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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » After a dramatic political year David Herdson looks at the big
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » After a dramatic political year David Herdson looks at the big picture
David Herdson in a London street
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*One of the forces for good in this world, and my charity of choice this Christmas.
I like Mr Herdson's Windsor Knot in his tie but the colour is, to say the least, ugh!
However, growing up in the 60s & 70s I recall confident predictions that 'oil would run out before the year 2000' and the limits of crop production would lead to widespread famine.
Humankind's ingenuity came to the rescue - and I'm optimistic it will do so again. While it's true that its politics rather than technology that will have to step up to the plate - as we've seen with both Trump & Brexit, at least they're now (mostly) listening.....
What really annoyed me about the Remain campaign in the EU referendum is not once did they put forward a case for reforming Britain in a way that was consistent with the four freedoms of the Single Market. I reckon we could reduce migration to this country from Eastern Europe by radically stripping back the welfare state. Essentially, I wanted to hear the Remainers advocating the removal of housing benefit, tax credits, the lot. I probably would have still voted Leave - but it would have made me think about it.
Of course, had any of the pro-Remain Tories gone down this road, it would have sparked a crisis with Labour and the Lib Dems. What's annoyed me further is the reaction to the Autumn statement. Before 23 June, the public finances were a complete mess. But the media didn't care. As far as they were concerned, the evil Tories were cutting too much. But post-Brexit, the borrowing figures are another reason why leaving the EU will be a disaster.
How will it end? I suspect there is another financial crisis coming towards us and that will swamp all the other political issues.
Globalisation seems to decrease inequality between countries at the expense of increasing inequality within them. It is important to keep some perspective though. USA incomes for the 90% may well be the same as in 1986, but that was a pretty good standard.
The conclusion of a recent study of Danes using social media concluded: "Instead of focussing on what we actually need we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have"
http://www.happinessresearchinstitute.com/download/i/mark_dl/u/4012182887/4624845731/The Facebook Experiment.pdf
If this is true of the famously content and wealthy state of Denmark, then how much more so of the rest of the world? and social media globalises everything. Smartphones and internet are increasingly global (as seen in many of the pictures of the refugees/migrants crossing the Mediterranean).
Populist movements are not just a product of the developed world, indeed the dangerous movement of Islamism has Populism as one of its aspects.
Take what we know of the Berlin Christmas killer: Born in provincial Tunisia to a large family, but poorly educated and with no real marketable skills. He bought himself a place to enter Europe from the people smugglers, and nearly his first act was one of anger and entitlement when he burnt down the migrant hostel that the Italian taxpayer had housed him in. After this he sought the better prospects in Germany, yet couldn't access the good life as he had none of the skills needed for even a low level legitimate job. His life became one of resentment and petty crime, fueled by resentment of the consumer culture that he craved, as well as radical Islamists who convinced him of entitlement to superiority over the kaffir.
The recent IS inspired attacks have often been attacks on consumerism. This Christmas market one, the promenade at Nice, the music fans of the Bataclan, the diners of Paris, the football fans of Paris, the shoppers of Nairobi, the clubbers of Orlando etc. There is obviously a religious streak to these attacks that legitimises violence, but also an anti-consumer angle as to why these soft targets were chosen. The surplus people of globalisation are a real risk.
On the other hand consumer trinkits are seductive, as are other aspects of Western Consumer culture. Chinese clothes, Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood movies, American music, TV and Movies, Facebook and Twitter all undermine the traditional power structures of the developing world. The Islamists hate it because they know that the people love it. It is the soft power that will break them, but it is not going to be quick or easy.
Song that's been number one for the last six weeks holds on to claim the Christmas No1 slot, with all the new releases nowhere and the 'Christmas' songs dominated by all the old classics.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/clean-bandit-claim-christmas-number-one-rockabye/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/25/tatouine-star-wars-town-tunisia-isis-waypoint-tatooine
The town’s name inspired George Lucas for the name of Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine, and die-hard fans often make pilgrimages to the sets elsewhere in the country. But the town has reportedly become increasingly unsafe, as it is a waypoint for Isis fighters travelling to and from training bases in Libya, 60 miles to the east
We could and should have done this within the EU, but will need to do so outside. Leaving the EU is not going to stop immigration, just switch it from the middle income countries of Eastern Europe to the poorer countries of Asia and Africa.
You can make the case for a more contributory system on its own merits, but on its own merits it generally sounds like a bad idea. The welfare system generally pays people the minimum the government thinks they can reasonably live on and the country won't generally want to just let non-contributors starve (which puts pressure on hospitals and law enforcement and may end up costing more), so to make the system more contributory you end up paying more welfare to people who have paid in, which is more expensive than the current system.
Do British people really want to pay more taxes to harmonize their welfare system with other parts of the EU?
I would prioritise early years welfare, secondary and tertiary education as it is clear the future economy will be a knowledge based one. Taxing middle income people only to return the money as tax credits is absurd.
To some extent even that is beside the point. Politics is perception, and a lot of voters are under the impression that they have worked all their lives to pay into a system to support themselves and their kith and kin in moments of difficulty, and don't see why other people who have as yet made no discernible contribution to the system should benefit in the same fashion. You might believe they are mistaken, but it wont stop them voting on that basis. A contributory system lances that political boil.
The problem with this narrative is that the main base of all these parties is retired people. Their incomes aren't doing too badly, and they benefit economically from globalization: People working and making stuff for them are cheaper, there are more taxpayers funding their government pensions, and if the assets they own (either directly or through pension funds) are worth more with more consumers. And nearly all the parties they're voting for advocate fewer regulations on businesses and lower taxes for rich people. I know it's sometimes possible to bury policies your voters don't like under ones that they do, but if you buy the economic dislocation argument the scale of the mismatch here is ridiculous.
Since the standard economic explanation makes no sense, we should instead listen to what these people are actually saying, which is mainly that they don't like immigrants, and they'd rather live in communities more like the ones they grew up in rather than having their culture suddenly change on them.
@AlsoIndigo there are nevertheless countries that make a much better stab at it than we do
Interesting thread, Mr. Herdson.
Mr. B2, I sympathise with your annoyance. For some reason, a single tab from the comment box shifted from posting it to logging me out. Used to it now, but it was very frustrating for the first couple of days.
On the reality, the only benefit that isn't normally available immediately is unemployment benefit, so your explanation would work if there were a lot of people showing up in the UK then claiming unemployment benefit for a long time. But there aren't.
"we should instead listen to what these people are actually saying, which is mainly that they don't like immigrants, and they'd rather live in communities more like the ones they grew up in rather than having their culture suddenly change on them."
The Establishment prefer to focus on economic causes because the other factors are uncomfortable for them. It's not fear of change as such but that the change is too fast and more importantly, that it is initiated by a self-elected group of self-important people.
Progressives (self-called) believe that only they understand the world and can make appropriate decisions. Democracy is viewed as a nuisance.
Most people aren't racist, homophobic or any other generalised insult. They understand that Muslims, immigrants or the LBGT community are like them. Some good and some bad and not really identified by label. But they themselves are being labelled by the progressives as bad. The fact that the 'progressives' tend to have more money is a fact, but less relevant than the fact that they look down on the 'masses', preferring instead to concentrate on their pet causes. Transgender bathrooms looming larger in their world than serious problems.
That's why Guardian journalists exhibit surprise when confronted with the generosity, both financial and in spirt of these racists sometimes.
I worry about this split, and the blindness of the Establishment. "I know best, my views are clearly right, and you others are worthless compared to my pet causes," are not recipes for pulling together.
So the response at the ballot box is becoming "So fuck you too."
I believe the other big issue is in-work benefits, which completely dwarf unemployment benefits, and can easily top up income of a 16hr a week minimum wage earner by £8-10k per annum. Once more, voters are going to see people that have not put anything into the system so far getting substantial amounts out of it. They will see their son sitting on the dole (yes, he probably is a shiftless layabout, but they wont see it that way), and the government paying substantial chunks of "their" taxes to someone that has just arrived in the country to do those jobs.
I do, however, disagree with his diagnosis. The unprecedented (in recent memory) event of the last few years is austerity. Older people don't particularly compete with immigrants for jobs but they are main beneficiaries of public services, for which in any case expectations are being continually raised. If they perceive a threat to those services from competition from immigrants, they will vote accordingly. The groups most likely to vote for Brexit - the old, the poor, the uneducated and the obese - all fall in the category of disproportionate public services users.
Since immigrants are a net good to the British economy, most of them are voting in a way damaging to their own interests, since immigrants are helping to fund those services. So the good news is that a clear communicator espousing a mainstream economic viewpoint should be able - if the effort is made - in a few years get Britain back on the right track. So far the effort hasn't been made.
In any case I think your posting is supposition. I would counter that the elderly and poor are equally as likely to vote for leave on the basis that the communities they grew up in (and in many cases still live in - the poor largely do not move away from their home towns to find work in the way the well educated do) no longer feels comfortable to them, and they are hoping (possibly in vain) that a leave vote will slow the rate of immigration to a rate that is comfortable, and in which new comers get time to integrate rather than ghettoise. Feelings of social dislocation probably trump minor economic issues. Well educated people moving to new towns to find work will largely accept all the differences that come from being in a new place. People that still live in their home towns, the elderly and the poor are probably much less receptive.
This week. The article implied that many members of the public were generous towards a variety of good causes despite being in the demographic that tended to vote for Ukip (hence they are racist). So that was bad news for Ukip!
That said, one thing that's been floated has been regionalizing immigration policy. If you look at the voting patterns right now (both UKIP consitutencies and counties swinging to Trump) you find that the big factor is towns that used to have basically no immigrants, and now have a non-trivial number. If you restricted people living and working in those places the economic impact wouldn't be very severe, and as an immigrant a policy equivalent to "your visa forbids you from moving to Clacton" would be a lot less constraining than some of the things immigrants actually put up with like "your visa is tied to your current employer, and if you fall out with them then you're SOL".
Hannan is completely clear that the reason he wants to leave the EU is because he believes strongly that the British people, through the institutions of the United Kingdom should be in control of their countries borders, finances and laws. He doesnt say immigration should be more, or less, he says that whatever it is should be decided up by the institutions of the UK.
Its not about race, its about community.
There was a class and education divide, but much less stark than some people think. 42% of graduates and 43% of middle class voters supported Leave. Current students massively supported Remain, as did university workers, but graduates in general were more divided.
However, it broke down before the collapse of Communism in the East (although arguably, after the end of the dynamic era of communism). Inequality in the US was at its lowest in 1978 - before Reagan came to power. In Britain, it was Thatcher's government which reversed the trend, starting at a time when Brezhnev was in the Kremlin.
But ironically, the biggest driver of the process has been the nominally communist country of China, exploiting the possibilities that globalisation could bring it once it switched to a much more consumer- and market-driven economy.
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/15372/production/_90089868_eu_ref_uk_regions_leave_remain_gra624_by_age.png
All a chap from most of the Arab world need do is claim he's gay or an apostate, and he won't be sent back on human rights grounds. Likewise a murderer from Somalia (too dangerous there for him, and danger to him trumps danger to the UK). Political dissidents from the rest of the world likewise.
I do think, as Mr. Tyndall I believe said, that we should look at changing our approach to welfare, but there would be such wailing and gnashing of teeth, not to mention electoral backlash, it'd have to be done salami-style.
If you have to find something to connect the two - not to mention the three very different left-wing politicians you mention in wildly differing economic environments - it's better to look at the *political* environment: The decline of broadcast media and the growth of social means there are much better tools for non-mainstream movements to get their message across, and it's now much easier to push a feisty message than a moderate one.
http://politicalbetting.vanillaforums.com/discussions
Ha
The Chinese gent next to me where I work is a net benefit to the economy - salary not far off six figures, PAYE etc etc.
Pretending that all immigrants fall into that category is exactly why populism is happening.
The lying needs to stop. The idea that "there is no alternative" and that "you can't control immigration at all" etc are campaigning slogans to make people vote..... populist.
Among other things, there is too much awareness that many countries are not offering free movement and free markets, yet seem to be demanding them.
"Must is not a word to be used to princes!" - as the lady said... and you spent 200 years telling the people that they are sovereign.
I am opposed in principle to the concept of having to "check your privilege" before pronouncing on anything, but I am guessing that you do not live in council housing, and that you either pay for health care and education, or could afford to do so if you thought the nhs and state schools were letting you down. The people you are referring to have no choice but to use public services, so are better judges than you or I as to whether they are net winners or losers from immigration.
Fascinating and well written thread Mr Herdson, many thanks. - It would appear we’ve learnt very little since the time Louis XVI lost his head.
I would add to David's definition the moral obligation of those who do well to put something back - but on a personal level, not just relying on the state to enforce contributions
In a year that has seen many exposed by their bias and assumptions about those who disagree with them, David H continues to write posts that I'll read from start to finish.
Merry Christmas to one and all of PB!
"Think about it.
When there’s a coup, the first thing the wannabe leader tries to do is take control of the nation’s television and radio stations.
Having the ability to broadcast his message to everyone is more important than having control of the country’s army or air force.
That’s what is happening here.
The Government, quietly, while you are drunk in front of the television, is staging a coup.
It is taking control of the papers so it can effectively control what’s written in them."
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2470944/help-fight-the-governments-plan-to-silence-the-free-press-and-save-your-own-freedom/
Much kudos to Mr herdson for a typically thoughtful, erudite piece. I cannot say I come out of it with solutions, but it does make me try to think of ones, which is a change of pace from the standard work we ask for and consume from the pundits of thus world, which is to tell us what they think and that's it.
Immigrants are much better educated on average than the native-born. Their average income is higher also. Your "rather likely" notion looks implausible.
I'm glad you're opposed to the concept of having to check your privilege. I would hate to think that you were making a cheap point in a vain attempt to disbar me from expressing my arguments rather than address them.
As it happens, my other half and I have probably had a lifetime's worth out of the NHS this year and as a result I have very fresh impressions of how it is working. Without immigrants, it would grind to a halt.
It has been a cracking year for political obsessives like me and PB has been the must-go-to site to keep up with the breathtaking speed of events.
Big thanks to the team who run things.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/terrorism-thrives-on-our-lack-of-self-belief-zvk8x3tk2
Surely not an assertion which needs much in the way of evidence to support it? More claimants for cake = less cake per claimant, unless cake and claimants rise equally, or cake does better. It is not in doubt that there is net immigration, so that means more claimants. And there's Mrs Duffy, who looked to me an honest and level-headed woman.
As to the NHS it managed to function well enough before uncontrolled immigration - are you saying without uncontrolled immigration it would grind to a halt ?
We could do something about it today. But we haven't.
23/06/16 6338
23/12/16 7068
A nice little Christmas present from Brexit.
It really isn't hard.
https://youtu.be/2sfovPxT3Fg
Mr. 1000, indeed.
Reminder of why I feel like an alien in my formerly free country > https://t.co/4yXwgUAhIq
Just returned one of the 'killer chocolate santas' to our local Co-Op. They've apparently sold a fair few, and ours was the first returned.
If it was shaken, it rattled slightly. But now we will never know ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4061456/Co-op-recalls-165-000-chocolate-Santas-call-police-two-sabotaged-having-batteries-them.html
That worked well.
24 December 1979. USSR invaded Afghanistan in a bid to stop the US backed insurgent group the Mujahideen, which included Osama Bin Laden. https://t.co/O1aKZpd1Ur
It'd also be interesting to look at public/private sector distribution.
To take an example from yesterday, 61% of Bangladeshi women are economically inactive, most of them have families, are we to believe they claim no benefits ?
I agree with the main premise: stagnation in median wage is the primary driver behind the rise of populism.
This discontent manifests itself in complicated ways. Given the unprecedented volume of immigration since 1997, it is completely unsurprising that this issue should have become the main repository of discontent.
In turn, years of pent up mistrust of the EU (stoked by right wing media and politicians of all stripes), has curdled into a feeling that it is the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels who are responsible for the immigration.
A single vote was the only thing necessary to "take back control" (a stroke of genius by the Leave campaign).
Regardless of Brexit, there are no easy answers to the stagnation of wages in a globalising era. There are also real concerns by economists that the period of productivity growth since the Industrial Revolution is coming to an end. As @rcs1000 points out, Germany and Switzerland seem to be faring least worst through education policy. The UK has one of the lowest skilled workforces in the West.
Immigration is not going away either.
Our demography means our population will shrink without it. We need immigrants to keep the economy going (and indeed, public services). There's a legitimate debate though about the scale of it, what it means for our welfare traditions, and the cultural impact.
We do need far sighted leaders right now who can look beyond the shibboleths and contortions of "right" and "left" to articulate the reality and propose solutions in terms we can rally around.
Simply banging on about the economic advantages of high immigration, or the EU itself, is insufficient. Likewise, waving the flag and pretending the UK can somehow stand alone from the modern world won't work either.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4061486/Berlin-Christmas-Market-massacre-Officer-shot-suspect-TRAINEE.html
6% of population
2.2% of total claimants
Medium-term, possibly.
Long-term, no.
In the long-term the risks of social disruption from remaining in were probably greater than leaving. Firstly, people had grievances, real and imagined, and they were not being listened to. Secondly, the long-term future of the EU is uncertain.
The problem with this is that, for various reasons, the UK governments have not been acting on peoples' concerns, even when they had the competency without the EU. I fail to see why they should start once we leave the EU.
All that has happened is that we will have removed an excuse for not doing something: "We can't as we're in the EU". But that will be replaced with an even more nebulous: "We can't because of a, b od c deals".
However the 'revolution' of leaving the EU seems much more leftist that the 'evolution' of reforming. Leftist policy is based on big-bang reforms; rightist on conservative evolution. As a rather general generalisation, at least.
2) As you know, that was not what I wrote.
Something like 75% of the nurses on the ward my other half was on were immigrants (I saw only two white English nurses, one of whom had a Jewish surname, so if anything I'm understating the value of immigration to that ward). Perhaps you have every faith in the British state setting up a bureaucratic infrastructure that will allow for that flow to continue unimpeded at all times without affecting service standards at a time when NHS funding is being kept under lock tight restraint. Quaint.
As a % of my income, I give more now and voted Tory in 2010/2015/Leave.
That they cherry pick what they want for example they use the NHS and education here but then fly back easy jet to get dentistry. Many here in this area have a permanent home abroad with dependants that the benefits keep going. My wife worked in a school where pupils couldn't speak English and neither did the parents. The school was expected to meet the curriculum while teaching English basics. Extra costs for English and translators resulted these costs met from other parts of the budget thus denying other children.
She saw and had to deal with all of this first hand for 10 years and then just finally gave up the tide was overwhelming. So irrespective of the romantic image you wish to paint it's just ain't so and you need to get into the real world and perhaps the front line.
Yeah I know Rayyyyyciisssttt!!