'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
That's a bit jarring, seeing "scum" affixed to NIMBYs. Don't think I've ever come across it before. Really quite unusual.
When the world owes you a 5 bed detached des res, waiting to collect can get to you.
Especially if deleting the pampering of Tory-approved standard nuclear families under the current IHT regulations, and imposing wealth tax on landed property, are active subjects for discussion to remedy the chaos of the last few years.
Only 9% of voters want IHT to rise, the lowest of any tax.
Though yes wealth taxes on million pound plus properties might not be too unpopular if Labour proposes them (outside of a few central London Labour target seats like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster)
How on earth can you have misread that so badly. They want IHT to increase in preference to all normal taxes eg income tax, vat, fuel duty, council tax, stamp duty, ni. The only taxes they prefer to increase more than IHT are higher and top rate income tax, CGT and Corp Tax. And of course that is what you would expect. They don't want taxes increased that they pay but do want taxes increased on richer people.
The converse is true re taxes they don't want increased which is where you got the 9% from but you completely misunderstood the table. 50% don't want income tax increased compared to only 9% who don't want IHT to rise. Similarly Vat, fuel duty, ni, council tax etc compared to IHT.
Just 12% want higher IHT compared to 52% wanting a higher top income tax rate, 47% higher corporation tax, 33% higher capital gains tax and 29% a rise in the higher rate of income tax
Yep. Would you now like to show the rest of the figures so as not to mislead. That is they prefer higher IHT compared to all the other taxes. You know the ones we all pay every day. So it was completely untrue that it was bottom of the list isn't it. It was actually nearer the top of the list wasn't it and only under the taxes richer people pay. Same goes for the other table.
You either don't understand the tables or are deliberately misleading. Daft as we can all see the tables.
No, plenty of people pay the higher rate of income tax, they also wanted that increased more than IHT
Sorry what has that got to do with anything. You completely misunderstood it. You said it was the LOWEST of any tax. It wasn't. It was actually higher than mid table and actually higher than all the taxes nearly all of us pay. It was only below the taxes wealthy or better off people pay (greater than £50K) You got it completely wrong.
Come on put your hands up to it. We can all see the tables cos you gave us the links so you just look silly denying it.
You have to understand @HYUFD has a personal interest in his inheritance but the one thing about inheritance is nobody should take it for granted as elderly parents are living much longer and as a result may need years in care at approx £50,000 pa, but also IHT is far too generous at one million and should revert to the previous lower threshold in these difficult times for everyone
Well you can vote Labour again if you want that, we Tories must not betray our core vote
The conservative party does not belong to you nor your little Englander far right views
Since when has it been far right not to confiscate peoples' property built up over a lifetime, conserving property in the family is a core Tory value.
Off to Starmer with you and good riddance!!
Since when is people paying their own way for services supplied to them "confiscation" of anything?
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
So 82% of LD seats have above average home ownership levels too.
Yes we need more affordable housing, especially in brownbelt areas of London where home ownership is at its lowest and Labour has gained lots of former Conservative seats.
Build all over the greenbelt however and you will see lots of formerly safe Conservative seats like Chesham and Amersham go Liberal Democrat
You say that like its a bad thing.
Better to have people engaged in society and able to have their own home, even if some vote Lib Dem, than unable to afford their own home and voting to tear down society by voting for Labour.
No, we don't want to build all over our greenbelt when the Home Counties already have a 70% owner occupier rate anyway and are largely safe Tory just to send voters to the LDs.
London with only 50% owner occupier rate and lots of Labour seats and Tory marginals vulnerable to Labour does certainly need more affordable homes to buy, the South East less so
London is a part of the South East. If people working in London are going to have semi detached homes and gardens, the place to do so, is in the South East.
A very large proportion of people living in the SE outside of London already do work in London. That's generally for those who have a home, how they can afford to pay for it, so no pulling up the ladder after you and saying "you're not my problem, piss off and don't get a home near me" is not a solution.
London is NOT a part of the South East. People used to regularly be able to afford to buy a semi detached in suburban London on average incomes if they worked in the capital, they can't now. That needs more properties being built in outer London, not concreting all over the Home Counties greenbelt.
70% in the Home Counties outside London by contrast still own a property, the highest percentage of any UK region
You can submit a report to Google about Maps is wrong, and how London is really not in the South East of England.
It isn't, South East voters don't elect the London Mayor or London Assembly do they? When we had MEPs the South East region MEPs were completely separate to London elected MEPs
Voters in Warrington don't elect the Mayor of Greater Manchester. They're still both in the North West though.
London is entirely contained within the South East, that the South East is split into two regions for administrative purposes is no different to the fact that Stoke on Trent has 3 constituencies.
Warrington isn't in Manchester either, London is NOT in the South East, London is its OWN region
Learn to read, I never said Warrington is in Manchester, or that London is in South Downs now, did I?.
Warrington and Manchester are both in the North West. London and Guildford are both in the South East. That's why many people live in suburbs like Guildford or Warrington and commute into nearby cities like Manchester and London, because many people like to live in a suburban town where they can have a house and a garden and still commute into a city.
The fact London is bigger than Manchester doesn't change geography. London being in the South East is a simple matter of geographical fact.
Yes you did, you said the South East is the same region as London, so by definition the South Downs are then part of London.
London is a global city with a population more than the entire North West, Manchester isn't.
The South East has a higher home ownership level than the North West as well as London, London has the lowest home ownership rate in the UK, it is completely different to the rest of the South East
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
That's a bit jarring, seeing "scum" affixed to NIMBYs. Don't think I've ever come across it before. Really quite unusual.
When the world owes you a 5 bed detached des res, waiting to collect can get to you.
Especially if deleting the pampering of Tory-approved standard nuclear families under the current IHT regulations, and imposing wealth tax on landed property, are active subjects for discussion to remedy the chaos of the last few years.
Only 9% of voters want IHT to rise, the lowest of any tax.
Though yes wealth taxes on million pound plus properties might not be too unpopular if Labour proposes them (outside of a few central London Labour target seats like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster)
How on earth can you have misread that so badly. They want IHT to increase in preference to all normal taxes eg income tax, vat, fuel duty, council tax, stamp duty, ni. The only taxes they prefer to increase more than IHT are higher and top rate income tax, CGT and Corp Tax. And of course that is what you would expect. They don't want taxes increased that they pay but do want taxes increased on richer people.
The converse is true re taxes they don't want increased which is where you got the 9% from but you completely misunderstood the table. 50% don't want income tax increased compared to only 9% who don't want IHT to rise. Similarly Vat, fuel duty, ni, council tax etc compared to IHT.
Just 12% want higher IHT compared to 52% wanting a higher top income tax rate, 47% higher corporation tax, 33% higher capital gains tax and 29% a rise in the higher rate of income tax
Yep. Would you now like to show the rest of the figures so as not to mislead. That is they prefer higher IHT compared to all the other taxes. You know the ones we all pay every day. So it was completely untrue that it was bottom of the list isn't it. It was actually nearer the top of the list wasn't it and only under the taxes richer people pay. Same goes for the other table.
You either don't understand the tables or are deliberately misleading. Daft as we can all see the tables.
No, plenty of people pay the higher rate of income tax, they also wanted that increased more than IHT
Sorry what has that got to do with anything. You completely misunderstood it. You said it was the LOWEST of any tax. It wasn't. It was actually higher than mid table and actually higher than all the taxes nearly all of us pay. It was only below the taxes wealthy or better off people pay (greater than £50K) You got it completely wrong.
Come on put your hands up to it. We can all see the tables cos you gave us the links so you just look silly denying it.
You have to understand @HYUFD has a personal interest in his inheritance but the one thing about inheritance is nobody should take it for granted as elderly parents are living much longer and as a result may need years in care at approx £50,000 pa, but also IHT is far too generous at one million and should revert to the previous lower threshold in these difficult times for everyone
Well you can vote Labour again if you want that, we Tories must not betray our core vote
The conservative party does not belong to you nor your little Englander far right views
Since when has it been far right not to confiscate peoples' property built up over a lifetime, conserving property in the family is a core Tory value.
Off to Starmer with you and good riddance!!
You are simply an embarrassment to the conservative party and I am sure the Chair would be horrified at your comments on here tonight
Nobody is talking of confiscating property but just a fair IHT
And your attitude to someone who was actively involved in the party long before you arrived on this planet is a demonstration of intolerance that reflects terribly on you and your divisive attitudes
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
That's a bit jarring, seeing "scum" affixed to NIMBYs. Don't think I've ever come across it before. Really quite unusual.
When the world owes you a 5 bed detached des res, waiting to collect can get to you.
Especially if deleting the pampering of Tory-approved standard nuclear families under the current IHT regulations, and imposing wealth tax on landed property, are active subjects for discussion to remedy the chaos of the last few years.
Only 9% of voters want IHT to rise, the lowest of any tax.
Though yes wealth taxes on million pound plus properties might not be too unpopular if Labour proposes them (outside of a few central London Labour target seats like Kensington and Cities of London and Westminster)
How on earth can you have misread that so badly. They want IHT to increase in preference to all normal taxes eg income tax, vat, fuel duty, council tax, stamp duty, ni. The only taxes they prefer to increase more than IHT are higher and top rate income tax, CGT and Corp Tax. And of course that is what you would expect. They don't want taxes increased that they pay but do want taxes increased on richer people.
The converse is true re taxes they don't want increased which is where you got the 9% from but you completely misunderstood the table. 50% don't want income tax increased compared to only 9% who don't want IHT to rise. Similarly Vat, fuel duty, ni, council tax etc compared to IHT.
Just 12% want higher IHT compared to 52% wanting a higher top income tax rate, 47% higher corporation tax, 33% higher capital gains tax and 29% a rise in the higher rate of income tax
Yep. Would you now like to show the rest of the figures so as not to mislead. That is they prefer higher IHT compared to all the other taxes. You know the ones we all pay every day. So it was completely untrue that it was bottom of the list isn't it. It was actually nearer the top of the list wasn't it and only under the taxes richer people pay. Same goes for the other table.
You either don't understand the tables or are deliberately misleading. Daft as we can all see the tables.
No, plenty of people pay the higher rate of income tax, they also wanted that increased more than IHT
Sorry what has that got to do with anything. You completely misunderstood it. You said it was the LOWEST of any tax. It wasn't. It was actually higher than mid table and actually higher than all the taxes nearly all of us pay. It was only below the taxes wealthy or better off people pay (greater than £50K) You got it completely wrong.
Come on put your hands up to it. We can all see the tables cos you gave us the links so you just look silly denying it.
You have to understand @HYUFD has a personal interest in his inheritance but the one thing about inheritance is nobody should take it for granted as elderly parents are living much longer and as a result may need years in care at approx £50,000 pa, but also IHT is far too generous at one million and should revert to the previous lower threshold in these difficult times for everyone
Well you can vote Labour again if you want that, we Tories must not betray our core vote
The conservative party does not belong to you nor your little Englander far right views
Since when has it been far right not to confiscate peoples' property built up over a lifetime, conserving property in the family is a core Tory value.
Off to Starmer with you and good riddance!!
You are simply an embarrassment to the conservative party and I am sure the Chair would be horrified at your comments on here tonight
Nobody is talking of confiscating property but just a fair IHT
And your attitude to someone who was actively involved in the party long before you arrived on this planet is a demonstration of intolerance that reflects terribly on you and your divisive attitudes
No he wouldn't. Zahawi knows full well property owners are the Tory core vote.
It is you who want to reverse Osborne's IHT tax cut, the most popular Tory policy this century.
You also of course voted for Blair twice, I have always voted for and campaigned for the Tories so I don't need lectures from you on what is real loyal Toryism!!!!
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
So 82% of LD seats have above average home ownership levels too.
Yes we need more affordable housing, especially in brownbelt areas of London where home ownership is at its lowest and Labour has gained lots of former Conservative seats.
Build all over the greenbelt however and you will see lots of formerly safe Conservative seats like Chesham and Amersham go Liberal Democrat
You say that like its a bad thing.
Better to have people engaged in society and able to have their own home, even if some vote Lib Dem, than unable to afford their own home and voting to tear down society by voting for Labour.
No, we don't want to build all over our greenbelt when the Home Counties already have a 70% owner occupier rate anyway and are largely safe Tory just to send voters to the LDs.
London with only 50% owner occupier rate and lots of Labour seats and Tory marginals vulnerable to Labour does certainly need more affordable homes to buy, the South East less so
London is a part of the South East. If people working in London are going to have semi detached homes and gardens, the place to do so, is in the South East.
A very large proportion of people living in the SE outside of London already do work in London. That's generally for those who have a home, how they can afford to pay for it, so no pulling up the ladder after you and saying "you're not my problem, piss off and don't get a home near me" is not a solution.
London is NOT a part of the South East. People used to regularly be able to afford to buy a semi detached in suburban London on average incomes if they worked in the capital, they can't now. That needs more properties being built in outer London, not concreting all over the Home Counties greenbelt.
70% in the Home Counties outside London by contrast still own a property, the highest percentage of any UK region
You can submit a report to Google about Maps is wrong, and how London is really not in the South East of England.
It isn't, South East voters don't elect the London Mayor or London Assembly do they? When we had MEPs the South East region MEPs were completely separate to London elected MEPs
Voters in Warrington don't elect the Mayor of Greater Manchester. They're still both in the North West though.
London is entirely contained within the South East, that the South East is split into two regions for administrative purposes is no different to the fact that Stoke on Trent has 3 constituencies.
Warrington isn't in Manchester either, London is NOT in the South East, London is its OWN region
Learn to read, I never said Warrington is in Manchester, or that London is in South Downs now, did I?.
Warrington and Manchester are both in the North West. London and Guildford are both in the South East. That's why many people live in suburbs like Guildford or Warrington and commute into nearby cities like Manchester and London, because many people like to live in a suburban town where they can have a house and a garden and still commute into a city.
The fact London is bigger than Manchester doesn't change geography. London being in the South East is a simple matter of geographical fact.
Yes you did, you said the South East is the same region as London, so by definition the South Downs are then part of London.
London is a global city with a population more than the entire North West, Manchester isn't.
The South East has a higher home ownership level than the North West as well as London, London has the lowest home ownership rate in the UK, it is completely different to the rest of the South East
What the actual fudge?
I also said that Chorley is the same region as Manchester, so by definition Chorley then is a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Liverpool is also in the North West, so does that make Liverpool a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Guildford, Woking, South Downs, London and Chelmsford are all in the South East of England, just as Macclesfield, Chorley, Liverpool, Manchester and Preston are all in the North West of England.
The South East does not have a higher home ownership level than the North West, because London is in the South East and is not completely different to the South East that is is completely within, any more than Manchester is completely different to the North West.
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
So 82% of LD seats have above average home ownership levels too.
Yes we need more affordable housing, especially in brownbelt areas of London where home ownership is at its lowest and Labour has gained lots of former Conservative seats.
Build all over the greenbelt however and you will see lots of formerly safe Conservative seats like Chesham and Amersham go Liberal Democrat
You say that like its a bad thing.
Better to have people engaged in society and able to have their own home, even if some vote Lib Dem, than unable to afford their own home and voting to tear down society by voting for Labour.
No, we don't want to build all over our greenbelt when the Home Counties already have a 70% owner occupier rate anyway and are largely safe Tory just to send voters to the LDs.
London with only 50% owner occupier rate and lots of Labour seats and Tory marginals vulnerable to Labour does certainly need more affordable homes to buy, the South East less so
London is a part of the South East. If people working in London are going to have semi detached homes and gardens, the place to do so, is in the South East.
A very large proportion of people living in the SE outside of London already do work in London. That's generally for those who have a home, how they can afford to pay for it, so no pulling up the ladder after you and saying "you're not my problem, piss off and don't get a home near me" is not a solution.
London is NOT a part of the South East. People used to regularly be able to afford to buy a semi detached in suburban London on average incomes if they worked in the capital, they can't now. That needs more properties being built in outer London, not concreting all over the Home Counties greenbelt.
70% in the Home Counties outside London by contrast still own a property, the highest percentage of any UK region
You can submit a report to Google about Maps is wrong, and how London is really not in the South East of England.
It isn't, South East voters don't elect the London Mayor or London Assembly do they? When we had MEPs the South East region MEPs were completely separate to London elected MEPs
Voters in Warrington don't elect the Mayor of Greater Manchester. They're still both in the North West though.
London is entirely contained within the South East, that the South East is split into two regions for administrative purposes is no different to the fact that Stoke on Trent has 3 constituencies.
Warrington isn't in Manchester either, London is NOT in the South East, London is its OWN region
Learn to read, I never said Warrington is in Manchester, or that London is in South Downs now, did I?.
Warrington and Manchester are both in the North West. London and Guildford are both in the South East. That's why many people live in suburbs like Guildford or Warrington and commute into nearby cities like Manchester and London, because many people like to live in a suburban town where they can have a house and a garden and still commute into a city.
The fact London is bigger than Manchester doesn't change geography. London being in the South East is a simple matter of geographical fact.
Yes you did, you said the South East is the same region as London, so by definition the South Downs are then part of London.
Apples and oranges are both fruit. Apples are not oranges.
South Downs are in the same region as London. South Downs are not London.
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
So 82% of LD seats have above average home ownership levels too.
Yes we need more affordable housing, especially in brownbelt areas of London where home ownership is at its lowest and Labour has gained lots of former Conservative seats.
Build all over the greenbelt however and you will see lots of formerly safe Conservative seats like Chesham and Amersham go Liberal Democrat
You say that like its a bad thing.
Better to have people engaged in society and able to have their own home, even if some vote Lib Dem, than unable to afford their own home and voting to tear down society by voting for Labour.
No, we don't want to build all over our greenbelt when the Home Counties already have a 70% owner occupier rate anyway and are largely safe Tory just to send voters to the LDs.
London with only 50% owner occupier rate and lots of Labour seats and Tory marginals vulnerable to Labour does certainly need more affordable homes to buy, the South East less so
London is a part of the South East. If people working in London are going to have semi detached homes and gardens, the place to do so, is in the South East.
A very large proportion of people living in the SE outside of London already do work in London. That's generally for those who have a home, how they can afford to pay for it, so no pulling up the ladder after you and saying "you're not my problem, piss off and don't get a home near me" is not a solution.
London is NOT a part of the South East. People used to regularly be able to afford to buy a semi detached in suburban London on average incomes if they worked in the capital, they can't now. That needs more properties being built in outer London, not concreting all over the Home Counties greenbelt.
70% in the Home Counties outside London by contrast still own a property, the highest percentage of any UK region
You can submit a report to Google about Maps is wrong, and how London is really not in the South East of England.
It isn't, South East voters don't elect the London Mayor or London Assembly do they? When we had MEPs the South East region MEPs were completely separate to London elected MEPs
Voters in Warrington don't elect the Mayor of Greater Manchester. They're still both in the North West though.
London is entirely contained within the South East, that the South East is split into two regions for administrative purposes is no different to the fact that Stoke on Trent has 3 constituencies.
Warrington isn't in Manchester either, London is NOT in the South East, London is its OWN region
Learn to read, I never said Warrington is in Manchester, or that London is in South Downs now, did I?.
Warrington and Manchester are both in the North West. London and Guildford are both in the South East. That's why many people live in suburbs like Guildford or Warrington and commute into nearby cities like Manchester and London, because many people like to live in a suburban town where they can have a house and a garden and still commute into a city.
The fact London is bigger than Manchester doesn't change geography. London being in the South East is a simple matter of geographical fact.
Yes you did, you said the South East is the same region as London, so by definition the South Downs are then part of London.
London is a global city with a population more than the entire North West, Manchester isn't.
The South East has a higher home ownership level than the North West as well as London, London has the lowest home ownership rate in the UK, it is completely different to the rest of the South East
What the actual fudge?
I also said that Chorley is the same region as Manchester, so by definition Chorley then is a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Liverpool is also in the North West, so does that make Liverpool a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Guildford, Woking, South Downs, London and Chelmsford are all in the South East of England, just as Macclesfield, Chorley, Liverpool, Manchester and Preston are all in the North West of England.
The South East does not have a higher home ownership level than the North West, because London is in the South East and is not completely different to the South East that is is completely within, any more than Manchester is completely different to the North West.
No, they aren't but London is a global city as I said with a bigger population than the ENTIRE north west so has to be considered on its OWN terms.
London is NOT in the South East, it is its own region. It is London where the home ownership problem is significant, not in the wider South East
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
So 82% of LD seats have above average home ownership levels too.
Yes we need more affordable housing, especially in brownbelt areas of London where home ownership is at its lowest and Labour has gained lots of former Conservative seats.
Build all over the greenbelt however and you will see lots of formerly safe Conservative seats like Chesham and Amersham go Liberal Democrat
You say that like its a bad thing.
Better to have people engaged in society and able to have their own home, even if some vote Lib Dem, than unable to afford their own home and voting to tear down society by voting for Labour.
No, we don't want to build all over our greenbelt when the Home Counties already have a 70% owner occupier rate anyway and are largely safe Tory just to send voters to the LDs.
London with only 50% owner occupier rate and lots of Labour seats and Tory marginals vulnerable to Labour does certainly need more affordable homes to buy, the South East less so
London is a part of the South East. If people working in London are going to have semi detached homes and gardens, the place to do so, is in the South East.
A very large proportion of people living in the SE outside of London already do work in London. That's generally for those who have a home, how they can afford to pay for it, so no pulling up the ladder after you and saying "you're not my problem, piss off and don't get a home near me" is not a solution.
London is NOT a part of the South East. People used to regularly be able to afford to buy a semi detached in suburban London on average incomes if they worked in the capital, they can't now. That needs more properties being built in outer London, not concreting all over the Home Counties greenbelt.
70% in the Home Counties outside London by contrast still own a property, the highest percentage of any UK region
You can submit a report to Google about Maps is wrong, and how London is really not in the South East of England.
It isn't, South East voters don't elect the London Mayor or London Assembly do they? When we had MEPs the South East region MEPs were completely separate to London elected MEPs
Voters in Warrington don't elect the Mayor of Greater Manchester. They're still both in the North West though.
London is entirely contained within the South East, that the South East is split into two regions for administrative purposes is no different to the fact that Stoke on Trent has 3 constituencies.
Warrington isn't in Manchester either, London is NOT in the South East, London is its OWN region
Learn to read, I never said Warrington is in Manchester, or that London is in South Downs now, did I?.
Warrington and Manchester are both in the North West. London and Guildford are both in the South East. That's why many people live in suburbs like Guildford or Warrington and commute into nearby cities like Manchester and London, because many people like to live in a suburban town where they can have a house and a garden and still commute into a city.
The fact London is bigger than Manchester doesn't change geography. London being in the South East is a simple matter of geographical fact.
Yes you did, you said the South East is the same region as London, so by definition the South Downs are then part of London.
Apples and oranges are both fruit. Apples are not oranges.
South Downs are in the same region as London. South Downs are not London.
Nope, there are 12 regions in the UK, London, SE, East, SW, WM, EM, NE, NW, Yorks and Humber, Scotland, Wales and NI. London and SE are NOT the same region
'Levelling up' is dangerous ground for Sunak, given that video of him trumpeting unlevelling up the already high...
That’s not actually what he was saying in the video. But Labour had artfully cut the video to mislead.
He was saying that all deprived areas need support - including deprived rural areas in Kent - not just deprived urban areas
The problem was not him rightly pointing to pockets of deprived rural areas. The probem was that he claimed he had taken money from genuinely shonky areas in the north to give to pockets of deprived rural areas.
Nobody is denying that rural places can't hide poverty. But you can't divert money from places already promised the cash. Or in practice what it's meant is that money has gone to posh Tory areas to sort the small bit that isn't quite as posh as the rest whilst the scum area gets little or nothing.
Stockton on Tees seeing levelling up money spent in Yarm as a prime example. Yes, there are bits of Yarm not as nice as the rest. But relatively these areas are fine - certainly a lot better than chunks of town centre or Newtown wards.
Why do the Tories still have a minister for levelling up? Bottom line up front, Boris Johnson’s glib election promise “we will level up” is undeliverable bollocks.
Once you fathom out the impossible to fathom out “what exactly does it mean? Level up the north to the level of the south? But bits of the south are just as run down as bits of the north and vice versa? And switch to how to do it anyway to delivery something at least, even though you don’t really understand what it means, you realise it’s not about funnelling existing money from this to that, you will just end up hated and stuck in the 20s in the polling, it has to be new money, given to deserving places, fairly, and so that Tiverton in Blue Wall can’t get upset they are just as deserving and being cheated.
After all that, are you now levelling up? Of course not, because it is just pretend the ancient mismatch in scale and wealth between London and the secondary cities their regions can ever be levelled, it always was empty unachievable Johnsonian electioneering bollocks.
Why? Because: (a) Red Wall voters have noticed they are still relatively / actually poor (b) Brexit promised them resources and riches (c) Tories promised them definitely resources and riches (d) They won't take no for an answer
Either this government produces a rabbit out of the hat or the Tory 2019 first timers depart.
(A) is wrong.
Red Wall Tory voters are typically home owners, not impoverished people awaiting resources and riches.
Thanks to the relatively huge success in building new homes up here, compared to the rest of the country, the Red Wall has seen much more people getting on the property ladder rather than the reverse happening as in much of the country.
That's the real reason the non-metropolitan North has been swinging Tory while the South is swinging against the Tories. Because voters here have their own deeds to their very own Barratt Home and similar, rather than rental bills.
(a) is not wrong. A is the reason why we have seen a clearout of Labour councils and Labour MPs in Labour since the Danelaw areas. Try living in the red wall for a while and you will see what they are so upset about./
Incidentally, it wouldn't be a good idea for the Tories to listen to you. Telling people that their lived experience is wrong never works.
Try living in the red wall for a while? Excuse me, I do live in the Red Wall, you don't.
There is new housing estates all over the place. You know, all those homes you keep complaining about because you want to excuse the NIMBY scum? All those new homes have voters.
The Red Wall fell because of construction, because the likes of Barratt etc got people on the property ladder, NOT because poor people suddenly became fed up of Labour not doing anything for them.
You're in Birchwood aren't you? Cheshire daaaaarling.
I've moved around a bit, I'd rather not say where I live if you don't mind, but Birchwood is not a bad example. Warrington North is a safe Labour seat, or used to be, like much of the North West its seen massive construction recently and its trended away from Labour as the share of owner occupier voters in the constituency has risen.
Just like the neighbouring constituency of Leigh. What you'd think of as Leigh is still just as grotty terraced homes as it always was, but its surrounded by new estates of semi-detached homes with gardens and driveways for 2 parking spaces each.
Drive around the new estates of Leigh, versus the old streets of Leigh, and its hardly a surprise voting levels have changed. The voting is changing not because people are suddenly fed up of Labour, but because Leigh itself, much of the North itself, is changing. The houses people are living in - and increasingly owning - are not the same homes that existed thirty years ago.
And constituencies that were predominantly owner occupied in the past, that are now unaffordable and NIMBYs are blocking construction, are seeing trends away from the Tories.
Its housing, stupid.
Again again, I hope your Tory friends go and argue your points on the doorstep. They will be annihilated.
I don't think Bart is presenting an argument why people in Warrington North or Leigh SHOULD vote Tory - he is saying that where there has been a long term shift to owner occupation, especially of new builds - such as Warrington North, Leigh, Blyth, Rother Valley, and dozens of others - there has been a long term shift to the Tories. This seems inarguable to me. I also agree with the implication that the Tories would be well served to try to maximise the number of owner occupiers.
Bingo. You've nailed it completely.
Essentially Britain votes by housing. Renters as a class tend to vote Labour. Owned outright tend to vote Tory. Owned with a mortgage, are the swing voters, who in recent years have voted Tory but in Blair's time voted Labour.
In much of the country renting has become more common, but in parts of the North owner occupiers have become more common due to vast amounts of new builds. That has meant more Tory voters, but since those voters have mortgages they're not safe Tory.
The idea that the North swung Tory because voters were pissed off and angry misses the transformation in housing that has happened. Drive around the North outside the cities, and yes if you're here you're driving to get around, and there has been major new housing developments and those developments lead to new owner occupiers which changes how people think about voting.
There have been suggestions of this voting-by-housing-tenure hypothesis before. It is interesting and believable, but I don't know of studies that examine it carefully. Do you?
I've seen many studies on it before, none to hand, but this excellent chart is in the article I linked to above and sums it up well.
The vast construction in the Red Wall, one of the only places in the country where there has been a semi-reasonable amount of construction, has led to home ownership rates here moving from Labour levels to Tory levels. The seats then swung accordingly.
Home ownership and GE2019 As in previous years, homeowners were more likely to vote Conservative in the 2019 election. According to Ipsos MORI’s figures, 57% of voters who owned their home outright voted Conservative, as did 43% of people with mortgages. By contrast, 45% of social renters and 46% of private renters voted Labour.
The 2011 Census tells us how many homeowners were in each constituency. At the time, around 64% of UK households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage. 315 of the Conservatives’ 365 seats (86%) had home ownership levels above this average, compared with 53 of Labour’s 202 seats (26%). Nine of the Lib Dems’ 11 seats had above-average home ownership levels (82%).
86% above average ownership for Tories, 26% for Labour.
Home ownership is far and away what affects voting in this country. NIMBY scum like our Essicks Massiv that wants to invade Scotland, or the first son of Abraham, are doing their level best to discourage people from voting Tory.
So 82% of LD seats have above average home ownership levels too.
Yes we need more affordable housing, especially in brownbelt areas of London where home ownership is at its lowest and Labour has gained lots of former Conservative seats.
Build all over the greenbelt however and you will see lots of formerly safe Conservative seats like Chesham and Amersham go Liberal Democrat
You say that like its a bad thing.
Better to have people engaged in society and able to have their own home, even if some vote Lib Dem, than unable to afford their own home and voting to tear down society by voting for Labour.
No, we don't want to build all over our greenbelt when the Home Counties already have a 70% owner occupier rate anyway and are largely safe Tory just to send voters to the LDs.
London with only 50% owner occupier rate and lots of Labour seats and Tory marginals vulnerable to Labour does certainly need more affordable homes to buy, the South East less so
London is a part of the South East. If people working in London are going to have semi detached homes and gardens, the place to do so, is in the South East.
A very large proportion of people living in the SE outside of London already do work in London. That's generally for those who have a home, how they can afford to pay for it, so no pulling up the ladder after you and saying "you're not my problem, piss off and don't get a home near me" is not a solution.
London is NOT a part of the South East. People used to regularly be able to afford to buy a semi detached in suburban London on average incomes if they worked in the capital, they can't now. That needs more properties being built in outer London, not concreting all over the Home Counties greenbelt.
70% in the Home Counties outside London by contrast still own a property, the highest percentage of any UK region
You can submit a report to Google about Maps is wrong, and how London is really not in the South East of England.
It isn't, South East voters don't elect the London Mayor or London Assembly do they? When we had MEPs the South East region MEPs were completely separate to London elected MEPs
Voters in Warrington don't elect the Mayor of Greater Manchester. They're still both in the North West though.
London is entirely contained within the South East, that the South East is split into two regions for administrative purposes is no different to the fact that Stoke on Trent has 3 constituencies.
Warrington isn't in Manchester either, London is NOT in the South East, London is its OWN region
Learn to read, I never said Warrington is in Manchester, or that London is in South Downs now, did I?.
Warrington and Manchester are both in the North West. London and Guildford are both in the South East. That's why many people live in suburbs like Guildford or Warrington and commute into nearby cities like Manchester and London, because many people like to live in a suburban town where they can have a house and a garden and still commute into a city.
The fact London is bigger than Manchester doesn't change geography. London being in the South East is a simple matter of geographical fact.
Yes you did, you said the South East is the same region as London, so by definition the South Downs are then part of London.
Apples and oranges are both fruit. Apples are not oranges.
South Downs are in the same region as London. South Downs are not London.
Comments
London is a global city with a population more than the entire North West, Manchester isn't.
The South East has a higher home ownership level than the North West as well as London, London has the lowest home ownership rate in the UK, it is completely different to the rest of the South East
Think I might just dip out again tbh.
Nobody is talking of confiscating property but just a fair IHT
And your attitude to someone who was actively involved in the party long before you arrived on this planet is a demonstration of intolerance that reflects terribly on you and your divisive attitudes
It is you who want to reverse Osborne's IHT tax cut, the most popular Tory policy this century.
You also of course voted for Blair twice, I have always voted for and campaigned for the Tories so I don't need lectures from you on what is real loyal Toryism!!!!
I also said that Chorley is the same region as Manchester, so by definition Chorley then is a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Liverpool is also in the North West, so does that make Liverpool a part of Manchester in your eyes?
Guildford, Woking, South Downs, London and Chelmsford are all in the South East of England, just as Macclesfield, Chorley, Liverpool, Manchester and Preston are all in the North West of England.
The South East does not have a higher home ownership level than the North West, because London is in the South East and is not completely different to the South East that is is completely within, any more than Manchester is completely different to the North West.
South Downs are in the same region as London. South Downs are not London.
London is NOT in the South East, it is its own region. It is London where the home ownership problem is significant, not in the wider South East
https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/ukgeographies/eurostat
HYUFD is being an utter cretin again.