I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.
As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.
No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.
The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.
Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".
And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.
They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.
They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right
Difficulty with that was that Team Leave persuaded themselves, and enough of the country, that those things would continue to happen without a political superstructure to manage them.
I don't know whose theory it is, but I read it somewhere and it seems convincing.
Some people see cooperation as like ships sailing across an ocean. You don't need much infrastructure, just individual will. Others see it like travelling on land- you need a road to be maintained, but then it's easy.
That seems to explain a lot, including the idea that Britain would really be emotionally happier transplanted to somewhere in the Pacific.
Your last point is kind of revealing. Britain doesn’t see itself as a European power. I’m not sure about Pacific, maybe Atlantic power is more accurate.
Europe is - to the great majority - just a place to go on holiday.
Of course this mental model is itself a hangover from Empire, but Brexiters get very, very angry when this is mentioned.
All countries have delusions. This is one of Britain’s.
Britain is not a country.
Quite right. Allowing the Brexiters to use the term means they don't need to worry about the Schroedinger's statelet that is NI - is it in Europe or out of it?
I’m a Remainer.
The knicker-twisting response from you and Stuart is quite revealing, really.
Oh, you are a remainer, no doubt about that - but the use of 'Britain' equating to the UK is so widespread when it's quite wrong.
Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity" That house of cards just utterly collapsed
Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?
(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)
1) Sturgeon said that the amendment to carry out an action was unacceptable. 2) Sturgeon used executive powers to carry out exactly the action that was stated to be unacceptable and would never be needed anyway.
The exception made has not been for sex offenders in general, nor for rapists in particular - just for this one specific case, which had been providing days of inconvenient headlines for the Scottish government.
One suspects another will be along soon enough to annoy the good folk on the Edinburgh omnibus.
I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.
As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.
No one really though the EU was a fantastic fault -free organisation. And the bits I really liked, such as FoM where the bits everyone else hated.
The EU's single USP was membership is less sub optimal, and by a country mile, than non membership.
Not that I advocate rejoin. That ship sailed when Boris Johnson " done Brexit".
And that, of course, isn't a USP. If one side is saying "this is bad but that's worse" and the other side is saying "this is good", there's only one winner.
They should have been saying we were taking the good things about the EU for granted. An upbeat campaign about all the things we'd lose. Unfortunately they got bogged down in trying to counter Johnson's lies which proved a very successful distraction to people who had been fed a load of rubbish by some malign newspaper proprietors.
They should have run an updated Dunlop campaign of 45 years ago. The government's campaign was complacent. They didn't take the trouble to get the basics right
Difficulty with that was that Team Leave persuaded themselves, and enough of the country, that those things would continue to happen without a political superstructure to manage them.
I don't know whose theory it is, but I read it somewhere and it seems convincing.
Some people see cooperation as like ships sailing across an ocean. You don't need much infrastructure, just individual will. Others see it like travelling on land- you need a road to be maintained, but then it's easy.
That seems to explain a lot, including the idea that Britain would really be emotionally happier transplanted to somewhere in the Pacific.
Your last point is kind of revealing. Britain doesn’t see itself as a European power. I’m not sure about Pacific, maybe Atlantic power is more accurate.
Europe is - to the great majority - just a place to go on holiday.
Of course this mental model is itself a hangover from Empire, but Brexiters get very, very angry when this is mentioned.
All countries have delusions. This is one of Britain’s.
Britain is not a country.
Quite right. Allowing the Brexiters to use the term means they don't need to worry about the Schroedinger's statelet that is NI - is it in Europe or out of it?
I’m a Remainer.
The knicker-twisting response from you and Stuart is quite revealing, really.
Oh, you are a remainer, no doubt about that - but the use of 'Britain' equating to the UK is so widespread when it's quite wrong.
I believe the Germans refer to pedants as ant-fuckers. An objection to “Britain” seems to fall into that kind of category.
ICYMI - Exclusive -STV News has learned double rapist Adam Graham, who was sent to Cornton Vale prison after identifying as a woman, attended a beauty course at a Ayrshire College while awaiting trial for the attacks - taking classes alongside young girls.
Economic growth needs social mobility, or at the very least the illusion of social mobility.
Otherwise people just give up, and argue over ever smaller pieces of pie.
Social mobility has little affect on the average person. Only a few will become high earners if not with high earning parents or poor if not with poor parents.
At least inheritance if most are home owners passes wealth down for most people, reducing the need for state support
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Hang on. Most of that wealth you are talking about came about entirely outside of the expectations of the Governments of the last 30 or 40 years - indeed to some extent in spite of their efforts or at least only indirectly from them screwing up. If anything has gone wrong it is the growth in the size of the state and Government spending so blaming the pensioners for something that has been entirely out of their hands and creating this artificial conflict between young and old simply because it suits your own bigoted ideas is utter bollocks.
And as someone has pointed out, that wealth then gets transferred to the young (who again I should point out will very soon be old) when the current crop of pensioners die.
Rather than looking avariciously at an income source to prop up your broken system maybe you should look at fixing the system instead.
Hold on.
A very large part of the growth in wealth has manifest as house price inflation. Not really to do with the efforts of anyone and driven by government "build not enough houses" policy.
I don’t think Britain will Brejoin, although I concede it is likelier than I ever thought it might be.
As @Driver notes, nobody has really made the case for why the EU is better (apart from trade). There needs to be a hearts, not just minds, case.
You’re right. It’ll come.
I was speaking to my niece and her fella, both born in 2000, at Xmas when they came to visit from Bristol. They’re both fucking livid that they can’t afford a house and, a close second, livid at Brexit. Pissed off they were too young to vote. Feel they’ve been betrayed by the Boomers on both issues. The heart thing seems ingrained with them. They want to be able to afford a house and they want freedom of movement, to be part of something bigger, something better than this right-wing shithole we’ve descended to. They’re not rich, or ‘woke’, just normal kids who feel betrayed.
I hope they’re representative of their age group.
I'm sure they are... in the sense that they're sound like typical mouthy kids who can never be arsed to bother to vote.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
Under the Levido plan, Sunak will focus on his five promises during 2023, most of which should be achievable because of the current trajectory of the economy. Stopping small boats could prove to be the most difficult to attain.
Then, according to Tory MPs briefed by chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the spring Budget of 2024 will be the pivotal moment in this parliament, when growth returns and tax cuts become possible.
The template for the strategy is John Major’s unlikely Tory election victory in 1992, when he persuaded voters that the UK was “on the right track”, even though the party appeared exhausted after 13 years in power.
Yup but it led to an even bigger disaster later on. Take the pain... accept your time is up ... Labour will be fucking it up before you can say Gordon Brown.
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.
It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.
Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.
2 points:-
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The good news is that the Tories will be destroyed at the next election, and HYUFD will be reduced to weeping tears of battery acid (or whatever androids do when dejected).
The bad news is there is still TWO MORE YEARS of their malign, corrupt, incompetent and cruel reign.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
As I said, a lack of social mobility is debilitating for economic growth.
It's going to be a terrible night for the Tories. Repeat ad nauseum until GE day....
Do you honestly believe, as we write, they don't deserve to be under scrutiny for the personal behaviour of a number of cabinet and senior party members? In terms of political policy too, you have the likes of Braverman rowing back on earlier pledges (for example, over Windrush) to placate the swivel-eyed contingent.
If your party, for whom you are shedding your tear learned to behave themselves, adopt moderate and civil policy and encouraged Sunak to dispose of the b****** contingent from cabinet their polling would most likely be more satisfactory for supporters like yourself.
No. They are under scrutiny and rightly so. Their time is up. They need to accept that they are fucked and go for damage limitation.
1/ A Scottish tragedy of sorts all of this. But, not a tragedy of the Scottish people's making, (over two thirds of whom oppose Sturgeon's eccentric & unsafe on-demand GRC bill), it's one entirely made by the student politicians at Holyrood who have brought crisis upon themselves ….
10/ What we have here are gendocrats.
An elite who pledged fealty to gender ideology as a wedge issue with Westminster and because they, (like equivalent elites) care little for the concerns of women or homosexuals. It's a bourgeoise top-down affair which works on disconnects.
11/ So Sturgeon is disconnected from Scottish voters. Her MSPs (and pals) are disconnected from grown up governance. The protestors are disconnected from basic decency and the Scottish government is now disconnected from being taken seriously. An amateurish and dangerous bunch.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
Left wing bullshit.
It used to be. It’s hard to argue with today, though. If you can provide another definition of the Conservatives, I’m all ears.
HYUFD (or the algorithm behind him), to his credit, simply owns it and presents it as a virtue somehow.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The good news is that the Tories will be destroyed at the next election, and HYUFD will be reduced to weeping tears of battery acid (or whatever androids do when dejected).
The bad news is there is still TWO MORE YEARS of their malign, corrupt, incompetent and cruel reign.
We have been in power for 13 consecutive years already, by the next general we will have been in power longer than any party consecutively in the last 100 years bar the 1979 to 1997 Tory government.
Labour then have to deal with the economy. I certainly won't be weeping if we lose, more a shrug shoulders then into opposition and attack the government
Economic growth needs social mobility, or at the very least the illusion of social mobility.
Otherwise people just give up, and argue over ever smaller pieces of pie.
Social mobility has little affect on the average person. Only a few will become high earners if not with high earning parents or poor if not with poor parents.
At least inheritance if most are home owners passes wealth down for most people, reducing the need for state support
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, the Lord made them high or lowly and ordered their estate.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The big age of social mobility was about 1950 to 1990 as more white collar jobs were created to replace blue collar jobs lost. I doubt we will ever see that again.
I of course support more grammar schools which offered the best ladder to the upper middle class from the lower middle and working class but few on here do and of course even then most will not get there.
Council House sales also spread wealth under Thatcher, she just needed to use more of the sale proceeds to build new social housing
Up until now, the answer from ministers has been that it is not responsible for SPS operational matters on where prisoners are placed within the prison estate but the FM has now been able to reveal that "this prisoner" will not be incarcerated in Cornton Vale. #FMQs
Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity" That house of cards just utterly collapsed
Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?
(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)
I am afraid that neither Yvette Cooper nor Ms Sturgeon understand the consequences of the current law, the Haldane judgment or what the GRR Bill will mean. This case exemplifies all the issues which equality lawyers and others have been raising. It is understandable that Cooper does not want to make Labour seem like a party on the side of rapists and Sturgeon wants to avoid bad publicity. But this case has blown all the arguments for the GRR Bill - in its current form - straight out of the water.
As for the arguments that risk assessment by the prison service will solve all the issues, that doesn't work either for some pretty obvious reasons.
I will do a separate post explaining why because there is so much misunderstanding of what the law actually says.
(If you're very lucky - 🤭 - I may even do it as a header.)
Would I be right in thinking that, the moment the pretendy rapist woman in this case gets his hands on some kind of official gender recognition document, he can simply use human rights legislation to force the Scottish authorities to put him in a women's jail? You'll know the ins and outs both of what existing gender recognition legislation, and the proposed Scottish reforms, imply than I do: if the law insists that this man is now a woman then, presumably, he cannot continue to be held in a men's prison?
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
Previously I believe the answer was that someone with a GRC would by default be housed in the women’s estate, but that a risk assessment would be applied that would see them sent elsewhere if they were deemed a risk to women - notably anyone convicted them or previously of sexual offenses would fall under this category IIRC. (NB, there is a problem with this system around disclosure of trans status where I do agree with Cyclefree that is seems there is a gap that could be abused by individuals with the goal of gaining access to the womens estate, due to the legal restrictions placed how knowledge of someone’s trans status could be communicated within the system without their consent.)
Presumably an updated version will be forthcoming.
Thanks.
However, what has not been factored in is the effect of the Haldane judgment. It is a Scottish judgment so the question of whether and how it applies in E&W is unclear (to me anyway). But the same arguments could be used by someone in E&W and if the result is the same - at the SC level - then all these policies are worthless and will need rewriting.
At that point a man with a GRC will legally be a female and even if he is the most violent rapist around cannot legally be held outside a man's prison. He could of course be put in solitary confinement or in a special wing. But then female warders could be put at risk. Or we could have male warders protecting male rapist prisoners with a certificate saying that they are a woman in a specially segregated prison wing.
What could we call such wings? How about ... ooh I dunno..... a Men's Prison (GRC wing)?
All this arises from the nonsense of saying that people should be allowed to change gender on their say-so with no objective or verifiable criteria or checks for doing so.
As @Malmesbury put it in another context - "Every time I hear someone say "Why introduce checks? It's all working fine", I recount the spoons."
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
Only about 25% will need social care for dementia etc, certainly residential social care. Most will either avoid dementia or die beforehand
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The good news is that the Tories will be destroyed at the next election, and HYUFD will be reduced to weeping tears of battery acid (or whatever androids do when dejected).
The bad news is there is still TWO MORE YEARS of their malign, corrupt, incompetent and cruel reign.
We have been in power for 13 consecutive years already, by the next general we will have been in power longer than any party consecutively in the last 100 years bar the 1979 to 1997 Tory government.
Labour then have to deal with the economy. I certainly won't be weeping if we lose, more a shrug shoulders then into opposition and attack the government
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The big age of social mobility was about 1950 to 1990 as more white collar jobs were created to replace blue collar jobs lost. I doubt we will ever see that again.
I of course support more grammar schools which offered the best ladder to the upper middle class from the lower middle and working class but few on here do and of course even then most will not get there.
Council House sales also spread wealth under Thatcher, she just needed to use more of the sale proceeds to build new social housing
It’s weird that the big age of social mobility co-incides to some extent with the big age of redistributive government.
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.
It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.
Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.
2 points:-
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
These are issues that already exist though do they not? And on a UK-wide basis, regardless of the new legislation?
I accept the argument the Scottish approach forces confrontation of the issues on a faster timescale than might otherwise have been the case, but it's not like it represents a total reversal of the direction of the travel that was happening anyway.
I'm not convinced its a heroic assumption to say that the numbers of people misusing it will be small. It seems more like a heroic assumption to essentially infer that the whole thing is there basically solely for the preserve of men who want a novel way of sexually abusing women. There's no doubt that it can be misused if people so choose, which is why improving the safeguarding seems like an important part of the issue to me. And there's no doubt that the issue as a whole raises deep and difficult questions for our society as a whole.
All I'm saying is that you can't skip over those issues or hide from them just by using specific individual cases to make the case that no-one should be allowed to do it.
Economic growth needs social mobility, or at the very least the illusion of social mobility.
Otherwise people just give up, and argue over ever smaller pieces of pie.
Social mobility has little affect on the average person. Only a few will become high earners if not with high earning parents or poor if not with poor parents.
At least inheritance if most are home owners passes wealth down for most people, reducing the need for state support
The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, the Lord made them high or lowly and ordered their estate.
There's a difference, though.
Good aristocracy used to lead to noblesse oblige. It was imperfect, but there was a real sense of responsibility for those less fortunate, however patronising.
Modern disparities of wealth seem much more likely to be accompanied by "I deserve / earned / paid for it, so there". And that doesn't lead to a good society, even if one's instincts shun socialism.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The big age of social mobility was about 1950 to 1990 as more white collar jobs were created to replace blue collar jobs lost. I doubt we will ever see that again.
I of course support more grammar schools which offered the best ladder to the upper middle class from the lower middle and working class but few on here do and of course even then most will not get there.
Council House sales also spread wealth under Thatcher, she just needed to use more of the sale proceeds to build new social housing
It’s weird that the big age of social mobility co-incides to some extent with the big age of redistributive government.
Not really, plenty in the 1950s and 1980s too.
Redistribution doesn't mean social mobility, just taking from the rich and average earners to give to the poor
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The good news is that the Tories will be destroyed at the next election, and HYUFD will be reduced to weeping tears of battery acid (or whatever androids do when dejected).
The bad news is there is still TWO MORE YEARS of their malign, corrupt, incompetent and cruel reign.
We have been in power for 13 consecutive years already, by the next general we will have been in power longer than any party consecutively in the last 100 years bar the 1979 to 1997 Tory government.
Labour then have to deal with the economy. I certainly won't be weeping if we lose, more a shrug shoulders then into opposition and attack the government
Yes I think a 2024 GE win is a poison chalice.
People say that about a lot of elections. Maybe it is even true sometimes. But it is always better to win than not.
You never know, you might be able to handle it well after all, for example.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
Only about 25% will need social care for dementia etc, certainly residential social care. Most will either avoid dementia or die beforehand
25%... now.
With the spiralling costs of healthcare and an ever increasing number of people living longer, I reckon that figure will be closer to 50% by the time the boomers start dying off en masse in their late 80s and 90s.
As I say, far fewer people are going to inherit their parents wealth than they think.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
I think that we need to encourage wealth redistribution by means of inheritance tax. Such a system was an effective way of breaking up the aristocratic estates of Britain and Ireland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. It needs updating to make it harder to dodge.
I rather like the idea of taxing inheritance at the recipient, perhaps spread over 2 or 3 years, as income or as CGT. This would encourage wider distribution within families. Income tax on very large inheritances would be redistributive via the tax system.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
Is that right?
Most of the people who end up with very big care home bills have dementia or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. I think it is about 15 to 20 % per cent of the population who will go and develop these illnesses in a severe form.
So most people do not end up with really big care home bills. Most homeowners are able to pass most of the wealth in their home on.
If more people ended up with really big care home bills, then something would have been done by now about social care.
It is because it only affects a smallish fraction of the population that the present situation persists.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The big age of social mobility was about 1950 to 1990 as more white collar jobs were created to replace blue collar jobs lost. I doubt we will ever see that again.
I of course support more grammar schools which offered the best ladder to the upper middle class from the lower middle and working class but few on here do and of course even then most will not get there.
Council House sales also spread wealth under Thatcher, she just needed to use more of the sale proceeds to build new social housing
Where might I find this utopian paradise of grazing unicorns and rivers of bullsh1t of which you write?
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
Is that right?
Most of the people who end up with very big care home bills have dementia or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. I think it is about 15 to 20 % per cent of the population who will go and develop these illnesses in a severe form.
So most people do not end up with really big care home bills. Most homeowners are able to pass most of the wealth in their home on.
If more people ended up with really big care home bills, then something would have been done by now about social care.
It is because it only affects a smallish fraction of the population that the present situation persists.
A tax on property, which you can choose to defer and pay on disposal, or upon your death.
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.
It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.
Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.
2 points:-
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
These are issues that already exist though do they not? And on a UK-wide basis, regardless of the new legislation?
I accept the argument the Scottish approach forces confrontation of the issues on a faster timescale than might otherwise have been the case, but it's not like it represents a total reversal of the direction of the travel that was happening anyway.
I'm not convinced its a heroic assumption to say that the numbers of people misusing it will be small. It seems more like a heroic assumption to essentially infer that the whole thing is there basically solely for the preserve of men who want a novel way of sexually abusing women. There's no doubt that it can be misused if people so choose, which is why improving the safeguarding seems like an important part of the issue to me. And there's no doubt that the issue as a whole raises deep and difficult questions for our society as a whole.
All I'm saying is that you can't skip over those issues or hide from them just by using specific individual cases to make the case that no-one should be allowed to do it.
Care to put a number on the number of women abused by sexual predators misusing it before you say enough is enough?
I have a couple of trans friends and quite comfortable with them. Happy not to misgender them, happy to call them by their chosen names. Happy to support them living as a women. Happy to support them going preop into women only safe spaces.....absolutely not and not because I think they are actually a danger but because it would make already vulnerable women feel more vulnerable.
I also have no doubt that men who don't actually see themselves as in the wrong bodies will use it to access these safe spaces with gusto.
He's minister without portfolio and only in the Cabinet as a sinecure for the Chair of the party, (rather than a jack of all trades minister without portfolio) it's not as though the investigation is interferring with his government duties. It's only a political cost to him standing down.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
Only about 25% will need social care for dementia etc, certainly residential social care. Most will either avoid dementia or die beforehand
25%... now.
With the spiralling costs of healthcare and an ever increasing number of people living longer, I reckon that figure will be closer to 50% by the time the boomers start dying off en masse in their late 80s and 90s.
As I say, far fewer people are going to inherit their parents wealth than they think.
The government may still pass into law its £86k care cap anyway and of course there is equity release, lifetime gifts etc not just inheritance at death
If the Tories have lost Rod Stewart, it really is all over.
Yep it's true, he was really slagging off the Tories - "they are failing, they are failing ..."
Man who can't sing can't do politics either....well thats a surprise
Rod Stewart is (or perhaps was) actually a very good singer. Hard to remember sometimes through the hair and performative tartan.
Well that is an opinion I found him a grating singer and whenever played I couldn't wait to go out for a breath of fresh air....his voice was nails on a chalkboard to many
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
I think that we need to encourage wealth redistribution by means of inheritance tax. Such a system was an effective way of breaking up the aristocratic estates of Britain and Ireland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. It needs updating to make it harder to dodge.
I rather like the idea of taxing inheritance at the recipient, perhaps spread over 2 or 3 years, as income or as CGT. This would encourage wider distribution within families. Income tax on very large inheritances would be redistributive via the tax system.
Except 2/3 of the adult population own property, only about 1% of the population had aristocratic estates.
He's minister without portfolio and only in the Cabinet as a sinecure for the Chair of the party, (rather than a jack of all trades minister without portfolio) it's not as though the investigation is interferring with his government duties. It's only a political cost to him standing down.
Am I right in thinking that Chairman of the Party Salary is paid by the Party anyway?
If the Tories have lost Rod Stewart, it really is all over.
Yep it's true, he was really slagging off the Tories - "they are failing, they are failing ..."
Man who can't sing can't do politics either....well thats a surprise
Rod Stewart is (or perhaps was) actually a very good singer. Hard to remember sometimes through the hair and performative tartan.
Well that is an opinion I found him a grating singer and whenever played I couldn't wait to go out for a breath of fresh air....his voice was nails on a chalkboard to many
He modelled himself to some extent on Sam Cooke. If you listen for it, you can hear it. Perhaps try Cooke, as he doesn’t have Stewart’s rasp.
He's minister without portfolio and only in the Cabinet as a sinecure for the Chair of the party, (rather than a jack of all trades minister without portfolio) it's not as though the investigation is interferring with his government duties. It's only a political cost to him standing down.
Am I right in thinking that Chairman of the Party Salary is paid by the Party anyway?
In fairness I don't know that, and therefore whether he actually collects a Cabinet Member level salary from the state as well, so it may be they do not individually benefit - but its still a pointless Cabinet position, solely due to his party chair role, and hardly necessary (whereas the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, for instance, might actually do something).
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
I think that we need to encourage wealth redistribution by means of inheritance tax. Such a system was an effective way of breaking up the aristocratic estates of Britain and Ireland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. It needs updating to make it harder to dodge.
I rather like the idea of taxing inheritance at the recipient, perhaps spread over 2 or 3 years, as income or as CGT. This would encourage wider distribution within families. Income tax on very large inheritances would be redistributive via the tax system.
Except 2/3 of the adult population on property, only about 1% of the population had aristocratic estates.
Exactly why the big estates had to be broken up and the land and wealth spread more widely.
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.
It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.
Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.
2 points:-
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
These are issues that already exist though do they not? And on a UK-wide basis, regardless of the new legislation?
I accept the argument the Scottish approach forces confrontation of the issues on a faster timescale than might otherwise have been the case, but it's not like it represents a total reversal of the direction of the travel that was happening anyway.
I'm not convinced its a heroic assumption to say that the numbers of people misusing it will be small. It seems more like a heroic assumption to essentially infer that the whole thing is there basically solely for the preserve of men who want a novel way of sexually abusing women. There's no doubt that it can be misused if people so choose, which is why improving the safeguarding seems like an important part of the issue to me. And there's no doubt that the issue as a whole raises deep and difficult questions for our society as a whole.
All I'm saying is that you can't skip over those issues or hide from them just by using specific individual cases to make the case that no-one should be allowed to do it.
Again, 3 points:-
1. I do not say that no-one should be allowed to change gender. I think only those who verifiably have gender dysphoria should be allowed to do so.
2. The position post-Haldane is different from what we thought it was. Pr-Haldane, you could have a GRC or fall within the definition of "gender reassignment" but your sex remained what it was at birth and, therefore, a service provider could keep you out on the grounds of your sex if this was proportionate and for a legitimate aim.
Now, if Haldane is upheld and the same reasoning adopted by the English courts, it is not simply your gender which has changed but your sex. So the service provider can no longer keep you out in the grounds of your sex. This means that single sex spaces will have to accommodate males ie people with a male body but with a piece of paper saying that they are a woman. Similarly, single sex (women only) associations will not be able to exclude a man at all.
This is a significant step change not just more of the same.
3. There are no safeguards at all. That is the whole point of self-ID. If you have safeguards you end up roughly somewhere where we are now. But the Scottish government fought ferociously to prevent all amendments introducing any or any effective safeguards. Indeed, one of the SNP MSPs sneeringly referred to safeguarding in Holyrood as no more than "middle class gate-keeping".
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
He's a member of the Conservative Party, which exists only to defend the interests of the already wealthy and to redistribute money upwards. It's all they believe in and all they are good for.
I’m not sure that’s always been the way.
There was a time when the Tories extended their sympathies to the aspirant class, and even to some extent the broad swathe of middle Britain.
That ended some time ago, though.
Indeed. Self-reliance, hard work and the fruits thereof - were the kind of rhetorical arguments that I recall from the Thatcher years - by definition when they appealed most to the aspirants and middle Britain. At a time when houses cost far, far less in terms of salaries.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The big age of social mobility was about 1950 to 1990 as more white collar jobs were created to replace blue collar jobs lost. I doubt we will ever see that again.
I of course support more grammar schools which offered the best ladder to the upper middle class from the lower middle and working class but few on here do and of course even then most will not get there.
Council House sales also spread wealth under Thatcher, she just needed to use more of the sale proceeds to build new social housing
b) Your grammar school point is a matter of opinion. Most these days feel grammar schools prevent mobility. Few from lower classes make the jump to grammars. They are full of middle class kids who have been tutored. Socially deprived kids will be sent to sink secondary schools. I know you disagree, but you have to accept this is not the consensus of opinion of educational experts.
If the Tories have lost Rod Stewart, it really is all over.
Yep it's true, he was really slagging off the Tories - "they are failing, they are failing ..."
Man who can't sing can't do politics either....well thats a surprise
Rod Stewart is (or perhaps was) actually a very good singer. Hard to remember sometimes through the hair and performative tartan.
Well that is an opinion I found him a grating singer and whenever played I couldn't wait to go out for a breath of fresh air....his voice was nails on a chalkboard to many
He modelled himself to some extent on Sam Cooke. If you listen for it, you can hear it. Perhaps try Cooke, as he doesn’t have Stewart’s rasp.
Perhaps his style is just not my musical tastes. Every single person I think dislikes the music of someone most people love. Just accept people have different tastes and people we love to listen to are not going to be someones cup of tea. I am sure there are bands I love you would say the same to me about. I don't like his voice and I don't like his style of music simple as that
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
I think that we need to encourage wealth redistribution by means of inheritance tax. Such a system was an effective way of breaking up the aristocratic estates of Britain and Ireland in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. It needs updating to make it harder to dodge.
I rather like the idea of taxing inheritance at the recipient, perhaps spread over 2 or 3 years, as income or as CGT. This would encourage wider distribution within families. Income tax on very large inheritances would be redistributive via the tax system.
Except 2/3 of the adult population on property, only about 1% of the population had aristocratic estates.
Exactly why the big estates had to be broken up and the land and wealth spread more widely.
Most still rented long after that, it was only the 1950s housebuilding boom and the 1980s council house sakes that made most homeowners
Up until now, the answer from ministers has been that it is not responsible for SPS operational matters on where prisoners are placed within the prison estate but the FM has now been able to reveal that "this prisoner" will not be incarcerated in Cornton Vale. #FMQs
Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity" That house of cards just utterly collapsed
Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?
(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)
I am afraid that neither Yvette Cooper nor Ms Sturgeon understand the consequences of the current law, the Haldane judgment or what the GRR Bill will mean. This case exemplifies all the issues which equality lawyers and others have been raising. It is understandable that Cooper does not want to make Labour seem like a party on the side of rapists and Sturgeon wants to avoid bad publicity. But this case has blown all the arguments for the GRR Bill - in its current form - straight out of the water.
As for the arguments that risk assessment by the prison service will solve all the issues, that doesn't work either for some pretty obvious reasons.
I will do a separate post explaining why because there is so much misunderstanding of what the law actually says.
(If you're very lucky - 🤭 - I may even do it as a header.)
Would I be right in thinking that, the moment the pretendy rapist woman in this case gets his hands on some kind of official gender recognition document, he can simply use human rights legislation to force the Scottish authorities to put him in a women's jail? You'll know the ins and outs both of what existing gender recognition legislation, and the proposed Scottish reforms, imply than I do: if the law insists that this man is now a woman then, presumably, he cannot continue to be held in a men's prison?
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
Previously I believe the answer was that someone with a GRC would by default be housed in the women’s estate, but that a risk assessment would be applied that would see them sent elsewhere if they were deemed a risk to women - notably anyone convicted them or previously of sexual offenses would fall under this category IIRC. (NB, there is a problem with this system around disclosure of trans status where I do agree with Cyclefree that is seems there is a gap that could be abused by individuals with the goal of gaining access to the womens estate, due to the legal restrictions placed how knowledge of someone’s trans status could be communicated within the system without their consent.)
Presumably an updated version will be forthcoming.
Thanks.
However, what has not been factored in is the effect of the Haldane judgment. It is a Scottish judgment so the question of whether and how it applies in E&W is unclear (to me anyway). But the same arguments could be used by someone in E&W and if the result is the same - at the SC level - then all these policies are worthless and will need rewriting.
At that point a man with a GRC will legally be a female and even if he is the most violent rapist around cannot legally be held outside a man's prison. He could of course be put in solitary confinement or in a special wing. But then female warders could be put at risk. Or we could have male warders protecting male rapist prisoners with a certificate saying that they are a woman in a specially segregated prison wing.
What could we call such wings? How about ... ooh I dunno..... a Men's Prison (GRC wing)?
All this arises from the nonsense of saying that people should be allowed to change gender on their say-so with no objective or verifiable criteria or checks for doing so.
As @Malmesbury put it in another context - "Every time I hear someone say "Why introduce checks? It's all working fine", I recount the spoons."
I suspect if the men who intend to abuse the system by obtaining GRCs for their own ends found themselves locked up elsewhere every time because the prison service had access to that information as of right, the number of people trying that on would rapidly trend towards zero.
Which would mean that those who wanted a GRC could get one without any of this being a problem.
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.
It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.
Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.
2 points:-
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
These are issues that already exist though do they not? And on a UK-wide basis, regardless of the new legislation?
I accept the argument the Scottish approach forces confrontation of the issues on a faster timescale than might otherwise have been the case, but it's not like it represents a total reversal of the direction of the travel that was happening anyway.
I'm not convinced its a heroic assumption to say that the numbers of people misusing it will be small. It seems more like a heroic assumption to essentially infer that the whole thing is there basically solely for the preserve of men who want a novel way of sexually abusing women. There's no doubt that it can be misused if people so choose, which is why improving the safeguarding seems like an important part of the issue to me. And there's no doubt that the issue as a whole raises deep and difficult questions for our society as a whole.
All I'm saying is that you can't skip over those issues or hide from them just by using specific individual cases to make the case that no-one should be allowed to do it.
Again, 3 points:-
1. I do not say that no-one should be allowed to change gender. I think only those who verifiably have gender dysphoria should be allowed to do so.
How do you propose to verify gender dysphoria? It is an inward experience, so the only real way to find out is to ask people if they have the symptoms of it.
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.
It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.
Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.
2 points:-
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
These are issues that already exist though do they not? And on a UK-wide basis, regardless of the new legislation?
I accept the argument the Scottish approach forces confrontation of the issues on a faster timescale than might otherwise have been the case, but it's not like it represents a total reversal of the direction of the travel that was happening anyway.
I'm not convinced its a heroic assumption to say that the numbers of people misusing it will be small. It seems more like a heroic assumption to essentially infer that the whole thing is there basically solely for the preserve of men who want a novel way of sexually abusing women. There's no doubt that it can be misused if people so choose, which is why improving the safeguarding seems like an important part of the issue to me. And there's no doubt that the issue as a whole raises deep and difficult questions for our society as a whole.
All I'm saying is that you can't skip over those issues or hide from them just by using specific individual cases to make the case that no-one should be allowed to do it.
Again, 3 points:-
1. I do not say that no-one should be allowed to change gender. I think only those who verifiably have gender dysphoria should be allowed to do so.
2. The position post-Haldane is different from what we thought it was. Pr-Haldane, you could have a GRC or fall within the definition of "gender reassignment" but your sex remained what it was at birth and, therefore, a service provider could keep you out on the grounds of your sex if this was proportionate and for a legitimate aim.
Now, if Haldane is upheld and the same reasoning adopted by the English courts, it is not simply your gender which has changed but your sex. So the service provider can no longer keep you out in the grounds of your sex. This means that single sex spaces will have to accommodate males ie people with a male body but with a piece of paper saying that they are a woman. Similarly, single sex (women only) association will not be able to exclude a man at all.
This is a significant step change not just more of the same.
3. There are no safeguards at all. That is the whole point of self-ID. If you have safeguards you end up roughly somewhere where we are now. But the Scottish government fought ferociously to prevent all amendments introducing any or any effective safeguards. Indeed, one of the SNP MSPs sneeringly referred to safeguarding in Holyrood as no more than "middle class gate-keeping".
I have kept out of your debate regarding transgender issues, not least because I have no understanding of the chemistry of the transgender mind. I understand the biology nonetheless and Adam Graham has focused the mind on the self-affirmation absurdity of the SNP's transgender rights policy.
Maggie may have counted on my vote in the past, but.. (apols if someone has already appropriated this clunkingly obvious pun)
Wake up, Maggie, I think I’ve got something to say to you. Your party’s full of shysters who take us for a pack of fools. I know you won’t be amused. But I think we’re being used! Oh Maggie, I wish I’d never voted for any of them. They’ve taxed us till the pips wont squeak And pander to the Brexity freaks. They’ve broke my heart, and it’s time give Keir a go.
Up until now, the answer from ministers has been that it is not responsible for SPS operational matters on where prisoners are placed within the prison estate but the FM has now been able to reveal that "this prisoner" will not be incarcerated in Cornton Vale. #FMQs
Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity" That house of cards just utterly collapsed
Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?
(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)
I am afraid that neither Yvette Cooper nor Ms Sturgeon understand the consequences of the current law, the Haldane judgment or what the GRR Bill will mean. This case exemplifies all the issues which equality lawyers and others have been raising. It is understandable that Cooper does not want to make Labour seem like a party on the side of rapists and Sturgeon wants to avoid bad publicity. But this case has blown all the arguments for the GRR Bill - in its current form - straight out of the water.
As for the arguments that risk assessment by the prison service will solve all the issues, that doesn't work either for some pretty obvious reasons.
I will do a separate post explaining why because there is so much misunderstanding of what the law actually says.
(If you're very lucky - 🤭 - I may even do it as a header.)
Would I be right in thinking that, the moment the pretendy rapist woman in this case gets his hands on some kind of official gender recognition document, he can simply use human rights legislation to force the Scottish authorities to put him in a women's jail? You'll know the ins and outs both of what existing gender recognition legislation, and the proposed Scottish reforms, imply than I do: if the law insists that this man is now a woman then, presumably, he cannot continue to be held in a men's prison?
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
Previously I believe the answer was that someone with a GRC would by default be housed in the women’s estate, but that a risk assessment would be applied that would see them sent elsewhere if they were deemed a risk to women - notably anyone convicted them or previously of sexual offenses would fall under this category IIRC. (NB, there is a problem with this system around disclosure of trans status where I do agree with Cyclefree that is seems there is a gap that could be abused by individuals with the goal of gaining access to the womens estate, due to the legal restrictions placed how knowledge of someone’s trans status could be communicated within the system without their consent.)
Presumably an updated version will be forthcoming.
Thanks.
However, what has not been factored in is the effect of the Haldane judgment. It is a Scottish judgment so the question of whether and how it applies in E&W is unclear (to me anyway). But the same arguments could be used by someone in E&W and if the result is the same - at the SC level - then all these policies are worthless and will need rewriting.
At that point a man with a GRC will legally be a female and even if he is the most violent rapist around cannot legally be held outside a man's prison. He could of course be put in solitary confinement or in a special wing. But then female warders could be put at risk. Or we could have male warders protecting male rapist prisoners with a certificate saying that they are a woman in a specially segregated prison wing.
What could we call such wings? How about ... ooh I dunno..... a Men's Prison (GRC wing)?
All this arises from the nonsense of saying that people should be allowed to change gender on their say-so with no objective or verifiable criteria or checks for doing so.
As @Malmesbury put it in another context - "Every time I hear someone say "Why introduce checks? It's all working fine", I recount the spoons."
I suspect if the men who intend to abuse the system by obtaining GRCs for their own ends found themselves locked up elsewhere every time because the prison service had access to that information as of right, the number of people trying that on would rapidly trend towards zero.
Which would mean that those who wanted a GRC could get one without any of this being a problem.
While true that is not what the governement of scotland is proposing. You self id as a women you are a women thats what leads to hospitals saying you weren't raped as there was no males here which has already happened.
The problem with self ID is not mainly about genuine trans people. Sadly it is about men who really id as men but claim otherwise using self id as a means to get close to vulnerable women.
I have said blatantly on here if I ever got a prison sentence hell yes if I can I will self id and get sent to a prison for women. Not because in my case I wish to assault them but it will be easier than a mens prison.
If the Tories have lost Rod Stewart, it really is all over.
Yep it's true, he was really slagging off the Tories - "they are failing, they are failing ..."
Man who can't sing can't do politics either....well thats a surprise
Rod Stewart is (or perhaps was) actually a very good singer. Hard to remember sometimes through the hair and performative tartan.
Well that is an opinion I found him a grating singer and whenever played I couldn't wait to go out for a breath of fresh air....his voice was nails on a chalkboard to many
He modelled himself to some extent on Sam Cooke. If you listen for it, you can hear it. Perhaps try Cooke, as he doesn’t have Stewart’s rasp.
He was a great blues singer in his early days and his voice really suited that. I never thought it suited the more popular style of song he adopted later on as a solo artist but then that may be because I never really liked that style of music anyway. But his time with The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces was superb.
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
This is my problem with a lot of the discourse on the subject (not specifically your comment) - plenty of people just think it shouldn't go ahead because a very small number of particularly maladjusted people might misuse it.
It's absolutely right to be concerned about these issues and how to deal with and safeguard against them, but for many people it seems the fact there's even any potential for any misuse at all is more than enough reason for it not to go ahead.
Problem is if you applied that logic to all sorts of other things then it would quickly result in total paralysis and/or all sorts of crazy unreasonable situations.
2 points:-
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
These are issues that already exist though do they not? And on a UK-wide basis, regardless of the new legislation?
I accept the argument the Scottish approach forces confrontation of the issues on a faster timescale than might otherwise have been the case, but it's not like it represents a total reversal of the direction of the travel that was happening anyway.
I'm not convinced its a heroic assumption to say that the numbers of people misusing it will be small. It seems more like a heroic assumption to essentially infer that the whole thing is there basically solely for the preserve of men who want a novel way of sexually abusing women. There's no doubt that it can be misused if people so choose, which is why improving the safeguarding seems like an important part of the issue to me. And there's no doubt that the issue as a whole raises deep and difficult questions for our society as a whole.
All I'm saying is that you can't skip over those issues or hide from them just by using specific individual cases to make the case that no-one should be allowed to do it.
Care to put a number on the number of women abused by sexual predators misusing it before you say enough is enough?
I have a couple of trans friends and quite comfortable with them. Happy not to misgender them, happy to call them by their chosen names. Happy to support them living as a women. Happy to support them going preop into women only safe spaces.....absolutely not and not because I think they are actually a danger but because it would make already vulnerable women feel more vulnerable.
I also have no doubt that men who don't actually see themselves as in the wrong bodies will use it to access these safe spaces with gusto.
No. Because that's my whole point. You go down the route of we won't do a thing because one person might suffer or we will do a thing because it might stop one person suffering and you get into a whole world of pain very quickly.
I don't care to put a number on the number of women abused by sexual predators in the police before I say enough is enough and men simply aren't allowed to join the police. I don't care to put a number on the number of women groped or abused on public transport before I say enough is enough and men must be barred from travelling in the same carriages or vehicles as women. And so on and so forth. None of this means I accept or am happy about sexual abuse from police officers or men on public transport, but equally I have to take the view that the people who do these things are a minority of the male population. They are not representative of males as a whole. We cannot tar everyone with the same brush, no matter how high profile the individual instances may be.
Again, I'm not denying the fact that (a) self-ID poses complex and difficult questions for our society and (b) has the clear potential for misuse if safeguarding is inadequate. But equally I'm far from convinced from the idea that everyone who might self-ID is basically a rapist in waiting so we shouldn't bother to consider the idea at all.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Hang on. Most of that wealth you are talking about came about entirely outside of the expectations of the Governments of the last 30 or 40 years - indeed to some extent in spite of their efforts or at least only indirectly from them screwing up. If anything has gone wrong it is the growth in the size of the state and Government spending so blaming the pensioners for something that has been entirely out of their hands and creating this artificial conflict between young and old simply because it suits your own bigoted ideas is utter bollocks.
And as someone has pointed out, that wealth then gets transferred to the young (who again I should point out will very soon be old) when the current crop of pensioners die.
Rather than looking avariciously at an income source to prop up your broken system maybe you should look at fixing the system instead.
The size of Britain’s state is on the smaller side compared with peer economies (although less so of late).
This is one of your pet madnesses, alongside climate change denial, enthusiasm for totally open borders, and Casaubonian Brexitry.
On topic, I live in one of the first Red Wall seats to fall to the Tories in 2017. The MP is local. She has increased her majority at every GE since then.
However she will be out next time.
Why?
1. She's nice enough. But useless. Letters/emails go unanswered or you just get a boilerplate reply. She does not get involved in worthwhile local initiatives even when neighbouring Tory MPs do - and get some local credit for doing so. Husband is involved in a number of these and finds that her response is always to say "ooh yes, good idea" and then do the square root of fuck all. The contrast with the Tory MP in the next constituency let alone Tim Farron is not to her advantage. At all.
2. There is some money coming for the area but it is so slow that people will not see any visible improvement by the time of the next GE.
3. The local Tory councillors are a bunch of utterly useless tossers. Neither use nor ornament. (BTW I have been asked whether I want to be an independent councillor - there is a local grouping that wants to fire rockets up the arses of these people - and am thinking about it.) Who the hell is going to campaign for the Tories next time?
4. Some things have got worse. GP practices. Dentistry.
5. The local council reorganisation leaves this area out in the cold. Again.
6. This used to be an area where in some wards no-one bothered to campaign against the Tories. Now Labour have won loads in the local elections and come close in my ward, partly because those standing have been energetic and helpful. The Labour councillor in the local town is very good and sensible. So people look at him and think that Labour deserve a chance.
7. People gave Tories a chance in 2017. They've had 6 years. Even if they get another 2 years what have they got to show for it locally?
8. A sense of fairness in the sense of - it's time to give the other lot a go as this lot are exhausted/crooked/been here too long.
Up until now, the answer from ministers has been that it is not responsible for SPS operational matters on where prisoners are placed within the prison estate but the FM has now been able to reveal that "this prisoner" will not be incarcerated in Cornton Vale. #FMQs
Make no mistake. This is a comprehensive defeat and singular humiliation for Sturgeon. All that "criminals won't try to get into female spaces", all that "most marginalised people", all that "be kind and respect a self declared identity" That house of cards just utterly collapsed
Is it though? I haven't followed this very closely, but hasn't someone (apparently) trying to abuse self-ID to get sent to a women's prison just been denied that opportunity?
(Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but it seems to show (i) that yes, some people will try to take the piss, but (ii) that won't be permitted)
I am afraid that neither Yvette Cooper nor Ms Sturgeon understand the consequences of the current law, the Haldane judgment or what the GRR Bill will mean. This case exemplifies all the issues which equality lawyers and others have been raising. It is understandable that Cooper does not want to make Labour seem like a party on the side of rapists and Sturgeon wants to avoid bad publicity. But this case has blown all the arguments for the GRR Bill - in its current form - straight out of the water.
As for the arguments that risk assessment by the prison service will solve all the issues, that doesn't work either for some pretty obvious reasons.
I will do a separate post explaining why because there is so much misunderstanding of what the law actually says.
(If you're very lucky - 🤭 - I may even do it as a header.)
Would I be right in thinking that, the moment the pretendy rapist woman in this case gets his hands on some kind of official gender recognition document, he can simply use human rights legislation to force the Scottish authorities to put him in a women's jail? You'll know the ins and outs both of what existing gender recognition legislation, and the proposed Scottish reforms, imply than I do: if the law insists that this man is now a woman then, presumably, he cannot continue to be held in a men's prison?
Is this all going to end up with special jails having to be constructed for pretendy women, and in that case how are the genuine trans people going to be sorted out from the piss-takers?
Previously I believe the answer was that someone with a GRC would by default be housed in the women’s estate, but that a risk assessment would be applied that would see them sent elsewhere if they were deemed a risk to women - notably anyone convicted them or previously of sexual offenses would fall under this category IIRC. (NB, there is a problem with this system around disclosure of trans status where I do agree with Cyclefree that is seems there is a gap that could be abused by individuals with the goal of gaining access to the womens estate, due to the legal restrictions placed how knowledge of someone’s trans status could be communicated within the system without their consent.)
Presumably an updated version will be forthcoming.
Thanks.
However, what has not been factored in is the effect of the Haldane judgment. It is a Scottish judgment so the question of whether and how it applies in E&W is unclear (to me anyway). But the same arguments could be used by someone in E&W and if the result is the same - at the SC level - then all these policies are worthless and will need rewriting.
At that point a man with a GRC will legally be a female and even if he is the most violent rapist around cannot legally be held outside a man's prison. He could of course be put in solitary confinement or in a special wing. But then female warders could be put at risk. Or we could have male warders protecting male rapist prisoners with a certificate saying that they are a woman in a specially segregated prison wing.
What could we call such wings? How about ... ooh I dunno..... a Men's Prison (GRC wing)?
All this arises from the nonsense of saying that people should be allowed to change gender on their say-so with no objective or verifiable criteria or checks for doing so.
As @Malmesbury put it in another context - "Every time I hear someone say "Why introduce checks? It's all working fine", I recount the spoons."
I suspect if the men who intend to abuse the system by obtaining GRCs for their own ends found themselves locked up elsewhere every time because the prison service had access to that information as of right, the number of people trying that on would rapidly trend towards zero.
Which would mean that those who wanted a GRC could get one without any of this being a problem.
While true that is not what the governement of scotland is proposing. You self id as a women you are a women thats what leads to hospitals saying you weren't raped as there was no males here which has already happened.
The problem with self ID is not mainly about genuine trans people. Sadly it is about men who really id as men but claim otherwise using self id as a means to get close to vulnerable women.
I have said blatantly on here if I ever got a prison sentence hell yes if I can I will self id and get sent to a prison for women. Not because in my case I wish to assault them but it will be easier than a mens prison.
Have you got a source for a hospital "you weren't raped", the only thing I can find is a story told by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne in the House of Lords, who I don't think can be trusted to get the details right.
Which is worth reading, although here's the excerpt explaining the relevant conclusion:
In 2017, our analysis of the BES data suggests that turnout among over 55s was 83.35%, compared to 58.15% of those under 55. Likewise, turnout was 84.34% vs. 63.06% for over and under 65s respectively. Combining these BES estimates of turnout with LFS estimates of nationality and ONS population estimates, we arrive at the following figures: the over 55s constituted 48.35% of the voting public in 2017, and the over 65s, 30.27%. If we assume that both turnout and the proportion of those disenfranchised due to their nationality remain constant, over 55s will constitute over half of the voting public by 2020 as a result of projected demographic change.
The grey vote is so huge, and contains so many outright homeowners, expectant heirs to property windfalls, and those already in receipt of state pensions or expecting to be so in the near future, that nobody will dare piss them off when it comes to their core interests: the triple lock, keeping house prices buoyant (if necessary through market rigging mechanisms, such as help to buy and refusing to challenge Nimbyism,) and prioritising the taxation of incomes over that of assets and estates.
This, in a nutshell, is why Britain is terminally screwed. Robbed of the ability to tax the old more, all the Government can do to pay for their ever-growing numbers and demands is to tax everyone else completely into the ground. The irony of all this is that 19th century theorists once postulated that democracy could never last for very long, because the great mass of the poor would soon learn to vote to help themselves to all the wealth of the rich, precipitating social collapse. They never anticipated that a great mass of wealthy codgers would actually destroy the state by helping themselves to the wages of their children and grandchildren. But here we are.
Their children and grandchildren will inherit more than any generation before them however
Many people don’t have wealthy parents.
I know that’s difficult for you to compute, though, as it appears to be outside the field of your large language model.
Most people have home owning parents though.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
You get an allowance of £23k, then after that, the average person's parents is more likely to have their home sold or have a lien put on it to pay their care costs.
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
That’s one thing that strikes me. You meet so many later middle aged people with no pension provision who tell you that their house is their pension. Unless they die early, this means that a lot of equity will be spent down to cover day-to-day living costs, meaning that it won’t be available for inheritance and, logically, that property prices should surely fall?
On topic, I live in one of the first Red Wall seats to fall to the Tories in 2017. The MP is local. She has increased her majority at every GE since then.
However she will be out next time.
Why?
1. She's nice enough. But useless. Letters/emails go unanswered or you just get a boilerplate reply. She does not get involved in worthwhile local initiatives even when neighbouring Tory MPs do - and get some local credit for doing so. Husband is involved in a number of these and finds that her response is always to say "ooh yes, good idea" and then do the square root of fuck all. The contrast with the Tory MP in the next constituency let alone Tim Farron is not to her advantage. At all.
2. There is some money coming for the area but it is so slow that people will not see any visible improvement by the time of the next GE.
3. The local Tory councillors are a bunch of utterly useless tossers. Neither use nor ornament. (BTW I have been asked whether I want to be an independent councillor - there is a local grouping that wants to fire rockets up the arses of these people - and am thinking about it.) Who the hell is going to campaign for the Tories next time?
4. Some things have got worse. GP practices. Dentistry.
5. The local council reorganisation leaves this area out in the cold. Again.
6. This used to be an area where in some wards no-one bothered to campaign against the Tories. Now Labour have won loads in the local elections and come close in my ward, partly because those standing have been energetic and helpful. The Labour councillor in the local town is very good and sensible. So people look at him and think that Labour deserve a chance.
7. People gave Tories a chance in 2017. They've had 6 years. Even if they get another 2 years what have they got to show for it locally?
8. A sense of fairness in the sense of - it's time to give the other lot a go as this lot are exhausted/crooked/been here too long.
What is notable about the Red Wall polling is that it is limited to seats where there will be the usual bounce for a newly elected incumbent MP, which in the case of a useless MP may still happen but be less than normal. But that bounce is already discounted in this polling. The 26% Labour lead shown by R&W is net of any newly elected incumbency effect.
Graphs from a single pollster are useful because they reveal trends regardless of any house effects. The trend in the R&W graph is interesting. There has been a slow but perceptible decline in Conservative support in the Red Wall seats from a level of 35% even in June, masked by a temporary implosion under Truss and an initial but only partial recovery under Sunak. Since November the slow but steady downward trend has continued, from 30% after the Autumn budget to 27% now.
Comments
Corrections are good. Crashes are bad.
At least inheritance if most are home owners passes wealth down for most people, reducing the need for state support
A very large part of the growth in wealth has manifest as house price inflation. Not really to do with the efforts of anyone and driven by government "build not enough houses" policy.
I can't equate this modern Tory sitting around waiting for mummy and daddy to die with the sort of self-respect that was a key part of Mrs T's Zeitgeist.
The average person is more likely to inherit a house from their parents than become a high earner
1. It is not just the number of people who might misuse it which is relevant. But the consequences of a change in the law which everyone will have to comply with regardless of whether or not they ever encounter a trans person, genuine or not.
2. One of those consequences is that single sex exemptions and single sex associations will no longer be available and women's ability to bring equal pay claims will be curtailed. That is a loss of facilities and rights which a lot of women will face, far in excess of the numbers who might misuse the law. In short, the legal and practical impact are the key issues not just the numbers.
One further point: it is a heroic assumption to say that the numbers will be small. If you can get lots of advantages and all you have to do is sign a declaration with no proof needed whatsoever, why wouldn't lots of people take advantage of this? What, in fact, are the downsides of doing so?
The bad news is there is still TWO MORE YEARS of their malign, corrupt, incompetent and cruel reign.
10/ What we have here are gendocrats.
An elite who pledged fealty to gender ideology as a wedge issue with Westminster and because they, (like equivalent elites) care little for the concerns of women or homosexuals. It's a bourgeoise top-down affair which works on disconnects.
11/ So Sturgeon is disconnected from Scottish voters. Her MSPs (and pals) are disconnected from grown up governance. The protestors are disconnected from basic decency and the Scottish government is now disconnected from being taken seriously. An amateurish and dangerous bunch.
https://twitter.com/Jebadoo2/status/1618664770412122112
HYUFD (or the algorithm behind him), to his credit, simply owns it and presents it as a virtue somehow.
Labour then have to deal with the economy. I certainly won't be weeping if we lose, more a shrug shoulders then into opposition and attack the government
Fewer people are going to inherit than they think.
I of course support more grammar schools which offered the best ladder to the upper middle class from the lower middle and working class but few on here do and of course even then most will not get there.
Council House sales also spread wealth under Thatcher, she just needed to use more of the sale proceeds to build new social housing
However, what has not been factored in is the effect of the Haldane judgment. It is a Scottish judgment so the question of whether and how it applies in E&W is unclear (to me anyway). But the same arguments could be used by someone in E&W and if the result is the same - at the SC level - then all these policies are worthless and will need rewriting.
At that point a man with a GRC will legally be a female and even if he is the most violent rapist around cannot legally be held outside a man's prison. He could of course be put in solitary confinement or in a special wing. But then female warders could be put at risk. Or we could have male warders protecting male rapist prisoners with a certificate saying that they are a woman in a specially segregated prison wing.
What could we call such wings? How about ... ooh I dunno..... a Men's Prison (GRC wing)?
All this arises from the nonsense of saying that people should be allowed to change gender on their say-so with no objective or verifiable criteria or checks for doing so.
As @Malmesbury put it in another context - "Every time I hear someone say "Why introduce checks? It's all working fine", I recount the spoons."
I accept the argument the Scottish approach forces confrontation of the issues on a faster timescale than might otherwise have been the case, but it's not like it represents a total reversal of the direction of the travel that was happening anyway.
I'm not convinced its a heroic assumption to say that the numbers of people misusing it will be small. It seems more like a heroic assumption to essentially infer that the whole thing is there basically solely for the preserve of men who want a novel way of sexually abusing women. There's no doubt that it can be misused if people so choose, which is why improving the safeguarding seems like an important part of the issue to me. And there's no doubt that the issue as a whole raises deep and difficult questions for our society as a whole.
All I'm saying is that you can't skip over those issues or hide from them just by using specific individual cases to make the case that no-one should be allowed to do it.
Good aristocracy used to lead to noblesse oblige. It was imperfect, but there was a real sense of responsibility for those less fortunate, however patronising.
Modern disparities of wealth seem much more likely to be accompanied by "I deserve / earned / paid for it, so there". And that doesn't lead to a good society, even if one's instincts shun socialism.
Redistribution doesn't mean social mobility, just taking from the rich and average earners to give to the poor
You never know, you might be able to handle it well after all, for example.
With the spiralling costs of healthcare and an ever increasing number of people living longer, I reckon that figure will be closer to 50% by the time the boomers start dying off en masse in their late 80s and 90s.
As I say, far fewer people are going to inherit their parents wealth than they think.
The Conser… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1618707938461327371
I rather like the idea of taxing inheritance at the recipient, perhaps spread over 2 or 3 years, as income or as CGT. This would encourage wider distribution within families. Income tax on very large inheritances would be redistributive via the tax system.
Most of the people who end up with very big care home bills have dementia or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. I think it is about 15 to 20 % per cent of the population who will go and develop these illnesses in a severe form.
So most people do not end up with really big care home bills. Most homeowners are able to pass most of the wealth in their home on.
If more people ended up with really big care home bills, then something would have been done by now about social care.
It is because it only affects a smallish fraction of the population that the present situation persists.
I have a couple of trans friends and quite comfortable with them. Happy not to misgender them, happy to call them by their chosen names. Happy to support them living as a women. Happy to support them going preop into women only safe spaces.....absolutely not and not because I think they are actually a danger but because it would make already vulnerable women feel more vulnerable.
I also have no doubt that men who don't actually see themselves as in the wrong bodies will use it to access these safe spaces with gusto.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/whats-happening-life-expectancy-england
The government may still pass into law its £86k care cap anyway and of course there is equity release, lifetime gifts etc not just inheritance at death
(apols if someone has already appropriated this clunkingly obvious pun)
1. I do not say that no-one should be allowed to change gender. I think only those who verifiably have gender dysphoria should be allowed to do so.
2. The position post-Haldane is different from what we thought it was. Pr-Haldane, you could have a GRC or fall within the definition of "gender reassignment" but your sex remained what it was at birth and, therefore, a service provider could keep you out on the grounds of your sex if this was proportionate and for a legitimate aim.
Now, if Haldane is upheld and the same reasoning adopted by the English courts, it is not simply your gender which has changed but your sex. So the service provider can no longer keep you out in the grounds of your sex. This means that single sex spaces will have to accommodate males ie people with a male body but with a piece of paper saying that they are a woman. Similarly, single sex (women only) associations will not be able to exclude a man at all.
This is a significant step change not just more of the same.
3. There are no safeguards at all. That is the whole point of self-ID. If you have safeguards you end up roughly somewhere where we are now. But the Scottish government fought ferociously to prevent all amendments introducing any or any effective safeguards. Indeed, one of the SNP MSPs sneeringly referred to safeguarding in Holyrood as no more than "middle class gate-keeping".
b) Your grammar school point is a matter of opinion. Most these days feel grammar schools prevent mobility. Few from lower classes make the jump to grammars. They are full of middle class kids who have been tutored. Socially deprived kids will be sent to sink secondary schools. I know you disagree, but you have to accept this is not the consensus of opinion of educational experts.
Which would mean that those who wanted a GRC could get one without any of this being a problem.
Your party’s full of shysters who take us for a pack of fools.
I know you won’t be amused.
But I think we’re being used!
Oh Maggie, I wish I’d never voted for any of them.
They’ve taxed us till the pips wont squeak
And pander to the Brexity freaks.
They’ve broke my heart, and it’s time give Keir a go.
NEW THREAD
The problem with self ID is not mainly about genuine trans people. Sadly it is about men who really id as men but claim otherwise using self id as a means to get close to vulnerable women.
I have said blatantly on here if I ever got a prison sentence hell yes if I can I will self id and get sent to a prison for women. Not because in my case I wish to assault them but it will be easier than a mens prison.
I don't care to put a number on the number of women abused by sexual predators in the police before I say enough is enough and men simply aren't allowed to join the police. I don't care to put a number on the number of women groped or abused on public transport before I say enough is enough and men must be barred from travelling in the same carriages or vehicles as women. And so on and so forth. None of this means I accept or am happy about sexual abuse from police officers or men on public transport, but equally I have to take the view that the people who do these things are a minority of the male population. They are not representative of males as a whole. We cannot tar everyone with the same brush, no matter how high profile the individual instances may be.
Again, I'm not denying the fact that (a) self-ID poses complex and difficult questions for our society and (b) has the clear potential for misuse if safeguarding is inadequate. But equally I'm far from convinced from the idea that everyone who might self-ID is basically a rapist in waiting so we shouldn't bother to consider the idea at all.
However she will be out next time.
Why?
1. She's nice enough. But useless. Letters/emails go unanswered or you just get a boilerplate reply. She does not get involved in worthwhile local initiatives even when neighbouring Tory MPs do - and get some local credit for doing so. Husband is involved in a number of these and finds that her response is always to say "ooh yes, good idea" and then do the square root of fuck all. The contrast with the Tory MP in the next constituency let alone Tim Farron is not to her advantage. At all.
2. There is some money coming for the area but it is so slow that people will not see any visible improvement by the time of the next GE.
3. The local Tory councillors are a bunch of utterly useless tossers. Neither use nor ornament. (BTW I have been asked whether I want to be an independent councillor - there is a local grouping that wants to fire rockets up the arses of these people - and am thinking about it.) Who the hell is going to campaign for the Tories next time?
4. Some things have got worse. GP practices. Dentistry.
5. The local council reorganisation leaves this area out in the cold. Again.
6. This used to be an area where in some wards no-one bothered to campaign against the Tories. Now Labour have won loads in the local elections and come close in my ward, partly because those standing have been energetic and helpful. The Labour councillor in the local town is very good and sensible. So people look at him and think that Labour deserve a chance.
7. People gave Tories a chance in 2017. They've had 6 years. Even if they get another 2 years what have they got to show for it locally?
8. A sense of fairness in the sense of - it's time to give the other lot a go as this lot are exhausted/crooked/been here too long.
Graphs from a single pollster are useful because they reveal trends regardless of any house effects. The trend in the R&W graph is interesting. There has been a slow but perceptible decline in Conservative support in the Red Wall seats from a level of 35% even in June, masked by a temporary implosion under Truss and an initial but only partial recovery under Sunak. Since November the slow but steady downward trend has continued, from 30% after the Autumn budget to 27% now.