The big dividing line in British politics – retirees who gave Johnson his majority – politicalbettin

System

The big dividing line in British politics – retirees who gave Johnson his majority – politicalbetting.com

There is some great analysis on voting behaviour in the latest edition of the New Statesman which today publishes the chart above in an article by Ben Walker.

Read the full story here

swing_voter

First...like my parents to vote every election...

swing_voter

Very interesting to see the argument put so starkly. For all the talk of Facebook, data, GOTV etc pensioners and their voting habits are one of the greatest certainties of British (or English?) politics. It helps explain the rise and fall of UKIP and for me BREXIT.

Young and not so young voters are all well and good for the Reds, but if you dont get them enthused (or believing their vote makes a difference) then reaching out to the grey vote sees a threat of losing your core to Green/LD etc.

For the conservatives do they just have to hope that as voters age they slip into voting Blue (like a comfy pair of slippers) or is there a 5-10-15 year demographic bomb that Cameron/Osborne tried to avert...

SeaShantyIrish2

In the United States, Blacks clearly saved Joe Biden in early 2020 and started him on the path to the Democratic nomination.

However, along with youth & suburban voters, it was seniors who were critical swing voters against Trump and for Biden in October & November 2020.

Scott_xP

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

felix

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

rcs1000

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

felix

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

rcs1000

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

For the avoidance of doubt in future posts, how should I best tag things so it is obvious they are humorous?

Toms

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

For the avoidance of doubt in future posts, how should I best tag things so it is obvious they are humorous?

As much as I hate to say it---a funny face.
I'm not sure I could bring myself to do that, however.

squareroot2

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

swing_voter

I wonder what the electoral divide is like on the decision to cut aid spending from 0.7of GDP, do older voters divide either way? My assumption would be that younger voters (below 40) would disagree with the cut whilst older voters perhaps more accepting? Bit like HMY Britannia 2.0 - is there an age divide over whether it should be launched or not?

noneoftheabove

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

Isnt the champagne now only for the retiree landlords whilst the educated workers refill their bottles of tap water?

felix

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

For the avoidance of doubt in future posts, how should I best tag things so it is obvious they are humorous?

I was referring to the header - as for humorous don't give up the day job.

noneoftheabove

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

When one political party shamelessly and successfully goes after one electoral group and structures society for their benefit at the expense of another, then such analysis is inevitable.

This is not the fault of either group but the parties.

SouthamObserver

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

MattW

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

Champagne socialists are wealthy not educated.

So in this analysis what about people who have GCSEs and A-levels?

Or people who are qualified to a level equivalent to a degree, but not a degree?

Also, we need to remember that in terms of the difference it makes, degrees are not worth anything close to how they used to be.

squareroot2

noneoftheabove said:

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

Isnt the champagne now only for the retiree landlords whilst the educated workers refill their bottles of tap water?

Filthy stuff champagne... expensive wine with bubbles. Wine equates to water so I guess you are not far off.

MattW

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

I can help you with the Oz one. A short online form and about 1 minute at the airport iirc.

If I have it correct, it will be a few years before the EU gets it's E-border in place. Presumably the **** of Brussels have been arguing about who gets to sit on which chair first, whilst the rest of the world gets on with stuff. Avoid France for a bit, until the borders and the President calm down.

Not sure where we are on this with E-Gates (?).

noneoftheabove

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

It was fought in that group but realistically Labour needs to do better with over 65s to have any chance. If the Tories can defend that group with their triple locks, ridiculous property prices and culture wars they will continue to win regardless of the 40-50s.

rkrkrk

Yes, succinctly put from Mike. Labour are doubly in trouble because the population is ageing.
But it is not set in stone that right wing parties win the elderly by this kind of margin... so how can Labour get the elderly to vote for them?

Not sure -> but policies like free university tuition, better job protection for workers, increased security for renters... all seem kinda irrelevant.

And the Tories have happily outflanked Labour in -> spending plenty on NHS, increasing value of state pension.

cupofvb

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers."

It also includes a huge majority of uni students surely and the underclass of the inner cities that don't work and in many instances have never worked.

People tend to become more conservative when they have something to conserve. If the Tories want to get their numbers up or keep them steady they need to do more on home affordability.

state_go_away

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

This stat is more to do with age (degrees and o levels etc were not handed out like confetti in 1970 ) than intelligence

noneoftheabove

cupofvb said:

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers."

It also includes a huge majority of uni students surely and the underclass of the inner cities that don't work and in many instances have never worked.

People tend to become more conservative when they have something to conserve. If the Tories want to get their numbers up or keep them steady they need to do more on home affordability.

That would get them some new voters sure, but what will it do to their property owning base? It will lose them more votes which is why the government use props such as help to buy, which is really help to inflate property prices, but convince some of the more gullible buyers that they are being helped.

squareroot2

rkrkrk said:

Yes, succinctly put from Mike. Labour are doubly in trouble because the population is ageing.
But it is not set in stone that right wing parties win the elderly by this kind of margin... so how can Labour get the elderly to vote for them?

Not sure -> but policies like free university tuition, better job protection for workers, increased security for renters... all seem kinda irrelevant.

And the Tories have happily outflanked Labour in -> spending plenty on NHS, increasing value of state pension.

No point in increasing state pension when it is more than wiped out by council tax increases and other associated costs. I am not better off overall. Just think.of the huge rise in heating oil and petrol and diesel.

SouthamObserver

noneoftheabove said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

It was fought in that group but realistically Labour needs to do better with over 65s to have any chance. If the Tories can defend that group with their triple locks, ridiculous property prices and culture wars they will continue to win regardless of the 40-50s.

Yep, the triple lock, high house prices and culture wars, plus increased NHS spending, are a strong base from which to keep the elderly voting Tory. It's a very hard proposition for Labour to better and it gives the Tories leeway to squeeze younger demographics - see the covid recovery plan for education, for example.

MarqueeMark

noneoftheabove said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

It was fought in that group but realistically Labour needs to do better with over 65s to have any chance. If the Tories can defend that group with their triple locks, ridiculous property prices and culture wars they will continue to win regardless of the 40-50s.

Their biggest defence has been in protecting the older cohorts from the Bastard Bug. The risk of death from it was far higher in the group that votes Conservative.

It might be considered appropriate that the older cohorts make some recompense for Covid restrictions being all about protecting them. Like, maybe giving up the triple lock. It might be considered political suicide, however...

IanB2

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

oggologi

Strange really because it is pensioners will use the NHS more, will need social care more, more benefits are paid out to pensioners than any other group, yet they predominantly support a political party that really is against all these things.
A Labour Government would enhance these for them.

swing_voter

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

It was fought in that group but realistically Labour needs to do better with over 65s to have any chance. If the Tories can defend that group with their triple locks, ridiculous property prices and culture wars they will continue to win regardless of the 40-50s.

Their biggest defence has been in protecting the older cohorts from the Bastard Bug. The risk of death from it was far higher in the group that votes Conservative.

It might be considered appropriate that the older cohorts make some recompense for Covid restrictions being all about protecting them. Like, maybe giving up the triple lock. It might be considered political suicide, however...

The Conservatives and T May are probably still traumatised by the 2017 GE `dementia tax' label

Scott_xP

Includes this from one ally of the Chancellor: "If we just start signing off massive cheques outside of a formal process, there lies mismanagement of taxpayers’ money." https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1400335278880010240/photo/1

felix

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

For the avoidance of doubt in future posts, how should I best tag things so it is obvious they are humorous?

I was referring to the header - as for humorous don't give up the day job.

noneoftheabove said:

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

When one political party shamelessly and successfully goes after one electoral group and structures society for their benefit at the expense of another, then such analysis is inevitable.

This is not the fault of either group but the parties.

The lemons are very bitter this morning.

oggologi

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

I'm more of a Prosecco socialist. Nowt wrong with that.

IanB2

Back down to 13C this morning, after yesterday's 17.5C, the highest early morning temperature I can remember ever seeing on my garden thermometer.

DecrepiterJohnL

Wasn't this retired vs students vs workers survey covered at great length in the last thread?

IanB2

oggologi said:

Strange really because it is pensioners will use the NHS more, will need social care more, more benefits are paid out to pensioners than any other group, yet they predominantly support a political party that really is against all these things.
A Labour Government would enhance these for them.

Labour campaigning incessantly on it, even in local council by-elections, ensures that the Tories can never get away with cutting the NHS (by much)?

OldKingCole

swing_voter said:

MarqueeMark said:

noneoftheabove said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

It was fought in that group but realistically Labour needs to do better with over 65s to have any chance. If the Tories can defend that group with their triple locks, ridiculous property prices and culture wars they will continue to win regardless of the 40-50s.

Their biggest defence has been in protecting the older cohorts from the Bastard Bug. The risk of death from it was far higher in the group that votes Conservative.

It might be considered appropriate that the older cohorts make some recompense for Covid restrictions being all about protecting them. Like, maybe giving up the triple lock. It might be considered political suicide, however...

The Conservatives and T May are probably still traumatised by the 2017 GE `dementia tax' label

Good morning; Not as bright this morning. Yet anyway.

I don't think that label did the Tories much good, but not all of us 'oldies' think only of ourselves; many of us are worried about the life prospects for our children and grandchildren.

And welcome to Mr (I assume) 'cupofvb'

IanB2

noneoftheabove said:

cupofvb said:

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers."

It also includes a huge majority of uni students surely and the underclass of the inner cities that don't work and in many instances have never worked.

People tend to become more conservative when they have something to conserve. If the Tories want to get their numbers up or keep them steady they need to do more on home affordability.

That would get them some new voters sure, but what will it do to their property owning base? It will lose them more votes which is why the government use props such as help to buy, which is really help to inflate property prices, but convince some of the more gullible buyers that they are being helped.

I qualified for some sort of help-to-buy scheme in the late 1980s when I bought my first flat. I only knew about the scheme because I followed politics - it had been very small print in one of Thatcher's budgets. You had to register for it in advance (two years as I recall), save a minimum amount each month in a designated building society account over the two years, and be a first-time buyer. When you applied for a mortgage you got a small grant - about £250 I think - and a small amount (either £2,500 or £5,000, can't remember) of the loan interest-free for the first three years.

When I went into the Woolwich to apply for my mortgage, the mortgage manager looked blank when I mentioned the scheme and said that he'd never heard of it. I insisted he checked and he left me sitting in his office for ages while he went and did so. He came back to say that I was right, adding that I was the only person in that branch who had ever managed to qualify for it.

Free money schemes seem easier to come by nowadays!

squareroot2

oggologi said:

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

I'm more of a Prosecco socialist. Nowt wrong with that.

Champagne socialists covers a wide area from cheap prosecco to hi end krug...

Foxy

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

Yes, this should be Labour's target age group, basically Centrist Dads like me. They have the advantage with Centrist Mums already. There will always be some left wing pensioners, and interestingly the LD vote is pretty even across all age groups.

I would suggest that policies aimed at the young can be popular with the middle aged too. Partly because we are worried about our teen and twenty-something kids getting established in life, but also because of more recent memories of being that age ourselves.

Reform of the Student Loan situation was quite popular with my age peers in 2017, and should be a centre-piece of Labour policy. Zero-interest would almost be a free policy as it is increasingly obvious that most are going to be written off anyway. Negative interest not such a bad idea too.

Social care funded by NI for pensioners too, with NI eventually being subsumed into income tax.

eek

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

cupofvb said:

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers."

It also includes a huge majority of uni students surely and the underclass of the inner cities that don't work and in many instances have never worked.

People tend to become more conservative when they have something to conserve. If the Tories want to get their numbers up or keep them steady they need to do more on home affordability.

That would get them some new voters sure, but what will it do to their property owning base? It will lose them more votes which is why the government use props such as help to buy, which is really help to inflate property prices, but convince some of the more gullible buyers that they are being helped.

I qualified for some sort of help-to-buy scheme in the late 1980s when I bought my first flat. I only knew about the scheme because I followed politics - it had been very small print in one of Thatcher's budgets. You had to register for it in advance (two years as I recall), save a minimum amount each month in a designated building society account over the two years, and be a first-time buyer. When you applied for a mortgage you got a small grant - about £250 I think - and a small amount (either £2,500 or £5,000, can't remember) of the loan interest-free for the first three years.

When I went into the Woolwich to apply for my mortgage, the mortgage manager looked blank when I mentioned the scheme and said that he'd never heard of it. I insisted he checked and he left me sitting in his office for ages while he went and did so. He came back to say that I was right, adding that I was the only person in that branch who had ever managed to qualify for it.

Free money schemes seem easier to come by nowadays!

Information is more generally available thanks to the internet than it was before then.

I remember having to make specific visits to the City of London Library to access details of things which I can now find in intimate detail within seconds.

IanB2

squareroot2 said:

oggologi said:

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

I'm more of a Prosecco socialist. Nowt wrong with that.

Champagne socialists covers a wide area from cheap prosecco to hi end krug...

Champagne socialists are common and even Prosecco socialism is becoming yesterday's thing.

The on-trend socialist should get some of this stuff and become a bona fide Lambrusco socialist:

https://www.vivino.com/GB/en/il-serraglio-saliceto-buzzalino-lambrusco-di-sorbara/w/2415165

Grown and made in 'red Emilia', the heartland of Italian communism.

It's actually very good, bone dry, outstanding for summer drinking and a rare find (not often seen in the UK) at only £15

DecrepiterJohnL

The Army has spaffed £3.5 billion on new tanks that can't be driven at more than 20mph or reverse over an obstacle more than 20cm high.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/02/new-british-tanks-costing-35bn-cannot-driven-safely-20mph-reveals/ (£££)

Foxy

squareroot2 said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

Degrees = champagne socialists

Hardly. Degree holders are the new precariat. Student debt sold to them as a gateway to white collar middle class life, yet living in overpriced rental accommodation and in insecure jobs. It is very different being a twenty something graduate nowadays than generations past.

MarqueeMark

Foxy said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

Yes, this should be Labour's target age group, basically Centrist Dads like me. They have the advantage with Centrist Mums already. There will always be some left wing pensioners, and interestingly the LD vote is pretty even across all age groups.

I would suggest that policies aimed at the young can be popular with the middle aged too. Partly because we are worried about our teen and twenty-something kids getting established in life, but also because of more recent memories of being that age ourselves.

Reform of the Student Loan situation was quite popular with my age peers in 2017, and should be a centre-piece of Labour policy. Zero-interest would almost be a free policy as it is increasingly obvious that most are going to be written off anyway. Negative interest not such a bad idea too.

Social care funded by NI for pensioners too, with NI eventually being subsumed into income tax.

"Zero-interest would almost be a free policy as it is increasingly obvious that most are going to be written off anyway."

I reckon Boris will do this soon - to cut Labour off from getting a popular policy.

Magpie Boris will be happy to leave Labour with a rag-tag of unpopular stuff.

Jonathan

Let’s flip this on it’s head. If the grey vote has turned away from Labour, there’s an opportunity. Focus on the young, families and workers. Arguably they have turned away from the Conservatives.

I suspect that if Labour developed a compelling vision of the future really meeting the needs of , the less jaded oldies will sign up.

IanB2

DecrepiterJohnL said:

The Army has spaffed £3.5 billion on new tanks that can't be driven at more than 20mph or reverse over an obstacle more than 20cm high.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/02/new-british-tanks-costing-35bn-cannot-driven-safely-20mph-reveals/ (£££)

Ideal for capturing towns that have "twenty's plenty" zones, provided they don't also have speed humps?

Morris_Dancer

Good morning, everyone.

Shocking incompetence on the tanks.

Jonathan

MarqueeMark said:

Foxy said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

Yes, this should be Labour's target age group, basically Centrist Dads like me. They have the advantage with Centrist Mums already. There will always be some left wing pensioners, and interestingly the LD vote is pretty even across all age groups.

I would suggest that policies aimed at the young can be popular with the middle aged too. Partly because we are worried about our teen and twenty-something kids getting established in life, but also because of more recent memories of being that age ourselves.

Reform of the Student Loan situation was quite popular with my age peers in 2017, and should be a centre-piece of Labour policy. Zero-interest would almost be a free policy as it is increasingly obvious that most are going to be written off anyway. Negative interest not such a bad idea too.

Social care funded by NI for pensioners too, with NI eventually being subsumed into income tax.

"Zero-interest would almost be a free policy as it is increasingly obvious that most are going to be written off anyway."

I reckon Boris will do this soon - to cut Labour off from getting a popular policy.

Magpie Boris will be happy to leave Labour with a rag-tag of unpopular stuff.

Labour needs to keep Boris talking about his unpopular decisions and let him explain how reality bites. Like catch up. Let Boris tell the nation why he cannot deliver.

ydoethur

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

The Army has spaffed £3.5 billion on new tanks that can't be driven at more than 20mph or reverse over an obstacle more than 20cm high.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/02/new-british-tanks-costing-35bn-cannot-driven-safely-20mph-reveals/ (£££)

Ideal for capturing towns that have "twenty's plenty" zones, provided they don't also have speed humps?

That’s Hyufd’s invasion of Scotland buggered then.

tlg86

IanB2 said:

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

Who are these pensioners not paying council tax? Asking because I want to make sure my parents aren't missing out on something.

Ultimately, the problem is that no democracy has ever gone down the road of only letting net tax payers vote. Should those employed in the public sector get a vote?

DavidL

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

So when Mike says Labour are the party of the workers, its a very particular type of worker and not the one they would traditionally expect. It is the University educated worker.

As we have observed before the Labour party has always been a coalition of the middle class intellectuals (who provide the bulk of the leadership) and the traditional working class but they have lost the latter and I don't really see SKS as the man to get them back. Of course, the former is a significantly larger proportion of the population than it used to be and in some seats it will be enough but even with ethnic minorities added on (and the Tories are going after the Indian immigrant community big time) it is hard to see a winning coalition without a better performance amongst the oldies.

DecrepiterJohnL

Boris Johnson reporting on supermarkets in 1998 (before he entered parliament).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0unyDh6wAo

ydoethur

tlg86 said:

IanB2 said:

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

Who are these pensioners not paying council tax? Asking because I want to make sure my parents aren't missing out on something.

Ultimately, the problem is that no democracy has ever gone down the road of only letting net tax payers vote. Should those employed in the public sector get a vote?

That was actually the default position of British democracy from 1867 to 1918, and an aspect of it lingered until 1928.

Of course, you may dispute it was a ‘democracy.’

IanB2

eek said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

cupofvb said:

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers."

It also includes a huge majority of uni students surely and the underclass of the inner cities that don't work and in many instances have never worked.

People tend to become more conservative when they have something to conserve. If the Tories want to get their numbers up or keep them steady they need to do more on home affordability.

That would get them some new voters sure, but what will it do to their property owning base? It will lose them more votes which is why the government use props such as help to buy, which is really help to inflate property prices, but convince some of the more gullible buyers that they are being helped.

I qualified for some sort of help-to-buy scheme in the late 1980s when I bought my first flat. I only knew about the scheme because I followed politics - it had been very small print in one of Thatcher's budgets. You had to register for it in advance (two years as I recall), save a minimum amount each month in a designated building society account over the two years, and be a first-time buyer. When you applied for a mortgage you got a small grant - about £250 I think - and a small amount (either £2,500 or £5,000, can't remember) of the loan interest-free for the first three years.

When I went into the Woolwich to apply for my mortgage, the mortgage manager looked blank when I mentioned the scheme and said that he'd never heard of it. I insisted he checked and he left me sitting in his office for ages while he went and did so. He came back to say that I was right, adding that I was the only person in that branch who had ever managed to qualify for it.

Free money schemes seem easier to come by nowadays!

Information is more generally available thanks to the internet than it was before then.

I remember having to make specific visits to the City of London Library to access details of things which I can now find in intimate detail within seconds.

the Barbican one? That was a great library. The music library was particularly good; when I worked near there I used to pop in now and again to borrow some cassette tapes. Which is definitely showing my age.

Philip_Thompson

As others have said, excluding pension age (some of whom work) while including students and the unemployed etc as "workers" is going to completely distort the picture.

The chart above shows working age, it does not show workers. That Labour wins the young is not news.

ydoethur

Morris_Dancer said:

Good morning, everyone.

Shocking incompetence on the tanks.

Shocking? I would have said it was pretty standard for the MoD, personally. Remember, this is the organisation that gave us the SA80, a rifle that famously couldn’t fire, and when it did, wouldn’t load the next cartridge.

NerysHughes

Whats this?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57337165

"It is not rocket science, we know the virus is airborne, we know surgical masks don't protect you from airborne viruses, and we're still in a dangerous situation with new variants."

Im sure the masks that Poundland are selling offer far more protection.

IanB2

tlg86 said:

IanB2 said:

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

Who are these pensioners not paying council tax? Asking because I want to make sure my parents aren't missing out on something.

Ultimately, the problem is that no democracy has ever gone down the road of only letting net tax payers vote. Should those employed in the public sector get a vote?

It's the standard council tax support scheme, which is capped for those below retirement age such that they must pay a proportion (varying by council) of the tax, but still offers low income pensioners full support, by order of the government.

Foxy

tlg86 said:

IanB2 said:

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

Who are these pensioners not paying council tax? Asking because I want to make sure my parents aren't missing out on something.

Ultimately, the problem is that no democracy has ever gone down the road of only letting net tax payers vote. Should those employed in the public sector get a vote?

That policy would disenfranchise pretty much all pensioners too.

Scott_xP

DavidL said:

the traditional working class but they have lost the latter

The "traditional" work is gone. Heavy manual labour in heavily unionized industries was the foundation of labour. It's little wonder that element of their support is dwindling

Jonathan

So if Labour is the party that appeals to hearts and minds, what are the Tories appealing to, baser instincts? Boris feels like a sugar craving.

MarqueeMark

oggologi said:

Strange really because it is pensioners will use the NHS more, will need social care more, more benefits are paid out to pensioners than any other group, yet they predominantly support a political party that really is against all these things.
A Labour Government would enhance these for them.

But at the price of taxing their children and grandchildren to hell and back....

DavidL

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

When I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

RochdalePioneers

Foxy said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

Yes, this should be Labour's target age group, basically Centrist Dads like me. They have the advantage with Centrist Mums already. There will always be some left wing pensioners, and interestingly the LD vote is pretty even across all age groups.

I would suggest that policies aimed at the young can be popular with the middle aged too. Partly because we are worried about our teen and twenty-something kids getting established in life, but also because of more recent memories of being that age ourselves.

Reform of the Student Loan situation was quite popular with my age peers in 2017, and should be a centre-piece of Labour policy. Zero-interest would almost be a free policy as it is increasingly obvious that most are going to be written off anyway. Negative interest not such a bad idea too.

Social care funded by NI for pensioners too, with NI eventually being subsumed into income tax.

Student Loans are totemic for students and recent graduates, and economically stupid for the government. I am encouraging my son to borrow as much as they will give him and then not just burn it.

His intended profession is teaching. He will need to rise a long way through the ranks to start paying any of it back. Which means it is essentially free money as it was for my wife on the older system.

Question - such a system where the government allows vast loans to be written off seems to be extraordinarily generous. Are we sure it isn't QE via the back door? No, we aren't having to bail out banks, we're just injecting them with printed money which generates an "income stream" which can sit on their balance sheets. Not QE at all...

IanB2

RochdalePioneers said:

Foxy said:

SouthamObserver said:

The battle for electoral success is fought in the 40 to 50 age group. The Tories won in 2019 by moving the age point at which they got most votes down to 39. In 2017, it was further into the 40s.

Yes, this should be Labour's target age group, basically Centrist Dads like me. They have the advantage with Centrist Mums already. There will always be some left wing pensioners, and interestingly the LD vote is pretty even across all age groups.

I would suggest that policies aimed at the young can be popular with the middle aged too. Partly because we are worried about our teen and twenty-something kids getting established in life, but also because of more recent memories of being that age ourselves.

Reform of the Student Loan situation was quite popular with my age peers in 2017, and should be a centre-piece of Labour policy. Zero-interest would almost be a free policy as it is increasingly obvious that most are going to be written off anyway. Negative interest not such a bad idea too.

Social care funded by NI for pensioners too, with NI eventually being subsumed into income tax.

Student Loans are totemic for students and recent graduates, and economically stupid for the government. I am encouraging my son to borrow as much as they will give him and then not just burn it.

His intended profession is teaching. He will need to rise a long way through the ranks to start paying any of it back. Which means it is essentially free money as it was for my wife on the older system.

Question - such a system where the government allows vast loans to be written off seems to be extraordinarily generous. Are we sure it isn't QE via the back door? No, we aren't having to bail out banks, we're just injecting them with printed money which generates an "income stream" which can sit on their balance sheets. Not QE at all...

This was both the genius and the folly of the LibDems.

Hotter on the detail than the Tories, they got a scheme that, in effect, is a graduate tax where very many students won't have to pay much, or anything.

The mistake they made was to overlook that electoral politics is won and lost on the big picture.

RochdalePioneers

cupofvb said:

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers."

It also includes a huge majority of uni students surely and the underclass of the inner cities that don't work and in many instances have never worked.

People tend to become more conservative when they have something to conserve. If the Tories want to get their numbers up or keep them steady they need to do more on home affordability.

Ordinarily yes, though I struggle to see what is conservative about this government. You want a radical non-conservative policy, up to and including the break up of the UK as a cohesive structure? They've got it!

Honestly I think this is why the Cult has become so popular. People actually like change and when it is offered they vote for it - Thatcher, Blair, Johnson. Boring do nothing government is, well, boring!

Charles

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

How many of Labour’s “degree” supporters are people who wouldn’t have had a degree before Major’s reforms to the poly system?

We just need to be careful we are looking at consistent bases

Scott_xP

From GMB

'Gavin Williamson is so incompetent that it makes you nostalgic for Chris Grayling.'

eek

IanB2 said:

eek said:

IanB2 said:

noneoftheabove said:

cupofvb said:

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers."

It also includes a huge majority of uni students surely and the underclass of the inner cities that don't work and in many instances have never worked.

People tend to become more conservative when they have something to conserve. If the Tories want to get their numbers up or keep them steady they need to do more on home affordability.

That would get them some new voters sure, but what will it do to their property owning base? It will lose them more votes which is why the government use props such as help to buy, which is really help to inflate property prices, but convince some of the more gullible buyers that they are being helped.

I qualified for some sort of help-to-buy scheme in the late 1980s when I bought my first flat. I only knew about the scheme because I followed politics - it had been very small print in one of Thatcher's budgets. You had to register for it in advance (two years as I recall), save a minimum amount each month in a designated building society account over the two years, and be a first-time buyer. When you applied for a mortgage you got a small grant - about £250 I think - and a small amount (either £2,500 or £5,000, can't remember) of the loan interest-free for the first three years.

When I went into the Woolwich to apply for my mortgage, the mortgage manager looked blank when I mentioned the scheme and said that he'd never heard of it. I insisted he checked and he left me sitting in his office for ages while he went and did so. He came back to say that I was right, adding that I was the only person in that branch who had ever managed to qualify for it.

Free money schemes seem easier to come by nowadays!

Information is more generally available thanks to the internet than it was before then.

I remember having to make specific visits to the City of London Library to access details of things which I can now find in intimate detail within seconds.

the Barbican one? That was a great library. The music library was particularly good; when I worked near there I used to pop in now and again to borrow some cassette tapes. Which is definitely showing my age.

The Business one which used to be on London Wall.

Philip_Thompson

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

rcs1000 said:

felix said:

There was much talk of this on the last thread.

"So while Labour goes through the current self-examination of how it can stop losing elections it can take some comfort by still being the party of workers." From the header. do these figures exclude both students and the unemployed I wonder. And do the include those retirees who continue to work on a full or part time basis. The phrase also seems to denigrate retirees almost suggesting they have never been workers.

The reality is that those who do not yet understand how the world works vote Labour, while those who have forgotten how it works, vote Conservative.

And for actual "workers" it probably splits three ways: Labour, Conservative and How Do I Fill Out This Australian Visa Application Form Anyway?

This kind iof analysis also tends to demonise 'voter groups' - the old become greedy and selfish/the young are idle and feckless depending on your political bias.

For the avoidance of doubt in future posts, how should I best tag things so it is obvious they are humorous?

Traditionally 😉 would indicate that but nowadays 😂 is more popular. 😜

IanB2

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

When I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

DavidL

Scott_xP said:

DavidL said:

the traditional working class but they have lost the latter

The "traditional" work is gone. Heavy manual labour in heavily unionized industries was the foundation of labour. It's little wonder that element of their support is dwindling

Sure, and the current work structures are much more difficult to organise but there are millions now working with the uncertainties of casual labour, the fragility of "self employment" and the grim existence of minimum wage. The fact that Labour is behind the Tories in this group is really remarkable but suggests to me that Labour has not been offering them much since Brown introduced WTCs a long time ago now. Its why I suggested my workers charter thread. They really should be a soft and obvious target for Labour.

Jonathan

Charles said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

How many of Labour’s “degree” supporters are people who wouldn’t have had a degree before Major’s reforms to the poly system?

We just need to be careful we are looking at consistent bases

A “degree” is a degree is a degree. Some of the polys provide a better education than the old world.

MaxPB

I'm not sure this holds water, you'd have to split this into working vs not working with the latter also getting students, unemployed and inactive and the former getting 67+ workers. I don't know what that picture looks like tbh.

tlg86

IanB2 said:

tlg86 said:

IanB2 said:

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

Who are these pensioners not paying council tax? Asking because I want to make sure my parents aren't missing out on something.

Ultimately, the problem is that no democracy has ever gone down the road of only letting net tax payers vote. Should those employed in the public sector get a vote?

It's the standard council tax support scheme, which is capped for those below retirement age such that they must pay a proportion (varying by council) of the tax, but still offers low income pensioners full support, by order of the government.

Just a quick Google and I found this:

https://www.woking.gov.uk/benefits/council-tax-support

https://www.woking.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/benefits/Council Tax Support Scheme 2021.pdf

From 1 April 2013, council tax support in the form of council tax benefit was abolished. It is the duty of each local authority in England to have localised council tax support, in the form of a council tax reduction scheme.

So the central benefit was abolished by the coalition government. In Woking:

If you’re of working age, you cannot apply for Council Tax support if you and/or your partner have more than £10,000 in capital (money held in banks accounts, investments and properties held in your names).

For pensioners, the capital limit is £16,000.

IanB2

tlg86 said:

IanB2 said:

tlg86 said:

IanB2 said:

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

Who are these pensioners not paying council tax? Asking because I want to make sure my parents aren't missing out on something.

Ultimately, the problem is that no democracy has ever gone down the road of only letting net tax payers vote. Should those employed in the public sector get a vote?

It's the standard council tax support scheme, which is capped for those below retirement age such that they must pay a proportion (varying by council) of the tax, but still offers low income pensioners full support, by order of the government.

Just a quick Google and I found this:

https://www.woking.gov.uk/benefits/council-tax-support

https://www.woking.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/benefits/Council Tax Support Scheme 2021.pdf

From 1 April 2013, council tax support in the form of council tax benefit was abolished. It is the duty of each local authority in England to have localised council tax support, in the form of a council tax reduction scheme.

So the central benefit was abolished by the coalition government. In Woking:

If you’re of working age, you cannot apply for Council Tax support if you and/or your partner have more than £10,000 in capital (money held in banks accounts, investments and properties held in your names).

For pensioners, the capital limit is £16,000.

Yes, formally it's a local scheme - but, aside from discretion on the detail of how the contribution by low income working age people is assessed - many of the rules, including the mandatory requirement that low income pensioners are fully protected - are still set by the government. It suited HMG to rebadge it as a local scheme as they could then get local councils to pay for it.

DavidL

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

Wheng I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

Yes the heart of the argument is that it tends to make government policy rather short termist and not put enough emphasis on things like global warming and environmental factors. I am not sure that is entirely accurate but it is what is contended.

Sean_F

It's quite striking that every single segment of the population that has a higher than average propensity to vote Conservative also has a higher than average propensity to turn out to vote, according to IPSOS Mori. The highest turnout, 80%, was among degree holders aged over 55, who split 49/25 in favour of the Conservatives.

Morris_Dancer

Mr. L, I think that's crackers.

The biggest bar to the younger and middling age people having political weight is their decision to vote in lower numbers than the elderly.

Charles

Jonathan said:

Charles said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

How many of Labour’s “degree” supporters are people who wouldn’t have had a degree before Major’s reforms to the poly system?

We just need to be careful we are looking at consistent bases

A “degree” is a degree is a degree. Some of the polys provide a better education than the old world.

Just to be clear I wasn’t using the inverted commas in a disparaging way, just for classification.

My point is simply that a large percentage of people who are classed as having degrees now wouldn’t have had degrees 30 years ago.

So - as someone else pointed out - part of this data set needs to be controlled for age. In addition, I suspect that people who get a degree in a non academic subject from a less recognised university are more likely to struggle economically (plus have student debt) so - once again - the data isn’t comparable over time

DecrepiterJohnL

Gay people are cleverer, more advanced than straights. According to this BBC report, gays had photography in the 18th Century (see the picture captions).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-57176199

IanB2

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

Wheng I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

Yes the heart of the argument is that it tends to make government policy rather short termist and not put enough emphasis on things like global warming and environmental factors. I am not sure that is entirely accurate but it is what is contended.

If you weighted votes by the average expected number of decades of life remaining, in bands based on the midpoint, the weightings would be pretty straightforward:

Under 30s: six votes
30-40: five votes
40-50: four votes
50-60: three votes
60-70: two votes
70 and over: one vote

Sean_F

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

Wheng I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

Yes the heart of the argument is that it tends to make government policy rather short termist and not put enough emphasis on things like global warming and environmental factors. I am not sure that is entirely accurate but it is what is contended.

It's a very old argument in a new guise. Once upon a time, the argument was that the lower classes should not be enfranchised (or alternatively, the franchise should be weighted in favour of the wealthy) because then they'd just vote for all sorts of free stuff.

DavidL

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. L, I think that's crackers.

The biggest bar to the younger and middling age people having political weight is their decision to vote in lower numbers than the elderly.

The object of the exercise is of course to have a debate where there are strong arguments on both sides. A proposition that has general acceptance is obviously useless. Today's debate is that politicians should be banned from social media. The arguments are that SM is polarising and creates bubbles as per Trumpsters and that the MSM are a biased filter which stops the politicians addressing the real concerns of the populace. Plenty to say for both arguments really.

Jonathan

Charles said:

Jonathan said:

Charles said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

How many of Labour’s “degree” supporters are people who wouldn’t have had a degree before Major’s reforms to the poly system?

We just need to be careful we are looking at consistent bases

A “degree” is a degree is a degree. Some of the polys provide a better education than the old world.

Just to be clear I wasn’t using the inverted commas in a disparaging way, just for classification.

My point is simply that a large percentage of people who are classed as having degrees now wouldn’t have had degrees 30 years ago.

So - as someone else pointed out - part of this data set needs to be controlled for age. In addition, I suspect that people who get a degree in a non academic subject from a less recognised university are more likely to struggle economically (plus have student debt) so - once again - the data isn’t comparable over time

I think you are wrong, an engineer or healthcare professional from a poly is more immediately economically useful than, say, a theologian from Cambridge. I know a couple of the latter. Good grief.

The way you classify people with a degree is the same today as it was 30 years ago. They have a degree.

DavidL

Sean_F said:

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

Wheng I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

Yes the heart of the argument is that it tends to make government policy rather short termist and not put enough emphasis on things like global warming and environmental factors. I am not sure that is entirely accurate but it is what is contended.

It's a very old argument in a new guise. Once upon a time, the argument was that the lower classes should not be enfranchised (or alternatively, the franchise should be weighted in favour of the wealthy) because then they'd just vote for all sorts of free stuff.

I seem to vaguely recall a very unPC comment from Churchill that ever since women got the vote every election was about the price of butter! But weighted voting schemes such as an extra vote for a degree or owning a house or employing more than 10 people are also quite popular.

tlg86

The reason Boris Johnson won a majority in 2019 was mainly because the Left vote splintered a bit from the 2017 election, but the Tories did do a little bit better among 35 to 54 year olds.

What is clear, however, is that Brexit has accentuated the age divide.

https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/2429229/

Fysics_Teacher

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

Wheng I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

Yes the heart of the argument is that it tends to make government policy rather short termist and not put enough emphasis on things like global warming and environmental factors. I am not sure that is entirely accurate but it is what is contended.

If you weighted votes by the average expected number of decades of life remaining, in bands based on the midpoint, the weightings would be pretty straightforward:

Under 30s: six votes
30-40: five votes
40-50: four votes
50-60: three votes
60-70: two votes
70 and over: one vote

Basically more votes to people who are going to vote the way I want.

How is this idea any better than what the GOP are doing in the states?

Dura_Ace

swing_voter said:

Bit like HMY Britannia 2.0 - is there an age divide over whether it should be launched or not?

The first render of HMY Flaggy McFlagface has appeared and it looks like Cammell Laird are designing it in Roblox.




The fact that estimated cost has doubled since Johnson started going on about it will, of course, be of no concern to the tories.

ydoethur

DavidL said:

Sean_F said:

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

Wheng I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

Yes the heart of the argument is that it tends to make government policy rather short termist and not put enough emphasis on things like global warming and environmental factors. I am not sure that is entirely accurate but it is what is contended.

It's a very old argument in a new guise. Once upon a time, the argument was that the lower classes should not be enfranchised (or alternatively, the franchise should be weighted in favour of the wealthy) because then they'd just vote for all sorts of free stuff.

I seem to vaguely recall a very unPC comment from Churchill that ever since women got the vote every election was about the price of butter! But weighted voting schemes such as an extra vote for a degree or owning a house or employing more than 10 people are also quite popular.

A foolish argument, since in 1906 many women told their husbands they had to vote Liberal if they wanted to keep the price of bread low enough to feed their families. It was an important factor in the Liberal landslide of that year, which remains the Unionist/Conservative party’s worst ever electoral defeat and the only election since 1832 in which their leader lost his seat.

DavidL

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

IanB2 said:

DavidL said:

Incidentally my son has been very active in school debating for a couple of years now and indeed has his house cup competition today. It is a very common motion that the voting of those over 75 should either be restricted or down weighted in some way so that the young are encouraged to take part and the policy mix is better focused in their direction.

Wheng I first heard of this idea I had some considerable difficultly in reconciling it with democracy but there is no doubt that our policy mix has been heavily influenced by the increasing number of the elderly and their propensity to vote. The triple lock is perhaps the most egregious example but there are many others. The motion tends to win amongst school kids!

Doing it on the basis of economic inactivity is clearly invidious and overlooks that many younger people are similarly inactive, as others have said.

The best argument in favour would be to weight votes by average remaining life expectancy, which would upweight the votes of the young on the grounds that they will suffer the consequences of today's policy decisions for much longer.

Yes the heart of the argument is that it tends to make government policy rather short termist and not put enough emphasis on things like global warming and environmental factors. I am not sure that is entirely accurate but it is what is contended.

If you weighted votes by the average expected number of decades of life remaining, in bands based on the midpoint, the weightings would be pretty straightforward:

Under 30s: six votes
30-40: five votes
40-50: four votes
50-60: three votes
60-70: two votes
70 and over: one vote

I am not saying I support the idea but it is interesting to think just how different our policies would be if this came into effect. We'd still be in the EU for a start.

ydoethur

Dura_Ace said:

swing_voter said:

Bit like HMY Britannia 2.0 - is there an age divide over whether it should be launched or not?

The first render of HMY Flaggy McFlagface has appeared and it looks like Cammelj Laird are designing it in Roblox.




The fact that estimated cost has doubled since Johnson started going on about it will, of course, be of no concern to the tories.

But will it be able to do 20mph over speed bumps?

Dura_Ace

DecrepiterJohnL said:

The Army has spaffed £3.5 billion on new tanks that can't be driven at more than 20mph or reverse over an obstacle more than 20cm high.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/02/new-british-tanks-costing-35bn-cannot-driven-safely-20mph-reveals/ (£££)

The Ajax isn't a tank it's an AFV. I mean the procurement is still criminally incompetent but the torygraph could at least get the flavour of criminal incompetence correct.

Morris_Dancer

The problem Labour has UK wide is akin to the unionist problem in Scotland.

Pro-independence voters are unified, pretty much, behind the SNP (with a few voting for the male angler fish of the Greens). The unionist side is splintered among many parties of comparable strength.

Leavers have largely backed the Conservatives. The Remain vote has splintered. This has been exacerbated primarily by Labour having a far left lunatic in charge for four years, and a lacklustre performance by Starmer so far.

IanB2

tlg86 said:

The reason Boris Johnson won a majority in 2019 was mainly because the Left vote splintered a bit from the 2017 election, but the Tories did do a little bit better among 35 to 54 year olds.

What is clear, however, is that Brexit has accentuated the age divide.

https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/2429229/

In 2010 Labour had pretty much achieved an even spread across the ages, as Clegg nicked many of the younger voters.

Big_G_NorthWales

tlg86 said:

IanB2 said:

The concern shouldn’t be about age per se, but about economic activity. That the economically inactive apparently have a stranglehold on our democracy is certainly not a healthy state of affairs, and leads to distorted policies that protect them whilst shifting the burden onto those still contributing to growing the economy.

A glaring example would be council tax support, where nowadays both the unemployed and the lowest income of working families have to pay a significant proportion of the council tax whereas millions of pensioners still have their council tax paid for them in full by order of HMG.

Who are these pensioners not paying council tax? Asking because I want to make sure my parents aren't missing out on something.

Ultimately, the problem is that no democracy has ever gone down the road of only letting net tax payers vote. Should those employed in the public sector get a vote?

I was surprised by that comment and have not heard it before

There is a reduction if the pensioner loses their spouse but not paying Council tax at all is not the case

I would need evidence of this to be honest

Fysics_Teacher

Jonathan said:

Charles said:

Jonathan said:

Charles said:

Scott_xP said:

@georgeeaton @bnhwalker From Ipsos Mori's post-GE2019 data.

No qualifications:

Con 59%
Lab 23%
LD 7%
Oth 11%

Degree or higher:

Lab 39%
Con 34%
LD 17%
Oth 10%

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2019-election

How many of Labour’s “degree” supporters are people who wouldn’t have had a degree before Major’s reforms to the poly system?

We just need to be careful we are looking at consistent bases

A “degree” is a degree is a degree. Some of the polys provide a better education than the old world.

Just to be clear I wasn’t using the inverted commas in a disparaging way, just for classification.

My point is simply that a large percentage of people who are classed as having degrees now wouldn’t have had degrees 30 years ago.

So - as someone else pointed out - part of this data set needs to be controlled for age. In addition, I suspect that people who get a degree in a non academic subject from a less recognised university are more likely to struggle economically (plus have student debt) so - once again - the data isn’t comparable over time

I think you are wrong, an engineer or healthcare professional from a poly is more immediately economically useful than, say, a theologian from Cambridge. I know a couple of the latter. Good grief.

The way you classify people with a degree is the same today as it was 30 years ago. They have a degree.

If the healthcare professional is a nurse then they would have been doing the same job thirty years ago, only without having to do a degree first.
My opinion on this is heavily biased by a friend who became a nurse before degrees were required and is scathing about the change in terms of the quality of nurses it now produces.

Jonathan

Boris’ super power is making complexity, reality and all the tough decisions that go along with seem to go away.

He doesn’t take the world seriously. And therefore let’s us all off the hook. If he doesn’t, we don’t have to either. Hugely appeal to some.

This doesn’t end well.

IanB2

DavidL said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. L, I think that's crackers.

The biggest bar to the younger and middling age people having political weight is their decision to vote in lower numbers than the elderly.

The object of the exercise is of course to have a debate where there are strong arguments on both sides. A proposition that has general acceptance is obviously useless. Today's debate is that politicians should be banned from social media. The arguments are that SM is polarising and creates bubbles as per Trumpsters and that the MSM are a biased filter which stops the politicians addressing the real concerns of the populace. Plenty to say for both arguments really.

Interesting to consider whether the benefits of SM to the politicians themselves outweigh the risks of their participation!?

Nigelb

ydoethur said:

IanB2 said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

The Army has spaffed £3.5 billion on new tanks that can't be driven at more than 20mph or reverse over an obstacle more than 20cm high.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/02/new-british-tanks-costing-35bn-cannot-driven-safely-20mph-reveals/ (£££)

Ideal for capturing towns that have "twenty's plenty" zones, provided they don't also have speed humps?

That’s Hyufd’s invasion of Scotland buggered then.

Set him back an entire generation...