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Understanding Reform voters – politicalbetting.com
Understanding Reform voters – politicalbetting.com
As have said before, immigration aside they could be Corbyn supporters given how much they talk about rigged system. Means they’re not going to be wooed back by a more true blue pitch from the Tories. As another eg Reform voters most likely to support House of Lords abolition. pic.twitter.com/FSaAN5r48b
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And is this a 'first'?
https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1770537807838072903
"Mr Stride... voiced fears the debate had tipped too far the other way and some people were now “convincing themselves they have some kind of serious mental health condition as opposed to the normal anxieties of life”.
“If they go to the doctor and say ‘I’m feeling rather down and bluesy’, the doctor will give them on average about seven minutes and then, on 94 per cent of occasions, they will be signed off as not fit to carry out any work whatsoever,” he added.
Mr Stride acknowledged the topic was sensitive but said it must not become a “no go area” and was “something we need to start having an honest, grown-up debate about”.
p.s. just because the NHS is currently being run badly doesn’t mean we need to run down the NHS. It worked pretty well until it was stuffed full of bureaucracy and managers by Tony Blair’s New Labour and then chronically underfunded by the tories, many of whom don’t believe in it.
The obsession with making nurses have degrees (again Tony Blair’s fault) is also where the rot set in for all kinds of reasons.
Next week: tying my own shoelaces
The total for Lab+LibDem+Green is pretty well equal to Con.
And all those 'wouldn't vote'.
It's not very fruitful ground for any party, Tories included.
This analysis is required reading for anybody who thinks sticking the Reform share of the vote (or a large percentage of that vote) to the Tory share of the vore is what will happen at the general election... is bang on.
The nursing degree thing is nonsense. You can either have three years of medical training with a large chunk of practical work ending in a degree or three years of medical training with a large chunk of practical work not ending in a degree.
He's also not obviously nuts, unlike most of the other front runners.
My guess is that Trump is considering Rubio for VP because Trump got 250K fewer votes in the Florida primary this year than he did in the 2020 Florida primary.
https://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1770660553209647347
Would need to move state if picked, but that's not a huge hurdle.
CON 19 (-1)
LAB 44 (=)
LIB DEM 9 (=)
REF UK 15 (+1)
GRN 8 (+1)
Fieldwork 19 - 20 March
https://x.com/lara_spirit/status/1770685592264700387?s=46&t=rw5lNVUgmRPVyKpxfV_pPQ
We have a problem with GPs: there aren't enough of them and they don't work enough, with short work weeks. We are coping by rationing by time, hence the fabled three-weeks-to-an-appointment (my next appointment was set up two months in advance - yes, really) and NHS 111 or whatever it is. I take your point that GPs are specifically for small-scale stuff and removing it is a remove-the-bottom-rung solution, so that's fair. But my point is still valid: we don't have the money and time to do it.
(importing 500K to 1000K of people each year isn't helping this, btw. Increasing growth by increasing people requires the NHS to expand with it or accept a decrease in service, because the number of GPs and nurses is a lagging input)
Mr. Viewcode, sleeping poorly I got up particularly early one day. it turned out to be the day the clocks changed and I got up at 4am, which was less than ideal.
Then there's what we might call the boredom factor. As noted upthread, much of GPs' caseload is managing chronic conditions. Curable infectious diseases are now largely a thing of the past.
And most GPs are now part-time.
Our politicians failed in the 1990s and 2010s and on, by exposing citizens to the cold winds of extreme competition from distant countries all the while cutting securities and social services because of neoliberalism etc .... many felt given up on by their politicians and fell back on reactionary politics because of it. The Washington consensus was too radical and fostered resentment. In the wake of 2008 (and we are still living in the aftermath of that) that process accelerated and led to brexit and trump in 2016.
I am still a believer in international collaboration and a kinder more empathetic and gradual approach to international cooperation (which I see in the eu with its social and workers rights and ecological/sustainable standards for instance). Further, the reactionary, toxic nostalgia politics of the far right are going to repeat all the horrific errors of the 20th century. In this sense, I can see where ukippers and reformers and trumpists are coming from - what brought them into existence. But their answer and political stance is just plain wrong. It proposes simple, bigoted answers that will cause self harm, to complicated issues.
No, we're not.
You've switched data again, and this is categorically easier to disprove. Our population is rising far, far, faster than the number of houses we're building.
The number of rooms ≠ the number of houses.
Children grow up and need a home of their own. Ten, twenty years ago all my nan's grandchildren were already alive and in the population count, but many were living with their own parents. They now need a house of their own, but the population count has not changed for them.
Every Millennial now is an adult that should have their own home, its younger generations that aren't.
Again, circle of life.
We have 4 million extra over 60s alive today who live in homes they lived in for decades predominantly with many more rooms than they need. This again is not a bad thing, they've set down roots and have support networks etc and when they do 'move on' then the house is free for someone else, circle of life.
We also have millions of adults today who need a home of their own. Many will move in to houses with more rooms than they "need" because they intend to have kids but don't necessarily have them yet.
Redundancy is a good not a bad thing in a system. If you're building a house anyway, almost always better a 3 or 4 bed house than a 1 bed bungalow. Especially since they pretty much take the same footprint anyway.
Remember that Corbyn was selling “soak the rich” - see the Tax Gap nonsense. “Ordinary people” would see wonderful public services etc at no extra cost.
As for the wider issue, it's 2016 all over again. Under Sunak (our first True Believer Brexit PM, remember) we're getting the set the butterfly free, small state global Britain, tow us to the other side of the Atlantic Brexit. Whereas most of the 52 percent were probably of the pill up the drawbridge, make all the foreign stuff go away and spend the money on us persuasion.
It's hard to hold those strands together. Boris managed it for a bit through sheer dishonesty.
So if you build enough that she could afford a flat of her own (and her flatmates) then suddenly 4 extra “households” would pop into existence.
I stated earlier that the total number of bedrooms available has increased more than the population. That is incorrect - sorry.
The population in E&W increased by 6.2% from 2011 and 2021, while the number of households increased by 6.1%.
The total number of bedrooms has increased by 6.1%. The total number of spare bedrooms increased by 7.4%.
The total number of dwellings increased by 8.4%. 1.6 million dwellings are now unoccupied (on top of the 26 million spare bedrooms), a 4.5% increase.
Mostly they are anti-immigration, socially conservative, and want people to keep more of their own money by cutting welfare and cutting taxes. They aren't far from Conservative Party rhetoric, just very angry that the Conservative government doesn't deliver what it says.
There has been a slight drop from 2019, but not a big one.
I suspect that the vast majority of these people are very unhappy, often chronically depressed and with dependencies of one sort or another. It is not doing them any good but it is not doing the rest of us much good either.
Talking of which, time to go to work.
The great battle will be for simplicity. I would allow only for one adjustment - disability. For children, there would be no additional payment, but I would implement much lower tax rates.
I would abolish local housing allowances - a flat payment across the UK. That would really level things up.
assisted dying, and abolishing inheritance tax should be introduced together, surely?
Used to annoy the locals be getting there before 8:30 most Monday mornings - with Starbucks coffee to emphasis my route….
It’s a good philosophy and chimes with what you got from ayahuasca. The best we can do is be who we are and be considerate/understanding of others being who they are.
It’s tough to apply that philosophy to eg IS, though. Which is one reason why I have deep respect for what the Rojavans do with IS prisoners (seek to understand and rehabilitate rather than write them off as irredeemable).
It's so obvious why anti-immigration voters will be reluctant to vote for Sunak.
So your claim has been comprehensively dismissed. We just need more construction.
I would like to see a much greater emphasis on occupational health, with practitioners supporting people in the workplace with reasonable adjustments to address the issue. All too often the approach is coercive and punitive.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9795167#zippy=,for-the-uk
1. Rwanda bill buried in the Lords. They won't back down - and by *they* I mean the ex Tory Home Secretaries leading the rebellion there.
2. Funereal / Desperate / Fed up mood in the '22. The idea they will sit there quietly and just accept their fate is for the birds
3. Crossover claxon incoming. The FUKers are gaining ground fast, and despite the Tory delusion that these are Tory voters who will come "home", they're not, they won't, and they never were going to do.
Sunak goes to the Palace today, or it is the end for him.
In an alternative reality where such support did not exist and I resigned instead of seeking help my working life I could have gone in to a terrible downward spiral. I guess that is what happens to a lot of people. Possibly it is some kind of middle class public sector professional privilege that I have. Lots of people in other jobs would not have this.
Picking up @viewcode 's point I had no therapy or drugs - the doctor agreed that neither of these were necessary because it was obvious what the problem was. But in another reality the situation could have become medicalised. The solution to a lot of these issues is better management in the workplace.
Increasingly they are buying directly into the growth bits of western economies.
The Saudis are planning a $40B AI fund, perhaps in partnership with A16Z.
A16Z has discussed opening an office in Riyadh according to the article.
AI, the new black gold?
https://twitter.com/pitdesi/status/1770194212312567899
Even if Eabhal was right it still does not make the mix right. We need far more homes where they are needed. London and the South East predominantly.
If I were Sunak's personal Machiavelli, I'd advise getting performatively furious about the latest Rwanda knock back, go to the Palace and try for a "Peers vs. People" election. And do it today.
But I'm not, which might be for the best. If I were in the Downing Street Bunker, I wouldn't want to match towards the gunfire.
Is it just triggering people, because, muslims, or is there a deeper more malign meaning to the message.
On the other hand, being supported properly in school can sustain you even when the job is relentlessly stressful.
He cuts and runs today, he is in control. He opts to go long and others are in control. I know that a few PBers think he will be leader at the election later in the year, and sure that is possible.
It doesn't feel likely though. They will come for him after the local elections. Even if he survives a failed putsch this is a government falling apart. A significant risk that it abruptly stops - so we have Sunak leading at the GE, but a GE which is forced in June rather than one planned triumphantly in November.
Definite GE being called today
(DYOR 😈)
In some cases nurses with degrees have resisted performing the more menial “care giving “ activities as they view themselves as degree-qualified medical professionals. Those functions are critical and have material impact on healing times and quality of life
The tougher question is why do we have so many jobs that make so many people feel so overwhelmed?
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.
Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losers, loblolly-men, louts-
They don't end as paupers;
Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.
Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets - and yet
No one actually _starves_.
Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
That dreams are made on:
For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,
And will never allow me to blarney
My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.
I don't say, one bodies the other
One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,
When you have both.
I also agree that the costs of infrastructure should not fall on developers. That's very difficult to solve, but I agree in principle.
Where we disagree is whether building homes is a silver bullet. I've demonstrated that home-building is happening faster than population growth. That the number of empty homes is growing. That the number of spare bedrooms is growing.
The evidence suggests that something else is going on other than pure national demand and supply. The most simple answer is geographical asymmetries, with economic growth massively unbalanced across the country.
At the very least, homebuilding is grossly inefficient in the UK.
But because she still has both of her legs it would be impossible for her to qualify for any disability benefit.
The problem is that we seem to be unable to find any way to help people with chronic conditions, not that they are mollycoddled.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68607059
Home building is absolutely and categorically less than population growth.
Use absolute numbers and that is crystal clear.
Our quantity of population has grown by millions more than our quantity of homes. That is a fact, pretending otherwise is a lie or ignorance.
In absolute terms the number of empty homes and spare rooms SHOULD be growing. They're not growing by enough. It's a failure that there is insufficient empty homes and the proportion of homes empty, by your own percentages, is down.
Now we know that it will look awful and not work but your typical MP isn't exactly the brightest...
You may where you are in the North. The North is a big place. County Durham we are building enough. Other places we are building enough. We need to focus our energies on where we need property building not forcing it to be built where we have adequate provision.
I guessed October in the PB New Year quiz.
Pretty sure we get a budget in October now so end of Nov GE likely the earliest now 🙃
Having a shit PM tries the patience of the public more than changing the PM does.
A new PM may still be shit. This one definitely is.
Also "invest more money in tackling climate change"- how much more? 50p or £6 trillion? Whose? Etc etc.
The party cannot get its signature policy done and public support appears to be getting worse as Reform get attention, and all the talk is how long he can survive.
But for him personally it's no worse to go later than now, so later it is.
I predicted/guessed 2nd May but am now thinking 12 December - 5 year anniversary of the Tories' last hurrah. (Now I've said that 2nd May is nailed on isn't it.)