On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
I wonder if some of it is based on relative wealth.
A generation ago the equivalent of £75k might have been 4x average and 0.5x rich, now it might be 2x average and 0.1x rich.
It's housing costs more than anything else. I remember buying my first flat when I was on about that level of equivalent income 10 or so years ago and what it got then was a nice 2 bedroom duplex in zone 2. Today a £75k salary might get you a 2 bed in an ex-LA in zone 4 or 5.
Compared to my parents generation it's even worse, my dad bought a 4 bedroom semi-detached house in a nice suburb on an junior accountant salary in the mid 90s. Even now a junior accountant will get £35-40k, no one is getting a 4 bedroom semi in London on that kind of salary.
Due to a mixture of NIMBYism and lax legal and illegal immigration housing costs all over the country are just out of control and people aged 25-55 will continue to revolt over this until it is fixed, in the US it has resulted in a second Trump term. We had Brexit already and the Tories got wiped out here and Labour already look shaky because they've got no solution for prices being double what they were 3 years ago for basics.
Good old London house prices.
Its certainly not socioeconomically healthy for any area to have home ownership no longer aspirationally possible.
I'm mid Solent on the ferry home, having waited an extra hour as the previous boat was pulled out of service having failed to cope with the weather. The side swell is quite dramatic out here, and tomorrow is forecast to be worse!
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
If someone didn't agree with homosexuality because of religious views and they were a talented and gifted writer, then yes. If they were arguing for a pogrom against gay people, or violence, then no.
We've got to get away from this idea that if you don't have the right views you are to be denied employment or income.
I hate that form of coercion, which is what it is.
Thanks for the answer, but I fundamentally disagree with this. For one thing, being a 'talented and gifted writer' seems to be a bit of an odd clause to include. Views do not become 'good' just because someone can write or speak well; likewise, someone's views do not become 'bad' because they are dyslexic or a poor orator. All those skills do is potentially make the views more compelling to the audience: it does not make the views themselves good or bad.
I agree we need to be careful about people who do not have the 'right' views being denied employment. But we also need an environment in workplaces where people are not routinely abused for being different, whether that is because they are disabled, or female, or non-white, or gay. Or even male and white.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Yes. I was trying to think of a single word to sum up something like that. Companies have had a few more decades experience in learning how to sell to us, and they seem quite adept at making sure everyone spends all their money, regardless of how much of it they have.
Edit: though, to pick up on one point, coffee shop visits have replaced pub visits for a lot of people. Similarly Netflix stands in for visiting the cinema. It's not like people in the 80s lived like frugal monks.
Not one word, but "Desire inflation"? We have so much more stuff we can buy, and is desirable but not necessary, than was the case.
Good point about pubs and coffee shops; except I guess people also drink alcohol at home instead of the pub. Have drinking levels gone down over the decades?
And I'd say comparatively, people in the 1980s were living like frugal monks. My son (10 yo) cannot imagine how I coped not having a computer before I was 12. And I didn't get on the Internet until I was 16!
Mmm, but that was partly because computers back in the day were a lot more expensive. The original ZX Spectrum -- notoriously designed to hit the lowest feasible price point -- was 125 quid in 1982, which would be 430 quid today (and doesn't include the TV or the cassette deck). You can get a laptop for half that in Curry's today, and it is a much more justifiable purchase given its capabilities.
I'm mid Solent on the ferry home, having waited an extra hour as the previous boat was pulled out of service having failed to cope with the weather. The side swell is quite dramatic out here, and tomorrow is forecast to be worse!
I remember standing in Mayflower Park and watching one of the Red Funnel ferries trying to dock at Town Quay during a gale. Impressive seamanship, though it did take him a couple of tries before he got in. And Southampton Water's relatively sheltered.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Yes. I was trying to think of a single word to sum up something like that. Companies have had a few more decades experience in learning how to sell to us, and they seem quite adept at making sure everyone spends all their money, regardless of how much of it they have.
Edit: though, to pick up on one point, coffee shop visits have replaced pub visits for a lot of people. Similarly Netflix stands in for visiting the cinema. It's not like people in the 80s lived like frugal monks.
Not one word, but "Desire inflation"? We have so much more stuff we can buy, and is desirable but not necessary, than was the case.
Good point about pubs and coffee shops; except I guess people also drink alcohol at home instead of the pub. Have drinking levels gone down over the decades?
And I'd say comparatively, people in the 1980s were living like frugal monks. My son (10 yo) cannot imagine how I coped not having a computer before I was 12. And I didn't get on the Internet until I was 16!
Mmm, but that was partly because computers back in the day were a lot more expensive. The original ZX Spectrum -- notoriously designed to hit the lowest feasible price point -- was 125 quid in 1982, which would be 430 quid today (and doesn't include the TV or the cassette deck). You can get a laptop for half that in Curry's today, and it is a much more justifiable purchase given its capabilities.
The workable version with 48K ram was £175 - I still have mine with a grey not dark blue key pad, bought new by mail order. I doubt if it still works but stil have it. And a QL.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Yes. I was trying to think of a single word to sum up something like that. Companies have had a few more decades experience in learning how to sell to us, and they seem quite adept at making sure everyone spends all their money, regardless of how much of it they have.
Edit: though, to pick up on one point, coffee shop visits have replaced pub visits for a lot of people. Similarly Netflix stands in for visiting the cinema. It's not like people in the 80s lived like frugal monks.
Not one word, but "Desire inflation"? We have so much more stuff we can buy, and is desirable but not necessary, than was the case.
Good point about pubs and coffee shops; except I guess people also drink alcohol at home instead of the pub. Have drinking levels gone down over the decades?
And I'd say comparatively, people in the 1980s were living like frugal monks. My son (10 yo) cannot imagine how I coped not having a computer before I was 12. And I didn't get on the Internet until I was 16!
Mmm, but that was partly because computers back in the day were a lot more expensive. The original ZX Spectrum -- notoriously designed to hit the lowest feasible price point -- was 125 quid in 1982, which would be 430 quid today (and doesn't include the TV or the cassette deck). You can get a laptop for half that in Curry's today, and it is a much more justifiable purchase given its capabilities.
But in 1982 very few people had them. Now, many of us have several - and that ZX Spectrum would have lasted much longer than (as an example) TSE upgrading his iPhone every year.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
I wonder if some of it is based on relative wealth.
A generation ago the equivalent of £75k might have been 4x average and 0.5x rich, now it might be 2x average and 0.1x rich.
I started work in 2004 and what was £75k then would be £132k now.
Inflation and fiscal drag does a lot to decimate real-terms pay.
In very rough figures, a very hard working but not all that bright couple (they are part of Britain's backbone) working FT 48 hours each at minimum wage from 2025 will be on gross £60K between them. And fair play to them too.
They will each pay about £5K IT/NI, totalling £10K.
A graduate tax graduate on £60K will pay roughly £17K in IT/NI/Loan. He is more likely than the minimum wage couple to be paying £6-9K for a season ticket too, out of taxed income.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
I wonder if some of it is based on relative wealth.
A generation ago the equivalent of £75k might have been 4x average and 0.5x rich, now it might be 2x average and 0.1x rich.
That's some of it.
It was one of the problems with Bidenomics. Raising the pay of people at the very bottom may be the right thing to do, but it creates fear and resentment one step up. People working in McDonald's get more, but people eating there have to pay more.
But also, it's the cost of housing. At the moment, any increases in pay are likely to cause rents and house prices to go up.
Doesn't that depend on how much housing there is in the local area ?
More money available might bid up prices at the local top end (there's a limit as to how many Georgian mansions and Victorian vicarages are available) but have steadily less effect as you move down the socioeconomic ladder.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Yes. I was trying to think of a single word to sum up something like that. Companies have had a few more decades experience in learning how to sell to us, and they seem quite adept at making sure everyone spends all their money, regardless of how much of it they have.
Edit: though, to pick up on one point, coffee shop visits have replaced pub visits for a lot of people. Similarly Netflix stands in for visiting the cinema. It's not like people in the 80s lived like frugal monks.
Not one word, but "Desire inflation"? We have so much more stuff we can buy, and is desirable but not necessary, than was the case.
Good point about pubs and coffee shops; except I guess people also drink alcohol at home instead of the pub. Have drinking levels gone down over the decades?
And I'd say comparatively, people in the 1980s were living like frugal monks. My son (10 yo) cannot imagine how I coped not having a computer before I was 12. And I didn't get on the Internet until I was 16!
Mmm, but that was partly because computers back in the day were a lot more expensive. The original ZX Spectrum -- notoriously designed to hit the lowest feasible price point -- was 125 quid in 1982, which would be 430 quid today (and doesn't include the TV or the cassette deck). You can get a laptop for half that in Curry's today, and it is a much more justifiable purchase given its capabilities.
But in 1982 very few people had them. Now, many of us have several - and that ZX Spectrum would have lasted much longer than (as an example) TSE upgrading his iPhone every year.
Same for wristwatches too. No wonder Anabob has no cash in his pocket, what with buying a new one very couple of years.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
Those same people still want functioning public services that need to be paid for and the Conservatives are offering nothing on that front other than magic money tree.
Likewise, any attempt to redistribute wealth from the generation that holds all of the wealth (housing and land) is met with screams and tears. This country is doomed to mediocrity.
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
If someone didn't agree with homosexuality because of religious views and they were a talented and gifted writer, then yes. If they were arguing for a pogrom against gay people, or violence, then no.
We've got to get away from this idea that if you don't have the right views you are to be denied employment or income.
I hate that form of coercion, which is what it is.
You are a fan of Jaguar and are whining about some of their recent decisions. Yet you deny the right of Harry Potter fans to do the same.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
If someone didn't agree with homosexuality because of religious views and they were a talented and gifted writer, then yes. If they were arguing for a pogrom against gay people, or violence, then no.
We've got to get away from this idea that if you don't have the right views you are to be denied employment or income.
I hate that form of coercion, which is what it is.
Thanks for the answer, but I fundamentally disagree with this. For one thing, being a 'talented and gifted writer' seems to be a bit of an odd clause to include. Views do not become 'good' just because someone can write or speak well; likewise, someone's views do not become 'bad' because they are dyslexic or a poor orator. All those skills do is potentially make the views more compelling to the audience: it does not make the views themselves good or bad.
I agree we need to be careful about people who do not have the 'right' views being denied employment. But we also need an environment in workplaces where people are not routinely abused for being different, whether that is because they are disabled, or female, or non-white, or gay. Or even male and white.
So where does the balance lie?
True. Social pressure not to speak out against the social norm has always been there, including in the 70s and 80s when most workplaces were dominated by white men smoking all day, lunchtime in the pub, spending their day ogling the girlie calendars on the wall and discussing the weekend's Benny Hill. Back then it was the women and minorities who didn't risk speaking out.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Yes. I was trying to think of a single word to sum up something like that. Companies have had a few more decades experience in learning how to sell to us, and they seem quite adept at making sure everyone spends all their money, regardless of how much of it they have.
Edit: though, to pick up on one point, coffee shop visits have replaced pub visits for a lot of people. Similarly Netflix stands in for visiting the cinema. It's not like people in the 80s lived like frugal monks.
Not one word, but "Desire inflation"? We have so much more stuff we can buy, and is desirable but not necessary, than was the case.
Good point about pubs and coffee shops; except I guess people also drink alcohol at home instead of the pub. Have drinking levels gone down over the decades?
And I'd say comparatively, people in the 1980s were living like frugal monks. My son (10 yo) cannot imagine how I coped not having a computer before I was 12. And I didn't get on the Internet until I was 16!
Mmm, but that was partly because computers back in the day were a lot more expensive. The original ZX Spectrum -- notoriously designed to hit the lowest feasible price point -- was 125 quid in 1982, which would be 430 quid today (and doesn't include the TV or the cassette deck). You can get a laptop for half that in Curry's today, and it is a much more justifiable purchase given its capabilities.
But in 1982 very few people had them. Now, many of us have several - and that ZX Spectrum would have lasted much longer than (as an example) TSE upgrading his iPhone every year.
My point is that very few people had them exactly because they were (inflation adjusted) so expensive for relatively small amounts of functionality. And even then they sold a million of them within the first two years. If you could have bought a PC in 1982 for 75 quid I bet a lot of people would have bought one. (Though it's a bit of an odd counterfactual without the intervening decades of progress in consumer software plus the internet.)
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
I wonder if some of it is based on relative wealth.
A generation ago the equivalent of £75k might have been 4x average and 0.5x rich, now it might be 2x average and 0.1x rich.
That's some of it.
It was one of the problems with Bidenomics. Raising the pay of people at the very bottom may be the right thing to do, but it creates fear and resentment one step up. People working in McDonald's get more, but people eating there have to pay more.
But also, it's the cost of housing. At the moment, any increases in pay are likely to cause rents and house prices to go up.
Doesn't that depend on how much housing there is in the local area ?
More money available might bid up prices at the local top end (there's a limit as to how many Georgian mansions and Victorian vicarages are available) but have steadily less effect as you move down the socioeconomic ladder.
There's so much pent-up demand - young people living in HMOs, or still at home with their parents, divorcees wanting to provide twice as much space for their kids as when they were still together, etc - that I think the infusion at all price levels is very likely if there's extra money available.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
Those same people still want functioning public services that need to be paid for and the Conservatives are offering nothing on that front other than magic money tree.
Likewise, any attempt to redistribute wealth from the generation that holds all of the wealth (housing and land) is met with screams and tears. This country is doomed to mediocrity.
This is where the SNP are smart. Universal benefits and entitlements help sweeten the pill of slightly higher taxes, with a sprinkling of progressivity like Scottish Child Payment to tick the poverty box. That free tuition is worth £40k per child to a middle class couple.
I actually think that is the route back for the Conservatives. Make a big deal of public(ish) goods like the public realm, roads, rail, bins (lol), social care, NHS. Make it sound like you care about public services - but only the ones richer people enjoy too.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
Wanting to be different but insecurely and ineptly imitating what it thinks is trendy.
I have a power cut, the Queensferry Crossing is closed, the A9 looks like Hoth, Lothian Buses have cancelled all services, and I can't get these studded tyres onto my bike. Waste of £100.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
I think that's what a lot of Jaguar fans have picked up on: the company is dominated by such types who deliberately want to triangulate against them for those reasons.
I think that "elite overproduction" is one reason. The Greens in particular, pick up support from people who are very well-educated, but in relatively poorly-paying occupations. Revolutions are almost always driven by people who are just outside the magic circle of power and wealth, rather than the genuinely poor.
So, you have a lot of elite-adjacent people who really detest their own society, along with its history and culture.
Also economics isn't really the dividing line it once was. No genuintely socialist party can expect to come to power now, and nor can any party that believes in radically cutting back the public sector. A form of social democracy prevails in most rich world democracies. So, people seek other dividing lines.
That's a good analysis.
I'm astonished at how extreme I find the views of some of my peer group but they seem to be seen as normal by most.
Do you wonder how many Jaguars are driven by women or men under 50?
Well, I'm one of them. And I bought mine in my 30s.
Jaguar are targeting a market that simply doesn't exist and, to the extent it does, it's the distinct Britishness and heritage of the marque that attracts customers to it as a luxury brand, just as for RR or Bentley.
You see: I knew I'd win you round.
You've said exactly what I did.
So under that Royal Blue exterior you've got a sense of humour. Using it you should enjoy the ad. Jaguar have become the Daily Express of motor cars. They aren't selling to women or men under 50 (except you) If you don't like the new ad you're not their target market. They've taken their lead from Virgin and they're aiming for the same result
Everyone doesnt like the ad.
So we can conclude their target market doesn't exist.
I like the ad. I don`t like their cars. More precisely, the shape of their cars.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
Aha, this is nearly as good as Casino_Royale sending a whiny email to his Jaaaag dealer.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
Those same people still want functioning public services that need to be paid for and the Conservatives are offering nothing on that front other than magic money tree.
Likewise, any attempt to redistribute wealth from the generation that holds all of the wealth (housing and land) is met with screams and tears. This country is doomed to mediocrity.
I keep saying:
More tax on the rich and property. Fewer services on the old and poor. Higher productivity and later state pension for workers.
No exemptions.
Everyone must lose out or everyone will think they're being discriminated against.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
I have a power cut, the Queensferry Crossing is closed, the A9 looks like Hoth, Lothian Buses have cancelled all services, and I can't get these studded tyres onto my bike. Waste of £100.
And the Christmas Market is closed because of the snow.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
They're comparing how far up the pile they are to how far up the pile they think they deserve to be.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Yes. I was trying to think of a single word to sum up something like that. Companies have had a few more decades experience in learning how to sell to us, and they seem quite adept at making sure everyone spends all their money, regardless of how much of it they have.
Edit: though, to pick up on one point, coffee shop visits have replaced pub visits for a lot of people. Similarly Netflix stands in for visiting the cinema. It's not like people in the 80s lived like frugal monks.
Not one word, but "Desire inflation"? We have so much more stuff we can buy, and is desirable but not necessary, than was the case.
Good point about pubs and coffee shops; except I guess people also drink alcohol at home instead of the pub. Have drinking levels gone down over the decades?
And I'd say comparatively, people in the 1980s were living like frugal monks. My son (10 yo) cannot imagine how I coped not having a computer before I was 12. And I didn't get on the Internet until I was 16!
I guess that these days I would be classed as a member of the 'FIRE' community.
Previously this would have been just 'Yorkshire'.
Mrs Flatlander and I don't really like spending money on stuff. The right thing, with a purpose, yes, not a problem. If things need doing on the house we will do them ourselves (except gas, obvs).
Although we are tied down due to supporting old people, which does restrict our outgoings, I think last year between us we spent less than 15k total, including all bills.
It always amazes us how much people manage to spend on things that don't really make them happier.
We do have some friends who are similar, despite being in the 100k bracket (we are not, but aren't in poverty).
I went for a long walk yesterday in the sun. It must have cost about 3 quid in fuel. Certainly didn't want for any entertainment.
Admittedly housing costs are the one thing that can't be ignored. Here they aren't insane. Perhaps when you are spending stupid amounts just for a roof over your head the relative cost of other things seems much lower?
Basically, most big law firms structure themselves as LLPs.
One piece of analysis [possibly from Private Eye] suggests that the Inland Revenue loses £138,000 on every £1m of profit they make. From the “magic circle” of City law firms – Linklaters, Allen & Overy, Freshfields and Clifford Chance (excluding Slaughter and May, which follow the traditional partnership model) – that would amount to an extra £4bn a year. That’s £4bn from just four sets of lawyers. To put that in context, VAT on school fees is predicted to raise £1.7bn a year.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
They could do what Jif did with their ad campaign showing bemused Europeans going "Heef?" as an explanation as to why they changed their name to Cif.
On the new ad, or at least the first one, it got people talking but for all the 'copy nothing' stuff it looked like a completely stale set of stock 'edgy' costuming and the like, probably sat on the ad company's plans for years until someone finally said yes to it.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
Maybe they should rebrand themselves as just "jag" ? Lowercase seems trendy these days...
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
Those same people still want functioning public services that need to be paid for and the Conservatives are offering nothing on that front other than magic money tree.
Likewise, any attempt to redistribute wealth from the generation that holds all of the wealth (housing and land) is met with screams and tears. This country is doomed to mediocrity.
More optimistic than some, but I do think that we retain a fundamental disconnect from what we want versus what we can afford, and shifting back and forth won't change that. It's not that the parties are all the same, they aren't, but it is true they are unwilling to face up to the big problems we face because they are too hard to want to tackle.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Yes. I was trying to think of a single word to sum up something like that. Companies have had a few more decades experience in learning how to sell to us, and they seem quite adept at making sure everyone spends all their money, regardless of how much of it they have.
Edit: though, to pick up on one point, coffee shop visits have replaced pub visits for a lot of people. Similarly Netflix stands in for visiting the cinema. It's not like people in the 80s lived like frugal monks.
Not one word, but "Desire inflation"? We have so much more stuff we can buy, and is desirable but not necessary, than was the case.
Good point about pubs and coffee shops; except I guess people also drink alcohol at home instead of the pub. Have drinking levels gone down over the decades?
And I'd say comparatively, people in the 1980s were living like frugal monks. My son (10 yo) cannot imagine how I coped not having a computer before I was 12. And I didn't get on the Internet until I was 16!
I guess that these days I would be classed as a member of the 'FIRE' community.
Previously this would have been just 'Yorkshire'.
Mrs Flatlander and I don't really like spending money on stuff. The right thing, with a purpose, yes, not a problem. If things need doing on the house we will do them ourselves (except gas, obvs).
Although we are tied down due to supporting old people, which does restrict our outgoings, I think last year between us we spent less than 15k total, including all bills.
It always amazes us how much people manage to spend on things that don't really make them happier.
We do have some friends who are similar, despite being in the 100k bracket (we are not, but aren't in poverty).
I went for a long walk yesterday in the sun. It must have cost about 3 quid in fuel. Certainly didn't want for any entertainment.
Admittedly housing costs are the one thing that can't be ignored. Here they aren't insane. Perhaps when you are spending stupid amounts just for a roof over your head the relative cost of other things seems much lower?
The last bit likely has a feedback loop.
When you have a nice house and garden then a drink or meal at home is pleasant and cheap.
When you're renting a room in Walthamstow there must be a greater desire to drink/eat out with the resulting higher cost.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
Maybe they should rebrand themselves as just "jag" ? Lowercase seems trendy these days...
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
I don't have a depth of experience to contribute to the car debate, but I always thought the niche Jaguar shoukd exploit is to rip-off the expensive car designs (Aston Martin etc), make the interiors really luxurious, make them pretty, and pitch them at middle-management: kind of posh BMWs. "Grace, pace and space" as they used to say; the car equivalent of a good suit or posh frock depending on gender. The car you buy when you get promoted and want to distinguish yourself from where you came from.
Their coloured powder and pastel colours is more fitted for the arty types - there's a niche for that but not one Jaguar can easily fit. They should have created a spin-off company ("Jaguar Avant-Garde"?) for the experimental plinky-plinky, and used the existing brand to mine its current niche ("Jaguar Andor")
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
I think that's what a lot of Jaguar fans have picked up on: the company is dominated by such types who deliberately want to triangulate against them for those reasons.
I think that "elite overproduction" is one reason. The Greens in particular, pick up support from people who are very well-educated, but in relatively poorly-paying occupations. Revolutions are almost always driven by people who are just outside the magic circle of power and wealth, rather than the genuinely poor.
So, you have a lot of elite-adjacent people who really detest their own society, along with its history and culture.
Also economics isn't really the dividing line it once was. No genuintely socialist party can expect to come to power now, and nor can any party that believes in radically cutting back the public sector. A form of social democracy prevails in most rich world democracies. So, people seek other dividing lines.
Spot. On.
I was also thinking yesterday how so much depends on where you want to live. If you're happy to live in a working class area you can get a decent house for an affordable price. If you want to live in a 'nice' area it'll really cost you. So many of the middle class are struggling with the latter.
As a young man in the 2000s I read a lot of JG Ballard and I can't get his last two books Millenium People and Kingdon Come out of my mind. The first features middle class Londoners rebelling against their increasing powerlessness and irrelevance. The second features less educated people captured by a consumer culture and becoming increasingly nationalistic. The disgruntled middle classes revolt from the left and the working class from the right.
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
I think she crosses the line sometimes, but by and large there was hysteria a few years ago about her 'problematic' opinions.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
As I've said in the past, we have so much more to spend money on. In the mid-1980s, when I was growing up, we did not need mobile phones or contracts. All we needed to watch TV was a TV licence; not expensive contracts to Sky/Netflix/Prime etc. You were very lucky if you had a computer in the home; now everyone needs at least a tablet. Wristwatches have got more complex and expensive. People eat out much more AFACIT, and coffee-shop visits are often obligatory. You do not need many subscriptions to services to start spending £50a month, or more, on them.
Yes, housing and other similar costs to back then may have got more expensive, but I cannot help but think that we simply have too many costs our parents never had, and we may not always need.
Modern life is very expensive - and more so if you let it.
Add to this that credit is extremely easy to obtain. Too easy, in my opinion.
I have 3 credit cards, for example. The credit limit amounts to almost my annual income. And I get offers of more all the time.
The ability of people on low to medium income to get into debt through credit and gambling should be, in my opinion, an absolute national shame
I agreed with you until you shoehorned gambling into it.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
Maybe they should rebrand themselves as just "jag" ? Lowercase seems trendy these days...
This is my photo quota for the day. Politically on topic as the guy in the photograph is a Local Councillor in Lancashire. Martyn Hurt https://bsky.app/profile/martynhurt.bsky.social/post/3lbjj4ssz3s2j This is a barrier near me that the County Council seems to think is fine. I can't independently get through it, even with the power assist as I need to control speed and direction with my arms. I've just started researching how to take action to get it removed. More explanations on the thread. He's trying to work across party on this.
This is a link to Google Maps which shows that - subject to details I may have missed - that anti-wheelchair barrier means that an able bodied person can walk 50m down the path, whilst a wheelchair user who can't get through has to go 3/4 of a mile around the roads. I have several in positions like that here, at least one of which goes back to pre-1970.
Not a bet for me. Even if Badenoch flops spectacularly, Farage is a worse choice.
Nothing would ensure a second Starmer government more certainly.
I'm not so sure. Farage strikes me as someone that the centrist Establishment often underestimate.
People might be annoyed enough with five years - well, actually by then about 20 - of mass immigration and economic stagnation to give Farage a whirl in 2029, especially if Kemi (and a successor?) disappoint. The Ukraine war might be over by then and Trump will be on his way out.
It's certainly not the likeliest scenario, and the logistics are daunting, but stranger things have happened ...
I can only speak for myself. But there is a growing thought in this country - and on here - that embraces shit like the Great Replacement Theory. I think that theory is nasty b/s, but politically it plays well amongst people who like conspiracy theories, are borderline or fully racist, and who want someone to blame for things they don't like.
And I can see Farage playing that sort of card to that crowd. After all, that card has helped Trump.
PB is just too upper middle class to understand the appeal of Farage.
Wrong. Long time political anoraks on this site of all political persuasions have sadly always understood the appeal of Farage and why in his previous role as UKIP leader he and his previous party were so successful in European elections, and far more so in Labour heartlands seats by 2015 than in previous heartland Conservative seats and also in particular in the Welsh Parliamentary elections around that time. So no surprise at how well Reform are performing in either Wales or Scotland right now.
But again, long time political anoraks are already recognising the negative signs of his previous modus operandi as leader of UKIP starting to appear on his new Reform bandwagon.
Are you saying that Farage is yesterday’s man, like Trump?
No, but I am saying he is just as easily able to become unstuck again for the same reasons both he and Trump came unstuck last time through falling out with and losing disullusioned key internal colleagues in their party campaign operation.
Morning fitalass. Really good to see you posting again. I know we disagree on various things but yours is a welcome voice on here.
Hello Richard and many thanks for the lovely welcome back. I have to admit that I have been drawn back into the PB fold due to the current political situation unfolding on both sides of the Atlantic over recent months, and despite the results of the GE here and the Presidential election in the US I suspect that both Starmer and his government and the Trump administration are facing a very turbulant time in Office.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
They could do what Jif did with their ad campaign showing bemused Europeans going "Heef?" as an explanation as to why they changed their name to Cif.
On the new ad, or at least the first one, it got people talking but for all the 'copy nothing' stuff it looked like a completely stale set of stock 'edgy' costuming and the like, probably sat on the ad company's plans for years until someone finally said yes to it.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
They could do what Jif did with their ad campaign showing bemused Europeans going "Heef?" as an explanation as to why they changed their name to Cif.
On the new ad, or at least the first one, it got people talking but for all the 'copy nothing' stuff it looked like a completely stale set of stock 'edgy' costuming and the like, probably sat on the ad company's plans for years until someone finally said yes to it.
Calling a cleaning product Syph was beyond edgy.
That is exactly the reason it was called Jif here in the first place.
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 14 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
This is my photo quota for the day. Politically on topic as the guy in the photograph is a Local Councillor in Lancashire. Martyn Hurt https://bsky.app/profile/martynhurt.bsky.social/post/3lbjj4ssz3s2j This is a barrier near me that the County Council seems to think is fine. I can't independently get through it, even with the power assist as I need to control speed and direction with my arms. I've just started researching how to take action to get it removed. More explanations on the thread. He's trying to work across party on this.
This is a link to Google Maps which shows that - subject to details I may have missed - that anti-wheelchair barrier means that an able bodied person can walk 50m down the path, whilst a wheelchair user who can't get through has to go 3/4 of a mile around the roads. I have several in positions like that here, at least one of which goes back to pre-1970.
Am I the only one thinking the Jaguar ad - sorry JaGUar (or some ther wanky mix of capital and lower case) is emblematic of Starmer's Britain - wanting to be different but having no idea of how to deliver? Whilst having no product to actually sell...
I haven't seen the controversial new ad but one branding problem it won't solve is the fact that it's pronounced jag-you-are over here and jag-wah across the pond, and heaven knows how it would be pronounced by a Spanish speaker.
Maybe they should rebrand themselves as just "jag" ? Lowercase seems trendy these days...
Block caps seems to have joined lower case as the trendy type setting of choice with a number of brands.
That Jag ad does look like the latest in a long tradition of stale brands attempting to make themselves look edgy and new, while employing very bog standard “edgy” aesthetics. Some do this moderately well, others just look silly (like Jag does).
But with cars I think it’s almost impossible. You have an image and you’re stuck with it. Jag’s is gin and tonics and the golf club. There simply aren’t enough G&T quaffing golf club members out there to sustain it. Just as there weren’t enough turtle-necked architects to sustain SAAB.
The only marque I can think of that’s managed to drag itself up the value chain in recent decades is Kia, but that’s probably because of barely had a brand at all until it started building EVs and hybrids.
The champion of recent years at provoking anti-woke culture warriors, thus burnishing its image among the libs while retaining the loyalty of its traditional market must surely be Greggs, with its genius vegan sausage roll gambit.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
I don't have a depth of experience to contribute to the car debate, but I always thought the niche Jaguar shoukd exploit is to rip-off the expensive car designs (Aston Martin etc), make the interiors really luxurious, make them pretty, and pitch them at middle-management: kind of posh BMWs. "Grace, pace and space" as they used to say; the car equivalent of a good suit or posh frock depending on gender. The car you buy when you get promoted and want to distinguish yourself from where you came from.
Their coloured powder and pastel colours is more fitted for the arty types - there's a niche for that but not one Jaguar can easily fit. They should have created a spin-off company ("Jaguar Avant-Garde"?) for the experimental plinky-plinky, and used the existing brand to mine its current niche ("Jaguar Andor")
And their problem is the arty fashionista ads space in automotive is traditionally taken by cheap French marques like Citroen and Renault.
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 24 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
To my mind an extremist on this issue is someone who threatens violence or expresses hatred. Neither of which I have seen from Rowling. Could she be kinder or more generous? That's a reasonable debate.
This is my photo quota for the day. Politically on topic as the guy in the photograph is a Local Councillor in Lancashire. Martyn Hurt https://bsky.app/profile/martynhurt.bsky.social/post/3lbjj4ssz3s2j This is a barrier near me that the County Council seems to think is fine. I can't independently get through it, even with the power assist as I need to control speed and direction with my arms. I've just started researching how to take action to get it removed. More explanations on the thread. He's trying to work across party on this.
This is a link to Google Maps which shows that - subject to details I may have missed - that anti-wheelchair barrier means that an able bodied person can walk 50m down the path, whilst a wheelchair user who can't get through has to go 3/4 of a mile around the roads. I have several in positions like that here, at least one of which goes back to pre-1970.
Apologies for two barrier photos in a few days, but the new Bluesky feed means I may be buried in these .
What is even the purpose of these barriers?
To try and stop antisocial motorbikes, ATVs etc.
Whilst stopping ATVs is still worthwhile, electric bikes now being the drugs delivery vehicle of choice mean that stopping off-road motorbikes is no longer much of a gain.
Tackling the anti-social behaviour without inconveniencing legitimate rights of way users seems like a more sensible idea.
[I have similar problems when taking my Dad out on his mobility scooter. He can walk a few yards, so I have to take the thing apart and lift it over/through the barrier, and then reconstruct it on the other side. Hopeless!]
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
But that's the problem. How can it be that £50k is not enough, when it's 50% higher than the median salary? The NMW still applies for those stocking the shelves in central London.
There needs to be a national strategy to spread demand around more. Better transport links, council tax linked to home values, abolish stamp duty, nodal energy pricing.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
I think that's what a lot of Jaguar fans have picked up on: the company is dominated by such types who deliberately want to triangulate against them for those reasons.
I think that "elite overproduction" is one reason. The Greens in particular, pick up support from people who are very well-educated, but in relatively poorly-paying occupations. Revolutions are almost always driven by people who are just outside the magic circle of power and wealth, rather than the genuinely poor.
So, you have a lot of elite-adjacent people who really detest their own society, along with its history and culture.
Also economics isn't really the dividing line it once was. No genuintely socialist party can expect to come to power now, and nor can any party that believes in radically cutting back the public sector. A form of social democracy prevails in most rich world democracies. So, people seek other dividing lines.
How many of the people who decry "elite overproduction" think their own kids shouldn't go to uni?
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
Is Badenoch better suited to be Reform leader? Perhaps they could swap.
If you have to ask that question, then you don't get Kemi Badenoch or chances her chances of staying the course as Conservative leader until the next GE. She gave a very good speech at the Farmers protest in London, she was totally on top her brief when it came to understanding and articulating the wider long term issues surrounding this terrible Labour tax policy for the farming community, far more so than Nigel Farage or even Jeremy Clarkson on the day.
Not impressed. Badenoch backed government spending, but immediately attacks any way to pay for it. That’s not opposition, that’s empty protest and a dead end for her and her party.
She comes across as a tribal comfort zone politician, somewhere between Miliband and Corbyn. Maybe that’s what the Tories need right now.
I seem to remember you thinking Starmer was being canny with his “ming vase” strategy not realising that he was just an empty jar.
And yet you attack the opposition for not having a fully costed set of policies 4.5 years from an election…
They don’t need to be fully costed, just basically coherent. “Cake and eat it” isn’t good politics.
She didn’t have to say anything on spending, but she did. 🤷♂️
Opposing destructive tax changes by the government is fine. The budget is a disaster for the UK - it was a once in a generation opportunity to take a meaningful step to fix things and Reeves/Starmer fluffed it.
Withdrawing WFA allowance, for example, was the right thing to do. I know @HYUFD says the Tories will reintroduce it but I hope they don’t (and I think they are just opposing the cut not promising to reverse it). Labour messed up the politics though.
But the budget was just BS. They taxed the wrong things, they massively boosted spending in the wrong areas and cut capex. They could and should have done better.
This is my photo quota for the day. Politically on topic as the guy in the photograph is a Local Councillor in Lancashire. Martyn Hurt https://bsky.app/profile/martynhurt.bsky.social/post/3lbjj4ssz3s2j This is a barrier near me that the County Council seems to think is fine. I can't independently get through it, even with the power assist as I need to control speed and direction with my arms. I've just started researching how to take action to get it removed. More explanations on the thread. He's trying to work across party on this.
This is a link to Google Maps which shows that - subject to details I may have missed - that anti-wheelchair barrier means that an able bodied person can walk 50m down the path, whilst a wheelchair user who can't get through has to go 3/4 of a mile around the roads. I have several in positions like that here, at least one of which goes back to pre-1970.
Apologies for two barrier photos in a few days, but the new Bluesky feed means I may be buried in these .
What is even the purpose of these barriers?
The usual reason claimed is control of ASBO motorcyclists (sometimes cyclists too, though that is a different debate), and there are often folk-beliefs that it is effective, based sometimes on police advice that was given when somewhere was built in 198x or 199x and has been preserved in memory of the subsequent residents.
It's also a cheap intervention, where local voters said "something must be done" and something can now be seen to have been done.
It gets pernicious because if there was never a problem (as is the case in most places), the existence of these becomes the folk-narrative as to why there is now no problem, and so many will fight to defend them. It's not unknown for a case to be made along the lines of "this cost to you is an acceptable compromise for us to make to protect the wellbeing of the whole community."
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 24 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
To my mind an extremist on this issue is someone who threatens violence or expresses hatred. Neither of which I have seen from Rowling. Could she be kinder or more generous? That's a reasonable debate.
Why make it personal about someone who is neither a sportsperson or an abuser, if your concern is really only with fairness in sport or abuse?
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
Luxury
And I have owned 2 jaguars in the past [late 1970s early 80s]
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
But that's the problem. How can it be that £50k is not enough, when it's 50% higher than the median salary? The NMW still applies for those stocking the shelves in central London.
There needs to be a national strategy to spread demand around more. Better transport links, council tax linked to home values, abolish stamp duty, nodal energy pricing.
In addition NHS workers live in London and the South East too and well as to this mythical and unquantified “productivity improvements” my girlfriend works 13+ hour shifts with no break, no lunch, barely time to drink water as a junior doctor in the NHS. No one in the middle class private sector would put up with that and I really challenge anyone to squeeze any more “productivity” out of her
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
Luxury
And I have owned 2 jaguars in the past [late 1970s early 80s]
Proper Arthur Daley .
The (alleged) days of "I know it only does 15 mpg, but you won't use much petrol 'cos it will break down first".
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 24 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
To my mind an extremist on this issue is someone who threatens violence or expresses hatred. Neither of which I have seen from Rowling. Could she be kinder or more generous? That's a reasonable debate.
There are two different expressions of prejudice: one is anger and aggression, the other is dismissive ridicule. It’s the difference between firebombing an asylum hotel and doing monkey chants on the terraces.
I find Rowling’s penchant for dismissing the views or identity of trans women as similar to the sort of Harry Enfield “women, know your place” attitude you see among some of the more ideological trans activists.
She has become obsessive about this to the exclusion of everything else, rather like Graham Linehan. It’s made her increasingly rude and disparaging in how she communicates.
Is Badenoch better suited to be Reform leader? Perhaps they could swap.
If you have to ask that question, then you don't get Kemi Badenoch or chances her chances of staying the course as Conservative leader until the next GE. She gave a very good speech at the Farmers protest in London, she was totally on top her brief when it came to understanding and articulating the wider long term issues surrounding this terrible Labour tax policy for the farming community, far more so than Nigel Farage or even Jeremy Clarkson on the day.
Not impressed. Badenoch backed government spending, but immediately attacks any way to pay for it. That’s not opposition, that’s empty protest and a dead end for her and her party.
She comes across as a tribal comfort zone politician, somewhere between Miliband and Corbyn. Maybe that’s what the Tories need right now.
I seem to remember you thinking Starmer was being canny with his “ming vase” strategy not realising that he was just an empty jar.
And yet you attack the opposition for not having a fully costed set of policies 4.5 years from an election…
They don’t need to be fully costed, just basically coherent. “Cake and eat it” isn’t good politics.
She didn’t have to say anything on spending, but she did. 🤷♂️
Opposing destructive tax changes by the government is fine. The budget is a disaster for the UK - it was a once in a generation opportunity to take a meaningful step to fix things and Reeves/Starmer fluffed it.
Withdrawing WFA allowance, for example, was the right thing to do. I know @HYUFD says the Tories will reintroduce it but I hope they don’t (and I think they are just opposing the cut not promising to reverse it). Labour messed up the politics though.
But the budget was just BS. They taxed the wrong things, they massively boosted spending in the wrong areas and cut capex. They could and should have done better.
I do not see the WFA bring reintroduced but also if the conservatives want to save money abolish the triple lock
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
That salary is worth about £8,000 in today's money - but house prices were only £40,000 on average, compared with about £260,000 now.
In housing cost terms, you were earning about £55,000 in '24 prices.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
I think that's what a lot of Jaguar fans have picked up on: the company is dominated by such types who deliberately want to triangulate against them for those reasons.
I think that "elite overproduction" is one reason. The Greens in particular, pick up support from people who are very well-educated, but in relatively poorly-paying occupations. Revolutions are almost always driven by people who are just outside the magic circle of power and wealth, rather than the genuinely poor.
So, you have a lot of elite-adjacent people who really detest their own society, along with its history and culture.
Also economics isn't really the dividing line it once was. No genuintely socialist party can expect to come to power now, and nor can any party that believes in radically cutting back the public sector. A form of social democracy prevails in most rich world democracies. So, people seek other dividing lines.
How many of the people who decry "elite overproduction" think their own kids shouldn't go to uni?
How is that a gotcha? It’s entirely consistent to think that university numbers should be reduced and also to think or hope that your own children will make the grade.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
People say it's the Tories but it's every party. Labour oversaw the boom in private rentals and multiple home ownership by cowboy landlords, they helped baby boomers pull up the ladder for the following generations and pushed gen X and millennials into renting by restricting the supply of available houses simply by outcompeting them with favourable mortgage terms and the ability to expense mortgage interest.
Then the Tories used a bunch of demand based measures to get first time buyers back in the game and it worked but only for people on higher incomes or who could get help from parents/inheritance etc...
The Lib Dems are pro immigration the nimby party and Reform are just as bad though at least they want to cut immigration which reduces demand for housing.
Ultimately there's no party that is willing to step up and tell the old fucks that the easy ride is over, make rent seeking unprofitable and force all of the landlords to sell existing property to first time buyers. Build 2m new properties all over the country and prefer family homes rather than shit high rises. Cut immigration to under 100k and deport illegal immigrants and jail employers/landlords/agencies who give them jobs and house them.
These are the actions that will help people aged under 50 get on the housing ladder, but no party will do all of them. Some may say they'll do one or maybe two but we need to do all of these things to get the housing market into a fit state for owners.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
Luxury
And I have owned 2 jaguars in the past [late 1970s early 80s]
Proper Arthur Daley .
Mind you I subsequently owned BMWs and at present a very comfy Mercedes B180 AMG with all singing and dancing bells, including an integral Mercedes dash cam that really helps to drive safer as you know your driving is on the cam as well as others
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
I think that's what a lot of Jaguar fans have picked up on: the company is dominated by such types who deliberately want to triangulate against them for those reasons.
I think that "elite overproduction" is one reason. The Greens in particular, pick up support from people who are very well-educated, but in relatively poorly-paying occupations. Revolutions are almost always driven by people who are just outside the magic circle of power and wealth, rather than the genuinely poor.
So, you have a lot of elite-adjacent people who really detest their own society, along with its history and culture.
Also economics isn't really the dividing line it once was. No genuintely socialist party can expect to come to power now, and nor can any party that believes in radically cutting back the public sector. A form of social democracy prevails in most rich world democracies. So, people seek other dividing lines.
How many of the people who decry "elite overproduction" think their own kids shouldn't go to uni?
How is that a gotcha? It’s entirely consistent to think that university numbers should be reduced and also to think or hope that your own children will make the grade.
Do you think one-line gotcha questions are a good debating technique?
This is my photo quota for the day. Politically on topic as the guy in the photograph is a Local Councillor in Lancashire. Martyn Hurt https://bsky.app/profile/martynhurt.bsky.social/post/3lbjj4ssz3s2j This is a barrier near me that the County Council seems to think is fine. I can't independently get through it, even with the power assist as I need to control speed and direction with my arms. I've just started researching how to take action to get it removed. More explanations on the thread. He's trying to work across party on this.
This is a link to Google Maps which shows that - subject to details I may have missed - that anti-wheelchair barrier means that an able bodied person can walk 50m down the path, whilst a wheelchair user who can't get through has to go 3/4 of a mile around the roads. I have several in positions like that here, at least one of which goes back to pre-1970.
Apologies for two barrier photos in a few days, but the new Bluesky feed means I may be buried in these .
What is even the purpose of these barriers?
Some are so useless they seem more like some attempt at an art installation, or as part of some research project around how hard it is to remove even useless pieces of urban architecture once they are in place, given the convoluted processes to remove the buggering things.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
I think that's what a lot of Jaguar fans have picked up on: the company is dominated by such types who deliberately want to triangulate against them for those reasons.
I think that "elite overproduction" is one reason. The Greens in particular, pick up support from people who are very well-educated, but in relatively poorly-paying occupations. Revolutions are almost always driven by people who are just outside the magic circle of power and wealth, rather than the genuinely poor.
So, you have a lot of elite-adjacent people who really detest their own society, along with its history and culture.
Also economics isn't really the dividing line it once was. No genuintely socialist party can expect to come to power now, and nor can any party that believes in radically cutting back the public sector. A form of social democracy prevails in most rich world democracies. So, people seek other dividing lines.
How many of the people who decry "elite overproduction" think their own kids shouldn't go to uni?
I would. Lots of great opportunities that don't require it.
Sadly as I don't have kids my theoretical beleif won't be tested and can dismissed.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 24 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
To my mind an extremist on this issue is someone who threatens violence or expresses hatred. Neither of which I have seen from Rowling. Could she be kinder or more generous? That's a reasonable debate.
Rowling's continual insistence on calling fully transitioned women "he" directly leads to discrimination and violence against trans women.
One does not need to directly threaten violence in order to encourage it.
I just find it laughable to suggest that Rowling isn't a transphobe when there's a litany of evidence that suggests otherwise, including a recent tweet to the editors of reduxx magazine (a far right publication with neo-nazi ties) that they "can call her Jo".
Rowling is full on down in the deep end of it. But, as I say, there are plenty of pro-trans extremists who take equally absurd positions (e.g. not needing to medically transition). Most reasonable people believe in a compromise that safeguards both trans and cis women and do not believe in calling fully transitioned women who have had their winkies cut off "he". Rowling's position is absolutely an extremist one.
Anyway, I have no desire to spend my afternoon debating trans stuff (again), so I'm offski for a pint. I've made my position on this subject pretty clear repeatedly.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
But that's the problem. How can it be that £50k is not enough, when it's 50% higher than the median salary? The NMW still applies for those stocking the shelves in central London.
There needs to be a national strategy to spread demand around more. Better transport links, council tax linked to home values, abolish stamp duty, nodal energy pricing.
In addition NHS workers live in London and the South East too and well as to this mythical and unquantified “productivity improvements” my girlfriend works 13+ hour shifts with no break, no lunch, barely time to drink water as a junior doctor in the NHS. No one in the middle class private sector would put up with that and I really challenge anyone to squeeze any more “productivity” out of her
I will confess to not really understanding what is argued about when politicians talk about productivity. Maybe I'm being thick but the terms of the debate don't make it immediately obvious to me what is being measured, and thus how big an issue it is.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
That salary is worth about £8,000 in today's money - but house prices were only £40,000 on average, compared with about £260,000 now.
In housing cost terms, you were earning about £55,000 in '24 prices.
Our first home in Edinburgh [1964] was an apartment in Comely Bank for £2 000 and we bought a new build semi detached bungalow here on Llandudno in 1965 for £3,250 so not sure about your figures
Indeed our present 4 bed detached cost £16,000 in April 1975 though I was earning more than £450pa by then
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 14 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
I was looking at the Scottish government's written submission for the Supreme Court hearing that is coming up. It is an appeal by the group For Women Scotland against the Court of Session's decision that men who had a GRC qualified as women when meeting a quota requirement on public boards.
This led me to try and find out how many people had GRCs under the 2004 GRA. Until 2020 this was just 5871. I think it will be now nearer 7k as the more recent figures are slightly higher at roughly 400 a year. That is for the whole of the UK. This, as you point out, is for both men who have become women and women have become men although I expect that there is more of the former than the latter.
In Scotland, where this case is coming from, I have not been able to find exact numbers but on a proportionate basis this indicates roughly 40 a year in total for both changes. It is frankly astonishing how much public money, time and effort has been spent arguing about this tiny minority.
The Scottish government's position has changed radically. After the courts found that their Gender Recognition Reform Act exceeded their authority by seeking to amend the effect of the Equality Act they are now arguing that the EA should be construed in accordance with the UK 2004 Act. On this I think that they are probably correct but the consequence is that the Scottish GRR Act has been abandoned completely, something that probably could not have happened when the Greens were still in the government.
There may, of course, be some thousands or possibly even tens of thousands who live as a different gender from their gender at birth who have never sought a certificate. But at that point we go from hard facts to speculation.
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 24 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
To my mind an extremist on this issue is someone who threatens violence or expresses hatred. Neither of which I have seen from Rowling. Could she be kinder or more generous? That's a reasonable debate.
Why make it personal about someone who is neither a sportsperson or an abuser, if your concern is really only with fairness in sport or abuse?
There is history between the two of them, including both of them going to law. Think wagatha christie. Vey emotional and irrational.
If they were anti-gay views, would you say the same?
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause. I think most trans people just want to live in peace.
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Where would you place Rowling's deliberate misgendering of India Willoughby on the "not anti trans" scale? Calling her a "fantasising male".
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 24 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
To my mind an extremist on this issue is someone who threatens violence or expresses hatred. Neither of which I have seen from Rowling. Could she be kinder or more generous? That's a reasonable debate.
I think someone can probably be an extremist without going that far. But is refusal to modulate a position at all itself extremist? Perhaps to some extent, but then many people on both sides will be extremist, and thus how would she be regarded as 'worse' than her opponents in that regard.
I think she can get over personal in her attacks and rigid, I think she could be regarded as being at the firm end of one side, but she was attacked even without that, so I also don't buy she is just some angry, terf provocateur.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
XY chromosomes = man.
Call me an extremist but I think J. K. Rowling is right on this. I never had any time for her literature but then I can't abide Tolkein either.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
But that's the problem. How can it be that £50k is not enough, when it's 50% higher than the median salary? The NMW still applies for those stocking the shelves in central London.
There needs to be a national strategy to spread demand around more. Better transport links, council tax linked to home values, abolish stamp duty, nodal energy pricing.
In addition NHS workers live in London and the South East too and well as to this mythical and unquantified “productivity improvements” my girlfriend works 13+ hour shifts with no break, no lunch, barely time to drink water as a junior doctor in the NHS. No one in the middle class private sector would put up with that and I really challenge anyone to squeeze any more “productivity” out of her
I will confess to not really understanding what is argued about when politicians talk about productivity. Maybe I'm being thick but the terms of the debate don't make it immediately obvious to me what is being measured, and thus how big an issue it is.
It’s just another word for magic money tree. No doubt there are some productivity improvements that can be made in public sector organisations but until anyone can actually quantify them, using them to quantify what level of tax can be reduced on the rest of us is just nonsense.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
XY chromosomes = man.
Call me an extremist but I think J. K. Rowling is right on this. I never had any time for her literature but then I can't abide Tolkein either.
Which is a fine, if amusing, comparison, because in style and content (good and bad) I would think Rowling and Tolkein have very little in common, so liking one would not really be much indicator of potentially liking the other anyway.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
XY chromosomes = man.
A perfectly logical point and I don't want to argue you out of it. But it does result in ludicrous situations like the present one where newly-elected member of Congress Sarah McBride is prevented from using the women's toilets in Congress. This is her. IIUC she no longer has a penis and I would find it difficult to classify her as a man. Others would differ.
On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.
I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.
However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.
Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.
Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.
Not at all.
For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.
Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.
It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.
I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.
He's a Lefty through and through.
Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.
One of the interesting curiosities of modern politics is that Conservatives don’t look or act conservative. It’s all topsy turvey
On the contrary they seem determined to trash the country rather than conserve it.
It's to do now, with party loyalty running vertically through classes, rather than horizontally, across them.
People are still used to the idea of upper middle class people being overwhelmingly Conservative, and working class people being mainly Labour (with a substantial Conservative minority).
When in reality, the Conservatives have very little in common now, with much of the Establishment, and Labour have very little in common now, with broad swathes of working class Britain.
And, the same is true of the US, France, and other rich world democracies. Quite often now, the most solidly left-leaning constituencies are the most well-heeled.
It's fascinating to consider why that's the case.
Luxury beliefs of the university educated, especially women. They have to distinguish themselves from the hoi poloi who have always had small-c conservative views. Used to be done by owning a Jaguar, etc.
Luxury beliefs come a lot cheaper than luxury living or even traditional middle class living in southern England.
I wonder how much resentment there is among many recent graduates that they're not going to get the lifestyle they expected, that their parents had or what many of their age group who didn't go to university now has.
There's a lot of resentment around. Saw a Mumsnet post from a 40-something who had worked their way up to an income of £75k, and feels their standard of living doesn't match up to their parents who had a similar inflation-adjusted salary.
We could argue about why that is (housing?) and what to do about it, but people aren't happy and the spectacular Tory defeat was not the cathartic experience the country was looking for.
No there's a lot of buyer's remorse among the £50-70k class to voted Labour for the first time in ages or stayed home. They now realise Labour are going to destroy their jobs and tax them into poverty.
It's been a very steep learning curve for those voters and I expect out of the 2m who stayed home or switched Labour we can get 90% of them back and grab 1.5m from reform on the right. That becomes an election winning coalition in 2029 against what I think will be a deeply unpopular Labour government.
A lot of the £50-£70k class underestimate to a significant degree exactly how far up the pile they are.
Live in London or South East and tell me it's far up the pile.
Most people get that Max but it isn’t particularly relevant when it’s your party that is protecting the interests of those with the housing wealth and those who start sentences with “well in my day I only earned £6k a year”.
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
That salary is worth about £8,000 in today's money - but house prices were only £40,000 on average, compared with about £260,000 now.
In housing cost terms, you were earning about £55,000 in '24 prices.
Our first home in Edinburgh [1964] was an apartment in Comely Bank for £2 000 and we bought a new build semi detached bungalow here on Llandudno in 1965 for £3,250 so not sure about your figures
Indeed our present 4 bed detached cost £16,000 in April 1975 though I was earning more than £450pa by then
Our neighbours next door and next door but one bought the 5 bed London townhouses where they still live in the early 70s for £5k each. Fair to say they’re sitting on a bit of equity.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
XY chromosomes = man.
Of all the trans takes, this is the dumbest of all of them.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
XY chromosomes = man.
Even someone with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, who has spent their entire life believing themselves to be a woman and everyone around them believing them to be a woman?
OT but something one needs to know: not only are banks sometimes imposing an upper limit on scam refunds, many are now bringing in an £100 excess deduction.
If the banks (as they do) have to cover the entire cost it creates no incentive for customers to be careful
I think that's an excellent idea.
The only issue I can see is people not complaining about smaller frauds due to the "excess", like a scratch on your car. So you'll get thousands of £99 frauds, or fraudsters testing out methods unnoticed before going for the big one.
Another one: to be rather frank, a large proportion of people who fall for these kind of frauds are not financially literate, and sometimes barely literate at all. This correlates with not having much cash. Apparently 1/3 of UK adults have savings of less than £1,000 - £100 to them would be a big, big hit.
The stories that hit the headlines are the pensioner who loses £20,000. But the kind of person who loses that much is likely to be rather rich anyway, possibly through a mortgage-free home.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
XY chromosomes = man.
A perfectly logical point and I don't want to argue you out of it. But it does result in ludicrous situations like the present one where newly-elected member of Congress Sarah McBride is prevented from using the women's toilets in Congress. This is her. IIUC she no longer has a penis and I would find it difficult to classify her as a man. Others would differ.
JKRowling is not anti-trans. She is anti trans extremists who are harming the trans cause
She believes that men cannot become women under any circumstances and makes a point of referring them as men. The case study is India Willoughby, who has a gender recognition certificate and a surgically constructed vagina, having had her penis and testicles destroyed in the construction process. JKR insistently calls her a man. Whatever the threshold is for being anti-trans is, I think JKR has crossed it.
XY chromosomes = man.
Even someone with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, who has spent their entire life believing themselves to be a woman and everyone around them believing them to be a woman?
Yes, look at what happened in the boxing this summer at the Olympics. We had two men beating up women.
OT but something one needs to know: not only are banks sometimes imposing an upper limit on scam refunds, many are now bringing in an £100 excess deduction.
If the banks (as they do) have to cover the entire cost it creates no incentive for customers to be careful
I think that's an excellent idea.
The only issue I can see is people not complaining about smaller frauds due to the "excess", like a scratch on your car. So you'll get thousands of £99 frauds, or fraudsters testing out methods unnoticed before going for the big one.
Another one: to be rather frank, a large proportion of people who fall for these kind of frauds are not financially literate, and sometimes barely literate at all. This correlates with not having much cash. Apparently 1/3 of UK adults have savings of less than £1,000 - £100 to them would be a big, big hit.
The stories that hit the headlines are the pensioner who loses £20,000. But the kind of person who loses that much is likely to be rather rich anyway, possibly through a mortgage-free home.
Your hatred of pensioners is shining bright
Not as bright as your hatred of everything Malcolm
Comments
Its certainly not socioeconomically healthy for any area to have home ownership no longer aspirationally possible.
It would be unwise to count on that.
I agree we need to be careful about people who do not have the 'right' views being denied employment. But we also need an environment in workplaces where people are not routinely abused for being different, whether that is because they are disabled, or female, or non-white, or gay. Or even male and white.
So where does the balance lie?
They will each pay about £5K IT/NI, totalling £10K.
A graduate tax graduate on £60K will pay roughly £17K in IT/NI/Loan. He is more likely than the minimum wage couple to be paying £6-9K for a season ticket too, out of taxed income.
This sort of sum has consequences.
More money available might bid up prices at the local top end (there's a limit as to how many Georgian mansions and Victorian vicarages are available) but have steadily less effect as you move down the socioeconomic ladder.
Likewise, any attempt to redistribute wealth from the generation that holds all of the wealth (housing and land) is met with screams and tears. This country is doomed to mediocrity.
I actually think that is the route back for the Conservatives. Make a big deal of public(ish) goods like the public realm, roads, rail, bins (lol), social care, NHS. Make it sound like you care about public services - but only the ones richer people enjoy too.
I have a power cut, the Queensferry Crossing is closed, the A9 looks like Hoth, Lothian Buses have cancelled all services, and I can't get these studded tyres onto my bike. Waste of £100.
Everyone doesnt like the ad.
So we can conclude their target market doesn't exist.
I like the ad. I don`t like their cars. More precisely, the shape of their cars.
More tax on the rich and property.
Fewer services on the old and poor.
Higher productivity and later state pension for workers.
No exemptions.
Everyone must lose out or everyone will think they're being discriminated against.
Previously this would have been just 'Yorkshire'.
Mrs Flatlander and I don't really like spending money on stuff. The right thing, with a purpose, yes, not a problem. If things need doing on the house we will do them ourselves (except gas, obvs).
Although we are tied down due to supporting old people, which does restrict our outgoings, I think last year between us we spent less than 15k total, including all bills.
It always amazes us how much people manage to spend on things that don't really make them happier.
We do have some friends who are similar, despite being in the 100k bracket (we are not, but aren't in poverty).
I went for a long walk yesterday in the sun. It must have cost about 3 quid in fuel. Certainly didn't want for any entertainment.
Admittedly housing costs are the one thing that can't be ignored. Here they aren't insane. Perhaps when you are spending stupid amounts just for a roof over your head the relative cost of other things seems much lower?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/starmer-tax-loophole-lawyers-law-firms-budget-b2651965.html (£££)
Basically, most big law firms structure themselves as LLPs.
One piece of analysis [possibly from Private Eye] suggests that the Inland Revenue loses £138,000 on every £1m of profit they make. From the “magic circle” of City law firms – Linklaters, Allen & Overy, Freshfields and Clifford Chance (excluding Slaughter and May, which follow the traditional partnership model) – that would amount to an extra £4bn a year. That’s £4bn from just four sets of lawyers. To put that in context, VAT on school fees is predicted to raise £1.7bn a year.
On the new ad, or at least the first one, it got people talking but for all the 'copy nothing' stuff it looked like a completely stale set of stock 'edgy' costuming and the like, probably sat on the ad company's plans for years until someone finally said yes to it.
When you have a nice house and garden then a drink or meal at home is pleasant and cheap.
When you're renting a room in Walthamstow there must be a greater desire to drink/eat out with the resulting higher cost.
Coming everywhere..soon..🧐🥴
https://x.com/marcus_byrne/status/1859931383831081188
It is analogous to Extinction Rebellion and concern about the damaging effects of climate change. You can support action to address climate change without supporting Extinction Rebellion.
Their coloured powder and pastel colours is more fitted for the arty types - there's a niche for that but not one Jaguar can easily fit. They should have created a spin-off company ("Jaguar Avant-Garde"?) for the experimental plinky-plinky, and used the existing brand to mine its current niche ("Jaguar Andor")
I was also thinking yesterday how so much depends on where you want to live. If you're happy to live in a working class area you can get a decent house for an affordable price. If you want to live in a 'nice' area it'll really cost you. So many of the middle class are struggling with the latter.
As a young man in the 2000s I read a lot of JG Ballard and I can't get his last two books Millenium People and Kingdon Come out of my mind. The first features middle class Londoners rebelling against their increasing powerlessness and irrelevance. The second features less educated people captured by a consumer culture and becoming increasingly nationalistic. The disgruntled middle classes revolt from the left and the working class from the right.
Martyn Hurt https://bsky.app/profile/martynhurt.bsky.social/post/3lbjj4ssz3s2j
This is a barrier near me that the County Council seems to think is fine. I can't independently get through it, even with the power assist as I need to control speed and direction with my arms. I've just started researching how to take action to get it removed.
More explanations on the thread. He's trying to work across party on this.
This is a link to Google Maps which shows that - subject to details I may have missed - that anti-wheelchair barrier means that an able bodied person can walk 50m down the path, whilst a wheelchair user who can't get through has to go 3/4 of a mile around the roads. I have several in positions like that here, at least one of which goes back to pre-1970.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/53.812334,-2.2103297/53.8115892,-2.2097907/53.8123404,-2.2094661/@53.8112939,-2.2147939,406m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!4m1!3e0!5m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTExOS4yIKXMDSoASAFQAw==
Apologies for two barrier photos in a few days, but the new Bluesky feed means I may be buried in these
It's one thing to say "I don't think trans women should be competing in men's sports" (reasonable) or "people who haven't fully transitioned shouldn't be able to use gendered facilities until further into their transition" (up for debate).
But to continually refer to a completely transitioned woman as "he", 14 years after they transitioned?
Rowling isn't transphobic? DOUBT.
There is a litany of evidence that suggests she thinks all trans women are "men".
She is an extremist and an absolutist, just as there are trans extremists on the other side who think all you have to do is say you're female and you magically become one overnight*, when in fact transition is a medical process that takes years.
*Edit to point out how funny it is that trans men are always ignored in this debate.
That Jag ad does look like the latest in a long tradition of stale brands attempting to make themselves look edgy and new, while employing very bog standard “edgy” aesthetics. Some do this moderately well, others just look silly (like Jag does).
But with cars I think it’s almost impossible. You have an image and you’re stuck with it. Jag’s is gin and tonics and the golf club. There simply aren’t enough G&T quaffing golf club members out there to sustain it. Just as there weren’t enough turtle-necked architects to sustain SAAB.
The only marque I can think of that’s managed to drag itself up the value chain in recent decades is Kia, but that’s probably because of barely had a brand at all until it started building EVs and hybrids.
The champion of recent years at provoking anti-woke culture warriors, thus burnishing its image among the libs while retaining the loyalty of its traditional market must surely be Greggs, with its genius vegan sausage roll gambit.
Whilst stopping ATVs is still worthwhile, electric bikes now being the drugs delivery vehicle of choice mean that stopping off-road motorbikes is no longer much of a gain.
Tackling the anti-social behaviour without inconveniencing legitimate rights of way users seems like a more sensible idea.
[I have similar problems when taking my Dad out on his mobility scooter. He can walk a few yards, so I have to take the thing apart and lift it over/through the barrier, and then reconstruct it on the other side. Hopeless!]
In my day I only earned £450 per year but that is a longtime ago [1962] !!!!
There needs to be a national strategy to spread demand around more. Better transport links, council tax linked to home values, abolish stamp duty, nodal energy pricing.
government is fine. The budget is a
disaster for the UK - it was a once in a
generation opportunity to take a meaningful
step to fix things and Reeves/Starmer
fluffed it.
Withdrawing WFA allowance, for example, was the right thing to do. I know @HYUFD says the Tories will reintroduce it but I hope they don’t (and I think they are just opposing the cut not promising to reverse it). Labour messed up the politics though.
But the budget was just BS. They taxed the wrong things, they massively boosted spending in the wrong areas and cut capex. They could and should have done better.
It's also a cheap intervention, where local voters said "something must be done" and something can now be seen to have been done.
It gets pernicious because if there was never a problem (as is the case in most places), the existence of these becomes the folk-narrative as to why there is now no problem, and so many will fight to defend them. It's not unknown for a case to be made along the lines of "this cost to you is an acceptable compromise for us to make to protect the wellbeing of the whole community."
Arguments made around PSPOs are similar.
The (alleged) days of "I know it only does 15 mpg, but you won't use much petrol 'cos it will break down first".
I find Rowling’s penchant for dismissing the views or identity of trans women as similar to the sort of Harry Enfield “women, know your place” attitude you see among some of the more ideological trans activists.
She has become obsessive about this to the exclusion of everything else, rather like Graham Linehan. It’s made her increasingly rude and disparaging in how she communicates.
In housing cost terms, you were earning about £55,000 in '24 prices.
Then the Tories used a bunch of demand based measures to get first time buyers back in the game and it worked but only for people on higher incomes or who could get help from parents/inheritance etc...
The Lib Dems are pro immigration the nimby party and Reform are just as bad though at least they want to cut immigration which reduces demand for housing.
Ultimately there's no party that is willing to step up and tell the old fucks that the easy ride is over, make rent seeking unprofitable and force all of the landlords to sell existing property to first time buyers. Build 2m new properties all over the country and prefer family homes rather than shit high rises. Cut immigration to under 100k and deport illegal immigrants and jail employers/landlords/agencies who give them jobs and house them.
These are the actions that will help people aged under 50 get on the housing ladder, but no party will do all of them. Some may say they'll do one or maybe two but we need to do all of these things to get the housing market into a fit state for owners.
Sadly as I don't have kids my theoretical beleif won't be tested and can dismissed.
One does not need to directly threaten violence in order to encourage it.
I just find it laughable to suggest that Rowling isn't a transphobe when there's a litany of evidence that suggests otherwise, including a recent tweet to the editors of reduxx magazine (a far right publication with neo-nazi ties) that they "can call her Jo".
Rowling is full on down in the deep end of it. But, as I say, there are plenty of pro-trans extremists who take equally absurd positions (e.g. not needing to medically transition). Most reasonable people believe in a compromise that safeguards both trans and cis women and do not believe in calling fully transitioned women who have had their winkies cut off "he". Rowling's position is absolutely an extremist one.
Anyway, I have no desire to spend my afternoon debating trans stuff (again), so I'm offski for a pint. I've made my position on this subject pretty clear repeatedly.
Indeed our present 4 bed detached cost £16,000 in April 1975 though I was earning more than £450pa by then
This led me to try and find out how many people had GRCs under the 2004 GRA. Until 2020 this was just 5871. I think it will be now nearer 7k as the more recent figures are slightly higher at roughly 400 a year. That is for the whole of the UK. This, as you point out, is for both men who have become women and women have become men although I expect that there is more of the former than the latter.
In Scotland, where this case is coming from, I have not been able to find exact numbers but on a proportionate basis this indicates roughly 40 a year in total for both changes. It is frankly astonishing how much public money, time and effort has been spent arguing about this tiny minority.
The Scottish government's position has changed radically. After the courts found that their Gender Recognition Reform Act exceeded their authority by seeking to amend the effect of the Equality Act they are now arguing that the EA should be construed in accordance with the UK 2004 Act. On this I think that they are probably correct but the consequence is that the Scottish GRR Act has been abandoned completely, something that probably could not have happened when the Greens were still in the government.
There may, of course, be some thousands or possibly even tens of thousands who live as a different gender from their gender at birth who have never sought a certificate. But at that point we go from hard facts to speculation.
I think she can get over personal in her attacks and rigid, I think she could be regarded as being at the firm end of one side, but she was attacked even without that, so I also don't buy she is just some angry, terf provocateur.