Watching how the Johnson government has started it seems to me they are hot housing again, giving themselves a difficult goal, setting it in stone and making themselves work towards it as quickly as possible whilst not worrying too much about abiding to the rules. Will be interesting to see how this works.
Watching how the Johnson government has started it seems to me they are hot housing again, giving themselves a difficult goal, setting it in stone and making themselves work towards it as quickly as possible whilst not worrying too much about abiding to the rules. Will be interesting to see how this works.
Well they managed to come up with something worse than May's deal the last time, so the trade deal that is going to be done by the summer should be just great.
A few things that strike me about demographics at the next election: 1) the youngest voters who were eligible to vote for TB in 2005 (the last labour 'win') will be 37 in 2024 (assuming a 5 year parliament) 2) by the use of maths the similar cohort of voters in 2010 will be 32. 3) First time voters at the next election will have been born between 2001 and 2006.
The age of voters who have never voted for a Labour government will keep going up and this will make it harder for the Tories to maintain the current situation (especially if they've been in power for 14 years).
Assuming that Labour don't form a government at the next election* by the following election there will be a cohort of voters in 2029 who were not born when Labour were last in power. unless Labour keep putting forward the unelectable these voters will become a larger and more important base of the electorate and will start to say 'how bad could a Labour government be?' They did in 1997 (I was one of them).
(* I'm not predicting here I just remember posts by OGH before 2010 stating that no government with a working majority has been replaced by another one of a different party for a long time)
Ted Heath in 1970 was the last one to achieve that.
You're not an adult at 16. You can't smoke, drink, drive a car, fight in a war or even leave school at that age any more. You have no life experience and probably still live in your parents house under their rules. I can think of no justification for allowing enfranchisement at that age.
Should the UK be raising rather than lowering the voting age? By James Tilley Professor of politics at Oxford University
As Prof Cowley also points out, the age at which we are allowed to do lots of other things has not been going down, but up.
If you want to use a tanning booth, buy cigarettes or fireworks, or get a tattoo you now need to be 18. It seems odd to suggest that people are responsible enough to vote at 16, but not buy sparklers.
Indeed, overall, society appears to think that people are growing up more slowly than they were in 1969. And it is true that people are reaching life's milestones later and later, especially when it comes to the world of work.
"Only 29% of 16 to 19-year-olds are working full-time now," says Lucinda Platt, a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics. "That contrasts with the late 1960s when you would expect around four-fifths of that age group to be in work."
Clearly, it is unreasonable to say that because someone is not working they should not have the vote. But the average age at which we assume adult responsibilities is presumably part of the story when we set the voting age. In fact, it might even go further than that.
Prof Abigail Baird, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Vassar College in New York, argues that important experiences, like starting work, are a crucial part of adolescent brain development.
"In early adulthood our brain is poised to learn how to make decisions and poised to learn how to be an adult," she says.
"But since what's expected of adults in different cultures varies so much, we need the experience of that culture to tell us what we need to do."
As MRI brain scanning is a relatively recent technology it is difficult to be sure, but it seems very likely that if important experiences come later in life then so does brain development:
"Forced to speculate, I would say an 18-year-old brain 50 years ago probably looked more like a 23-year-old brain does now," Prof Baird says. "Most 25 or 26-year-olds would be identical, but I think the way in which you get there is different now."
Earlier on this evening, I made this pun which both has a biblical reference and is in Aramaic. Can I at least get a like?
Anyway, watching the Laura K Brexit programme on BBC 1, with her following Boris's Parliamentary tribulations over the autumn, and it just feels like *ancient history*.
What a very rude man! We don't want his sort in our little perpetual opposition cabal!
When I was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2010 election David Cameron had a reception at 10 downing Street to personally apologize to 100 or so of us from target seats. And when I say 'personally' he made sure he remembered all of us by name without an assistant telling them who we were and came round one by one. I felt we owed him an apology for not having delivered him a majority and he felt he owed us an apology for not having lifted this over the threshold to win our seats. Compare and contrast that's all I have to say.
Nice to see you back on the site Marcus! Been many a year with the odd visitation in between!
I always wondered, particularly after 2015 (but maybe more so after the seat was kept in 2017 and 2019?) do you regret not giving it one more go in Torbay? Or had you just had enough of it by then? You put an awful lot of time and yards in. I think I would have voted for you in 2015 even though I didn't vote for your party, I admired your personal values and your ability for critical thought, not just the effort you put in. Was genuinely disappointed for you that when the seat turned it wasn't you who benefited from it.
Well done Labour members and activists. You have brought your party to one of its lowest ever points.
"Preening narcissism" is a great description of Corbyn, for all she is getting a bit hyperbolistic in her understandable upset. You can tell he loves being lionised by his followers, who wouldn't, and it means he can say the words of reflection but clearly does not mean a word of it (yes, clearly, because he's just blaming the media etc).
A few things that strike me about demographics at the next election: 1) the youngest voters who were eligible to vote for TB in 2005 (the last labour 'win') will be 37 in 2024 (assuming a 5 year parliament) 2) by the use of maths the similar cohort of voters in 2010 will be 32. 3) First time voters at the next election will have been born between 2001 and 2006.
The age of voters who have never voted for a Labour government will keep going up and this will make it harder for the Tories to maintain the current situation (especially if they've been in power for 14 years).
Assuming that Labour don't form a government at the next election* by the following election there will be a cohort of voters in 2029 who were not born when Labour were last in power. unless Labour keep putting forward the unelectable these voters will become a larger and more important base of the electorate and will start to say 'how bad could a Labour government be?' They did in 1997 (I was one of them).
(* I'm not predicting here I just remember posts by OGH before 2010 stating that no government with a working majority has been replaced by another one of a different party for a long time)
Ted Heath in 1970 was the last one to achieve that.
And it is worth pointing out that the previous instances were 1945, under highly unusual circumstances, and then 1906 under what were in many ways even more peculiar circumstances. After that I can think of 1880, 1874 and er, that’s pretty well it since 1832.
It isn’t impossible it could happen, but there are a number of significant difficulties in making it happen. Not least Labour’s need to win around 140 seats and hold all the ones they currently have. That takes money. It takes activists. It takes outstanding g logistical planning. And it requires the government to have buggered things more comprehensively than a rent boy rogering a reluctant Turkish conscript.
But - equally - the last an incumbent government had a net loss of seats followed by a net gain of seats was 1865. So we are living in a more or less unprecedented political situation.
Watching how the Johnson government has started it seems to me they are hot housing again, giving themselves a difficult goal, setting it in stone and making themselves work towards it as quickly as possible whilst not worrying too much about abiding to the rules. Will be interesting to see how this works.
Having a majority this time, he won't be able to rely on Hilary Benn to get him out of his mess.
What hope for labour until they eradicate momentum
Time is coming to split
No point splitting unless one wants decades of good or bad Boris governments. Simon Jenkins wrote an interesting piece today about the LDs being a drag on Labour. I was surprised as I thought of him as a Thatcherite. His point is valid, and may even assist in sidelining the momentum morons. Conversely it might not.
Labour has always had a mad fringe element, unfortunately it is that group of individuals who are asleep at the wheel at present. Rebecca Long Bailey has already achieved satanic status on PB and she will in the red top press, but should any of the current runners and riders start to do ok against Boris, they too will be seen as Stalin's love-children. I suspect like Kinnock before her RLB will jettison the extreme lefty nonsense if she feels it will prevent her becoming PM. She is a Manchester Solicitor, so presumably not dumb like Corbyn.
Don't for one moment think the Conservative Party has never been and isn't currently infiltrated by the clinically unpleasant either. Rather than libel the current guilty parties, I suggest Enoch and his chum Peter Griffiths fit that frame quite nicely for starters.
For all his blonde, cuddly, loveliness, Johnson has form for being both inept (MrsRatcliffe) and conniving (Cameron and May). History may be kind to Johnson, and future generations may look on his tenure as the golden age of British Conservative politics. The opposite might also be true, and under those circumstances BigG, even you don't want a split and ineffectual opposition.
No - I really do not want a split opposition but equally momentum need to be sidelined
Sidelined off a cliff hopefully.
Momentum have something to offer. Hopefully this time it will be for the Labour Party, not the Tories.
Momentum's sole offering is called 'Socialist Worker', it is a nonsensical comic and they sell it on street corners.
You think Momentum publishes "Socialist Worker"? Wow.
Can I just clarify what your position is on that KT tweet, Just to check how far you're down the Trump rabbit hole like?
You ask this of the person who wants to send an armed militia to Scotland to drag grannies out of polling places should there be a second independence referendum.
I think about HYUFD's Le Pen ramping a lot.
There was also regular citing of German opinion polls when AfD were rising, which promptly stopped when the Greens overtook them...
Cinema advice; 1917 and Jojo rabbit are both out next month. See them both, even if they are Oscar fodder.
1917 looked very dull, but it was filmed not 20 miles away from me so I should go see it. JoJo Rabbit looked pretty good.
I like the look of it, it looks bare bones in terms of action and is shot to look like one long take which I think could work given the context. I am also a Sam Mendes fan.
If you are interested in odd films there is a German war film I keep meaning the watch called The Captain, might be hard to find but it looks nuts. I have the DVD and shall be watching over Xmas.
What hope for labour until they eradicate momentum
Time is coming to split
No point splitting unless one wants decades of good or bad Boris governments. Simon Jenkins wrote an interesting piece today about the LDs being a drag on Labour. I was surprised as I thought of him as a Thatcherite. His point is valid, and may even assist in sidelining the momentum morons. Conversely it might not.
Labour has always had a mad fringe element, unfortunately it is that group of individuals who are asleep at the wheel at present. Rebecca Long Bailey has already achieved satanic status on PB and she will in the red top press, but should any of the current runners and riders start to do ok against Boris, they too will be seen as Stalin's love-children. I suspect like Kinnock before her RLB will jettison the extreme lefty nonsense if she feels it will prevent her becoming PM. She is a Manchester Solicitor, so presumably not dumb like Corbyn.
Don't for one moment think the Conservative Party has never been and isn't currently infiltrated by the clinically unpleasant either. Rather than libel the current guilty parties, I suggest Enoch and his chum Peter Griffiths fit that frame quite nicely for starters.
For all his blonde, cuddly, loveliness, Johnson has form for being both inept (MrsRatcliffe) and conniving (Cameron and May). History may be kind to Johnson, and future generations may look on his tenure as the golden age of British Conservative politics. The opposite might also be true, and under those circumstances BigG, even you don't want a split and ineffectual opposition.
No - I really do not want a split opposition but equally momentum need to be sidelined
Sidelined off a cliff hopefully.
Momentum have something to offer. Hopefully this time it will be for the Labour Party, not the Tories.
Momentum's sole offering is called 'Socialist Worker', it is a nonsensical comic and they sell it on street corners.
You think Momentum publishes "Socialist Worker"? Wow.
Momentum or Socialist Workers Party, whats in a name? Same useless bunch of Trots.
What a very rude man! We don't want his sort in our little perpetual opposition cabal!
When I was an unsuccessful candidate in the 2010 election David Cameron had a reception at 10 downing Street to personally apologize to 100 or so of us from target seats. And when I say 'personally' he made sure he remembered all of us by name without an assistant telling them who we were and came round one by one. I felt we owed him an apology for not having delivered him a majority and he felt he owed us an apology for not having lifted this over the threshold to win our seats. Compare and contrast that's all I have to say.
Nice to see you back on the site Marcus! Been many a year with the odd visitation in between!
I always wondered, particularly after 2015 (but maybe more so after the seat was kept in 2017 and 2019?) do you regret not giving it one more go in Torbay? Or had you just had enough of it by then? You put an awful lot of time and yards in. I think I would have voted for you in 2015 even though I didn't vote for your party, I admired your personal values and your ability for critical thought, not just the effort you put in. Was genuinely disappointed for you that when the seat turned it wasn't you who benefited from it.
It's strange but I have never once regretted not being elected. the association knew I wasn't going to fight another election however I stayed on as candidate until 2012 but my heart wasn't in it. I loved being a candidate when it didn't really matter and nobody expected me to win but being a candidate in a target seat was a small sample of what being an MP must be like. Constant pressure to tow the line and complete lack of freedom to be an individual and be yourself was torture to me as someone who has worked for myself since I was 21. I look at what MPs now have to do do - you are not allowed outside interests so your whole life is devoted to being a grown-up social worker and voting fodder for the government. The constant scrutiny especially from people who can't wait to bring you down is also wearing and debilitating as is the need to "argue the case" at every opportunity. Thank you so much for your kind words it's nice that some people remember!
Cinema advice; 1917 and Jojo rabbit are both out next month. See them both, even if they are Oscar fodder.
1917 looked very dull, but it was filmed not 20 miles away from me so I should go see it. JoJo Rabbit looked pretty good.
I like the look of it, it looks bare bones in terms of action and is shot to look like one long take which I think could work given the context. I am also a Sam Mendes fan.
If you are interested in odd films there is a German war film I keep meaning the watch called The Captain, might be hard to find but it looks nuts. I have the DVD and shall be watching over Xmas.
The one long take thing is probably why the trailer looks comparitively dull, but as you say given the gimmick it could work well as a result. I'll give it a chance. I have to do something to balance out seeing Star Wars 3 or 4 times (assuming it is any good)
Glad to see that the PLP are cowards. "Go now Jeremy it's your fault". "No". "Oh ok then please lead us some more".
Pointless cowards
I keep saying this. One more heave, third time lucky!
I do worry that the Loony Left will eventually get in if it keeps banging on about the NHS for long enough, although the collapse of the Red Wall gives me some hope. If (and it's a big "if") the Tories can make a decent fist of delivering for these parts of the country, then there is a distinct possibility that they will go safe for the blues and may never go back to Labour again.
Bear in mind what's happened in the States, with the Republicans starting to do very well amongst lower income voters and the Democrats finding their support concentrated amongst middle-class left-liberals and ethnic minorities. As there, so here - except the ethnic minority vote is a smaller fraction of the British electorate and largely concentrated in Labour's remaining safe seats in the urban cores.
And, of course, if Scotland goes then the Left's crutch is kicked away. The Tory majority in rUK isn't 80. It's 127.
My tongue was firmly in my cheek.
I do worry about some of you Tories out there who think the demise of any opposition would be a good thing. In Boris we trust? Clearly!
Well much as I scorn Corbyn I have no time for Johnson either. Scratch the surface of the Conservative Party and there are a number of equally reprehensible types as Corbyn.
Earlier on this evening, I made this pun which both has a biblical reference and is in Aramaic. Can I at least get a like?
Anyway, watching the Laura K Brexit programme on BBC 1, with her following Boris's Parliamentary tribulations over the autumn, and it just feels like *ancient history*.
I'd almost forgotten how febrile everything was back then i.e. Eight weeks ago.
Earlier on this evening, I made this pun which both has a biblical reference and is in Aramaic. Can I at least get a like?
Anyway, watching the Laura K Brexit programme on BBC 1, with her following Boris's Parliamentary tribulations over the autumn, and it just feels like *ancient history*.
I'd almost forgotten how febrile everything was back then i.e. Eight weeks ago.
Earlier on this evening, I made this pun which both has a biblical reference and is in Aramaic. Can I at least get a like?
Anyway, watching the Laura K Brexit programme on BBC 1, with her following Boris's Parliamentary tribulations over the autumn, and it just feels like *ancient history*.
I'd almost forgotten how febrile everything was back then i.e. Eight weeks ago.
Earlier on this evening, I made this pun which both has a biblical reference and is in Aramaic. Can I at least get a like?
Anyway, watching the Laura K Brexit programme on BBC 1, with her following Boris's Parliamentary tribulations over the autumn, and it just feels like *ancient history*.
I'd almost forgotten how febrile everything was back then i.e. Eight weeks ago.
Nice to see you back on the site Marcus! Been many a year with the odd visitation in between!
I always wondered, particularly after 2015 (but maybe more so after the seat was kept in 2017 and 2019?) do you regret not giving it one more go in Torbay? Or had you just had enough of it by then? You put an awful lot of time and yards in. I think I would have voted for you in 2015 even though I didn't vote for your party, I admired your personal values and your ability for critical thought, not just the effort you put in. Was genuinely disappointed for you that when the seat turned it wasn't you who benefited from it.
It's strange but I have never once regretted not being elected. the association knew I wasn't going to fight another election however I stayed on as candidate until 2012 but my heart wasn't in it. I loved being a candidate when it didn't really matter and nobody expected me to win but being a candidate in a target seat was a small sample of what being an MP must be like. Constant pressure to tow the line and complete lack of freedom to be an individual and be yourself was torture to me as someone who has worked for myself since I was 21. I look at what MPs now have to do do - you are not allowed outside interests so your whole life is devoted to being a grown-up social worker and voting fodder for the government. The constant scrutiny especially from people who can't wait to bring you down is also wearing and debilitating as is the need to "argue the case" at every opportunity. Thank you so much for your kind words it's nice that some people remember!
Maybe the fight's more fun than the victory!
I'm also self-employed, as a swing voter with no natural party home I am not ideal MP material anyway but the thought did cross my mind that had I decided to become an MP like someone I knew from my university cohort did, I would really be giving up everything - and all for something that can be taken away from you in a snap election a couple of years later. Might be a party scandal that's nowt to do with you, but you can't expect voters to back you personally if they feel your party has badly let them down. Can also see that there's one heck of a double edge to the fact you go into politics because you care passionately about your beliefs, values and the opportunities you can see to make the country better ... but in order to achieve anything in politics you've got to function as part of an effective party machine, and that can mean shutting your gob in public and accepting that more often than you'd like, you'll be lobby fodder for things you disagree with!
Genuinely glad for you that it wasn't a disappointment and life's turned out for the better anyway. I hope your successor has thanked you for your work! Wish you all the best and very much hope you extend your stay on PB
You're not an adult at 16. You can't smoke, drink, drive a car, fight in a war or even leave school at that age any more. You have no life experience and probably still live in your parents house under their rules. I can think of no justification for allowing enfranchisement at that age.
Should the UK be raising rather than lowering the voting age? By James Tilley Professor of politics at Oxford University
As Prof Cowley also points out, the age at which we are allowed to do lots of other things has not been going down, but up.
If you want to use a tanning booth, buy cigarettes or fireworks, or get a tattoo you now need to be 18. It seems odd to suggest that people are responsible enough to vote at 16, but not buy sparklers.
Indeed, overall, society appears to think that people are growing up more slowly than they were in 1969. And it is true that people are reaching life's milestones later and later, especially when it comes to the world of work.
"Only 29% of 16 to 19-year-olds are working full-time now," says Lucinda Platt, a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics. "That contrasts with the late 1960s when you would expect around four-fifths of that age group to be in work."
Clearly, it is unreasonable to say that because someone is not working they should not have the vote. But the average age at which we assume adult responsibilities is presumably part of the story when we set the voting age. In fact, it might even go further than that.
Prof Abigail Baird, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Vassar College in New York, argues that important experiences, like starting work, are a crucial part of adolescent brain development.
"In early adulthood our brain is poised to learn how to make decisions and poised to learn how to be an adult," she says.
"But since what's expected of adults in different cultures varies so much, we need the experience of that culture to tell us what we need to do."
As MRI brain scanning is a relatively recent technology it is difficult to be sure, but it seems very likely that if important experiences come later in life then so does brain development:
"Forced to speculate, I would say an 18-year-old brain 50 years ago probably looked more like a 23-year-old brain does now," Prof Baird says. "Most 25 or 26-year-olds would be identical, but I think the way in which you get there is different now."
I've recently read a book about human bahaviour. I think it was called 'Behave'. In any case, I seem to remember the human brain doesn't fully become adult in its decision-making until the mid-20s. Hence risk-taking and novelty-seeking continues into the 20s.
I do worry about some of you Tories out there who think the demise of any opposition would be a good thing. In Boris we trust? Clearly!
Well much as I scorn Corbyn I have no time for Johnson either. Scratch the surface of the Conservative Party and there are a number of equally reprehensible types as Corbyn.
I am not a Tory - and the proof of whether or not Johnson will be any good at all can only be revealed by events.
Although I would be concerned that they might get a bit carried away with tax, borrow and spend, I would not be frightened of a really quite Left-wing Government provided that it wasn't mad. By which I mean, for example, there should not be plans for almost unlimited quantities of unbudgeted spending, or expropriation (i.e. the legalised theft of property.) If you're going to nationalise stuff you pay the market rate for it, and you certainly don't go around nicking 10% of every corporation at will if you don't want, to borrow a phrase from the head of the CBI, to "crack the foundations of the economy."
Those of us who kept going on about the Labour Far Left's infatuation with Venezuela did so for a reason. I have been salting away a little of my money each month in a bank account denominated in Canadian dollars, since well before the 2017 vote, for reasons other than funding jollies next time I fly over to visit my friend in Alberta.
I'm not at all afraid of an outbreak of Scandiwegian social democracy - in fact, it is not at all beyond the bounds of possibility that we may get a dose of social democracy, alongside the social conservatism, from the incoming Government. On the other hand, I was terrified of the Corbynites. Part of me still is, and won't breathe easy until they are properly vanquished and seen to be vanquished - preferably by having a Centre Left figure seize Labour back and then purge Momentum the way Kinnock purged Militant, although I'm not exactly holding my breath for that.
If public opinion moves in such a direction that Labour (or some successor movement) finds that there are no longer enough votes to have any chance of winning with a Hard Left platform, and therefore has to become more moderate in order to win again - and I would certainly agree on the importance of having a moderate, electable opposition back in our politics again - then nobody will be more pleased than I.
What hope for labour until they eradicate momentum
Time is coming to split
No point splitting unless one wants decades of good or bad Boris governments. Simon Jenkins wrote an interesting piece today about the LDs being a drag on Labour. I was surprised as I thought of him as a Thatcherite. His point is valid, and may even assist in sidelining the momentum morons. Conversely it might not.
Labour has always had a mad fringe element, unfortunately it is that group of individuals who are asleep at the wheel at present. Rebecca Long Bailey has already achieved satanic status on PB and she will in the red top press, but should any of the current runners and riders start to do ok against Boris, they too will be seen as Stalin's love-children. I suspect like Kinnock before her RLB will jettison the extreme lefty nonsense if she feels it will prevent her becoming PM. She is a Manchester Solicitor, so presumably not dumb like Corbyn.
Don't for one moment think the Conservative Party has never been and isn't currently infiltrated by the clinically unpleasant either. Rather than libel the current guilty parties, I suggest Enoch and his chum Peter Griffiths fit that frame quite nicely for starters.
For all his blonde, cuddly, loveliness, Johnson has form for being both inept (MrsRatcliffe) and conniving (Cameron and May). History may be kind to Johnson, and future generations may look on his tenure as the golden age of British Conservative politics. The opposite might also be true, and under those circumstances BigG, even you don't want a split and ineffectual opposition.
No - I really do not want a split opposition but equally momentum need to be sidelined
Sidelined off a cliff hopefully.
Momentum have something to offer. Hopefully this time it will be for the Labour Party, not the Tories.
Momentum's sole offering is called 'Socialist Worker', it is a nonsensical comic and they sell it on street corners.
You think Momentum publishes "Socialist Worker"? Wow.
Momentum or Socialist Workers Party, whats in a name? Same useless bunch of Trots.
Punctuation (apostrophe) error! Agh, if TSE is on duty tonight, that's at least a 24 ban for sure.
Cinema advice; 1917 and Jojo rabbit are both out next month. See them both, even if they are Oscar fodder.
1917 looked very dull, but it was filmed not 20 miles away from me so I should go see it. JoJo Rabbit looked pretty good.
I like the look of it, it looks bare bones in terms of action and is shot to look like one long take which I think could work given the context. I am also a Sam Mendes fan.
If you are interested in odd films there is a German war film I keep meaning the watch called The Captain, might be hard to find but it looks nuts. I have the DVD and shall be watching over Xmas.
The one long take thing is probably why the trailer looks comparitively dull, but as you say given the gimmick it could work well as a result. I'll give it a chance. I have to do something to balance out seeing Star Wars 3 or 4 times (assuming it is any good)
I have low hopes for Star Wars, just feels like more harking back. But I shall see it, family tradition going back to the original trilogy re-releases back in the 90's.
As Prof Cowley also points out, the age at which we are allowed to do lots of other things has not been going down, but up.
If you want to use a tanning booth, buy cigarettes or fireworks, or get a tattoo you now need to be 18. It seems odd to suggest that people are responsible enough to vote at 16, but not buy sparklers.
Indeed, overall, society appears to think that people are growing up more slowly than they were in 1969. And it is true that people are reaching life's milestones later and later, especially when it comes to the world of work.
"Only 29% of 16 to 19-year-olds are working full-time now," says Lucinda Platt, a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics. "That contrasts with the late 1960s when you would expect around four-fifths of that age group to be in work."
Clearly, it is unreasonable to say that because someone is not working they should not have the vote. But the average age at which we assume adult responsibilities is presumably part of the story when we set the voting age. In fact, it might even go further than that.
Prof Abigail Baird, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Vassar College in New York, argues that important experiences, like starting work, are a crucial part of adolescent brain development.
"In early adulthood our brain is poised to learn how to make decisions and poised to learn how to be an adult," she says.
"But since what's expected of adults in different cultures varies so much, we need the experience of that culture to tell us what we need to do."
As MRI brain scanning is a relatively recent technology it is difficult to be sure, but it seems very likely that if important experiences come later in life then so does brain development:
"Forced to speculate, I would say an 18-year-old brain 50 years ago probably looked more like a 23-year-old brain does now," Prof Baird says. "Most 25 or 26-year-olds would be identical, but I think the way in which you get there is different now."
I've recently read a book about human bahaviour. I think it was called 'Behave'. In any case, I seem to remember the human brain doesn't fully become adult in its decision-making until the mid-20s. Hence risk-taking and novelty-seeking continues into the 20s.
Yes, well-known effect in e.g. criminology - teens and early 20s are a much more dangerous time in terms of getting into offending, plenty seem to "calm down" in late 20s/30s as their brain matures.
"Only 29% of 16 to 19-year-olds are working full-time now," says Lucinda Platt, a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics. "That contrasts with the late 1960s when you would expect around four-fifths of that age group to be in work."
Clearly, it is unreasonable to say that because someone is not working they should not have the vote. But the average age at which we assume adult responsibilities is presumably part of the story when we set the voting age. In fact, it might even go further than that.
Prof Abigail Baird, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Vassar College in New York, argues that important experiences, like starting work, are a crucial part of adolescent brain development.
"In early adulthood our brain is poised to learn how to make decisions and poised to learn how to be an adult," she says.
"But since what's expected of adults in different cultures varies so much, we need the experience of that culture to tell us what we need to do."
As MRI brain scanning is a relatively recent technology it is difficult to be sure, but it seems very likely that if important experiences come later in life then so does brain development:
"Forced to speculate, I would say an 18-year-old brain 50 years ago probably looked more like a 23-year-old brain does now," Prof Baird says. "Most 25 or 26-year-olds would be identical, but I think the way in which you get there is different now."
I've recently read a book about human bahaviour. I think it was called 'Behave'. In any case, I seem to remember the human brain doesn't fully become adult in its decision-making until the mid-20s. Hence risk-taking and novelty-seeking continues into the 20s.
Yes, well-known effect in e.g. criminology - teens and early 20s are a much more dangerous time in terms of getting into offending, plenty seem to "calm down" in late 20s/30s as their brain matures.
Fair point - but what about the effect at the other end?
It has amazed me how, as they progressed through their 70s and into their 80s many of my parent's generation become much more timid, less confident and more risk averse. Relatives who used to ooze confidence now ask me for my advice on the simplest of matters.
Maybe all have an equal right to vote - both those whose brains are still developing as well as those whose brains are slowly shrinking and dying?
What hope for labour until they eradicate momentum
Time is coming to split
No point splitting unless one wants decades of good or bad Boris governments. Simon Jenkins wrote an interesting piece today about the LDs being a drag on Labour. I was surprised as I thought of him as a Thatcherite. His point is valid, and may even assist in sidelining the momentum morons. Conversely it might not.
Labour has always had a mad fringe element, unfortunately it is that group of individuals who are asleep at the wheel at present. Rebecca Long Bailey has already achieved satanic status on PB and she will in the red top press, but should any of the current runners and riders start to do ok against Boris, they too will be seen as Stalin's love-children. I suspect like Kinnock before her RLB will jettison the extreme lefty nonsense if she feels it will prevent her becoming PM. She is a Manchester Solicitor, so presumably not dumb like Corbyn.
Don't for one moment think the Conservative Party has never been and isn't currently infiltrated by the clinically unpleasant either. Rather than libel the current guilty parties, I suggest Enoch and his chum Peter Griffiths fit that frame quite nicely for starters.
For all his blonde, cuddly, loveliness, Johnson has form for being both inept (MrsRatcliffe) and conniving (Cameron and May). History may be kind to Johnson, and future generations may look on his tenure as the golden age of British Conservative politics. The opposite might also be true, and under those circumstances BigG, even you don't want a split and ineffectual opposition.
No - I really do not want a split opposition but equally momentum need to be sidelined
Sidelined off a cliff hopefully.
Momentum have something to offer. Hopefully this time it will be for the Labour Party, not the Tories.
Momentum's sole offering is called 'Socialist Worker', it is a nonsensical comic and they sell it on street corners.
You think Momentum publishes "Socialist Worker"? Wow.
Momentum or Socialist Workers Party, whats in a name? Same useless bunch of Trots.
Punctuation (apostrophe) error! Agh, if TSE is on duty tonight, that's at least a 24 ban for sure.
"Forced to speculate, I would say an 18-year-old brain 50 years ago probably looked more like a 23-year-old brain does now," Prof Baird says. "Most 25 or 26-year-olds would be identical, but I think the way in which you get there is different now."
I'm sceptical. I was 18 51 years ago and obviously knew lots of 18 year olds, and I still know a lot. There are obvious differences - sexual maturity for a start IMo comes earlier now - but they're broadly comparable.
it is clearly true that on average people acquire more all-round knowledge with age, but that doesn't seem a criterion for being able to vote unless one also thinks higher education and even study of politics should be qualifications. Democracy is supposed to be about representing people, not about collectively passing an exam, and if N million teenagers feel their needs are not being given consideration, they should be able to exercise democratic opinion in the same way as X million pensioners feeling the free Tv licence should be retained.
Comments
Will be interesting to see how this works.
By James Tilley
Professor of politics at Oxford University
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46737013
An excerpt:
As Prof Cowley also points out, the age at which we are allowed to do lots of other things has not been going down, but up.
If you want to use a tanning booth, buy cigarettes or fireworks, or get a tattoo you now need to be 18. It seems odd to suggest that people are responsible enough to vote at 16, but not buy sparklers.
Indeed, overall, society appears to think that people are growing up more slowly than they were in 1969. And it is true that people are reaching life's milestones later and later, especially when it comes to the world of work.
"Only 29% of 16 to 19-year-olds are working full-time now," says Lucinda Platt, a professor of social policy at the London School of Economics. "That contrasts with the late 1960s when you would expect around four-fifths of that age group to be in work."
Clearly, it is unreasonable to say that because someone is not working they should not have the vote. But the average age at which we assume adult responsibilities is presumably part of the story when we set the voting age. In fact, it might even go further than that.
Prof Abigail Baird, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Vassar College in New York, argues that important experiences, like starting work, are a crucial part of adolescent brain development.
"In early adulthood our brain is poised to learn how to make decisions and poised to learn how to be an adult," she says.
"But since what's expected of adults in different cultures varies so much, we need the experience of that culture to tell us what we need to do."
As MRI brain scanning is a relatively recent technology it is difficult to be sure, but it seems very likely that if important experiences come later in life then so does brain development:
"Forced to speculate, I would say an 18-year-old brain 50 years ago probably looked more like a 23-year-old brain does now," Prof Baird says. "Most 25 or 26-year-olds would be identical, but I think the way in which you get there is different now."
Anyway, watching the Laura K Brexit programme on BBC 1, with her following Boris's Parliamentary tribulations over the autumn, and it just feels like *ancient history*.
Thornberry seems real value to me.
https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1207016954244022272
Well done Labour members and activists. You have brought your party to one of its lowest ever points.
I always wondered, particularly after 2015 (but maybe more so after the seat was kept in 2017 and 2019?) do you regret not giving it one more go in Torbay? Or had you just had enough of it by then? You put an awful lot of time and yards in. I think I would have voted for you in 2015 even though I didn't vote for your party, I admired your personal values and your ability for critical thought, not just the effort you put in. Was genuinely disappointed for you that when the seat turned it wasn't you who benefited from it.
Funniest comment of the week.
It isn’t impossible it could happen, but there are a number of significant difficulties in making it happen. Not least Labour’s need to win around 140 seats and hold all the ones they currently have. That takes money. It takes activists. It takes outstanding g logistical planning. And it requires the government to have buggered things more comprehensively than a rent boy rogering a reluctant Turkish conscript.
But - equally - the last an incumbent government had a net loss of seats followed by a net gain of seats was 1865. So we are living in a more or less unprecedented political situation.
Cryptic.
If you are interested in odd films there is a German war film I keep meaning the watch called The Captain, might be hard to find but it looks nuts. I have the DVD and shall be watching over Xmas.
I look at what MPs now have to do do - you are not allowed outside interests so your whole life is devoted to being a grown-up social worker and voting fodder for the government. The constant scrutiny especially from people who can't wait to bring you down is also wearing and debilitating as is the need to "argue the case" at every opportunity. Thank you so much for your kind words it's nice that some people remember!
I do worry about some of you Tories out there who think the demise of any opposition would be a good thing. In Boris we trust? Clearly!
Well much as I scorn Corbyn I have no time for Johnson either. Scratch the surface of the Conservative Party and there are a number of equally reprehensible types as Corbyn.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/17/keir-starmer-labour-leadership-pitch-radical-government?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7801553/Labour-staff-threaten-STRIKE-unless-Corbyn-aides-kicked-election-farce.html
I'm also self-employed, as a swing voter with no natural party home I am not ideal MP material anyway but the thought did cross my mind that had I decided to become an MP like someone I knew from my university cohort did, I would really be giving up everything - and all for something that can be taken away from you in a snap election a couple of years later. Might be a party scandal that's nowt to do with you, but you can't expect voters to back you personally if they feel your party has badly let them down. Can also see that there's one heck of a double edge to the fact you go into politics because you care passionately about your beliefs, values and the opportunities you can see to make the country better ... but in order to achieve anything in politics you've got to function as part of an effective party machine, and that can mean shutting your gob in public and accepting that more often than you'd like, you'll be lobby fodder for things you disagree with!
Genuinely glad for you that it wasn't a disappointment and life's turned out for the better anyway. I hope your successor has thanked you for your work! Wish you all the best and very much hope you extend your stay on PB
(Left wing enough for me at any rate)
Although I would be concerned that they might get a bit carried away with tax, borrow and spend, I would not be frightened of a really quite Left-wing Government provided that it wasn't mad. By which I mean, for example, there should not be plans for almost unlimited quantities of unbudgeted spending, or expropriation (i.e. the legalised theft of property.) If you're going to nationalise stuff you pay the market rate for it, and you certainly don't go around nicking 10% of every corporation at will if you don't want, to borrow a phrase from the head of the CBI, to "crack the foundations of the economy."
Those of us who kept going on about the Labour Far Left's infatuation with Venezuela did so for a reason. I have been salting away a little of my money each month in a bank account denominated in Canadian dollars, since well before the 2017 vote, for reasons other than funding jollies next time I fly over to visit my friend in Alberta.
I'm not at all afraid of an outbreak of Scandiwegian social democracy - in fact, it is not at all beyond the bounds of possibility that we may get a dose of social democracy, alongside the social conservatism, from the incoming Government. On the other hand, I was terrified of the Corbynites. Part of me still is, and won't breathe easy until they are properly vanquished and seen to be vanquished - preferably by having a Centre Left figure seize Labour back and then purge Momentum the way Kinnock purged Militant, although I'm not exactly holding my breath for that.
If public opinion moves in such a direction that Labour (or some successor movement) finds that there are no longer enough votes to have any chance of winning with a Hard Left platform, and therefore has to become more moderate in order to win again - and I would certainly agree on the importance of having a moderate, electable opposition back in our politics again - then nobody will be more pleased than I.
It has amazed me how, as they progressed through their 70s and into their 80s many of my parent's generation become much more timid, less confident and more risk averse. Relatives who used to ooze confidence now ask me for my advice on the simplest of matters.
Maybe all have an equal right to vote - both those whose brains are still developing as well as those whose brains are slowly shrinking and dying?
24 hour? day? year?
Fuck off! Judean Peoples' Front! We're the Peoples' Front of Judea. Judean Peoples Front! Wankers!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQsbgoJU_Vk
it is clearly true that on average people acquire more all-round knowledge with age, but that doesn't seem a criterion for being able to vote unless one also thinks higher education and even study of politics should be qualifications. Democracy is supposed to be about representing people, not about collectively passing an exam, and if N million teenagers feel their needs are not being given consideration, they should be able to exercise democratic opinion in the same way as X million pensioners feeling the free Tv licence should be retained.