trousers to fall down.
Hey up, here comes Nadine to help him out of the hole... oh no! In she goes too.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Don't think they hate foreigners but many of these people don't have the financial resources to escape diversity unlike many of the woke middle class who bleat about how they love it but live well away from it
I also don’t think they hate foreigners, at least not chiefly. Rather, they resent them for bringing un-asked for cultural change and (to their minds) over-burdening public services.
I think their chief hate is for the unaccountable elite in London who have taken away the life they think they knew.
You are wrong about the wokest middle class, though. They tend to live in areas of high multi-cultural diversity and actually can’t fathom why others would not want to do so.
yes they do before they have kids...i agree they happily live in areas like hackney...once they have kids however they either move away from the diversity or send their kids to privare schools to escape the diversity
This is pure projection on your part I think. Some people move away for a bigger house, but those who can afford it stay. My sister lives in Hackney, two kids in local state schools. I live in Lewisham, three kids in local state schools. Inner London is a great place to live if you can afford it, the diversity is genuinely a plus not a minus.
So the Tories have gotten rid of BJ, and Labour are keeping SKS?
Does that mean the odds of Con Overall Majority should be shortening?
Johnson hasn't gone yet. I'm backing Cummings' analysis. Johnson is convinced something turns up which allows him to continue as PM.
Neither London Bridge nor WWIII allow him to continue. WWIII probably means Wallace pulls out the race (If he even enters) to focus on defense, and London Bridge might delay his depature by a few days but I'm struggling to see what might 'turn up' to allow Boris to continue.
London Bridge is another good reason to evict this t*** from Downing Street in order that he can't embarrass the nation in its hour of grief.
I actually think Boris is the best man for the job. Monarchy is intrinsically ridiculous, so we need a clown to honk his nose and fart on the coffin.
He'll get a seat as an ex-PM.
That is fine, but does one want him reading a eulogy which harps on about how hard done by he has been rather than celebrating Brenda's 70 majestic years?
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Don't think they hate foreigners but many of these people don't have the financial resources to escape diversity unlike many of the woke middle class who bleat about how they love it but live well away from it
I also don’t think they hate foreigners, at least not chiefly. Rather, they resent them for bringing un-asked for cultural change and (to their minds) over-burdening public services.
I think their chief hate is for the unaccountable elite in London who have taken away the life they think they knew.
You are wrong about the wokest middle class, though. They tend to live in areas of high multi-cultural diversity and actually can’t fathom why others would not want to do so.
yes they do before they have kids...i agree they happily live in areas like hackney...once they have kids however they either move away from the diversity or send their kids to privare schools to escape the diversity
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Do you honestly believe that "Northern Monkey" is a Southerner?
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Do you honestly believe that "Northern Monkey" is a Southerner?
I would assume he is a Northerner but isn't a monkey.
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
You say "bonkers" as if they're suffering from some sort of false consciousness. But maybe it isn't false consciousness at all and they genuinely support him and his policies and are entirely rational and logical to do so. The fact he went to Eton is irrelevant to any of that.
Yeah, cos Johnson gives a damn about them and what they want. And his policies would deliver them their wishes. Right.
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
Listen i dont like your dismissal of some of these people...they are human beings like we all are and frankly the hypocrisy of southern woke liberals praising diversity but then doing their utmost to move away from it is much more risible
Where did he dismiss them? He said that Johnson is playing them. He has taken their valid concerns about their lives and has used that to gain their support with false promises and false reasoning. He cares not one brass farthing about them or their concerns. All he wants is their votes and if he can do that by lying to them then so what? That at least is his reasoning.
I wrote a thread for PB a couple of years ago about US voters - specifically the 'Middle Class' - and the fact that Trump had played them and played on their legitimate concerns (which to be honest are far worse than most in this country given the lack of any safety net) to get into power. Trump and Johnson both used the same play book. Identify who is hurting, drag up a load of stuff - some valid and some not - about why they are hurting and who they can blame and then promise to make it all better. Whilst at the same time having no intention of doing so and no idea how to do so.
I understand why people fall for it. They are desperate and they work on the basis that the bloke making the promises can't do any worse than the rest of he political class who have failed to help them over the decades. And they are probably right. It probably won't make it any worse. But it sure as hell won't make it any better either. And both Trump and Johnson knew that.
I think Johnson has nothing but disdain for the people that voted (indirectly) for him. He at best has a patronising view of them: "Good old British working class...salt of the earth types, whato?" I also think he also has nothing but disdain for his apologists on here. He would run a mile than actually try and get to know them.
Although he might s**g their wives or daughters, given the chance.
Actually, Boris seems to go for women who are as posh as he is, with the possible exception of Jennifer Arcuri. I suspect working class women are beneath him (and no, I don't mean literally beneath him).
Don't forget a ginger growler puts him off his stride. Ooh Mrs!
The video of disappointed Boris voters in the red wall posted on the last thread by MickG or whatever his name is, was very very interesting.
The media / Tories / establishment have removed “their Boris”, who they voted for “knowing full well he made mistakes, like all of us”.
They do have a point.
I know tons of people like that. Older, poorly educated, always done hard physical, boring work. (I once had a friend from Oz visit me as art of a jaunt round the UK, and he had to sit and wait for me in Pontefract town centre for a bit while I got back from somewhere. When I get there he said 'God, everyone looks like a physical wreck. They've had hard lives, you can tell.')
If they haven't stopped, they smoke baccy now, or vape, cos packets of 20 cigs are too expensive. Spent their lives reading the sun and mail at chipped formica tables in scabby work canteens. Do the lottery every single week, probably as part of a syndicate. They'll be gutted. Nice people generally, backbone of this country in many ways.
I'm not sneering at these people. I've been there and done it myself, before finally getting my shit together and going to uni when I was 27. I still drink with them. They're funny, smart, self-deprecating, fatalistic, stoic, they don't suffer fools.
It is bonkers how they identify so strongly with Johnson. My take on it is that he embodies this idea of England as they remember it from their childhood, that he promises to resurrect, that Brexit will bring back. A place where everything worked. Everyone had a job. You could get a doctor's appointment by ringing up the surgery at ten past 8, and after three rings you would be speaking to a receptionist - a human! - and get your appointment for half 11 that morning. Households could live comfortably off one wage. There were park keepers. And dog wardens. And industry. Police would turn up when your shed got broken into, no such thing as a crime number. You could get a job by showing up somewhere and asking for one, didn't have to fill out a form or have an interview. They can't understand why the world doesn't work like that anymore. And can't see why it shouldn't again.
Driven by nostalgia.
And instead of having to think about all the complicated, interconnected reasons why that world has gone, the political decisions taken, the tax cuts, the underfunding, 'trickle down', they prefer to blame foreigners. Cos it's easier. And that's what's been shovelled into their brains for decades.
Shame really. They won't change their minds now.
Don't think they hate foreigners but many of these people don't have the financial resources to escape diversity unlike many of the woke middle class who bleat about how they love it but live well away from it
I also don’t think they hate foreigners, at least not chiefly. Rather, they resent them for bringing un-asked for cultural change and (to their minds) over-burdening public services.
I think their chief hate is for the unaccountable elite in London who have taken away the life they think they knew.
You are wrong about the wokest middle class, though. They tend to live in areas of high multi-cultural diversity and actually can’t fathom why others would not want to do so.
yes they do before they have kids...i agree they happily live in areas like hackney...once they have kids however they either move away from the diversity or send their kids to privare schools to escape the diversity
I find it surprising to hear an anti-diversity tirade from someone who is clearly the offspring of a flatulent goat and a glazed ham.
Comments
They're like poor Americans voting for Trump.
1. Housing, with communities. Lots. Turn on the taps, public (with RTB), social, private - attack all the bottlenecks one by one be that planning (tweak what you get), finance etc. Building is the most progressive route to intergenerational fairness.
2. Essential infrastructure, the same. That build and fund some horses public with one eye on future privatisation where appropriate, parallels RTB.
3. The road to Universal Basic Income. Lower tax allowances and link tax rates to accessing the UBI. Low cost elements first, roll out to pensioners, students as rework of pensions, student loans, but the whole proposal should be small net cost to government.
4. Services and systems for people: little money to make the state more generous, but front facing public sector workers to all be registered to a professional body and with a professional obligation to fairness, to avoid the perverse incentive, from the doctors receptionist answering the phone to the Home Office
5. Get tax, borrowing, wealth creation and the scope of the state into proper long term balance, treat it all as one.
I've long argued (on here inter alia) that you can explain the Brexit vote by a lack of "agency". It's horrible sociological jargon, but basically many people - correctly - don't think they're in control of their lives any more.
Johnson, Cummings and their fellow travellers successfully convinced them this was the fault of the EU. Spoiler: it wasn't. But as you say, the alternative is getting into stuff about regulatory capture and redistribution and all that. Saying "there's a man in Brussels who wants to take your bananas away" is a much more immediately understandable proposition. And that's precisely what Cummings promised with his three-word slogan: "Take back control." Not just over the country, but over your own life.
Understanding agency was the genius of Thatcher, and to some extent Blair. Thatcher's message was "work hard and you can make a success of yourself" - in other words, "it's up to you". Both of them offered incentives to help you along your way, whether that be tax cuts and BT shares (Thatcher), or SureStart centres and a muscular public sector with shiny PFI hospitals (Blair). I won't get into which was more effective but the message was the same.
Starmer hasn't yet shown that he gets this. I see two schools of thought in Labour at the moment. There's Starmerism, which is competence without a message: we will make things better for you through managing the country better. The end. The other is Labour populism: we will just do what our core voters want right now, a bit like Henry Ford's "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Labour - in my view - needs to articulate a simple, compelling vision for how they'll help people to regain control over their lives.
By Jonn Elledge"
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/07/waiting-for-the-downfall-of-boris-johnson
The key will be what happens next.
So, Johnson outright lied. I think it's harder to determine whether Cameron lied or not.
Also, if Cameron did lie... well, he also resigned. He didn't lie and stay in office, like Johnson!
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/tennis/market/1.200814719
Let’s Get Serious.
https://twitter.com/michaelsavage/status/1545343574346178560
He’s been a massive psychic drain on the country.
It's just how we are.
Events have been a huge drain on the country. Brexit. Covid. Ukraine. Inflation.
Might people settle for a period when things are just 'ordinary?'
It's sort of understandable - without in of itself presenting a vision that says "god, I should really vote for them".
Boring competence is probably what we need right now, but it seems like we'll only get the potential for boring competence once the other lot have proved themselves so thoroughly unable to deliver boring competence that they lose and Labour inherit victory by default.
Does she really think that a meeting of a FS 4 years ago with a bloke who left the KGB in 1992, has been significantly allied with Mikhail Gorbachov, has been a long-term prominent critic of Putin, and manipulated out of Russian politics on what look like faked-up ground, is a serious threat to the UK in 2022?
As is commented to the 'Tories are a subsidiary of Putin's Government lot', it doesn't seem to have worked very well.
Not very credible.
My (not very charitable, I admit) impression is that Rayner has dug her political cess pit deep enough that all she can do now is fling muck at the walls.
There'd be more mileage in going to Lebedev as an oligarch with a dodgy business background, which might have a smidge of credibility.
Unless she has some evidence beyond ranting, of which there is currently no sign.
BTW in 2010 it was reported that the no of Working Men's Clubs had approx halved from around 4000 in the 1970s to 2200. It is now 1600. That is not the future.
And like the old Chinese saying goes "For those with no destination no wind is favourable.
Now that Boris is gone, a lot of the poison leaks out of Brexit. It becomes just another problem which needs mitigating; the best thing for everyone is that Brexit becomes technocratic and boring rather than an unshakeable totem of a cultural war that nobody actually wants.
It's 90-odd % white British round here. 98% in the 2011 census and it won't have changed massively in the last decade. Diversity is in the cities. Where the woke liberals live.
Great news for Starmer and Rayner .
Martin Lewis
@MartinSLewis
NEWS:
I feel sick writing this!
I've just got the latest price cap predictions from
@CornwallInsight
. A huge spike in the key year-ahead wholesale price means
OCT cap prediction UP 64% (so £3,244/yr on typical bills)
JAN cap prediction UP 4% (so £3,363/yr)
I wrote a thread for PB a couple of years ago about US voters - specifically the 'Middle Class' - and the fact that Trump had played them and played on their legitimate concerns (which to be honest are far worse than most in this country given the lack of any safety net) to get into power. Trump and Johnson both used the same play book. Identify who is hurting, drag up a load of stuff - some valid and some not - about why they are hurting and who they can blame and then promise to make it all better. Whilst at the same time having no intention of doing so and no idea how to do so.
I understand why people fall for it. They are desperate and they work on the basis that the bloke making the promises can't do any worse than the rest of he political class who have failed to help them over the decades. And they are probably right. It probably won't make it any worse. But it sure as hell won't make it any better either. And both Trump and Johnson knew that.
For the Tories, when people just want public services and utilities that work, and don't care about pseudo-competition.
For Labour, when people want the authorities to focus on violent crime, not thought crime, and when they resent people milking the system.
"You Deserve Better"
But it wasn’t always like that, and it doesn’t have to be like that forever.
Here you go. Starts at 1.38. I'd be interested in your opinion because in many ways I like her
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0018xjq
LDM: 40.9% (+18.6)
CON: 27.6% (-12.3)
LAB: 24.9% (-12.9)
GRN: 4.6% (New)
IND: 2.0% (New)
NHP: 0.04% (New)*
*1 Vote
Liberal Democrats GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2022.
Interesting one. Labour gained unexpectedly in May and the guy had just accepted a job offer so he stood down immediately. Labour punished for wasting everyones time but LD the beneficiaries given the unelectability of a mid nervous breakdown tory party. Tories put out 'hes gone please vote for us' leaflets on the day
NHP is national housing party whos proclamations on twitter want to end immigration and lists some non white politicians and questions their britishness saying it is 'modern day identity theft'. They got ONE vote, presumably the candidate and party founder. Wanker.
Andrew Gimson"
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/08/johnson-represented-the-licentious-disrespectful-unofficial-eighteenth-century-tradition-in-british-politics-it-has-not-suffered-a-final-defeat/
We were not conquered by the French but the Normans.
No lead then Jan 25 it is
Camden overall of course remains massively Labour. This result helps cement the LibDems as the main opposition and sets them up well for 4 years time. Of course, in 4 years time, we could have a Labour/LD coalition in Westminster and the Tories resurgent at the local level. Who knows?
Those that move away tend to be seeking space, rather than a monoculture, indeed that is the quote vocal trade-off you often hear,
“We need more space, but god how will we live in St Albans.”
Some very fortunate ones choose to send their children private but I would argue this is because they simply want the best for their children. The schools are actually very good in London so it’s another difficult choice, even for those who can afford it.
Especially as he still can't even tell anybody what a woman is. (Or doubtless he can, but doesn't have the political courage to).
"Get Rich Quick".
(said while on holiday, to be clear)
He needs to save his breaks, you might only get 3 chances, do it once per set!
Crikey.....
https://twitter.com/alreadytaken74/status/1545338416765837313?s=21&t=56wPtGadTtJ0PqYxL2lv9w