Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
Derek Thompson (75!), an actor in a BBC show you don't watch because it's on terrestrial and it's 2023, is leaving the show he has starred in since 1933. Yes, it's still on. Really. Really. His manner of departure has not been decided but if it doesn't involve being glassed to death by Harold Shand I will be miffed.
I don't believe that Casualty is still on. Next you'll be telling me that I can still tune in and watch Eastenders.
Our Ukrainians like Emmerdale, love Coronation Street and don't understand Eastenders ("Why do they all shout?"). There's an insightful point in there somewhere about English culture as observed from outside but I am fucked if I can tease it out.
Coronation Street is big in NZ. Emmerdale not so much. EastEnders simply not tolerated at all.
The history of BBC series (comedy especially) in the former Yugoslavia is fascinating. I have a Serbian colleague who grew up on Only Fools and Horses, the Fast Show and everything in between. Knows the scenes and quotes better than I do.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
If I was a Conservative, what would worry me most of all is that 'Tory' is routinely used as an insult amongst my daughters (21 and 19) and their peers to mean 'stupid old middle class person whose views are so out of date as to be not even worth considering'.
When I was their age, Thatcherite Conservatism wasn't much more popular but was still considered a valid view to hold, slightly eccentric maybe for our age group but far from beyond the pale.
Of course the term Tory started out as an insult so we've come full circle.
Right, if any of happen to bump into Sarah Connor in the next few years, we should do as she says.
Time for me to wheel out my two lightly controversial opinions on the original 1984 Terminator:
1. It is fundamentally a horror film, not SF or action 2. It is the best of the series.
Terminator 2 is the best film of the series.
Both of the first two are good. In part, this is because they are different genres. As with Alien and Aliens.
Rather that trying to make the same, but more and better, they took the basic ideas and made a different kind of movie.
For classic computer games, see also Dune (RPG) and Dune 2 (one of the first RTS games).
I played Dune 2 to death on the Megadrive, despite the shonky joypad interface. I'd still probably play C&C, at least from Red Alert 2 onwards, today - albeit I don't have the time or the hardware.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Right, if any of happen to bump into Sarah Connor in the next few years, we should do as she says.
Time for me to wheel out my two lightly controversial opinions on the original 1984 Terminator:
1. It is fundamentally a horror film, not SF or action 2. It is the best of the series.
Terminator 2 is the best film of the series.
Both of the first two are good. In part, this is because they are different genres. As with Alien and Aliens.
Rather that trying to make the same, but more and better, they took the basic ideas and made a different kind of movie.
For classic computer games, see also Dune (RPG) and Dune 2 (one of the first RTS games).
I played Dune 2 to death on the Megadrive, despite the shonky joypad interface. I'd still probably play C&C, at least from Red Alert 2 onwards, today - albeit I don't have the time or the hardware.
Same here.
C&C was basically a spin off from Dune II which had very little in common with the original Dune game it was notionally a sequel to. Warcraft etc too were all clearly inspired by Dune II.
Very similar to Alien/Aliens and Terminator/Terminator 2.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
They dont have own houses, they dont have kids, therefore they have no responsibilities.
Lol - Millenials are precisely the cohort with young kids.
suggest you look at birth rates in the 1960s compared to now. You lot arent having enough babies. Is that money or a lifestyle choice ?
Well, in my case it's biology, on account of the fact that men can't have babies.
TRANS DEBATE ALERT! TRANS DEBATE ALERT! Please evacuate the forum. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
They dont have houses, they dont have kids, therefore they have no responsibilities.
Millennials have no kids? Huge if true given that the oldest of them are now getting into their mid-40s.
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
I think my view on trans people in sport has definitely shifted. I wonder if we should just have a third category for trans people.
Two categories is enough (The men's cat basically being "open"). Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
But why should the men's category be the open one?
Human female evolutionary physiological adaptations for childbirth & rearing mean elite female athletes are at an inherent physiological disadvantage compared to men.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
Primary school teachers were, in my experience, fairly appreciative of the Blair government. Having been indifferent to the incoming 2010 government, they utterly despise the current lot.
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
They dont have houses, they dont have kids, therefore they have no responsibilities.
Millennials have no kids? Huge if true given that the oldest of them are now getting into their mid-40s.
Is all youve got to do simply talk to oldies beause you have nothing better to fill your days ? You should be out shagging and helping fill our empty schools.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
They dont have houses, they dont have kids, therefore they have no responsibilities.
Millennials have no kids? Huge if true given that the oldest of them are now getting into their mid-40s.
Eldest grandson and his wife have just started a family, in their early 30s. A large number of her friends from student days have also just started families.
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I think the announcement means they won’t routinely attend calls already designated a mental health event. For example, when we lived in Greenwich our elderly next door neighbour was sectioned by her family. Required an ambulance and a police car for hours. They’ll still attend calls that ultimately turn out to be a mental health call.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Academics and teachers are culturally ABs but income wise often more C1s, still a million miles away culturally from the Brexit voting working classes if less so on economics
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I think the announcement means they won’t routinely attend calls already designated a mental health event. For example, when we lived in Greenwich our elderly next door neighbour was sectioned by her family. Required an ambulance and a police car for hours. They’ll still attend calls that ultimately turn out to be a mental health call.
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I did read a study a while back which said coppers aren't properly equipped to deal with mental health issues, and their simple presence can make the person who is experiencing the mental health episode to become even more aggressive.
Even if a drop, 69% in Ireland calling themselves Roman Catholic (plus 124,749 Church of Ireland) still much more religious than the UK where in the 2021 census only 46% even called themselves Christian
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
Primary school teachers were, in my experience, fairly appreciative of the Blair government. Having been indifferent to the incoming 2010 government, they utterly despise the current lot.
See SureStart and the stupidest bit of minor cost saving that Osbourne did...
Even if a drop, 69% in Ireland calling themselves Roman Catholic (plus 124,749 Church of Ireland) still much more religious than the UK where in the 2021 census only 46% even called themselves Christian
Id look at the Dublin result as the way things are headed. Only 53% of Dubliners descibe themselves as Catholic, that will be well under half at the next census. Where Dublin goes the rest tend to follow .
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I did read a study a while back which said coppers aren't properly equipped to deal with mental health issues, and their simple presence can make the person who is experiencing the mental health episode to become even more aggressive.
My experience is actually quite different. I've a relative who has suffered from bi-polar disorder, and the police have always been very good (often much better than NHS staff).
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Academics and teachers are culturally ABs but income wise often more C1s, still a million miles away culturally from the Brexit voting working classes if less so on economics
There's probably an interesting multivariate relationship here that could be modelled: education - income/wealth = propensity to vote left. Multiple linear regression / principal component analysis.
So all being equal the more wealthy you are the more Tory-inclined you are, for economic reasons (though Boris and Truss have certainly undermined that more recently)
and all being equal the higher education you have the more Labour- or LibDem-inclined you are, for cultural reasons
But, the higher your education the more wealthy you're likely to be.
So those with unusual characteristics on these two scores have the highest partisanship: i.e. rich but non-graduate: rock solid Tory; poor graduates: rock solid Labour bordering Corbynite. Whereas rich grads and poor non-grads are the more swingy voters.
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I did read a study a while back which said coppers aren't properly equipped to deal with mental health issues, and their simple presence can make the person who is experiencing the mental health episode to become even more aggressive.
I was at a bar once when someone had an episode (partially mental health, partially alcohol induced) and two paramedics arrived to deal with it.
The man having the episode became even more agitated thinking they were the Police and he was in trouble, the paramedics repeatedly pointed to their uniforms saying "look we're NHS not Police" which eventually got through to him and helped the man calm down.
Having paramedics [or similar] rather than Police deal with mental health issues has always struck me as the more logical first step. It should be a healthcare, not law and order, issue.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Academics and teachers are culturally ABs but income wise often more C1s, still a million miles away culturally from the Brexit voting working classes if less so on economics
There's probably an interesting multivariate relationship here that could be modelled: education - income/wealth = propensity to vote left. Multiple linear regression / principal component analysis.
So all being equal the more wealthy you are the more Tory-inclined you are, for economic reasons (though Boris and Truss have certainly undermined that more recently)
and all being equal the higher education you have the more Labour- or LibDem-inclined you are, for cultural reasons
But, the higher your education the more wealthy you're likely to be.
So those with unusual characteristics on these two scores have the highest partisanship: i.e. rich but non-graduate: rock solid Tory; poor graduates: rock solid Labour bordering Corbynite. Whereas rich grads and poor non-grads are the more swingy voters.
I'd have thought there's a very clear correlation between high academic status/relatively low income, and being left wing. That's the position of most Green voters in General Elections. And, it's that group that have always driven revolutions.
I think my view on trans people in sport has definitely shifted. I wonder if we should just have a third category for trans people.
Two categories is enough (The men's cat basically being "open"). Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
But why should the men's category be the open one?
Because if a woman wants to compete against a man in the men's category that's not unfair.
If a man wants to compete against a woman in their category it is unfair.
Yes, rather like disabled athletes can compete in able bodied competition but not vice versa.
- except for sports where women have no natural physical disadvantage, like equestrianism, coxing rowers or playing snooker (they have a social disadvantage on the latter as few girls spend 10 hours a day in snooker halls during their youth).
Even if a drop, 69% in Ireland calling themselves Roman Catholic (plus 124,749 Church of Ireland) still much more religious than the UK where in the 2021 census only 46% even called themselves Christian
Id look at the Dublin result as the way things are headed. Only 53% of Dubliners descibe themselves as Catholic, that will be well under half at the next census. Where Dublin goes the rest tend to follow .
Still 53% of even those in Dublin Roman Catholic higher than those in England and Wales Christian. In fact in England rural areas now have about the same percentage Christian as Dublin is Catholic, cities and university towns in England and Wales even less Christian now than the nation overall.
Ireland remains much more religious and certainly much more Christian than the UK. Indeed Ireland is closer to Poland, Greece and the USA in terms of religious belief than most of the rest of the western world
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Academics and teachers are culturally ABs but income wise often more C1s, still a million miles away culturally from the Brexit voting working classes if less so on economics
There's probably an interesting multivariate relationship here that could be modelled: education - income/wealth = propensity to vote left. Multiple linear regression / principal component analysis.
So all being equal the more wealthy you are the more Tory-inclined you are, for economic reasons (though Boris and Truss have certainly undermined that more recently)
and all being equal the higher education you have the more Labour- or LibDem-inclined you are, for cultural reasons
But, the higher your education the more wealthy you're likely to be.
So those with unusual characteristics on these two scores have the highest partisanship: i.e. rich but non-graduate: rock solid Tory; poor graduates: rock solid Labour bordering Corbynite. Whereas rich grads and poor non-grads are the more swingy voters.
I'd have thought there's a very clear correlation between high academic status/relatively low income, and being left wing. That's the position of most Green voters in General Elections. And, it's that group that have always driven revolutions.
And conversely the "self made man", a character recognisable since at least Dickens' time, is by tradition always a political conservative.
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Academics and teachers are culturally ABs but income wise often more C1s, still a million miles away culturally from the Brexit voting working classes if less so on economics
There's probably an interesting multivariate relationship here that could be modelled: education - income/wealth = propensity to vote left. Multiple linear regression / principal component analysis.
So all being equal the more wealthy you are the more Tory-inclined you are, for economic reasons (though Boris and Truss have certainly undermined that more recently)
and all being equal the higher education you have the more Labour- or LibDem-inclined you are, for cultural reasons
But, the higher your education the more wealthy you're likely to be.
So those with unusual characteristics on these two scores have the highest partisanship: i.e. rich but non-graduate: rock solid Tory; poor graduates: rock solid Labour bordering Corbynite. Whereas rich grads and poor non-grads are the more swingy voters.
Yes and the same trend now holds across most of the western world. Whereas in the 1970s for example rich graduates almost always voted Tory and poor non-grads almost always voted Labour
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I did read a study a while back which said coppers aren't properly equipped to deal with mental health issues, and their simple presence can make the person who is experiencing the mental health episode to become even more aggressive.
My experience is actually quite different. I've a relative who has suffered from bi-polar disorder, and the police have always been very good (often much better than NHS staff).
Dementia can also lead to a completely beserk fighting rage. The strength involved is startling.
A relative did some work in a care hospice. On a couple of occasions she ended up looking like she’d had a major fight.
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
Even if a drop, 69% in Ireland calling themselves Roman Catholic (plus 124,749 Church of Ireland) still much more religious than the UK where in the 2021 census only 46% even called themselves Christian
Id look at the Dublin result as the way things are headed. Only 53% of Dubliners descibe themselves as Catholic, that will be well under half at the next census. Where Dublin goes the rest tend to follow .
Except that Dublin is now a very cosmo city. It used to be one of the few parochial capital cities of Europe, now it is a powerhouse with huge inward investment from around the world
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
The history of the East Coast mainline over the past 20 years suggests it does a lot better in public ownership than when someone's trying to syphon off profits and bonuses.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
I think my view on trans people in sport has definitely shifted. I wonder if we should just have a third category for trans people.
Two categories is enough (The men's cat basically being "open"). Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
But why should the men's category be the open one?
Its a great question, and I think is at the heart of why trans-woman should not be allowed to participate in (most) women's sports. Essentially there is no perceived danger of a trans-man having a physical advantage over a cis-man (I hate that phrase), so an open category works, in that no-one is disadvantaged. Its a tough issue, but for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify.
There was a similar bruhaha about paralympians running on blades. Clearly it would be possible to make longer blades that would enable a quick paralympian to be quicker than a non disable runner. With the South African sprinter, I believe it was found that his 'latent' talent would not match his times if he were not disabled, and that he was gaining an advantage by not having legs (as crazy as that sounds).
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
More worrying is that so many people think the same.
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I did read a study a while back which said coppers aren't properly equipped to deal with mental health issues, and their simple presence can make the person who is experiencing the mental health episode to become even more aggressive.
My experience is actually quite different. I've a relative who has suffered from bi-polar disorder, and the police have always been very good (often much better than NHS staff).
Dementia can also lead to a completely beserk fighting rage. The strength involved is startling.
A relative did some work in a care hospice. On a couple of occasions she ended up looking like she’d had a major fight.
Certainly here in Scotland as people find mental health services harder and harder to access due to overstretched staff /MHAS not assessing people / total lack of beds and other pressures, Police are asked to step in more and more often to do a sort of crisis management on the spot. I expect they're sick of it at this point.
I work on the fringes of MH and i find it feels like watching everything collapse, in slow motion. It was at breaking point pre-COVID so that seems like an excuse.
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
The history of the East Coast mainline over the past 20 years suggests it does a lot better in public ownership than when someone's trying to syphon off profits and bonuses.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
Really, is that view based on actual usage on a regular basis or the odd holiday? I guess you haven't been trying to use it when they go on one of their many strikes? French punctuality is a massive 1% better (91%) than British (90%) according to the EU. The UK system is also the third safest in Europe.
Left wingers just don't understand how to run things. Privatisation has had a huge number of faults, but it is the least worst system when compared to nationalisation. I guess you are not old enough to remember British Rail, British Telecom and even Pickfords (ffs) when they were all in "public ownership". The service was absolutely shite, but hey, we were all meant to be grateful because "we" (chortle) owned them all.
Even if a drop, 69% in Ireland calling themselves Roman Catholic (plus 124,749 Church of Ireland) still much more religious than the UK where in the 2021 census only 46% even called themselves Christian
Id look at the Dublin result as the way things are headed. Only 53% of Dubliners descibe themselves as Catholic, that will be well under half at the next census. Where Dublin goes the rest tend to follow .
Except that Dublin is now a very cosmo city. It used to be one of the few parochial capital cities of Europe, now it is a powerhouse with huge inward investment from around the world
which simply accelerates the change. Most of Leinster is within the Dublin orbit so the social change spreads and Leinster has over half the RoI population
Why are the Millennials not starting to convert to vote Tory?
My hypothesis is that tuition fees and student loans are to blame.
Millennials are effectively paying a higher rate of income tax on their earnings as a result of the tuition fee and student loan repayments.
This is adversely impacting their ability to get a mortgage and buy a home as they have less surplus funds to save a deposit and their after tax earnings are only able to support a lower mortgage.
Home owners are more inclined to vote Conservative.
Thoughts?
Some of that, but also Brexit and culture wars.
Brexit was always unpopular in this group and it's seen as the Tory's thing. The current (and last few, since May really) incarnation of the Tory party is also pretty unpalatable to social liberals, which is where most people of those ages and below are.
To have a chance with those under 40, the Tories either need another loon in charge of Labour or another Cameron in charge of the Conservatives. Sunak's not too bad on that score, but it's hard to get past his cabinet an other prominent figures.
Voting Conservative is not massively more socially acceptable than voting UKIP (etc). I exaggerate, but only a bit. Under Cameron, it wasn't thus, even in lefty woke academia.
I remember a poll in the runup to 2010 election which showed the most popular party among teachers - teachers! - was the Conservatives (tried to dig it out but can't find it at source).
Granted this was at the height of Cleggmania so a lot of the left-ish vote was split, but still.
I knew plenty of people in academia who voted for Cameron in 2015. He was part of the metropolitan liberal elite, so he fitted. People were less bothered about equality and suspicious of Miliband being a bit weird/in Salmond's pocket/a red under the bed.
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
On the other hand Boris was the first Tory leader ever to win unskilled working class and unemployed DEs in 2019, even if he did less well than Cameron with posh upper middle class ABs and academics and teachers
Indeed. He steered away from the metropolitan liberal elite and captured a different demographic and got a big win. But, that was helped by the disdain of much of that group for Corbyn (and also by the need, more important for that group, to 'get Brexit done').
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society? Sunak is no doubt helping with that, but his choice of cabinet is not. And Starmer may have had humble roots, but he's almost one of us, you know...
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
Academics and teachers are culturally ABs but income wise often more C1s, still a million miles away culturally from the Brexit voting working classes if less so on economics
There's probably an interesting multivariate relationship here that could be modelled: education - income/wealth = propensity to vote left. Multiple linear regression / principal component analysis.
So all being equal the more wealthy you are the more Tory-inclined you are, for economic reasons (though Boris and Truss have certainly undermined that more recently)
and all being equal the higher education you have the more Labour- or LibDem-inclined you are, for cultural reasons
But, the higher your education the more wealthy you're likely to be.
So those with unusual characteristics on these two scores have the highest partisanship: i.e. rich but non-graduate: rock solid Tory; poor graduates: rock solid Labour bordering Corbynite. Whereas rich grads and poor non-grads are the more swingy voters.
I'm sure there's an association, but the causality is interesting. Does your well educated academic lean left due to being relatively (for education level) poorly paid* or is your left leaning person, less interesting in amassing personal wealth/more interested in society, more likely to be happy in academia? Reverse for your wealthier more or less educated person.
*I don't think academics are particularly poorly paid, but in the more science-oriented/technical sectors there are better paid private sector positions (I've worked in some)
Where all these native Irish Gaelic speakers? 623,000 of 'em speaking it "daily"?
I have travelled all across Ireland half a dozen times - at least - and I have heard Gaelic spoken naturally - conversationally - and briefly - precisely twice: on the Aran island of Inishmore, and down in the Ring of Kerry
This will also help the Lib Dems become the third party.
Nearly 800 mortgage deals have been pulled from the market amid rising concerns over higher interest rates.
UK banks and building societies have scrapped hundreds of offerings across both the residential and buy-to-let sector over the last week.
The number of residential mortgages has fallen by 373 to 5,012 since the start of last week, while the number of buy-to-let mortgages has fallen by 405 deals to 2,343.
The figures from financial data group Moneyfacts also showed the impact on mortgage rates, with the average rate on a two- and five-year fixed mortgage rising to 5.38pc and 5.05pc respectively since the start of May.
It comes after worse-than-expected inflation figures last week fuelled concerns that the Bank of England will continue to raise interest rates to keep a lid on prices.
...for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify...
You raise an interesting point. Most of the work (I think - happy to be corrected) on transgender sports has looked at the differences between men and women and to what degree people who transition lose their old characteristics and gain new ones. It's facially plausible, but has a conceptual problem: specifically the test should not be whether they are different, but whether they perform differently.
In your example, the test should be "do people with blades perform better or worse than people with blades". It is misleading to develop a theoretical "latent" speed and compare them to that. It would be more accurate to simply race a large enough number in one group against another in controlled conditions. This could then be generalized from blades to trans to indeed anything.
We could discuss the details: if controlled circs are not available they could be estimated from real-life competition. How best should one measure the performance difference. And so on.
I think my view on trans people in sport has definitely shifted. I wonder if we should just have a third category for trans people.
Two categories is enough (The men's cat basically being "open"). Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
But why should the men's category be the open one?
Because if a woman wants to compete against a man in the men's category that's not unfair.
If a man wants to compete against a woman in their category it is unfair.
Yes, rather like disabled athletes can compete in able bodied competition but not vice versa.
- except for sports where women have no natural physical disadvantage, like equestrianism, coxing rowers or playing snooker (they have a social disadvantage on the latter as few girls spend 10 hours a day in snooker halls during their youth).
The sports where men and women compete together, are still mostly male dominated for a whole load of reasons, and appear to all be working hard to encourage more women participants.
As you say, we need to encourage more teenage girls to spend 10 hours a day in the snooker hall! F1 would love to find a lady driver, but she still has to be good enough, which means feeding the funnel of lady kart drivers at a young age. Snooker, pool, darts, all now have women on professional tours, and the various equestrian events are probably the most ‘mixed’ sports of all.
It’s been suggested that a Paralympic category for transwomen is a fair solution, but that comes with other problems.
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level. However actual use of the language on a daily basis as a first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
“I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
The King was holding the Holy Hand grenade of Antioch too, presumably in case Penny Mordaunt was unable to protect him should he be attacked during the coronation by the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
The history of the East Coast mainline over the past 20 years suggests it does a lot better in public ownership than when someone's trying to syphon off profits and bonuses.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
The history of the ECML says that people seriously estimate the profits they can extract from passengers only to discover there is very little extra money that can be extracted when they already pay full whack.
The only way to earn more money would be to add more trains and that simply isn't possible because the ECML runs at capacity.
I think my view on trans people in sport has definitely shifted. I wonder if we should just have a third category for trans people.
Two categories is enough (The men's cat basically being "open"). Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
But why should the men's category be the open one?
Its a great question, and I think is at the heart of why trans-woman should not be allowed to participate in (most) women's sports. Essentially there is no perceived danger of a trans-man having a physical advantage over a cis-man (I hate that phrase), so an open category works, in that no-one is disadvantaged. Its a tough issue, but for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify.
There was a similar bruhaha about paralympians running on blades. Clearly it would be possible to make longer blades that would enable a quick paralympian to be quicker than a non disable runner. With the South African sprinter, I believe it was found that his 'latent' talent would not match his times if he were not disabled, and that he was gaining an advantage by not having legs (as crazy as that sounds).
It's not quite the same but able bodied vs wheelchair would be "fair" at about 500 metres distance, shorter favours legs whereas you can really get rolling for longer distances in the chair.
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level.However actual use of the language on a daily claim they basis as tbeir first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
I simply don't believe a third of Irish people have a good command of Gaelic, nor that 620,000 use it daily and naturally
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
Can we deploy army snipers to test match grounds? If Just Stop Oil bugger up the Ashes then I expect the crowd will take matters into their own hands. I'm sure the Western Terrace or the Hollies Stand will be particularly sympathetic.
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists.
On Saturday, two men stormed the pitch at Twickenham, where the Premiership Rugby final between Saracens and Sale Sharks had to be paused for five minutes after they threw orange powder paint onto the pitch. England’s Tom Curry helped stewards escort one of the men from the field, and the pair were booed by the crowd.
Just Stop Oil last month disrupted the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with two individuals jumping onto the tables and pouring paint over themselves, before being removed. Last week the environmentalist group also targeted the Chelsea Flower Show. Commander Kyle Gordon of the Metropolitan Police said that London has seen 102 slow marches from Just Stop Oil, leading to 51 arrests.
I think my view on trans people in sport has definitely shifted. I wonder if we should just have a third category for trans people.
Two categories is enough (The men's cat basically being "open"). Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
But why should the men's category be the open one?
Its a great question, and I think is at the heart of why trans-woman should not be allowed to participate in (most) women's sports. Essentially there is no perceived danger of a trans-man having a physical advantage over a cis-man (I hate that phrase), so an open category works, in that no-one is disadvantaged. Its a tough issue, but for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify.
There was a similar bruhaha about paralympians running on blades. Clearly it would be possible to make longer blades that would enable a quick paralympian to be quicker than a non disable runner. With the South African sprinter, I believe it was found that his 'latent' talent would not match his times if he were not disabled, and that he was gaining an advantage by not having legs (as crazy as that sounds).
It's not quite the same but able bodied vs wheelchair would be "fair" at about 500 metres distance, shorter favours legs whereas you can really get rolling for longer distances in the chair.
The London marathon wheelchair record is 1h24m, it takes a record-breaking man with legs half as long again to run the distance!
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level.However actual use of the language on a daily claim they basis as tbeir first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
I simply don't believe a third of Irish people have a good command of Gaelic, nor that 620,000 use it daily and naturally
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
It's a ludicrous statistic
Well its compulsory at schools, but I suspect its like my Trigonometry. I used it to pass an exam and have never needed it since.
Water, rail and electricity privatisation all look to have been botched.
As I’ve said before, the neoliberal era (1979-“today”) and we need to revisit a hell of a lot of assumptions that parties of right *and* left signed up to.
...for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify...
You raise an interesting point. Most of the work (I think - happy to be corrected) on transgender sports has looked at the differences between men and women and to what degree people who transition lose their old characteristics and gain new ones. It's facially plausible, but has a conceptual problem: specifically the test should not be whether they are different, but whether they perform differently.
In your example, the test should be "do people with blades perform better or worse than people with blades". It is misleading to develop a theoretical "latent" speed and compare them to that. It would be more accurate to simply race a large enough number in one group against another in controlled conditions. This could then be generalized from blades to trans to indeed anything.
We could discuss the details: if controlled circs are not available they could be estimated from real-life competition. How best should one measure the performance difference. And so on.
I misread that for a second and thought that @turbotubbs was announcing that *they* were a transwoman, and then I realised the lack of a comma gave it the meaning he intended.
Wikipedia is not taken in by this Irish language bollocks
"Linguistic analysis of Irish speakers is therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2016 was 20,586 in the Gaeltacht and 53,217 outside it, totalling 73,803.[13]"
20,000 using it daily seems much more accurate, with another 50,000 scattered about who have some command of the tongue
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level.However actual use of the language on a daily claim they basis as tbeir first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
I simply don't believe a third of Irish people have a good command of Gaelic, nor that 620,000 use it daily and naturally
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
It's a ludicrous statistic
Well its compulsory at schools, but I suspect its like my Trigonometry. I used it to pass an exam and have never needed it since.
Water, rail and electricity privatisation all look to have been botched.
As I’ve said before, the neoliberal era (1979-“today”) and we need to revisit a hell of a lot of assumptions that parties of right *and* left signed up to.
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
Yes, that made me smile too, but then a lot of government jobs would require Irish at some level.However actual use of the language on a daily claim they basis as tbeir first language has always been small. Its telling that after 100 years only a third of tjhe population can speak the language.
I simply don't believe a third of Irish people have a good command of Gaelic, nor that 620,000 use it daily and naturally
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
It's a ludicrous statistic
Well its compulsory at schools, but I suspect its like my Trigonometry. I used it to pass an exam and have never needed it since.
See the Wiki entry. That is the actual case
I love old and obscure languages and I would be delighted if Irish Gaelic has undergone an incredible national revival, so you can hear it everywhere in Ireland, but it ain't so. You have to go to the far West, the Gaeltacht, and even then you need to be quite lucky - to hear it used naturally
...for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify...
You raise an interesting point. Most of the work (I think - happy to be corrected) on transgender sports has looked at the differences between men and women and to what degree people who transition lose their old characteristics and gain new ones. It's facially plausible, but has a conceptual problem: specifically the test should not be whether they are different, but whether they perform differently.
In your example, the test should be "do people with blades perform better or worse than people with blades". It is misleading to develop a theoretical "latent" speed and compare them to that. It would be more accurate to simply race a large enough number in one group against another in controlled conditions. This could then be generalized from blades to trans to indeed anything.
We could discuss the details: if controlled circs are not available they could be estimated from real-life competition. How best should one measure the performance difference. And so on.
I misread that for a second and thought that @turbotubbs was announcing that *they* were a transwoman, and then I realised the lack of a comma gave it the meaning he intended.
Can we deploy army snipers to test match grounds? If Just Stop Oil bugger up the Ashes then I expect the crowd will take matters into their own hands. I'm sure the Western Terrace or the Hollies Stand will be particularly sympathetic.
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists..
I think my view on trans people in sport has definitely shifted. I wonder if we should just have a third category for trans people.
Two categories is enough (The men's cat basically being "open"). Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
But why should the men's category be the open one?
Its a great question, and I think is at the heart of why trans-woman should not be allowed to participate in (most) women's sports. Essentially there is no perceived danger of a trans-man having a physical advantage over a cis-man (I hate that phrase), so an open category works, in that no-one is disadvantaged. Its a tough issue, but for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify.
There was a similar bruhaha about paralympians running on blades. Clearly it would be possible to make longer blades that would enable a quick paralympian to be quicker than a non disable runner. With the South African sprinter, I believe it was found that his 'latent' talent would not match his times if he were not disabled, and that he was gaining an advantage by not having legs (as crazy as that sounds).
It's not quite the same but able bodied vs wheelchair would be "fair" at about 500 metres distance, shorter favours legs whereas you can really get rolling for longer distances in the chair.
Yes - see the wheelchair marathon times to see whether the chair confers an advantage over 26.2 miles (It does).
...for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify...
You raise an interesting point. Most of the work (I think - happy to be corrected) on transgender sports has looked at the differences between men and women and to what degree people who transition lose their old characteristics and gain new ones. It's facially plausible, but has a conceptual problem: specifically the test should not be whether they are different, but whether they perform differently.
In your example, the test should be "do people with blades perform better or worse than people with blades". It is misleading to develop a theoretical "latent" speed and compare them to that. It would be more accurate to simply race a large enough number in one group against another in controlled conditions. This could then be generalized from blades to trans to indeed anything.
We could discuss the details: if controlled circs are not available they could be estimated from real-life competition. How best should one measure the performance difference. And so on.
I misread that for a second and thought that @turbotubbs was announcing that *they* were a transwoman, and then I realised the lack of a comma gave it the meaning he intended.
The power of punctuation.
I only intend to be a trans-woman if it helps my academic promotion (sadly that IS a thing in the modern Athena-Swan culture of University life...)
There are two moving targets: SNP losses and Lib Dem gains. Both are now the central case.
The question is how many seats change hands in each category.
If the SNP lose net 15 seats, they are down to 30. If the Lib Dems gain 16, they are up to 30.
Even leaving aside the "Blue Wall" in the Home Counties, there are quite a few ex Lib Dem seats in Devon and Somerset, plus places like Cheltenham, that look nailed on for the Lib Dems next time. Equally, there are at least 15 seats that look like Labour gains from the SNP, especially in the the greater Glasgow area, and I see no SNP surge against the Tories in the North East and the Borders, so no likely SNP gains.
If counties like Surrey also swing Lib Dem, then Ed Davey will outdo Paddy Ashdown for gains.
I think the odds favour the Lib Dems over the SNP at this point.
In a change from 1997, it looks likely the LDs will win more MPs in Surrey, Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire than Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. The Brexit effect
Which seats do you think are likely to fall to the Lib Dems in each group, young HY?
Guildford, Esher and Walton, Surrey SW, Woking and Mole Valley in Surrey. Wantage and Henley in Oxfordshire and in Hertfordshire the LDs could gain Hitchen and Harpenden to add to their gain of St Albans in 2019
Excellent list (I would say that because it aligns with mine as far as Surrey is concerned).Surrey SW will now be 2 seats so another one as both would be targeted. As an outside shot Surrey Heath. LDs appear very well organised and did spectacularly well in the locals
Surrey Heath is Camberley, Gove’s seat? That must be pretty safe.
Surrey SW is Hunt’s seat - Farnham, Godalming and a lot of expensive countyside. What will it look like after the boundary changes? @NickPalmer ?
I was heavily involved in both seats in the past. I can't give more details without giving my identity. Yes SHeath is Gove's seat. I remember it being 100% Tory council. It was slaughter in the locals. 3 more seats will be added to the LD total on 15/5. It is now 21/6 LD/Tory. It will be 24/6 on 15/5. I don't expect the LDs to win it in the GE but it is possible.
Nick will be more upto date than me on SW Surrey. I understand that both seats will be targets for the LDs. I was significantly involved when we missed SW Surrey by 800 odd votes. After that the local party went into infighting. I had to oversee the expulsion of several members. Sigh. Not something I joined to get involved in.
PS correction 15/6.
Virginia Bottomley was the MP who almost lost in 2001.
The reason she didn't was because the Tories were better organised and she was a better MP than the Tories in Guildford. The LDs ran a joint campaign for SWSurrey and Guildford. SWSurrey was the target. Guildford was the backup. With about a week to go they switched, although both were worked very hard. The Tories in Guildford were useless. In SWSurrey they were good. Sadly they have learnt their lesson. It is often easier to win by taking your opponent by surprise. The SWSurrey Tories knew all about us.
Guildford was probably the Tories' worst result at the 2001 election. Nick St Aubyn was the MP who lost, (he'd previously tried and failed to win Truro from the Liberals in 1987 and 1992).
Water, rail and electricity privatisation all look to have been botched.
As I’ve said before, the neoliberal era (1979-“today”) and we need to revisit a hell of a lot of assumptions that parties of right *and* left signed up to.
This does not mean a return to statism a la 1945.
All of them were botched, but they have not turned into something worse than they were before.
Can you imagine trying to get broadband under the old British Telecom?
In a parallel universe c. 2023:
"But I have been waiting for this newfangled broadband now for three years and I am still on a party line with a bakelite dial phone"
"You just be grateful for what you have brother, and wait your turn. Mr Corbyn and his committee have promised me they will look at your case when they get round to it in due course. Goodbye brother. Don't bother calling back."
Strong stuff from the leader of the opposition in Canada, Pierre Poilievre:
"We need to speak about the fact that Beijing interfered to help the prime minister in two successive elections, that Beijing threatened members of parliament to try and win influence, and that Beijing gave $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation to buy the favour of this prime minister".
Water, rail and electricity privatisation all look to have been botched.
As I’ve said before, the neoliberal era (1979-“today”) and we need to revisit a hell of a lot of assumptions that parties of right *and* left signed up to.
This does not mean a return to statism a la 1945.
All of them were botched, but they have not turned into something worse than they were before.
Can you imagine trying to get broadband under the old British Telecom?
In a parallel universe c. 2023:
"But I have been waiting for this newfangled broadband now for three years and I am still on a party line with a bakelite dial phone"
"You just be grateful for what you have brother, and wait your turn. Mr Corbyn and his committee have promised me they will look at your case when they get round to it in due course. Goodbye brother. Don't bother calling back."
We forget just how bad BT used to be.
Yes it took three months to get a line installed, is was probably going to be a party line or DACS line, and you’d better be damn grateful that they deigned to provide you service in the first place.
Great pensions for the staff though, who retired at 55 on 2/3 of their final salary, index-linked, for the rest of their lives.
Water, rail and electricity privatisation all look to have been botched.
As I’ve said before, the neoliberal era (1979-“today”) and we need to revisit a hell of a lot of assumptions that parties of right *and* left signed up to.
This does not mean a return to statism a la 1945.
There is an obvious sacred cow that could be slain to distinguish any New Statism from 1945: the NHS.
The UK's railway system is a failure. Bring it into public ownership.
Cos that's where all the failures go to die....
Indeed, it is interesting that those on the left think that this is a panacea when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that bureaucrats will ever understand how to run organisations or companies. Public ownership really means trades union ownership, where the organisation in question is run in the absolute interest of the employees and the customer (sometimes called a patient - cos she/he will need lots of patience) can go and get stuffed.
The history of the East Coast mainline over the past 20 years suggests it does a lot better in public ownership than when someone's trying to syphon off profits and bonuses.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
Really, is that view based on actual usage on a regular basis or the odd holiday? I guess you haven't been trying to use it when they go on one of their many strikes? French punctuality is a massive 1% better (91%) than British (90%) according to the EU. The UK system is also the third safest in Europe.
Left wingers just don't understand how to run things. Privatisation has had a huge number of faults, but it is the least worst system when compared to nationalisation. I guess you are not old enough to remember British Rail, British Telecom and even Pickfords (ffs) when they were all in "public ownership". The service was absolutely shite, but hey, we were all meant to be grateful because "we" (chortle) owned them all.
LNER (and it's predecessors) are generally better than many other operators, in my experience. Hard to say though whether that's public v private or due to the existence, now at least, of a degree of real competition on the ECML. I have a choice of three operators to get to London on the same line (although some have more services, or others involve a change at York).
There is also a distinction between public as in the BR model and a private company that happens to be publicly owned (if you'll permit that contradiction). LNER, I imagine, looks little different to other operators as it was a private company and there may well be appetite to make it so again at some point. It happens to be publicly owned, but I don't get the impression there's much direct government/DfT oversight of daily running. Same with e.g. Channel 4. BR, as I understand it, was very different.
I suspect the ideal is a mix of public and private in competition, so that private can't take the piss and public has to be moderately efficient and care about the customer as well as the owner. Private companies operating effective monopoly services is not an examplar of the free market in action (see also Water companies).
Where all these native Irish Gaelic speakers? 623,000 of 'em speaking it "daily"?
I have travelled all across Ireland half a dozen times - at least - and I have heard Gaelic spoken naturally - conversationally - and briefly - precisely twice: on the Aran island of Inishmore, and down in the Ring of Kerry
That's it
Can't speak for Ireland, but I've lived in Wales over 10 years. In the place I first lived in, I heard Welsh spoken all the time. Where I am now, I pretty much never hear it. There's a big variation in where it's spoken. I can imagine it might be the same in Ireland.
I find this EXTREMELY hard to believe. It's like they've "done a Telegraph" and shifted a decimal point
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
I think it's just people ticking the box because they took a few lessons on Duolingo.
In the Northern Ireland census of 2021 around 6k said that Irish was their main language. This compared with 20k Polish, 9k Lithuanian and 5.6k Portuguese.
72k had the ability to understand, read, speak and write Irish.
21k had the ability to understand, read, speak and write Ulster-Scots.
A 91-year-old woman had a Taser pointed at her and a spit hood put over her head by police after a dispute with her carer.
The Metropolitan Police said that the elderly woman was “distressed” and allegedly spat at one officer when they were called to her home in Peckham, south-east London, on May 9.
She was handcuffed, had a mesh spit hood placed over her head and a Taser trained on her before she was taken to hospital without being arrested.
It is claimed she was left with cuts and bruising to both wrists and one of her arms.
Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is investigating what happened.
One officer has been suspended and is not allowed to use Taser while the investigation is carried out, and five other officers have been placed on restricted duties so they have no contact with the public.
A member of the woman’s family has been allowed to watch footage of what happened from the officers’ bodyworn video cameras.
BTW, did you see that the Met won't have anything to do with mental stuff? (How they can (a) diagnose it at all and (b) do so at a distance, through the 911 phone line maybe, defeats me.) THough this time there may be some justification.
I did read a study a while back which said coppers aren't properly equipped to deal with mental health issues, and their simple presence can make the person who is experiencing the mental health episode to become even more aggressive.
My experience is actually quite different. I've a relative who has suffered from bi-polar disorder, and the police have always been very good (often much better than NHS staff).
Dementia can also lead to a completely beserk fighting rage. The strength involved is startling.
A relative did some work in a care hospice. On a couple of occasions she ended up looking like she’d had a major fight.
Yes. It isn't all curling up in the corner and sleeping, sadly.
Unfortunately the dementia patient can get hurt too. It is hard to deal with.
I thought the only way the Lib Dems become the third party was if the SNP imploded but the way the blue wall is going it is entirely possible for the Lib Dems to become the third party even if the SNP don't lose many seats.
They would need to win 38 to overtake the SNP.
Have they ever gained that many in one election? I'm pretty sure the answer's 'not since 1923.'
28 in 1997 is the most recent record.
See, I've started to do some deep dives, and I've started wondering if seats like Epsom & Ewell might be in play, add in tactical ABC voting, with Labour voters voting tactically en masse and you'd need only a 7.5% swing on top of that to overturn a near 18,000 majority.
You only have to look at that very seat in 1997 to see that tactical voting is tricky in such seats.
Plus you have the complication of boundary changes. In many constituencies, people won't know which is the most efficient way to vote to get rid of the Conservatives.
This line sums up everything that is broken with our planning system.
An analysis by the Centre for Progressive Policy in 2018 found that planning permission inflated the price of agricultural land by 275 times, pushing it up from £22,520 per hectare to £6.2m per hectare.
And still we have people on this site pushing the myth that planning is not the root of the problem.
Planning permission being granted should not inflate the price of land. The fact that it does by a factor of 27,500% sums up everything wrong with the system.
I would disagree that it shouldn't inflate the value of land: ultimately, preparing paperwork, studies, etc., is not free.
But I'd hope that the differential in pricing was something like 1.5x, or maybe 2x, not 275x.
I think it's an example of something I said a while back- to get big changes to happen, you can either excite the public by emphasising the bigness, or soothe them by making them sound boring and technical.
This sounds dull, but is probably dead important. After all, the money that goes to owners of arbitrarily rationed developable land is one of the big reasons we can't afford nice things.
It sounds like a very large transfer of power to councils - which is (depending on the details) probably a very good thing.
And possibly makes them more significant players in the housing market than they have been since Thatcher.
Definitely not boring.
All building is good at this point, but how many people aspire to be allocated a council house?
Would this change allow Councils to purchase land cheaply and then sell off the houses under a right to buy? Could be a powerful money spinner for the Council.
I'm quite pleased by this policy announcement.
All serious policies have winners and losers, of course, and governing is just about balancing them appropriately. But non-homeowners have been getting the shitty end of the stick pretty much ever since I can remember.
My view is that we need more housing of all tenures. If all this does is build big council estates, it's still a positive. But (with apologies for rehashing a hobbyhorse of mine) what I'd really like to see if the public sector as private developer - or, rather, as developer of mixed neighbourhoods. One problem with the current model of delivery is that all building impacts the existing population: visual impact, environmental impact, severance, increased traffic, and so on - but developers - quite reasonably - have an interest only in what they sell to their customers; they need planning permission, but that is pretty binary. If councils were able to develop themselves, they could not only provide the housing stock (of all tenures) that they require but also improve the lot of the existing population. And also, as noted above, recycle revenues back into the public purse.
As with any potentially good policy, there are risks and there are downsides: the risk is that the public sector hasn't got the best of records for developing lovely neighbourhoods. But I think we have moved on sufficiently since the 60s that that risk can at least be managed. And the downside is that less profit will go to landowners. I'm trying to think of a way of phrasing this which doesn't sound like 'hooray, the baddies lose out' because that is not what I mean; it's genuinely to be regretted, because profit provides incentive to do things, and also because landowners [sorry - f key has packed in] oten aren't top-hatted baddies but are broadly owned companies in which many pension unds have shares. It's just that in my view loss o proit to devlopers is to be regretted less than a serious shortage o housing.
It's not clear from the reports I've seen, but the council estate redevelopments around here are mixed for sale/for rent/social rent. And in theory, new private developments are meant to have a social housing element to them. Council house monoculture was definitely a mistake made in the 1950s/60s, and Right to Buy did a good thing in mixing things up a bit.
The recent developments that have worked- Poundbury and the like- have had a single mind controlling the masterplan, the mix of what gets built where and growing the community facilities as you go along. They've also not had to worry too much about the price of the land. It would be good to extend that model beyond benevolent aristrocracy.
And the landowners? I'm sure they will still make a tidy sum from converting undeveloped land into developed. Without these changes in the rules, they might not be allowed to build anything. It's just the profits will be less huge but more certain.
More Poundburys is probably the answer.
But one Poundbury is only 2,000 houses, so we need at least 300 new Poundburys every year.
600,000 homes, with an average occupancy of 3.2 people is adding 2 million peoples' worth of accommodation each year. That means in the course of a decade, you'd add homes for 20 million people.
Comments
Which they seem to do, and it remains to be seen whether their decisions will violate any current or future government anti-discrimination laws.
Not yet.
A bit like the High Court and ECHR on gay marriage perhaps they aren't going to go anywhere near the subject.
https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1663516972191981568?s=20
ETA: And I imagine most teachers end up hating the government of the day after a few years, for all the things they've made worse. Same for healthcare workers too, I expect!
“I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
"John Challis: Why Serbians have soft spot for late Only Fools actor"
When I was their age, Thatcherite Conservatism wasn't much more popular but was still considered a valid view to hold, slightly eccentric maybe for our age group but far from beyond the pale.
Of course the term Tory started out as an insult so we've come full circle.
C&C was basically a spin off from Dune II which had very little in common with the original Dune game it was notionally a sequel to. Warcraft etc too were all clearly inspired by Dune II.
Very similar to Alien/Aliens and Terminator/Terminator 2.
Except if physical contact is involved - then you might want 4 categories.
With levelling up apparently forgotten/binned (and certainly not delivered) and Corbyn gone, continuing the appeal to that group is more of a challenge. Meanwhile, the 'posh upper middle class....' are still a bit pissed by Brexit (at least the younger posh upper middle class) and are (again, at least the younger) more socially liberal. Can you admit to voting Tory in such polite society?
Labour has similar, although less acute, problems trying to appeal to the poshos and the plebs at once, but with Brexit less of a pressing issue and Starmer not being Corbyn, it's getting easier.
By the way, I'm a bit sad, as an academic, to apparently be excluded (by the 'and') from the 'posh upper middle class ABs'.
ETA: Much of the above firmly tongue in cheek, in the terminology at least. My dad would be C1 social class, I think, my mum initially C1 jobs, but after bringing us up, D/E jobs (retail).
If a man wants to compete against a woman in their category it is unfair.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/census-2022-drop-in-catholicism-more-irish-speakers-and-population-above-5m-everything-you-need-to-know/a725625324.html
Having been indifferent to the incoming 2010 government, they utterly despise the current lot.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/30/first-edition-met-police-mental-health-care
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/may/28/met-police-to-stop-attending-emergency-mental-health-calls
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/may/29/more-90-primary-schools-in-england-to-close-or-face-closure-for-lack-of-pupils
I did read a study a while back which said coppers aren't properly equipped to deal with mental health issues, and their simple presence can make the person who is experiencing the mental health episode to become even more aggressive.
So all being equal the more wealthy you are the more Tory-inclined you are, for economic reasons (though Boris and Truss have certainly undermined that more recently)
and all being equal the higher education you have the more Labour- or LibDem-inclined you are, for cultural reasons
But, the higher your education the more wealthy you're likely to be.
So those with unusual characteristics on these two scores have the highest partisanship: i.e. rich but non-graduate: rock solid Tory; poor graduates: rock solid Labour bordering Corbynite. Whereas rich grads and poor non-grads are the more swingy voters.
The man having the episode became even more agitated thinking they were the Police and he was in trouble, the paramedics repeatedly pointed to their uniforms saying "look we're NHS not Police" which eventually got through to him and helped the man calm down.
Having paramedics [or similar] rather than Police deal with mental health issues has always struck me as the more logical first step. It should be a healthcare, not law and order, issue.
- except for sports where women have no natural physical disadvantage, like equestrianism, coxing rowers or playing snooker (they have a social disadvantage on the latter as few girls spend 10 hours a day in snooker halls during their youth).
Ireland remains much more religious and certainly much more Christian than the UK. Indeed Ireland is closer to Poland, Greece and the USA in terms of religious belief than most of the rest of the western world
A relative did some work in a care hospice. On a couple of occasions she ended up looking like she’d had a major fight.
Rail in France seems to do pretty well.
What sort of panacea has private ownership been for vital national infrastructure such as water, electricity and rail?
First poll since Spanish GE announced gives PP a 12 point lead with PSOE just 5 points ahead of the right wing Vox party!
Its a tough issue, but for me a trans-woman, unless transitioned before puberty (and thats another whole area of contention) gains an advantage through natural growth that no reduction in testosterone will quite nullify.
There was a similar bruhaha about paralympians running on blades. Clearly it would be possible to make longer blades that would enable a quick paralympian to be quicker than a non disable runner. With the South African sprinter, I believe it was found that his 'latent' talent would not match his times if he were not disabled, and that he was gaining an advantage by not having legs (as crazy as that sounds).
I work on the fringes of MH and i find it feels like watching everything collapse, in slow motion. It was at breaking point pre-COVID so that seems like an excuse.
Left wingers just don't understand how to run things. Privatisation has had a huge number of faults, but it is the least worst system when compared to nationalisation. I guess you are not old enough to remember British Rail, British Telecom and even Pickfords (ffs) when they were all in "public ownership". The service was absolutely shite, but hey, we were all meant to be grateful because "we" (chortle) owned them all.
"The numbers who speak Irish increased by 6pc between 2016 and 2022 to 1,873,997.
Of the people who said they could speak Irish, 623,961 spoke Irish daily within and outside the education system."
*I don't think academics are particularly poorly paid, but in the more science-oriented/technical sectors there are better paid private sector positions (I've worked in some)
I have travelled all across Ireland half a dozen times - at least - and I have heard Gaelic spoken naturally - conversationally - and briefly - precisely twice: on the Aran island of Inishmore, and down in the Ring of Kerry
That's it
Nearly 800 mortgage deals have been pulled from the market amid rising concerns over higher interest rates.
UK banks and building societies have scrapped hundreds of offerings across both the residential and buy-to-let sector over the last week.
The number of residential mortgages has fallen by 373 to 5,012 since the start of last week, while the number of buy-to-let mortgages has fallen by 405 deals to 2,343.
The figures from financial data group Moneyfacts also showed the impact on mortgage rates, with the average rate on a two- and five-year fixed mortgage rising to 5.38pc and 5.05pc respectively since the start of May.
It comes after worse-than-expected inflation figures last week fuelled concerns that the Bank of England will continue to raise interest rates to keep a lid on prices.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/05/30/ftse-100-markets-live-news-us-debt-ceiling-ron-desantis/
In your example, the test should be "do people with blades perform better or worse than people with blades". It is misleading to develop a theoretical "latent" speed and compare them to that. It would be more accurate to simply race a large enough number in one group against another in controlled conditions. This could then be generalized from blades to trans to indeed anything.
We could discuss the details: if controlled circs are not available they could be estimated from real-life competition. How best should one measure the performance difference. And so on.
As you say, we need to encourage more teenage girls to spend 10 hours a day in the snooker hall! F1 would love to find a lady driver, but she still has to be good enough, which means feeding the funnel of lady kart drivers at a young age. Snooker, pool, darts, all now have women on professional tours, and the various equestrian events are probably the most ‘mixed’ sports of all.
It’s been suggested that a Paralympic category for transwomen is a fair solution, but that comes with other problems.
The only way to earn more money would be to add more trains and that simply isn't possible because the ECML runs at capacity.
The only way you can reach that number is if you include everyone speaking it at school/college in Gaelic classes - and on that basis you could say 5m Brits speak French, Spanish or German daily - and maybe a few civil servants who need a few phrases
It's a ludicrous statistic
MCC to ramp up security for Lord's Ashes Test over Just Stop Oil fears
Cricket authorities have growing concerns that any paint on the wicket will be impossible to shift without changing or damaging it
Marylebone Cricket Club, the proprietors of Lord’s, will ramp up security because of fears Just Stop Oil protesters will try to sabotage next month's Ashes. Cricket authorities are bracing themselves for this summer’s series against Australia to be the latest target in a string of sporting pitch invasions by the environmental activists.
On Saturday, two men stormed the pitch at Twickenham, where the Premiership Rugby final between Saracens and Sale Sharks had to be paused for five minutes after they threw orange powder paint onto the pitch. England’s Tom Curry helped stewards escort one of the men from the field, and the pair were booed by the crowd.
Just Stop Oil last month disrupted the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, with two individuals jumping onto the tables and pouring paint over themselves, before being removed. Last week the environmentalist group also targeted the Chelsea Flower Show. Commander Kyle Gordon of the Metropolitan Police said that London has seen 102 slow marches from Just Stop Oil, leading to 51 arrests.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2023/05/29/mcc-up-security-lords-ashes-test-over-just-stop-oil-fears/
As I’ve said before, the neoliberal era (1979-“today”) and we need to revisit a hell of a lot of assumptions that parties of right *and* left signed up to.
This does not mean a return to statism a la 1945.
The power of punctuation.
"Linguistic analysis of Irish speakers is therefore based primarily on the number of daily users in Ireland outside the education system, which in 2016 was 20,586 in the Gaeltacht and 53,217 outside it, totalling 73,803.[13]"
20,000 using it daily seems much more accurate, with another 50,000 scattered about who have some command of the tongue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_language
I love old and obscure languages and I would be delighted if Irish Gaelic has undergone an incredible national revival, so you can hear it everywhere in Ireland, but it ain't so. You have to go to the far West, the Gaeltacht, and even then you need to be quite lucky - to hear it used naturally
Can you imagine trying to get broadband under the old British Telecom?
In a parallel universe c. 2023:
"But I have been waiting for this newfangled broadband now for three years and I am still on a party line with a bakelite dial phone"
"You just be grateful for what you have brother, and wait your turn. Mr Corbyn and his committee have promised me they will look at your case when they get round to it in due course. Goodbye brother. Don't bother calling back."
How bad can you look in an 80-second clip. This bad. 👇🏽
The skill of a politician is to stick to their answer without looking like a myna bird, rocking on its perch, just mimicking human speech. ~AA
This reminds me of that Ed Miliband clip about striking.
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1663489680090845186
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Bird#/media/File:Simon_Bird,_2010.jpg
"We need to speak about the fact that Beijing interfered to help the prime minister in two successive elections, that Beijing threatened members of parliament to try and win influence, and that Beijing gave $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation to buy the favour of this prime minister".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLGuwQLWQbU
Yes it took three months to get a line installed, is was probably going to be a party line or DACS line, and you’d better be damn grateful that they deigned to provide you service in the first place.
Great pensions for the staff though, who retired at 55 on 2/3 of their final salary, index-linked, for the rest of their lives.
There is also a distinction between public as in the BR model and a private company that happens to be publicly owned (if you'll permit that contradiction). LNER, I imagine, looks little different to other operators as it was a private company and there may well be appetite to make it so again at some point. It happens to be publicly owned, but I don't get the impression there's much direct government/DfT oversight of daily running. Same with e.g. Channel 4. BR, as I understand it, was very different.
I suspect the ideal is a mix of public and private in competition, so that private can't take the piss and public has to be moderately efficient and care about the customer as well as the owner. Private companies operating effective monopoly services is not an examplar of the free market in action (see also Water companies).
72k had the ability to understand, read, speak and write Irish.
21k had the ability to understand, read, speak and write Ulster-Scots.
Unfortunately the dementia patient can get hurt too. It is hard to deal with.
But I'd hope that the differential in pricing was something like 1.5x, or maybe 2x, not 275x.