The point that the Labour high command seem to be making is that there have been much fewer polls and local information on those Wycombe-type constituencies. They had better hope that's right, otherwise the national polls are overstating them.
The last Ipsos Mori had the SNP on 53% , so it’s been one of the best pollsters for them. Interestingly there are 200,000 new registered voters for these elections which could include many EU nationals who now have leave to remain . I doubt they’ll be voting Tory !
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
I was surprised given many will have had two jabs by then and aiui its largely outdoors.....so if we can't hold large outdoor gatherings in the UK in August, what chance foreign holidays? Crowded beaches & streets in Spain fine, crowded beaches & streets in the UK a danger to public health?
Isn't it an events insurance thing? In that, although it will almost certainly be fine throughout the European continent by summer, there's a small risk of something utterly horrid crawling out of the virus causing events to be cancelled. Organisers can't take the uninsured risk of booking stuff and commercial insurers aren't touching it at a price that works.
So YouGov has SNP on 52% in the constituency vote and Savanta Comres on 42% . Quite some difference . I look forward to seeing what Ipsos Mori have to say but shouldn’t conventional wisdom suggest that any drop in SNP support should see those voters move to Labour or the Greens not the Tories .
Mostly, not exclusively. It does seem that some people in the North East have switched from SNP to Con in recent years.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
I used to live in Crowborough and the bonfire societies are fantastic. I would recommend anyone go and see the events from around September onwards. Although the people running them are clearly pyromaniac lunatics. Anyone who thinks we go over the top on health and safety clearly hasn't been to one of these events.
How do you manage to get into Lewes? From memory I believe you are in Woking. The trains and buses are cancelled and roads closed on the day and accommodation is impossible to get. I would love to go. I have been to many, but never Lewes which is the grand finale really.
I park at Cooksbridge railway station and walk in from there. It's about a 2.5 mile walk. I go to the Commercial Square bonfire after the parade, which is on the way back towards Cooksbridge:
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yes, not a book that I like. The depictions of the Ewell family as "White Trash" and the villains of the tale are rather disturbing.
The complicity in not investigating the death of Mr Ewell is as wrong as any other act in the book.
I have similar disquiet about the ending of "Of Mice and Men" complicity in murder, but justified by the author as justice served, when it is the opposite.
Funnily enough, when I read it as a set text at school it made a deep and lasting impression on me - for the good, I feel.
It is a well written book, with multiple overlapped themes, but some of the conclusions to be drawn are very dark indeed. The impossibility of justice, the power of the middle class respectable folk to selectively enforce laws on the poor, both white and black.
Foxy, the reality of America which is still true today.
Yes, that is true.
I think though that the fate of Mr Ewell is seen as justice in the book when the reality is injustice. It is OK to kill as long as you kill people who are unwanted, and you are middle class.
Not really as simple as that, since there is an implied self defence motive. But you're entirely correct that this is simply assumed, rather than allowing any legal scrutiny.
That might well have been the case over here, too, in the 1930s. The interesting and problematic thing about TKAM is that attitudes regarded as liberal either at the time it depicts, or indeed when it was written, seem rather less so now. For today's school kids, it's an almost inaccessible past - yet for Joe Biden's generation, it's almost a contemporary novel.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
Yes, not a book that I like. The depictions of the Ewell family as "White Trash" and the villains of the tale are rather disturbing.
The complicity in not investigating the death of Mr Ewell is as wrong as any other act in the book.
I have similar disquiet about the ending of "Of Mice and Men" complicity in murder, but justified by the author as justice served, when it is the opposite.
Funnily enough, when I read it as a set text at school it made a deep and lasting impression on me - for the good, I feel.
It is a well written book, with multiple overlapped themes, but some of the conclusions to be drawn are very dark indeed. The impossibility of justice, the power of the middle class respectable folk to selectively enforce laws on the poor, both white and black.
Foxy, the reality of America which is still true today.
Yes, that is true.
I think though that the fate of Mr Ewell is seen as justice in the book when the reality is injustice. It is OK to kill as long as you kill people who are unwanted, and you are middle class.
Not really as simple as that, since there is an implied self defence motive. But you're entirely correct that this is simply assumed, rather than allowing any legal scrutiny.
That might well have been the case over here, too, in the 1930s. The interesting and problematic thing about TKAM is that attitudes regarded as liberal either at the time it depicts, or indeed when it was written, seem rather less so now. For today's school kids, it's an almost inaccessible past - yet for Joe Biden's generation, it's almost a contemporary novel.
"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" by Laurie Lee has something similar, where an unpopular villager who is thought to give himself airs is casually murdered, and this is presented as the right thing to do. Lee was a very left wing writer, and this is presented as justice against an oppressor.
Lee was very strongly attracted to Spanish anarchism at the time, and anarchists generally took the view that using the law to strike at oppressors was hypocritical and wrong. If you have a legitimate grievance against someone, you settle it personally.
We're so used these days to pacifism being a left wing thing that one needs to remember that this was certainly not the case in the 1930's.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
All the polls seem absolutely consistent that George Galloway's ego is going to receive a massive dunt which is most gratifying.
Ditto Salmond's Party, if not Salmond himself.
1-3 seats seems a likely range for Alba, pretty sure a big ego will be perfectly capable of spinning that as a triumph, more difficult with zero seats. There should be a sweep on who Galloway blames:
The MSM Wokeism The Nats The SCons SLab The Neoliberal consensus Mossad MI5 The CIA All of them
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
This was a message from a few on the left after 2019. To basically abandon the working class. Labour really is moving away from it’s roots and I expect Thursday to solidify this. The labour votes are going somewhere.
Labour doesn't need to abandon the working class - that isn't their problem.
The problem is a combination of the Labour party being perceived to have abandoned the working class and the Tory party doing a lot better job of targeting them.
Their problem is that term - "working class". If you have to get out of bed in a morning to work so that you can pay your bills, you are working class. But for so many in Labour that term refers to an ever-diminishing group of unionised people.
Bournemouth and Wycombe were referred to earlier - why are the people who live there seen as totally different to the people who live in Barnsley or Whitehaven? There are people who every kind of job and have no job and have retired and are poor, comfortable and well off.
Labour cannot reach out to all these people because of class identity. Its the working class against the monies class and there can be no dissent. It needs to bin off class and labels and just talk to people as people.
The adult population of England is of the order 40m and each and every one of them is a unique individual. However you can't have 40m tailored conversations going on, not even at a superficial level. You have to identify common interests, reflecting that people are both atomized units and also part of definable groupings. So, for me, the exhortation to "talk to people as people" is somewhat of an empty soundbite. It sounds good but means nothing.
Not really. What unifies most people in this country? To advance themselves in life. To provide a better life for their kids than they had. To have a house with stuff in it. To bridge across all of these people is to speak the politics of aspiration - how if you vote for the Letterbox Party you can be better off and have more stuff and live a better life.
That works for a sufficiently broad group of people to deliver landslides for both Thatcher and Blair when aspiration and hope is up front as the policy objectives. Labour's problem is that it sees aspiration as dirty, acquisition as theft etc etc.
Mandelson may not have had a problem with the rich getting richer if they lifted kids and pensioners out of poverty, but a lot of their people did. It wasn't enough to lift kids out of poverty, it should have been done by punishing the wealthy, squeezing them until their pips squeaked.
Drop all this class war shit and Labour has a chance. It won't so it doesn't.
Fine as regards "tone", it's electoral gold if a politician or party can pull that trick off - as indeed the actual "Tone" did - but that's all it is. A rhetorical trick. There's no such thing as policies that will make everyone better off, all winners, no losers. If there were, it would be the end of politics. We'd just do it.
In reality, what there are are choices. What's good for one person (or grouping) is often not good for another. It's just false to deny this. There is such a thing as class interest. Using "class" here in its general meaning of "category". Egs, homeowners, renters, public sector workers, the low paid, the wealthy, the unemployed, women, disadvantaged ethnic minorities, car drivers, small business owners, Northerners, Londoners, investment bankers etc etc. All these people have "aspiration". But often their aspirations come at the price of the aspiration of others being stunted. Choices.
As for your opinion on what Labour needs to do, it's interesting and good to hear. But I have my own views and some of them are different to yours. If we drop the "class" shit and the "race and gender" shit, I'm not sure what shit we're left with. Other than meaningless shit.
To repeat, I respect your different perspective. In fact, the divergence of political opinion on the centre left is strikingly wide. We see that very clearly on here. There isn't the same level of disagreement on the Tory side. There's plenty but nothing like the range. This is one of Labour's biggest challenges imo. To fuse that together somehow.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
Similar thinking to the flat cladding issue. There's stuff that can only be underwritten at national government scale. There's an argument to be had about where that line is crossed, but it definitely exists.
And the government is very reluctant to take on the liability. Even though, for summer events, the possibilities are either that the cost will be zero (because Covid will be conquered) or the cost will be the least of our problems (because Covid Part III will have washed up on our shores).
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax cuts did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
Similar thinking to the flat cladding issue. There's stuff that can only be underwritten at national government scale. There's an argument to be had about where that line is crossed, but it definitely exists.
And the government is very reluctant to take on the liability. Even though, for summer events, the possibilities are either that the cost will be zero (because Covid will be conquered) or the cost will be the least of our problems (because Covid Part III will have washed up on our shores).
Absolutely. The government doesn't seem to get that the local economic benefits of underwriting these events is a no brainer for their coffers.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
I used to live in Crowborough and the bonfire societies are fantastic. I would recommend anyone go and see the events from around September onwards. Although the people running them are clearly pyromaniac lunatics. Anyone who thinks we go over the top on health and safety clearly hasn't been to one of these events.
How do you manage to get into Lewes? From memory I believe you are in Woking. The trains and buses are cancelled and roads closed on the day and accommodation is impossible to get. I would love to go. I have been to many, but never Lewes which is the grand finale really.
I park at Cooksbridge railway station and walk in from there. It's about a 2.5 mile walk. I go to the Commercial Square bonfire after the parade, which is on the way back towards Cooksbridge:
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
I guess the government wouldn't want to be seen to show favourtism.
Interesting question is, will things be fine once we are back to normal? That is, will there not always be the worry in the insurance industry that the government will panic and shut everything down?
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
Similar thinking to the flat cladding issue. There's stuff that can only be underwritten at national government scale. There's an argument to be had about where that line is crossed, but it definitely exists.
And the government is very reluctant to take on the liability. Even though, for summer events, the possibilities are either that the cost will be zero (because Covid will be conquered) or the cost will be the least of our problems (because Covid Part III will have washed up on our shores).
Absolutely. The government doesn't seem to get that the local economic benefits of underwriting these events is a no brainer for their coffers.
Even at a symbolic level (because I do think this government gets the power of symbols) the value of a Great British Summer ought to be obvious.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
This was a message from a few on the left after 2019. To basically abandon the working class. Labour really is moving away from it’s roots and I expect Thursday to solidify this. The labour votes are going somewhere.
Labour doesn't need to abandon the working class - that isn't their problem.
The problem is a combination of the Labour party being perceived to have abandoned the working class and the Tory party doing a lot better job of targeting them.
Their problem is that term - "working class". If you have to get out of bed in a morning to work so that you can pay your bills, you are working class. But for so many in Labour that term refers to an ever-diminishing group of unionised people.
Bournemouth and Wycombe were referred to earlier - why are the people who live there seen as totally different to the people who live in Barnsley or Whitehaven? There are people who every kind of job and have no job and have retired and are poor, comfortable and well off.
Labour cannot reach out to all these people because of class identity. Its the working class against the monies class and there can be no dissent. It needs to bin off class and labels and just talk to people as people.
The adult population of England is of the order 40m and each and every one of them is a unique individual. However you can't have 40m tailored conversations going on, not even at a superficial level. You have to identify common interests, reflecting that people are both atomized units and also part of definable groupings. So, for me, the exhortation to "talk to people as people" is somewhat of an empty soundbite. It sounds good but means nothing.
Not really. What unifies most people in this country? To advance themselves in life. To provide a better life for their kids than they had. To have a house with stuff in it. To bridge across all of these people is to speak the politics of aspiration - how if you vote for the Letterbox Party you can be better off and have more stuff and live a better life.
That works for a sufficiently broad group of people to deliver landslides for both Thatcher and Blair when aspiration and hope is up front as the policy objectives. Labour's problem is that it sees aspiration as dirty, acquisition as theft etc etc.
Mandelson may not have had a problem with the rich getting richer if they lifted kids and pensioners out of poverty, but a lot of their people did. It wasn't enough to lift kids out of poverty, it should have been done by punishing the wealthy, squeezing them until their pips squeaked.
Drop all this class war shit and Labour has a chance. It won't so it doesn't.
Fine as regards "tone", it's electoral gold if a politician or party can pull that trick off - as indeed the actual "Tone" did - but that's all it is. A rhetorical trick. There's no such thing as policies that will make everyone better off, all winners, no losers. If there were, it would be the end of politics. We'd just do it.
In reality, what there are are choices. What's good for one person (or grouping) is often not good for another. It's just false to deny this. There is such a thing as class interest. Using "class" here in its general meaning of "category". Egs, homeowners, renters, public sector workers, the low paid, the wealthy, the unemployed, women, disadvantaged ethnic minorities, car drivers, small business owners, Northerners, Londoners, investment bankers etc etc. All these people have "aspiration". But often their aspirations come at the price of the aspiration of others being stunted. Choices.
As for your opinion on what Labour needs to do, it's interesting and good to hear. But I have my own views and some of them are different to yours. If we drop the "class" shit and the "race and gender" shit, I'm not sure what shit we're left with. Other than meaningless shit.
To repeat, I respect your different perspective. In fact, the divergence of political opinion on the centre left is strikingly wide. We see that very clearly on here. There isn't the same level of disagreement on the Tory side. There's plenty but nothing like the range. This is one of Labour's biggest challenges imo. To fuse that together somehow.
Wilson's genius was of its time, but I also think part of it is probably transferable and applicable to our time. He managed to make material-financial, educational and social-moral aspiration, as well as cultural openness, look interchangeable to a large group of people. Somewhere near this daunting combination is the key.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Completely and utterly ridiculous that this has been allowed to happen – a consequence of the absolutely ludicrous "no earlier than" messaging. This event is almost two months after full reopening on 21 June. How many more summer events will the government allow to fall by the wayside through a poisonous cocktail of "no earlier than" and lack of underwriting? If the government insists on sticking to "no earlier than" – even now – it should offer to underwrite all summertime events.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
Similar thinking to the flat cladding issue. There's stuff that can only be underwritten at national government scale. There's an argument to be had about where that line is crossed, but it definitely exists.
And the government is very reluctant to take on the liability. Even though, for summer events, the possibilities are either that the cost will be zero (because Covid will be conquered) or the cost will be the least of our problems (because Covid Part III will have washed up on our shores).
Absolutely. The government doesn't seem to get that the local economic benefits of underwriting these events is a no brainer for their coffers.
Even at a symbolic level (because I do think this government gets the power of symbols) the value of a Great British Summer ought to be obvious.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Which I do not like, though I appreciate the desire to fix the deficit before there's a bigger crisis. I will keep campaigning for tax reforms, even if its not currently party policy.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Well yes, you're right, but the point still stands!
Presumably PB Lockdownistas will be popping up shortly to defend "No Earlier Than".
Ye gods, I'm fuming about the Pride news – I don't attend and wouldn't do so. But it's not about me, it's about the cultural life of our country being protected – and revived.
An absolute disgrace that this has been allowed to happen. How many more before the No Earlier Than nutters get the message?
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
Similar thinking to the flat cladding issue. There's stuff that can only be underwritten at national government scale. There's an argument to be had about where that line is crossed, but it definitely exists.
And the government is very reluctant to take on the liability. Even though, for summer events, the possibilities are either that the cost will be zero (because Covid will be conquered) or the cost will be the least of our problems (because Covid Part III will have washed up on our shores).
Absolutely. The government doesn't seem to get that the local economic benefits of underwriting these events is a no brainer for their coffers.
Even at a symbolic level (because I do think this government gets the power of symbols) the value of a Great British Summer ought to be obvious.
Great British Summer = 4 weeks in Benidorm?
Yes, we are in serious danger of yet again delegating our leisure to other countries.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Well yes, you're right, but the point still stands!
For me tax rates are more important than the level of the allowance.
The allowance just determines when you hit the taper issues, but the taper issues themselves are what need to be fixed rather than just get people working 20 hours instead of 16 then stopping.
Yes, not a book that I like. The depictions of the Ewell family as "White Trash" and the villains of the tale are rather disturbing.
The complicity in not investigating the death of Mr Ewell is as wrong as any other act in the book.
I have similar disquiet about the ending of "Of Mice and Men" complicity in murder, but justified by the author as justice served, when it is the opposite.
Funnily enough, when I read it as a set text at school it made a deep and lasting impression on me - for the good, I feel.
It is a well written book, with multiple overlapped themes, but some of the conclusions to be drawn are very dark indeed. The impossibility of justice, the power of the middle class respectable folk to selectively enforce laws on the poor, both white and black.
Foxy, the reality of America which is still true today.
Yes, that is true.
I think though that the fate of Mr Ewell is seen as justice in the book when the reality is injustice. It is OK to kill as long as you kill people who are unwanted, and you are middle class.
Not really as simple as that, since there is an implied self defence motive. But you're entirely correct that this is simply assumed, rather than allowing any legal scrutiny.
That might well have been the case over here, too, in the 1930s. The interesting and problematic thing about TKAM is that attitudes regarded as liberal either at the time it depicts, or indeed when it was written, seem rather less so now. For today's school kids, it's an almost inaccessible past - yet for Joe Biden's generation, it's almost a contemporary novel.
The 'sequel' is interesting (for all that it's nowhere near as well-written as the original/perhaps a draft/unfinished) in that it does get in to some of the contradictions and the conflict between deeply held beliefs, held as facts (Atticus's sincere view that blacks are completely different and a lower form of life than whites, but still deserve justive) and the instinct to try and do right. Also interesting for the development in Scout's character, seeing - as we all do when we grow up - that our parents/other heroes have their faults and prejudices too.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
Cancelling Pride is a big blow for the Brighton economy, for the second year running. The problem is that the organisers need to spend lots of money organising it now, and there's no insurance if it's cancelled. No chance of social distancing - the post-parade street party is 10,000 people up close, drunk and sweaty. So it could only really go ahead if the government gave the say so, and underwrote the cost of a later cancellation. So sadly, the organisers really had no choice.
Yeah, I can understand why it's happened. It's just a bit frustrating that the government can't start to say things like "we're still aiming for 21 June, but it will be no later than 15 July" or that sort of thing.
It's not so much that. It's that insurers aren't willing to take that risk. Most of the festival/big events cancellations are purely insurance related. Events organisers are calling upon the government to underwrite the events to ensure they can at least plan for them to go ahead but it's falling upon deaf ears.
I guess the government wouldn't want to be seen to show favourtism.
Interesting question is, will things be fine once we are back to normal? That is, will there not always be the worry in the insurance industry that the government will panic and shut everything down?
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
New Labour gave the impression of money being spent, but most of it was borrowed on the PFI never-never and is still being paid for today.
Yes, not a book that I like. The depictions of the Ewell family as "White Trash" and the villains of the tale are rather disturbing.
The complicity in not investigating the death of Mr Ewell is as wrong as any other act in the book.
I have similar disquiet about the ending of "Of Mice and Men" complicity in murder, but justified by the author as justice served, when it is the opposite.
Funnily enough, when I read it as a set text at school it made a deep and lasting impression on me - for the good, I feel.
It is a well written book, with multiple overlapped themes, but some of the conclusions to be drawn are very dark indeed. The impossibility of justice, the power of the middle class respectable folk to selectively enforce laws on the poor, both white and black.
Foxy, the reality of America which is still true today.
Yes, that is true.
I think though that the fate of Mr Ewell is seen as justice in the book when the reality is injustice. It is OK to kill as long as you kill people who are unwanted, and you are middle class.
Not really as simple as that, since there is an implied self defence motive. But you're entirely correct that this is simply assumed, rather than allowing any legal scrutiny.
That might well have been the case over here, too, in the 1930s. The interesting and problematic thing about TKAM is that attitudes regarded as liberal either at the time it depicts, or indeed when it was written, seem rather less so now. For today's school kids, it's an almost inaccessible past - yet for Joe Biden's generation, it's almost a contemporary novel.
"As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning" by Laurie Lee has something similar, where an unpopular villager who is thought to give himself airs is casually murdered, and this is presented as the right thing to do. Lee was a very left wing writer, and this is presented as justice against an oppressor.
Lee was very strongly attracted to Spanish anarchism at the time, and anarchists generally took the view that using the law to strike at oppressors was hypocritical and wrong. If you have a legitimate grievance against someone, you settle it personally.
We're so used these days to pacifism being a left wing thing that one needs to remember that this was certainly not the case in the 1930's.
Indeed, in the 1930s the Labour Party was more hawkish - over rearmament and facing up to Nazi Germany, for example - than the Tory Party.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
This was a message from a few on the left after 2019. To basically abandon the working class. Labour really is moving away from it’s roots and I expect Thursday to solidify this. The labour votes are going somewhere.
Labour doesn't need to abandon the working class - that isn't their problem.
The problem is a combination of the Labour party being perceived to have abandoned the working class and the Tory party doing a lot better job of targeting them.
Their problem is that term - "working class". If you have to get out of bed in a morning to work so that you can pay your bills, you are working class. But for so many in Labour that term refers to an ever-diminishing group of unionised people.
Bournemouth and Wycombe were referred to earlier - why are the people who live there seen as totally different to the people who live in Barnsley or Whitehaven? There are people who every kind of job and have no job and have retired and are poor, comfortable and well off.
Labour cannot reach out to all these people because of class identity. Its the working class against the monies class and there can be no dissent. It needs to bin off class and labels and just talk to people as people.
The adult population of England is of the order 40m and each and every one of them is a unique individual. However you can't have 40m tailored conversations going on, not even at a superficial level. You have to identify common interests, reflecting that people are both atomized units and also part of definable groupings. So, for me, the exhortation to "talk to people as people" is somewhat of an empty soundbite. It sounds good but means nothing.
Not really. What unifies most people in this country? To advance themselves in life. To provide a better life for their kids than they had. To have a house with stuff in it. To bridge across all of these people is to speak the politics of aspiration - how if you vote for the Letterbox Party you can be better off and have more stuff and live a better life.
That works for a sufficiently broad group of people to deliver landslides for both Thatcher and Blair when aspiration and hope is up front as the policy objectives. Labour's problem is that it sees aspiration as dirty, acquisition as theft etc etc.
Mandelson may not have had a problem with the rich getting richer if they lifted kids and pensioners out of poverty, but a lot of their people did. It wasn't enough to lift kids out of poverty, it should have been done by punishing the wealthy, squeezing them until their pips squeaked.
Drop all this class war shit and Labour has a chance. It won't so it doesn't.
Fine as regards "tone", it's electoral gold if a politician or party can pull that trick off - as indeed the actual "Tone" did - but that's all it is. A rhetorical trick. There's no such thing as policies that will make everyone better off, all winners, no losers. If there were, it would be the end of politics. We'd just do it.
In reality, what there are are choices. What's good for one person (or grouping) is often not good for another. It's just false to deny this. There is such a thing as class interest. Using "class" here in its general meaning of "category". Egs, homeowners, renters, public sector workers, the low paid, the wealthy, the unemployed, women, disadvantaged ethnic minorities, car drivers, small business owners, Northerners, Londoners, investment bankers etc etc. All these people have "aspiration". But often their aspirations come at the price of the aspiration of others being stunted. Choices.
As for your opinion on what Labour needs to do, it's interesting and good to hear. But I have my own views and some of them are different to yours. If we drop the "class" shit and the "race and gender" shit, I'm not sure what shit we're left with. Other than meaningless shit.
To repeat, I respect your different perspective. In fact, the divergence of political opinion on the centre left is strikingly wide. We see that very clearly on here. There isn't the same level of disagreement on the Tory side. There's plenty but nothing like the range. This is one of Labour's biggest challenges imo. To fuse that together somehow.
Wilson's genius was of its time, but I also think part of it may be transferable. He managed, to a large group of people, to make material, educational and social-moral aspiration, and cultural openness, look interchangeable. Somewhere near this daunting combination is the key.
Yes, I rate Wilson highly as a politician. And Blair for that matter. Two great Labour leaders.
I suppose what I want is a policy platform that's about bearing down on inequalities of class, race and gender, but presented in a way that looks like everyone's a winner.
We've seen with Brexit and "Boris" how it's possible to get people to go along with a project whose reality is very different to the rhetoric.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
I have a theory (that I exercise judgement on in sharing with my ultra-Thatcherite free-market friends in the Tory Party, less they think I've gone "wet") which is that people like low-taxes and low-public spending provided they are doing very well such that they don't need to rely on public services. Otherwise, they do not.
You might think that's a statement of the bleeding obvious but I mention it because such small-state solutions work in high-wage, high-growth economies - such as Singapore and Hong Kong - and the height of its popularity here was in the late 1980s.
But, if you have slow or anaemic growth, as we have across much of the West since 2000, then most people aren't interested.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Problem with building homes in the SE is it just creates more draw factor for both jobs and people.
How is meeting suppressed demand a problem? Sounds like a good thing to me.
lots of discussion on scotland and hartlepool, but less on the police and crime commissioners. A lot has changed since 2016 and a lot of those elections were surprisingly close.
Yes, Leics is an interesting one. Lab gain from Con in 2016. A new candidate this time, can Lab hold?
7 of the 10 Westminster constituencies covered are Con held.
If Labour are making progress in the SE they will win the Thames Valley PCC - only a 4% swing needed. However they've run an awful candidate.
You think? She seems ok to me and people locally speak well of her. But I've not followed it that closely because, well, it's a PCC election.
I had a look at her twitter a while back and listened to the BBC Oxford 'debate' where, to me, she came across awfully. I'm going to go LD first, and probably spoil my ballot for the second. She'll probably win on national trends though.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
Incredible 360 degree photo of Mars by the Curiosity Rover. It's quite moving. Mars is bleakly beautiful
'Spin me right round! I took this 360º panorama with my Mastcam atop “Mont Mercou,” a rock formation overlooking Gale Crater. It's made from 132 images of the terrain (rather than my hardware or the sky). Enjoy the view on desktop or via the @YouTube app: '
Anyway, on the betting, with "H" seemingly done and dusted, the most exciting open question for tomorrow is surely will the SNP manage an overall majority? It's pretty much a straight 50/50 per the market.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Problem with building homes in the SE is it just creates more draw factor for both jobs and people.
How is meeting suppressed demand a problem? Sounds like a good thing to me.
I'm not saying it's not a good thing, just don't expect it to reduce house prices.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
I have a theory (that I exercise judgement on in sharing with my ultra-Thatcherite free-market friends in the Tory Party, less they think I've gone "wet") which is that people like low-taxes and low-public spending provided they are doing very well such that they don't need to rely on public services. Otherwise, they do not.
You might think that's a statement of the bleeding obvious but I mention it because such small-state solutions work in high-wage, high-growth economies - such as Singapore and Hong Kong - and the height of its popularity here was in the late 1980s.
But, if you have slow or anaemic growth, as we have across much of the West since 2000, then most people aren't interested.
Absolutely. The key is how to get high-wage, high-growth.
A part of the problem for the past nearly fourteen years (not that you'd know it from the debates) that there has been growth but instead of going to wages its gone to the government. It hasn't gone to be spent by the government either, its gone to basically pay-off that which we were already paying for, closing the deficit.
Taxes as a share of the economy have been going up not down.
We need to find a way to reverse that and promptly. Get back to wages and growth going to people - and taxes as a share of the economy going down but still funding essential services.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
It's still a stealth tax rise though, no matter how you frame it.
Presumably PB Lockdownistas will be popping up shortly to defend "No Earlier Than".
Ye gods, I'm fuming about the Pride news – I don't attend and wouldn't do so. But it's not about me, it's about the cultural life of our country being protected – and revived.
An absolute disgrace that this has been allowed to happen. How many more before the No Earlier Than nutters get the message?
I'm not sure your anger is directed at the right place. Assuming there is no virus resurgence, things should be pretty much back to normal by late June, and Pride is on 7/8 August. The Pride organisers need to be sure that the event can go ahead now for planning purposes, and they need to know that there will be no social distancing rules, or guidance, in early August. Only the government can give this reassurance. Given the amount of money already spent on Covid, all the government has to do is tell the organisers that in the remote chance that the event has to be cancelled, they will recoup the costs incurred so far. No idea what those would be, but maybe 50-100K? It's a problem for sure, but not one provoked by pro-lockdowners.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
I have a theory (that I exercise judgement on in sharing with my ultra-Thatcherite free-market friends in the Tory Party, less they think I've gone "wet") which is that people like low-taxes and low-public spending provided they are doing very well such that they don't need to rely on public services. Otherwise, they do not.
You might think that's a statement of the bleeding obvious but I mention it because such small-state solutions work in high-wage, high-growth economies - such as Singapore and Hong Kong - and the height of its popularity here was in the late 1980s.
But, if you have slow or anaemic growth, as we have across much of the West since 2000, then most people aren't interested.
Absolutely. The key is how to get high-wage, high-growth.
A part of the problem for the past nearly fourteen years (not that you'd know it from the debates) that there has been growth but instead of going to wages its gone to the government. It hasn't gone to be spent by the government either, its gone to basically pay-off that which we were already paying for, closing the deficit.
Taxes as a share of the economy have been going up not down.
We need to find a way to reverse that and promptly. Get back to wages and growth going to people - and taxes as a share of the economy going down but still funding essential services.
High wages require higher productivity and the British economy has spent the past 15 years solving production issues by throwing more labour at the problem rather than productivity improvements
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Problem with building homes in the SE is it just creates more draw factor for both jobs and people.
How is meeting suppressed demand a problem? Sounds like a good thing to me.
I'm not saying it's not a good thing, just don't expect it to reduce house prices.
So people get houses they can own and existing owners don't end up in negative equity?
Presumably PB Lockdownistas will be popping up shortly to defend "No Earlier Than".
Ye gods, I'm fuming about the Pride news – I don't attend and wouldn't do so. But it's not about me, it's about the cultural life of our country being protected – and revived.
An absolute disgrace that this has been allowed to happen. How many more before the No Earlier Than nutters get the message?
We are stuck with No Earlier than due to the GIGANTIC FUCK UPS the government made in Summer, Autumn and Winter.
As a result we are stuck with excessive caution now.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Good luck with that one - that way lies poverty for any home owner in the south (says a person with a house that hasn't increased in value since 2005 as housing has kept up with demand as demonstrated by the 5000 houses that now exist between my home and the motorway).
"Poverty" is struggling to pay your rent, struggling to put a roof over your head, struggling to pay for your food, your heating, your energy.
Not seeing the home you own go down in value.
You were pretty young in the 1990s, weren't you?
Mass negative equity is utterly toxic. People struggle to move, if they can move house at all. So they can't move where the jobs are, they can't separate if their relationship breaks down. And it's younger people who get stuffed the most, because they bought at the highest prices and have had the least time to repay any of the principal.
The absurd house prices in the South are a massive problem, and really the answer is that things should never have got this way. And both Thatcher and Blair (the two great electoral successes of my lifetime) let house prices rip on their watches... unfortunately, I think there's a connection there.
But just saying "tough luck" to those who lose out from falling house prices isn't an answer either.
That's true, but just saying "tough luck" to those priced out of the market isn't an answer either.
One problem is we've become too good at abolishing inflation. We need some, moderate, inflation. That then massively reduces the risk of negative inflation and if house price rises can be kept to below the rate of general inflation and wage inflation then we can see real price/earnings ratios come down without negative equity.
Such a balance is very difficult to strike though.
The mystery is - how come inflation has disappeared as in theory it shouldn't have done given the amount of printing within the economy..
It hasn't disappeared - because of more competitive world product markets it's just mutated from consumer price inflation to asset price inflation.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
I have a theory (that I exercise judgement on in sharing with my ultra-Thatcherite free-market friends in the Tory Party, less they think I've gone "wet") which is that people like low-taxes and low-public spending provided they are doing very well such that they don't need to rely on public services. Otherwise, they do not.
You might think that's a statement of the bleeding obvious but I mention it because such small-state solutions work in high-wage, high-growth economies - such as Singapore and Hong Kong - and the height of its popularity here was in the late 1980s.
But, if you have slow or anaemic growth, as we have across much of the West since 2000, then most people aren't interested.
Absolutely. The key is how to get high-wage, high-growth.
A part of the problem for the past nearly fourteen years (not that you'd know it from the debates) that there has been growth but instead of going to wages its gone to the government. It hasn't gone to be spent by the government either, its gone to basically pay-off that which we were already paying for, closing the deficit.
Taxes as a share of the economy have been going up not down.
We need to find a way to reverse that and promptly. Get back to wages and growth going to people - and taxes as a share of the economy going down but still funding essential services.
However businesses don't want wage growth. Businesses don't really want a constrained labour market — they'd rather human resource was cheap. So how does that work?
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
It's still a stealth tax rise though, no matter how you frame it.
Only because you are assuming that personal allowances should increase. And they haven't in all places - the Scottish 40% band has increased for years and kicks in about £4000 before it does in the rest of the UK.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
I have a theory (that I exercise judgement on in sharing with my ultra-Thatcherite free-market friends in the Tory Party, less they think I've gone "wet") which is that people like low-taxes and low-public spending provided they are doing very well such that they don't need to rely on public services. Otherwise, they do not.
You might think that's a statement of the bleeding obvious but I mention it because such small-state solutions work in high-wage, high-growth economies - such as Singapore and Hong Kong - and the height of its popularity here was in the late 1980s.
But, if you have slow or anaemic growth, as we have across much of the West since 2000, then most people aren't interested.
Absolutely. The key is how to get high-wage, high-growth.
A part of the problem for the past nearly fourteen years (not that you'd know it from the debates) that there has been growth but instead of going to wages its gone to the government. It hasn't gone to be spent by the government either, its gone to basically pay-off that which we were already paying for, closing the deficit.
Taxes as a share of the economy have been going up not down.
We need to find a way to reverse that and promptly. Get back to wages and growth going to people - and taxes as a share of the economy going down but still funding essential services.
Germany has higher wages and higher skills because of higher levels of public investment and less short-termism across key areas of its economy. There's no sign of the current government's rhetoric on any of these themes matching the scale of the challenge anytime soon.
Story on the BBC of a woman who apparently given birth to nonuplets. Didn't even know anything beyond triplets was possible, sounds like a spoof piece!
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
It's still a stealth tax rise though, no matter how you frame it.
Only because you are assuming that personal allowances should increase. And they haven't in all places - the Scottish 40% band has increased for years and kicks in about £4000 before it does in the rest of the UK.
That has nothing to do with it though. I'm not putting forward an argument whether the government *should* have continued to increase the personal allowance or not, I'm merely stating that it is a tax increase.
The Government has made a conscious decision to not increase the personal allowance from date X. That omission results in a tax increase in real terms.
Of course if wages are increasingly at or above inflation, that shouldn't matter, but we'll see.
LONDON — India’s foreign minister, who is attending G7 meetings in London this week, said he’s been “made aware of exposure to possible COVID cases.”
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is taking part in the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting as a guest of the U.K. government, and is due to address his counterparts this afternoon on the latest wave of COVID-19 sweeping India.
He took part in a dinner Tuesday night with the foreign ministers of the G7 nations, Australia, South Korea and South Africa — all similarly invited as guests as the U.K. tries to deepen ties with the Indo-Pacific region.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
I have a theory (that I exercise judgement on in sharing with my ultra-Thatcherite free-market friends in the Tory Party, less they think I've gone "wet") which is that people like low-taxes and low-public spending provided they are doing very well such that they don't need to rely on public services. Otherwise, they do not.
You might think that's a statement of the bleeding obvious but I mention it because such small-state solutions work in high-wage, high-growth economies - such as Singapore and Hong Kong - and the height of its popularity here was in the late 1980s.
But, if you have slow or anaemic growth, as we have across much of the West since 2000, then most people aren't interested.
Absolutely. The key is how to get high-wage, high-growth.
A part of the problem for the past nearly fourteen years (not that you'd know it from the debates) that there has been growth but instead of going to wages its gone to the government. It hasn't gone to be spent by the government either, its gone to basically pay-off that which we were already paying for, closing the deficit.
Taxes as a share of the economy have been going up not down.
We need to find a way to reverse that and promptly. Get back to wages and growth going to people - and taxes as a share of the economy going down but still funding essential services.
However businesses don't want wage growth. Businesses don't really want a constrained labour market — they'd rather human resource was cheap. So how does that work?
Leaving the EU may have already done the trick. 🤷♂️
Migration now depends supposedly upon points-based and being prioritised for high-skilled, not bottomless unskilled immigration. If businesses now need to invest rather than just hiring ever more unskilled minimum wage people then we'll see what happens next.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
It's still a stealth tax rise though, no matter how you frame it.
Its not a stealth tax rise when the Chancellor announced it saying "let me be clear, this means higher taxes".
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
It's still a stealth tax rise though, no matter how you frame it.
About time there was a real stealth tax after all the years of media labelling things as stealth taxes.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Good luck with that one - that way lies poverty for any home owner in the south (says a person with a house that hasn't increased in value since 2005 as housing has kept up with demand as demonstrated by the 5000 houses that now exist between my home and the motorway).
"Poverty" is struggling to pay your rent, struggling to put a roof over your head, struggling to pay for your food, your heating, your energy.
Not seeing the home you own go down in value.
You were pretty young in the 1990s, weren't you?
Mass negative equity is utterly toxic. People struggle to move, if they can move house at all. So they can't move where the jobs are, they can't separate if their relationship breaks down. And it's younger people who get stuffed the most, because they bought at the highest prices and have had the least time to repay any of the principal.
The absurd house prices in the South are a massive problem, and really the answer is that things should never have got this way. And both Thatcher and Blair (the two great electoral successes of my lifetime) let house prices rip on their watches... unfortunately, I think there's a connection there.
But just saying "tough luck" to those who lose out from falling house prices isn't an answer either.
That's true, but just saying "tough luck" to those priced out of the market isn't an answer either.
One problem is we've become too good at abolishing inflation. We need some, moderate, inflation. That then massively reduces the risk of negative inflation and if house price rises can be kept to below the rate of general inflation and wage inflation then we can see real price/earnings ratios come down without negative equity.
Such a balance is very difficult to strike though.
The mystery is - how come inflation has disappeared as in theory it shouldn't have done given the amount of printing within the economy..
It hasn't disappeared - because of more competitive world product markets it's just mutated from consumer price inflation to asset price inflation.
Which assets have seen surging inflation?
House price to earnings ratios were lower nationwise in 2020 than they were in 2007.
Story on the BBC of a woman who apparently given birth to nonuplets. Didn't even know anything beyond triplets was possible, sounds like a spoof piece!
Funnily enough, when I was seven, my dad woke me up early one morning to tell me that Martians had landed outside (I was already well aware not to believe a word he said!). I looked out my window and saw a really strange contraption in the middle of our road.
Anyway, turned out it was GMTV and they were broadcasting live from the home of a couple who had had quadruplets:
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
Ha ha, I'd be gobsmacked if you agreed with me! And no doubt we would come at the winter of discontent and the 70s from ideological opposites to.
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
Story on the BBC of a woman who apparently given birth to nonuplets. Didn't even know anything beyond triplets was possible, sounds like a spoof piece!
Do you not remember the Walton sextuplets from Birkenhead? I think they were born early 80s and had a modicum of well-managed fame. I saw them at a Little Chef in North Wales once. I wonder how they're getting on now.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
Ha ha, I'd be gobsmacked if you agreed with me! And no doubt we would come at the winter of discontent and the 70s from ideological opposites to.
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
I have said similar for a while. Brexit was always more than just "Brexit" itself. However the likes of @HYUFD seems to think that because Brexit has been delivered, Brexit voters will be eternally grateful, no matter what happens next but that isn't the case. Brexit was a means to an end, not the end itself.
If the Conservatives deliver, they deserve their extended time in power. I doubt it though.
Story on the BBC of a woman who apparently given birth to nonuplets. Didn't even know anything beyond triplets was possible, sounds like a spoof piece!
Do you not remember the Walton sextuplets from Birkenhead? I think they were born early 80s and had a modicum of well-managed fame. I saw them at a Little Chef in North Wales once. I wonder how they're getting on now.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
Ha ha, I'd be gobsmacked if you agreed with me! And no doubt we would come at the winter of discontent and the 70s from ideological opposites to.
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
I'm five years younger than you. I came of age politically in Blair's time and I've never been able to just call a GP and get the phone answered straight away, but now I can use an app to get an appointment and not need to call at all.
I think we all want similar things, we just disagree on how to get them. The economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have improved many things - when you look at it objectively then we are better off by far than we were 40 years ago, even if people look with blinkered rose-tinted glasses at the past.
In 1977 people on average needed to spend 25% of their income on food.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
I was surprised given many will have had two jabs by then and aiui its largely outdoors.....so if we can't hold large outdoor gatherings in the UK in August, what chance foreign holidays? Crowded beaches & streets in Spain fine, crowded beaches & streets in the UK a danger to public health?
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
Ha ha, I'd be gobsmacked if you agreed with me! And no doubt we would come at the winter of discontent and the 70s from ideological opposites to.
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
I have said similar for a while. Brexit was always more than just "Brexit" itself. However the likes of @HYUFD seems to think that because Brexit has been delivered, Brexit voters will be eternally grateful, no matter what happens next but that isn't the case. Brexit was a means to an end, not the end itself.
If the Conservatives deliver, they deserve their extended time in power. I doubt it though.
Yes it's going to be interesting watching it all play out. Obviously these aren't normal times, and Johnson is spraying the wonga round big style. When a more normal Tory takes the reins in more normal times, and wants to turn off the taps, it could get messy.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
Ha ha, I'd be gobsmacked if you agreed with me! And no doubt we would come at the winter of discontent and the 70s from ideological opposites to.
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
I have said similar for a while. Brexit was always more than just "Brexit" itself. However the likes of @HYUFD seems to think that because Brexit has been delivered, Brexit voters will be eternally grateful, no matter what happens next but that isn't the case. Brexit was a means to an end, not the end itself.
If the Conservatives deliver, they deserve their extended time in power. I doubt it though.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Good luck with that one - that way lies poverty for any home owner in the south (says a person with a house that hasn't increased in value since 2005 as housing has kept up with demand as demonstrated by the 5000 houses that now exist between my home and the motorway).
"Poverty" is struggling to pay your rent, struggling to put a roof over your head, struggling to pay for your food, your heating, your energy.
Not seeing the home you own go down in value.
You were pretty young in the 1990s, weren't you?
Mass negative equity is utterly toxic. People struggle to move, if they can move house at all. So they can't move where the jobs are, they can't separate if their relationship breaks down. And it's younger people who get stuffed the most, because they bought at the highest prices and have had the least time to repay any of the principal.
The absurd house prices in the South are a massive problem, and really the answer is that things should never have got this way. And both Thatcher and Blair (the two great electoral successes of my lifetime) let house prices rip on their watches... unfortunately, I think there's a connection there.
But just saying "tough luck" to those who lose out from falling house prices isn't an answer either.
That's true, but just saying "tough luck" to those priced out of the market isn't an answer either.
One problem is we've become too good at abolishing inflation. We need some, moderate, inflation. That then massively reduces the risk of negative inflation and if house price rises can be kept to below the rate of general inflation and wage inflation then we can see real price/earnings ratios come down without negative equity.
Such a balance is very difficult to strike though.
The mystery is - how come inflation has disappeared as in theory it shouldn't have done given the amount of printing within the economy..
It hasn't disappeared - because of more competitive world product markets it's just mutated from consumer price inflation to asset price inflation.
Which assets have seen surging inflation?
House price to earnings ratios were lower nationwise in 2020 than they were in 2007.
But higher now than 2013 and more than double 1995.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
I was surprised given many will have had two jabs by then and aiui its largely outdoors.....so if we can't hold large outdoor gatherings in the UK in August, what chance foreign holidays? Crowded beaches & streets in Spain fine, crowded beaches & streets in the UK a danger to public health?
Spot on.
I agree. It is madness HMG doesn't underwrite these events. It might cost a billion but the boost to the tax take and national confidence will be worth ten times that
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
It's still a stealth tax rise though, no matter how you frame it.
Yes, the chancellor announcing it openly as a tax rise means it's a stealth tax. Sure.
Presumably PB Lockdownistas will be popping up shortly to defend "No Earlier Than".
Ye gods, I'm fuming about the Pride news – I don't attend and wouldn't do so. But it's not about me, it's about the cultural life of our country being protected – and revived.
An absolute disgrace that this has been allowed to happen. How many more before the No Earlier Than nutters get the message?
I'm not sure your anger is directed at the right place. Assuming there is no virus resurgence, things should be pretty much back to normal by late June, and Pride is on 7/8 August. The Pride organisers need to be sure that the event can go ahead now for planning purposes, and they need to know that there will be no social distancing rules, or guidance, in early August. Only the government can give this reassurance. Given the amount of money already spent on Covid, all the government has to do is tell the organisers that in the remote chance that the event has to be cancelled, they will recoup the costs incurred so far. No idea what those would be, but maybe 50-100K? It's a problem for sure, but not one provoked by pro-lockdowners.
I think we are arguing the same point from a different angle. It's the fault of government, I agree. If it could be underwritten, then no problem. It's the combination of the "No Earlier Than" messaging and the lack of underwriting that makes it a poisonous situation.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Good luck with that one - that way lies poverty for any home owner in the south (says a person with a house that hasn't increased in value since 2005 as housing has kept up with demand as demonstrated by the 5000 houses that now exist between my home and the motorway).
"Poverty" is struggling to pay your rent, struggling to put a roof over your head, struggling to pay for your food, your heating, your energy.
Not seeing the home you own go down in value.
You were pretty young in the 1990s, weren't you?
Mass negative equity is utterly toxic. People struggle to move, if they can move house at all. So they can't move where the jobs are, they can't separate if their relationship breaks down. And it's younger people who get stuffed the most, because they bought at the highest prices and have had the least time to repay any of the principal.
The absurd house prices in the South are a massive problem, and really the answer is that things should never have got this way. And both Thatcher and Blair (the two great electoral successes of my lifetime) let house prices rip on their watches... unfortunately, I think there's a connection there.
But just saying "tough luck" to those who lose out from falling house prices isn't an answer either.
That's true, but just saying "tough luck" to those priced out of the market isn't an answer either.
One problem is we've become too good at abolishing inflation. We need some, moderate, inflation. That then massively reduces the risk of negative inflation and if house price rises can be kept to below the rate of general inflation and wage inflation then we can see real price/earnings ratios come down without negative equity.
Such a balance is very difficult to strike though.
The mystery is - how come inflation has disappeared as in theory it shouldn't have done given the amount of printing within the economy..
It hasn't disappeared - because of more competitive world product markets it's just mutated from consumer price inflation to asset price inflation.
Which assets have seen surging inflation?
House price to earnings ratios were lower nationwise in 2020 than they were in 2007.
But higher now than 2013 and more than double 1995.
QE didn't start in 2013, in fact almost all of the pre-Covid QE that did occur did so before 2013, only a small amount happened in 2016.
Comparing 2013 (or 1995) with [start of] 2020 is not comparing like-for-like since its trough from after the recession being compared with peak before the recession. Comparing 2007/08 with 2019/20 is comparing like-for-like.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Good luck with that one - that way lies poverty for any home owner in the south (says a person with a house that hasn't increased in value since 2005 as housing has kept up with demand as demonstrated by the 5000 houses that now exist between my home and the motorway).
"Poverty" is struggling to pay your rent, struggling to put a roof over your head, struggling to pay for your food, your heating, your energy.
Not seeing the home you own go down in value.
You were pretty young in the 1990s, weren't you?
Mass negative equity is utterly toxic. People struggle to move, if they can move house at all. So they can't move where the jobs are, they can't separate if their relationship breaks down. And it's younger people who get stuffed the most, because they bought at the highest prices and have had the least time to repay any of the principal.
The absurd house prices in the South are a massive problem, and really the answer is that things should never have got this way. And both Thatcher and Blair (the two great electoral successes of my lifetime) let house prices rip on their watches... unfortunately, I think there's a connection there.
But just saying "tough luck" to those who lose out from falling house prices isn't an answer either.
That's true, but just saying "tough luck" to those priced out of the market isn't an answer either.
One problem is we've become too good at abolishing inflation. We need some, moderate, inflation. That then massively reduces the risk of negative inflation and if house price rises can be kept to below the rate of general inflation and wage inflation then we can see real price/earnings ratios come down without negative equity.
Such a balance is very difficult to strike though.
The mystery is - how come inflation has disappeared as in theory it shouldn't have done given the amount of printing within the economy..
It hasn't disappeared - because of more competitive world product markets it's just mutated from consumer price inflation to asset price inflation.
Which assets have seen surging inflation?
House price to earnings ratios were lower nationwise in 2020 than they were in 2007.
Comparing a peak to a trough. Hardly a good comparison.
NEW: Poll of 1,500 Scots for @STVNews has SNP on course for a majority in tomorrow’s election, winning 50% of constituency vote to give the follow seat projection.
On the subject of tax and benefits, or wages, being the cause of the poverty trap - when I was at university the Unions were pushing to have the Minimum Wage reach £5 per hour. Its now more than doubled in that time, when inflation has not more than doubled prices in the same period. £4.20 that the minimum wage was in 2002 is worth £6.99 in 2020 according to the Bank of England calculator. £5 that the Unions were campaigning for in 2002 is worth £8.31 in 2020 money, less than the minimum wage of £8.72
The problem is not the minimum wage the problem is that people earning the minimum wage face a real tax rate of upto 90%. It doesn't matter if you increase the minimum wage to £9, £10, £15 or £20 - so long as you keep taxing people 90% of what they earn, they won't see the benefits of that increase.
Means-tested benefits may sound generous, "lets give money to those that need it", but they are economically evil. They trap people in poverty.
The solution is simple but unpopular on both the left and the right. Abolish all means-tested benefits. Replace these with a Universal Basic Income. Then tax people with a clean, simple tax rate on whatever they earn. No new means-tested benefits to "aid" the poor that just then ensure they are either trapped in poverty, or £1 above the poverty line wherever you've drawn it.
If any party pledged this, even the Labour Party, I would vote for them.
I’ve seen numbers that just about work in the U.K. if you were to pay UBI to children at about 80%, and scrap the personal allowance and the 20% income tax rate, leaving everyone to pay 40% on all income including capital gains and investment income.
The problem is the massive number of edge cases who end up significantly worse off (in areas of expensive rent currently paid with housing benefit) and increased incentive to have a large number of children instead of working.
Yep - the problem with all the solutions is - you can't do that from this starting point..
Philip has a point that the effective taper rate is 90% and so too high but how on earth do you reduce it.
Especially if the only way those people are providing services in the South East is thanks to their subsidised housing.
You build more houses in the SE and fix that first.
Good luck with that one - that way lies poverty for any home owner in the south (says a person with a house that hasn't increased in value since 2005 as housing has kept up with demand as demonstrated by the 5000 houses that now exist between my home and the motorway).
"Poverty" is struggling to pay your rent, struggling to put a roof over your head, struggling to pay for your food, your heating, your energy.
Not seeing the home you own go down in value.
You were pretty young in the 1990s, weren't you?
Mass negative equity is utterly toxic. People struggle to move, if they can move house at all. So they can't move where the jobs are, they can't separate if their relationship breaks down. And it's younger people who get stuffed the most, because they bought at the highest prices and have had the least time to repay any of the principal.
The absurd house prices in the South are a massive problem, and really the answer is that things should never have got this way. And both Thatcher and Blair (the two great electoral successes of my lifetime) let house prices rip on their watches... unfortunately, I think there's a connection there.
But just saying "tough luck" to those who lose out from falling house prices isn't an answer either.
That's true, but just saying "tough luck" to those priced out of the market isn't an answer either.
One problem is we've become too good at abolishing inflation. We need some, moderate, inflation. That then massively reduces the risk of negative inflation and if house price rises can be kept to below the rate of general inflation and wage inflation then we can see real price/earnings ratios come down without negative equity.
Such a balance is very difficult to strike though.
The mystery is - how come inflation has disappeared as in theory it shouldn't have done given the amount of printing within the economy..
It hasn't disappeared - because of more competitive world product markets it's just mutated from consumer price inflation to asset price inflation.
Which assets have seen surging inflation?
House price to earnings ratios were lower nationwise in 2020 than they were in 2007.
Comparing a peak to a trough. Hardly a good comparison.
I was actually comparing peak-to-peak, 2007 to 2019/20. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
Ha ha, I'd be gobsmacked if you agreed with me! And no doubt we would come at the winter of discontent and the 70s from ideological opposites to.
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
The point about park keepers and public tennis courts is one that has puzzled me ... that is, how come we could afford things like that in the 60s and 70s? Were they really halcyon days? I don't think it is to do with higher taxes back then (and by that I mean "take" not "rates") although I could be wrong there.
I think it's to do with what we (and by that I mean government) choose to spend money on - and I think New Labour has a lot to answer for here. Would you rather have park keepers and gardeners or would you prefer diversity officers and translation services for a million and one obscure languages? I know what I'd prefer, what I'd value as a taxpayer.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
In the long term, perhaps.
Which is what all government's should be working towards, with a deficit to bridge the gap cyclically.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
You're approaching this from an idealistic standpoint rather than from reality.
In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure.
And the way to fund more government expenditure is to have a well growing economy, with low tax rates and regulations, bringing in high tax revenues.
Trump's key tax breaks did not have the effect of increeasing revenue.
I did not support Trump's proposals or Trump.
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
The government is already raising taxes for low earners by stealth by freezing the personal allowance.
Technically it's not - that starts in April 2022.
Also it's after many years of absurdly generous increases.
It's still a stealth tax rise though, no matter how you frame it.
Yes, the chancellor announcing it openly as a tax rise means it's a stealth tax. Sure.
That has nothing to do with it.
The stealth element is that it is inflationary creep, not with how it was announced.
NEW: Poll of 1,500 Scots for @STVNews has SNP on course for a majority in tomorrow’s election, winning 50% of constituency vote to give the follow seat projection.
Not good. I don't see any problem with things like Pride happening.
Lewes Bonfire is the one thing I really want to go to this year. Fingers crossed Nov 5 isn't cancelled again.
I was surprised given many will have had two jabs by then and aiui its largely outdoors.....so if we can't hold large outdoor gatherings in the UK in August, what chance foreign holidays? Crowded beaches & streets in Spain fine, crowded beaches & streets in the UK a danger to public health?
Spot on.
I agree. It is madness HMG doesn't underwrite these events. It might cost a billion but the boost to the tax take and national confidence will be worth ten times that
Nuts
The problem, I guess, will be where the line is drawn. Saying yes to events x, y and z and no to events a, b and c is a recipe for a lot more anger directed at government than just a blanket no. It's a recipe for getting drawn into dozens of arguments it would rather not have (cf. the discontent engendered by the tiers system). Not saying it's right - just that I can understand why it's taking the approach it is.
"One Labour adviser said: “Over the last two years, lots and lots of people have moved out of London. That will have been accelerated by Covid. We read a lot about the red wall. No one has gone to Wycombe to find out what is driving down Steve Baker’s majority.
“The next Labour party that wins a national election is not going to win back all of the red wall, it is not going to win back all of Scotland, or all the southern seats it could win, it will do a little bit of everything, and it will probably involve seats like Bournemouth and High Wycombe.”
Nope - because the policies Labour need to win Bournemouth and High Wycombe won't work up north.
A little bit of everything isn't going to solve the issue of making Labour electable as you need a coherent set of policies and once you start cherry picking you don't have that.
Yes, there are two broad coalitions in British politics - Not-Labour and Not-Tories. But to win, the Not-Tories coalition has to cover a lot more mutually antagnostic ground (i.e. it has to appeal to Hartlepool and Hampstead, as well as Livingston and Llanelli). Whereas Not-Labour can win by basically winning medium- and small-town England plus a scattering of suburbs of Celts. Labour also faces the problem at present that if it tries to go too far towards Hartlepool it loses votes in Hampstead to Lib Dems and Greens, while if it tries to go too far towards Hampstead it loses votes in Hartlepool to the Conservatives. The Tories don't at present face an equivalent threat, having seen off the UKIP/Brexit/Reform threat. For now.
Except they do.
I would argue that the former red wall wants government spending — it wants the government to create jobs, investment, infrastructure. The Tory heartland wants thrift, less government intervention and low taxes.
How do you reconcile that over a long term? You can’t really. The more the Government goes big state on the North, it risks making the same mistake Labour did with their heartland.
This is a good point. Red wallers want to be able to ring their GP and get an appointment asap. They want, when they visit the GP or go to hospital, to see an English doctor, not one with a 'funny' accent. They want nice, well-maintained areas to live in. They want responsive councils who can quickly pick up fly tipping, or fill a pothole. They want comprehensive social care for themselves or their elderly relatives. They want the rich - who have been painted as liberal metropolitan elitist Remainers but in reality contains many Tories and their donors in the shires - to pay more tax to help fund all this. They want excellent education, including vocational education. They want the investment to attract industry.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
Almost everyone wants the NHS to work well. Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in. Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping. Almost everyone wants social care sorting. Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
I take your point. The thing is, Brexit voters in the red wall by and large remember when all this stuff existed - in their youth. And by and large it did, thanks to the post-war settlement. Red wallers have been conditioned to think all this was washed away by joining the EU, and forriners. When in reality it was washed away by Fatcher and the economic policies that the Tories still get tumescent for. That haven't delivered these outcomes in the red wall for 40 years. New Labour improved things, but not enough, which is partly why they're shafted now.
Needless to say, this Tory Red Waller disagrees with you. I'm not old enough to remember the seventies (or be alive then) but am curious what about the winter of discontent and the seventies in general met your description.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
Ha ha, I'd be gobsmacked if you agreed with me! And no doubt we would come at the winter of discontent and the 70s from ideological opposites to.
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
The point about park keepers and public tennis courts is one that has puzzled me ... that is, how come we could afford things like that in the 60s and 70s? Were they really halcyon days? I don't think it is to do with higher taxes back then (and by that I mean "take" not "rates") although I could be wrong there.
I think it's to do with what we (and by that I mean government) choose to spend money on - and I think New Labour has a lot to answer for here. Would you rather have park keepers and gardeners or would you prefer diversity officers and translation services for a million and one obscure languages? I know what I'd prefer, what I'd value as a taxpayer.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
Labour is too expensive now. That's the plain truth of it, especially in the public sector.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
The SNP’s hopes of winning a Holyrood majority are “hanging in the balance”, according to the final election poll by Ipsos MORI for STV News.
Nicola Sturgeon’s party need at least 65 seats to secure what they believe will be a mandate for a second independence referendum.
While a seat projection – to be treated with caution due to the nature of the electoral system – suggests the SNP could return 68 MSPs, the difference between a potential seven-seat majority and falling short of one is likely to come down to a handful of crucial tightly-contested seats.
And among likely voters, 13% and 15% told pollsters that they could still change their mind before they cast their constituency and regional votes respectively.
Comments
https://tinyurl.com/23kbkjuv
And, yes, it is bonkers.
They expect Brexit, and by extension the Tories, to deliver all this.
The problem is the Tory heartlands don't want to pay tax to improve the red wall. They didn't in the 80s when it deindustrialised, they didn't after the GFC, preferring instead austerity, and they don't now.
That tension can't last.
But you're entirely correct that this is simply assumed, rather than allowing any legal scrutiny.
That might well have been the case over here, too, in the 1930s.
The interesting and problematic thing about TKAM is that attitudes regarded as liberal either at the time it depicts, or indeed when it was written, seem rather less so now.
For today's school kids, it's an almost inaccessible past - yet for Joe Biden's generation, it's almost a contemporary novel.
Lee was very strongly attracted to Spanish anarchism at the time, and anarchists generally took the view that using the law to strike at oppressors was hypocritical and wrong. If you have a legitimate grievance against someone, you settle it personally.
We're so used these days to pacifism being a left wing thing that one needs to remember that this was certainly not the case in the 1930's.
The MSM
Wokeism
The Nats
The SCons
SLab
The Neoliberal consensus
Mossad
MI5
The CIA
All of them
Edit: I was going to add 'himself' but lol!
In reality, what there are are choices. What's good for one person (or grouping) is often not good for another. It's just false to deny this. There is such a thing as class interest. Using "class" here in its general meaning of "category". Egs, homeowners, renters, public sector workers, the low paid, the wealthy, the unemployed, women, disadvantaged ethnic minorities, car drivers, small business owners, Northerners, Londoners, investment bankers etc etc. All these people have "aspiration". But often their aspirations come at the price of the aspiration of others being stunted. Choices.
As for your opinion on what Labour needs to do, it's interesting and good to hear. But I have my own views and some of them are different to yours. If we drop the "class" shit and the "race and gender" shit, I'm not sure what shit we're left with. Other than meaningless shit.
To repeat, I respect your different perspective. In fact, the divergence of political opinion on the centre left is strikingly wide. We see that very clearly on here. There isn't the same level of disagreement on the Tory side. There's plenty but nothing like the range. This is one of Labour's biggest challenges imo. To fuse that together somehow.
Almost everyone wants a nice, well-maintained area to live in.
Almost everyone wants responsive Councils that deal with potholes and dly tipping.
Almost everyone wants social care sorting.
Almost everyone wants good jobs in their area.
Almost nobody wants to pay taxes, or social care charges themselves.
You are approaching this from a perspective that a good NHS etc means higher taxes, rather than a better economy with low taxes. If people can have a working economy, a decent job, to afford their own home, an NHS that works etc with low taxes then that should be enough for everybody but the most extreme zealots.
The nanobots are secret - and therefore haven't been patented...In the short-term, all those things means more government expenditure, in reality.
And the government is very reluctant to take on the liability. Even though, for summer events, the possibilities are either that the cost will be zero (because Covid will be conquered) or the cost will be the least of our problems (because Covid Part III will have washed up on our shores).
Labour leader @Keir_Starmer says the party is "fighting for every vote" and is "going into tomorrow in good spirit".
https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1389885765606330369
Interesting question is, will things be fine once we are back to normal? That is, will there not always be the worry in the insurance industry that the government will panic and shut everything down?
If it was up to me, as I've said earlier in this thread, I'd be cutting tax on the poorest in society, which is not what Trump did.
New Labour spent money until they ran out of it, but they had no long term solutions. The Tories have delivered for parts of the country and its time they deliver for the North too.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/tory-quarrels-betrayals-uk-post-brexit-future-barnier-eu
Ye gods, I'm fuming about the Pride news – I don't attend and wouldn't do so. But it's not about me, it's about the cultural life of our country being protected – and revived.
An absolute disgrace that this has been allowed to happen. How many more before the No Earlier Than nutters get the message?
FFS.
The allowance just determines when you hit the taper issues, but the taper issues themselves are what need to be fixed rather than just get people working 20 hours instead of 16 then stopping.
We'll find out in 48 hours.
Very good question...
I suppose what I want is a policy platform that's about bearing down on inequalities of class, race and gender, but presented in a way that looks like everyone's a winner.
We've seen with Brexit and "Boris" how it's possible to get people to go along with a project whose reality is very different to the rhetoric.
You might think that's a statement of the bleeding obvious but I mention it because such small-state solutions work in high-wage, high-growth economies - such as Singapore and Hong Kong - and the height of its popularity here was in the late 1980s.
But, if you have slow or anaemic growth, as we have across much of the West since 2000, then most people aren't interested.
'Spin me right round! I took this 360º panorama with my Mastcam atop “Mont Mercou,” a rock formation overlooking Gale Crater. It's made from 132 images of the terrain (rather than my hardware or the sky). Enjoy the view on desktop or via the
@YouTube app: '
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX6LEAqUx-E
https://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2021/april/parliaments-working-year-comes-to-a-close-2019-21-session-ends/
A part of the problem for the past nearly fourteen years (not that you'd know it from the debates) that there has been growth but instead of going to wages its gone to the government. It hasn't gone to be spent by the government either, its gone to basically pay-off that which we were already paying for, closing the deficit.
Taxes as a share of the economy have been going up not down.
We need to find a way to reverse that and promptly. Get back to wages and growth going to people - and taxes as a share of the economy going down but still funding essential services.
Sounds like a win/win to me not a problem.
As a result we are stuck with excessive caution now.
How To Operate A Human By Remote Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stAIp7NiFyk
My favourite line:
"Merging DNA with quantum computing will be both amazing and lethal"
The Government has made a conscious decision to not increase the personal allowance from date X. That omission results in a tax increase in real terms.
Of course if wages are increasingly at or above inflation, that shouldn't matter, but we'll see.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is taking part in the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting as a guest of the U.K. government, and is due to address his counterparts this afternoon on the latest wave of COVID-19 sweeping India.
He took part in a dinner Tuesday night with the foreign ministers of the G7 nations, Australia, South Korea and South Africa — all similarly invited as guests as the U.K. tries to deepen ties with the Indo-Pacific region.
https://www.politico.eu/article/subrahmanyam-jaishankar-g7-meeting-india-foreign-minister-coronavirus/
Migration now depends supposedly upon points-based and being prioritised for high-skilled, not bottomless unskilled immigration. If businesses now need to invest rather than just hiring ever more unskilled minimum wage people then we'll see what happens next.
House price to earnings ratios were lower nationwise in 2020 than they were in 2007.
Anyway, turned out it was GMTV and they were broadcasting live from the home of a couple who had had quadruplets:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/its-hard-to-believe-our-tiny-miracle-95884
I don't personally remember this golden age, I'm roughly the same age as you I think, I'm 43. But when I was a nipper you could ring your doctor, the phone would be answered straightaway, and you would get an appointment the same day. The local park had tennis courts and a bowling green and a permanent keeper who maintained them. All that kind of stuff has gone. Long gone.
The point I am making is that many, many red wallers of my acquaintance, who I discuss all this with, want a return to that world that existed when they were young, in the 50s and 60s, to well-funded public services, including social care and unemployment benefits, park keepers, all that kind of thing, that require higher taxes on business and well off individuals. Social housing, but not the brutalist concrete monstrosities of the past. And the economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have manifestly failed to deliver any of that, in fact they have constantly chipped away at it.
The return of all that stuff is what they expect of Brexit.
If the Conservatives deliver, they deserve their extended time in power. I doubt it though.
I think we all want similar things, we just disagree on how to get them. The economic orthodoxies of the past 40 years have improved many things - when you look at it objectively then we are better off by far than we were 40 years ago, even if people look with blinkered rose-tinted glasses at the past.
In 1977 people on average needed to spend 25% of their income on food.
Nuts
Comparing 2013 (or 1995) with [start of] 2020 is not comparing like-for-like since its trough from after the recession being compared with peak before the recession. Comparing 2007/08 with 2019/20 is comparing like-for-like.
SNP 68
Con 27
Lab 19
Green 11
LD 4
That’s 79 pro-independence MSPs - arguably a significant mandate for indyref 2.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1389899020278108164
I think it's to do with what we (and by that I mean government) choose to spend money on - and I think New Labour has a lot to answer for here. Would you rather have park keepers and gardeners or would you prefer diversity officers and translation services for a million and one obscure languages? I know what I'd prefer, what I'd value as a taxpayer.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
The stealth element is that it is inflationary creep, not with how it was announced.
Not saying it's right - just that I can understand why it's taking the approach it is.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Nicola Sturgeon’s party need at least 65 seats to secure what they believe will be a mandate for a second independence referendum.
While a seat projection – to be treated with caution due to the nature of the electoral system – suggests the SNP could return 68 MSPs, the difference between a potential seven-seat majority and falling short of one is likely to come down to a handful of crucial tightly-contested seats.
And among likely voters, 13% and 15% told pollsters that they could still change their mind before they cast their constituency and regional votes respectively.
https://news.stv.tv/politics/snps-hopes-of-majority-hanging-in-the-balance-stv-poll?top