As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
So if you don't go to university you're a hooligan or reprobate ?
And your barista with a sociology degree will also have tens of thousands in debt and missed out on three years earning opportunity compared to a barista who didn't go to university.
No that is not my point at all. Those who chose to make their way in life by other positive means are welcome so to do
My point is that if 50% of the population want a higher education, they should be entitled to one, particularly if they are happy to take on the indebtedness. There debt is none of your (or my) business, even if all it leads to is a career flipping burgers.
Back in my day higher education was all paid for by the taxpayer. As a taxpayer I am happy to supplement for the education of the nation. It seems money better spent than on Johnson's legendary, legacy "spaffing" projects like Rwanda and Brexit. There always seems to be money for that old nonsense.
Well I don't share your callous attitude to teenagers being encouraged to get themselves tens of thousands in debt.
To me education / learning / training should be thought of as a lifetime thing and financially supported as and when required rather than the 'all or nothing' roulette game of 18-21 university.
That the internet now allows far easier (and cheaper) lifetime learning should be made use of.
Instead we have boomers, for whom their debt free university education was usually a pathway to a good career, wanting to see ever higher numbers going to university irrespective if that's the right choice for the teenagers involved.
Not just a pre internet mentality but very much something from the 1970s.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I think it's true that expanding higher education has led to disappointed expectations. Any society faces problems when graduates can't get the jobs they've been led to believe should follow from their getting a degree.
Though for those who want to 'smash society' a resentful graduate class might be deemed a good thing.
So I want to smash society? I would prefer people to be educated and equipped to the point where they question the motives of their politicians. If that smashes Johnsonianism, that is fine by me
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
The baristas might mind a bit if they are not earning much.
On the other hand they might be reasonably content as they flick through Das Kapital during their breaks.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
Broadly, I'd define the middle class (in the British, not the American sense) as about 25% of the population. A lot of very ill-paid jobs don't involve manual labour.
No, that is the upper middle class only.
The middle class including the lower middle class is about 50% of the population and including the skilled working class, many of whom own their own home, in the American sense it would be about 60 to 70% of the population.
Not sure this class stuff is relevant these days. I wouldn't put myself in any class other than not posh (I guess I do still think there is a small upper class). I associate with people who would be classified at either end of the spectrum and all in between. I don't think or treat them any differently to how I treat anyone else and the same in return.
What is it with Vanilla that it keeps duplicating comments so it saves them on draft when you’ve already posted them? It’s really annoying.
You've only just noticed that?
I thought for a moment this was another duplicate, but it’s two posters saying the same thing!
No - but it isn’t usually a problem. Just was this time.
Can’t be my browser as it happens on iPhone, iPad and Windows. Must be a system glitch.
Firefox, Chrome and Edge have each issued updates in the last few hours. Check your browser is not trying to update itself. Menu > Help > About Browser Name.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
So Keir will be leading by example then ?
He didn't lie to parliament about what he did in no. 10.
He set the bar, let's see what happens when he is asked in Parlt. as he inevitably will be,.
He'll do the same as Bojjo and Sturgeon did when breaking their own rules and say it was somehow different and it's time to move on.
Multiple breaches while a minister of the Crown, at a time when the rules were severe?
not like you to claim her wee pretendy presidentship isnt a head of state.
and you still havent answered the question
I'm not obsessed with her, like you are.
One incident was covered by the exception for deaf people, as you know full well; the other was certainly a silly lapse, 12 hours before the ending of the rules.
Have we seen anything more on the Russian Frigate (possibly) hit by a Ukrainian Missile? I've seen a few more reports in the media, but nobody seems sure what happened.
Well, it's the middle of the day in the Black Sea now so probably file it along with the Ghost of Kyiv, those F-16s from last week and 50 Russian helicopters destroyed on the ground.
Amusing, likely true, and there's certainly plenty of false hope good stories that get circulated, but the exact same gag was probably made when reports of the ship that did go down emerged as well.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
CCHQ delighted with Beergate. They see it as most successful political attack in living memory
Thing is, I think it will only be of any use to the Tories if the ditch Johnson. The public aren’t suddenly going to forgive Johnson if it turns out Starmer might have transgressed.
But if they do get rid of Johnson, then Labour are in a tricky spot if Starmer does get a fine.
A few "Home thoughts from abroad", now we have the final results.
Looking from the perspective of of the Lib Dems, it was a good, solid set of results, with a few outstanding wins, such as Somerset, Woking and Westmoreland. Clearly several formerly Lib Dem seats, e.g. Cheltenham, are set to return to the yellow column in the next House of Commons, and even 30 seats could prove crucial, especially if SNP losses were to bring the Lib Dems back to being the third party in Parliament, which would massively help their profile. Labour too can point to historic results in Wandsworth and Westminster, and clearly they have improved their position in Scotland, which opens up some interesting possibilities. Although the SNP mostly held steady, they had several scares and they must be concerned that the nationalist wave is not advancing much beyond what they already hold and in some places is going backwards. The small gains for the Scottish Greens notwithstanding, the debacle of "Alba" demonstrates that there is only a very limited Nationalist coalition beyond the SNP itself. Nationalism is facing considerable electoral challenges, and the replacement of the Tories by Labour as the key challenger will make the task of the next SNP leader very hard indeed. That leader may not be that far off, if Holyrood gossip is to be believed.
In Aberdeenshire the Liberal Democrats, who already had their largest Scottish council group there, have made a gain and after the disappointment of failing to gain a North East list seat in the last election to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Lib Dems must fancy their chances for gains in both the North East and the Highlands next time at both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster elections.
For the Conservatives the results are obviously someting of a nadir, and there is no doubt that many voters deeply loathe the Prime Minister and all his works. The party looks tired and the desparate ramping of their media supporters- the Mail and Express especially- simply looks ludicrous. Whereas humility ("we will learn the lessons") might seem weak to the bumptious cretins in CCHQ, it is far better than "Labour still can´t win" and a litany of smear tactics which actually do not have the impact away from Westminster that they hope for.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Lol, a game of two halves evidently..
‘Although the SNP mostly held steady, they had several scares’ = +22 ‘The small gains for the Scottish Greens’ = +16
‘the Scottish Lib Dems must fancy their chances’= +20 ‘Labour as the key challenger’= +20
Very, very weird airbrushing of the Scottish results there. Cicero is normally someone I take seriously on here, but that was a very strange post.
I guess we can all be guilty of wearing desperately wanting something to be true tinted specs, but there was a job lot of the ‘SNP & Indy are stuffed’ variety dumped on PB 15 years ago and they’ve still not run out.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
That’s bananas.
Class distinctions have always been bananas! In some cultures being a merchant put you bottom of the pile apparently.
I'm sure some would argue any job where you spend most of it sat down would count as middle class, even if it was low paid, if they focus on physicality of work.
Really? That’s nuts.
(What about me? Teaching you spend most of your time standing up…)
Wasn't suggested as an exact definition, just an example of how finding the line can be really arbitrary - low paid admin work (ie most admin work), middle class because it's spent typing into a laptop?
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
That’s bananas.
Class distinctions have always been bananas! In some cultures being a merchant put you bottom of the pile apparently.
I'm sure some would argue any job where you spend most of it sat down would count as middle class, even if it was low paid, if they focus on physicality of work.
Middle class: shower before work.
Working class: bath after.
Finally, I can claim the mantle of working class. My dear departed grandfather would be so happy.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Although it’s not easy to see how voting for the NIMBYest of the NIMBYs helps to rectify that situation.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
The trend is against you, people keep trying to come up with new ones!
And Jeremy Hunt has nothing to lose. He won't be an MP after 2024 at this rate. Nor will Raab and nor will Gove.
Nonsense. Surrey Heath is extremely safe (it has the 2nd highest proportions of owned-outright, detached homes in the south-east) and Hunt clocks well over 30k votes and 50%+ of the vote in Surrey South-West. The age profile of the Tory core vote in what are suburban/semi-rural & wealthy areas is solid for both.
Raab is different.
Don't get high on your own supply.
Whereas I think you are right and I don't think the LDs will win either Surrey Heath nor SW Surrey I don't think your reasons are correct @Casino_Royale . I appreciate you are very close to SW Surrey and my knowledge is also several decades olds, but the reasons you give applied then and then they were potential seats for the LDs. Just to explain I was heavily involved in both and knew them both intimately. And when I say intimately I really mean it. I can't say how without giving away my identity.
SW Surrey
The LDs have come within 800 odd votes of winning. It was the number 1 target in the SE when we won Guildford. The SW Surrey / Guildford campaign was a joint campaign and Guildford was the secondary target. I was heavily involved. We only won Guildford over SW Surrey because the Tories put up a better fight in SW Surrey and had a better MP in Virginia Bottomley and the reason for this was they were used to having a tough fight in SW Surrey because of previous targeting. It became clear a week before polling day that Guildford was much softer. After all this infighting broke out in SW Surrey LDs. High profile members were expelled, there was a breakaway group and the whole lot collapsed spectacularly (I sadly was involved in the process and just wanted to bang heads together)
Surrey Heath
Surrey Heath was rock solid Tory. The LDs got their act together in the 90s/00s and it became a development seat for the LDs (ie a future target). Several key activists moved away and it dropped back again. I have had no local knowledge for sometime now. The LDs seem to be doing very well there now. I look at the names of the councillors and I recognise only 2 or 3. Once I would have known every activist. Over a decade out they seem to have a lot of fresh blood and seem to be doing very well.
"Last night I dreamed I went to Camberley again"
The relevance of the stories was to point out that the level of the LD success or otherwise in these seats was not primarily to do with the make up of the constituency but to do with the level of activity of the local Tories and LDs and national events. SWS hasn't changed particularly and neither has Surrey Heath but the Tory majority and safety of the seat has varied considerably.
Esher of course is the same. At the time SWS was a LD target Esher was rock solid Tory. Now SWS is safe Esher isn't. Nothing has changed within the constituency make up, but events have.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
That’s bananas.
Class distinctions have always been bananas! In some cultures being a merchant put you bottom of the pile apparently.
I'm sure some would argue any job where you spend most of it sat down would count as middle class, even if it was low paid, if they focus on physicality of work.
- V bad for the Tories. Boris should go but Tory MPs are too frit / complacent to force him out. If they did, they might have a fighting chance at the next GE. If they don't, they are looking at almost certain defeat. - Very good for the Lib Dems - despite having an uncharismatic and largely invisible leader. - Pretty good for Labour if not brilliant.
My ward was one of 2 which voted - by a pretty large majority - Tory. Millom was very close, the Labour guy winning by only 37 votes. My local Tory councillor campaigned purely on local issues, almost as if he was a Tory independent.
I am not surprised that Cumberland as a whole has turned Labour.
Some thoughts as to why:-
1. It is a reversion to the norm in many ways. There used to be Labour MPs here for quite some time before the Copeland victory in 2017 started the process of turning the area Tory. It was Corbyn which turned a lot of people away from Labour.
2. The West coast of Cumbria is the industrial part of the Lakes which tourists often don't see / know about. Like all such areas it is trying to reinvent itself, with mixed success.
3. The sort of Labour you get here is old-fashioned conservative Labour: unimpressed with Corbynism and metropolitan values which sneer at places such as this. It is not impressed with gold wallpaper, lies and people not following the rules. During Covid, people here tried hard to follow the rules.
4. But don't assume that this is ignorant / redneck country: it is an area which has seen a lot of immigration over the decades - from the Irish in Cleator Moor to Poles and Hungarians from the 1940's onwards. Our first Ukrainian families have arrived this week. Lots of people who live here work in big cities during the week or WFH. There is also quite a thriving cultural community here and a lot of effort is being put into expanding it.
5. People turned away from Labour, partly because of Brexit but also because of levelling up and a feeling of long-term neglect by Labour.
6. The Tories have not done enough to make good on their promises: there is money from the New Towns Fund for my area - a big plus. But farming is cross with the trade deals and proposed changes to the support for them, the hospitality and tourist sectors were hard hit by Covid and are finding it tough now with difficulties in recruitment and costs going up and not much else has been done on "levelling up". In particular, transport links are not good and housing is a big issue - not enough houses being built and it being v v difficult for locals to find places to rent / buy because of AirBnB etc.
So - in short - a mix of broken/unfilled promises and an untrustworthy PM. Trudi Harrison is a reasonably good local MP (and comes from the area) but nowhere near as good / active as Tim Farron on local issues. And, to my mind, too inclined to trot out the party line on controversial issues.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Although it’s not easy to see how voting for the NIMBYest of the NIMBYs helps to rectify that situation.
The NIMBYest of the NIMBYs after Residents Associations are of course home counties Liberal Democrats, see Chesham and Amersham.
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
That’s bananas.
Class distinctions have always been bananas! In some cultures being a merchant put you bottom of the pile apparently.
I'm sure some would argue any job where you spend most of it sat down would count as middle class, even if it was low paid, if they focus on physicality of work.
Middle class: shower before work.
Working class: bath after.
Finally, I can claim the mantle of working class. My dear departed grandfather would be so happy.
Hmm, it's not unusual for the really manual workers to have a shower after work at work (literally so in the decon trailer of the crew who cleared the asbestos interior of my old garage).
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Although it’s not easy to see how voting for the NIMBYest of the NIMBYs helps to rectify that situation.
The NIMBY's switch positions depending on who is in power locally and nationally. Though even then you won't find many non NIMBY representatives locally even if their group is in power, not for their specific area at least.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
So Keir will be leading by example then ?
He didn't lie to parliament about what he did in no. 10.
He set the bar, let's see what happens when he is asked in Parlt. as he inevitably will be,.
He'll do the same as Bojjo and Sturgeon did when breaking their own rules and say it was somehow different and it's time to move on.
Multiple breaches while a minister of the Crown, at a time when the rules were severe?
not like you to claim her wee pretendy presidentship isnt a head of state.
and you still havent answered the question
I'm not obsessed with her, like you are.
One incident was covered by the exception for deaf people, as you know full well; the other was certainly a silly lapse, 12 hours before the ending of the rules.
But compared to No 10? Forget it.
Ive raised the issue once which is simply pointing out she did what Bojo did. That;s hardly obsessed.
But like all politicians she has a great big streak of hypocrisy which encourages he to throw stones in her glasshouse.
A few "Home thoughts from abroad", now we have the final results.
Looking from the perspective of of the Lib Dems, it was a good, solid set of results, with a few outstanding wins, such as Somerset, Woking and Westmoreland. Clearly several formerly Lib Dem seats, e.g. Cheltenham, are set to return to the yellow column in the next House of Commons, and even 30 seats could prove crucial, especially if SNP losses were to bring the Lib Dems back to being the third party in Parliament, which would massively help their profile. Labour too can point to historic results in Wandsworth and Westminster, and clearly they have improved their position in Scotland, which opens up some interesting possibilities. Although the SNP mostly held steady, they had several scares and they must be concerned that the nationalist wave is not advancing much beyond what they already hold and in some places is going backwards. The small gains for the Scottish Greens notwithstanding, the debacle of "Alba" demonstrates that there is only a very limited Nationalist coalition beyond the SNP itself. Nationalism is facing considerable electoral challenges, and the replacement of the Tories by Labour as the key challenger will make the task of the next SNP leader very hard indeed. That leader may not be that far off, if Holyrood gossip is to be believed.
In Aberdeenshire the Liberal Democrats, who already had their largest Scottish council group there, have made a gain and after the disappointment of failing to gain a North East list seat in the last election to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Lib Dems must fancy their chances for gains in both the North East and the Highlands next time at both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster elections.
For the Conservatives the results are obviously someting of a nadir, and there is no doubt that many voters deeply loathe the Prime Minister and all his works. The party looks tired and the desparate ramping of their media supporters- the Mail and Express especially- simply looks ludicrous. Whereas humility ("we will learn the lessons") might seem weak to the bumptious cretins in CCHQ, it is far better than "Labour still can´t win" and a litany of smear tactics which actually do not have the impact away from Westminster that they hope for.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Lol, a game of two halves evidently..
‘Although the SNP mostly held steady, they had several scares’ = +22 ‘The small gains for the Scottish Greens’ = +16
‘the Scottish Lib Dems must fancy their chances’= +20 ‘Labour as the key challenger’= +20
Very, very weird airbrushing of the Scottish results there. Cicero is normally someone I take seriously on here, but that was a very strange post.
I guess we can all be guilty of wearing desperately wanting something to be true tinted specs, but there was a job lot of the ‘SNP & Indy are stuffed’ variety dumped on PB 15 years ago and they’ve still not run out.
I've got a real good feeling about 2026. Keep the faith!
Have we seen anything more on the Russian Frigate (possibly) hit by a Ukrainian Missile? I've seen a few more reports in the media, but nobody seems sure what happened.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
Can’t judge how accurate it is but it makes to my very inexpert eye a plausible case.
Probably won't get these exports back up again.
But the frigates are about as big as Russia can make a non-nuclear surface combatant these days, for reasons that—ironically—have everything to do with the current war. Throughout the Soviet era and for years after the USSR’s collapse, Russia acquired its big marine engines from Ukraine.
After Russia in 2014 invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula—including the port of Sevastopol where Admiral Makarov now is based—Kyiv barred certain exports to Russia, including the marine engines Russia requires for any fast, conventional vessel displacing more than 5,000 tons or so.
Which is to say, after 2014 the Russian navy struggled to build big warships. That made it impossible to replace, like for like, the biggest Soviet-vintage ships such as Moskva, which displaced 12,000 tons.
Have we seen anything more on the Russian Frigate (possibly) hit by a Ukrainian Missile? I've seen a few more reports in the media, but nobody seems sure what happened.
Last night was clear over the Black Sea, and there was no sign of anything on fire. Ukraine did put a +1 on the number of boats they'd claimed as destroyed, which had me briefly excited, but they've since released another TB2 video, showing a strike at a landing craft vessel at Snake Island, so seems likely that was the +1 boat.
So the Ukraine Armed Forces aren't claiming to have sunk it, so seems fairly certain it wasn't sunk.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
The joke, for those who like their humour… dark is that just as the mass move to university education happened, the idea that class was based on what you did changed.
The plumber who runs his own business - big house, Range Rover, 3 holidays a year - is now posher than the call centre shift manger.
He is still socially behind the barristers, but not the baristas.
The key is that working with your hands in “trade” is no longer the issue. It’s all about the money.
A friends son wasn’t academic, so he is not a high end welder in the boat yards - a titanium specialist apparently. Got a house, getting married. Quite a few contemporaries from school are still staying at Hotel Mum & Dad.
The key these days is often a mix of “material” skills plus being numerate and able to digest information easily - a plumber now needs lots of technical knowledge and maths skills to design a system that functions well for example.
Pure book work or pure manual skill won’t get you far.
I was surprised more plumbers/ electricians round my way don't have some sort of pooled admin support agreement with like minded colleagues - it seems a right hassle that some of them have to try to handle enquiries and paperwork themselves, whilst also trying to be out and about on jobs. I suppose for one man band's it might be prohibitive to pay into such a thing, or be worried about others in the group sniping work, but through no fault of their own some can struggle with timely responses to things which may affect what work they get.
And that’s where an education in analysis, interpreting data and creating innovative solutions comes in handy.
Properly done, education is partly about breaking down the mental barriers to new ideas.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
People always worry about a council not focusing on their area as it is not where the council is centred. My gut feeling is that fear is overblown. I've seen people insistent that the leadership is focusing on X, where the council admin is based, but the people and politicians for X think they are actually given less attention and support.
In any case if it were true the only option would be to get rid of districts, counties an unitaries etc altogether, and just have everything done by parishes who are the only genuinely local bodies (even then some are bi pretty big and disparate in their communities), and I don't think they are set up for that.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
They do, because they’re £50k in debt and earning £10 an hour.
Yes, education is a good thing and we need more of it. That doesn’t mean that we need half of 18 year olds moving across the country, to get £50k into debt in exchange for a mostly worthless piece of paper.
The whole sector is ripe for reform of the products it offers, we need more flexible learning options such as two-year crammer degrees, online-only courses, part time study etc, as well as more of what the US calls Community Colleges.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
The same issue as Northumberland. To attempt to solve it they put us all together. And split Cumbria up. They've just put Somerset and Bucks together. And split Northants up. Local government is a hotch-potch mess.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
They can certainly still be middle class even if not necessarily upper middle class or rich enough to be in the top 10% of earners. That would largely have required them to go to Russell Group universities only to study law, medicine, economics or a STEM subject.
What is clear too is the expansion if graduates from about 10% of 25 year olds 40 years ago to about 40% now has also turned Labour from the party of the working class to the party of university graduates.
The Tories can still win graduates with a Cameron like leader but not a Boris type leader, although Boris has far more appeal and still does to the skilled working class voters in particular who have left Labour
That depends upon how you define middle class.
For me if you cannot afford to buy the average home in your area then you're not middle class.
That's a problem the Conservatives will have to deal with in southern England.
And promises about possible future inheritances aren't going to help.
Reading @another_richard and @HYUFD private dialogue is like dipping back into the 1950s and watching a smoke filled talking heads debate on a black and white TV
"Class depends on where one was educated, or what sort of a home one can afford". What a load of old nonsense.
Educate as many as one can to a high standard it drags up society, a nation of fewer hooligans and reprobates. Who cares if all the Baristas have a Sociology degree from the University of Worcester? Good on them.
They do, because they’re £50k in debt and earning £10 an hour.
Yes, education is a good thing and we need more of it. That doesn’t mean that we need half of 18 year olds moving across the country, to get £50k into debt in exchange for a mostly worthless piece of paper.
The whole sector is ripe for reform of the products it offers, we need more flexible learning options such as two-year crammer degrees, online-only courses, part time study etc, as well as more of what the US calls Community Colleges.
You can tell I am a liberal as I strongly agree with both @Sandpit and @Mexicanpete's posts even though they are disagreeing with one another (I suspect they aren't really)
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
That’s bananas.
Class distinctions have always been bananas! In some cultures being a merchant put you bottom of the pile apparently.
I'm sure some would argue any job where you spend most of it sat down would count as middle class, even if it was low paid, if they focus on physicality of work.
Middle class: shower before work.
Working class: bath after.
Finally, I can claim the mantle of working class. My dear departed grandfather would be so happy.
Hmm, it's not unusual for the really manual workers to have a shower after work at work (literally so in the decon trailer of the crew who cleared the asbestos interior of my old garage).
Class is a state of mind. It is where you are from rather where you are now.
Three types of balsamic does not make me middle class.
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
The same issue as Northumberland. To attempt to solve it they put us all together. And split Cumbria up. They've just put Somerset and Bucks together. And split Northants up. Local government is a hotch-potch mess.
Somerset and Bucks together is more than a hotch potch!
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
The same issue as Northumberland. To attempt to solve it they put us all together. And split Cumbria up. They've just put Somerset and Bucks together. And split Northants up. Local government is a hotch-potch mess.
It is. A few years back new labour put out a consultation on merging several authorities into one unified Durham county council. In spite of a lack of enthusiasm from the voters, who cares what they want after all, they went ahead and formed Durham county council which has been far from a success. The introduction of parking charges in the towns to help fund the Durham park and ride has been a disaster for the High streets and labour just focused on Durham city (and to a lesser degree seaham and bishop Auckland) to the detriment of other towns.
I am in my Lake District home alone for three glorious weeks! Hooray!!!
Husband working in London. Eldest Son also working there. Youngest Son (just turned 24 - how the hell did that happen?!) has gone to London to spend time with friends then travel before starting his new job. Daughter is in Greece enjoying a well-earned holiday.
The weather is set fine and I can please myself with no pesky family to worry about.
NorthWest Electrics will be taking down an unnecessary electricity pole in the land I have acquired and the wooden poles will (a) provide the basis for some raised planting beds; and (b) allow me to move a Portakabin to its final location, to be turned - once suitably cladded with wood - into a summer house where I can rest after tending to my veg etc. It is of course stuffed full of rubbish which Husband insists "will come in useful one day" but he's not here is he? 🤫
Meanwhile I have created a sort of mini auricula theatre.
And the wisteria is beginning to bloom.
My very dispersed family gathered at the Daffodil Hotel in Grasmere last week-end. It's easy to forget what a uniquely beautiful place the Lakes can be when the sun shines. It was a busy bank holiday week-end but despite this as soon as you leave Windermere behind you are faced with scenes so astonishing they take your breath away
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
So you think you have a better class of class system..
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
So what happens to the Chelsea money? Although we are not bound by Abramovich's wishes, if he wants it to go to Ukraine I don't see why that can't be agreed.
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
Working in a call centre can make you lower middle class while being a plumber or electrician makes you skilled working class. Even if earnings wise there is little difference and the latter even earns more than the former
In which case why do we separate them out like that? As I think you are right that is how many people would classify those two jobs, but it seems objectively silly to me.
It's a vestige of a gone time than needs to be swept away. We don't need HYUFD's caste system, we need housing and jobs with dignified pay. Having some prat running around slotting us into imaginary social classes helps nobody.
Slotting people into imaginary social classes is part of the whole point of being English!
That might be true, but if it is it is not a very nice trait - us and them is not attractive.
What distinguishes the English class system however is it is far less based on money, income and wealth than say the US class system, which is not necessarily a bad thing
So you think you have a better class of class system..
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
Two quick thoughts before the day and the demands of the Saturday Patent overtake me.
First, excellent results for the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland - it will be good to have a strong third force in the Assembly which isn't strongly associated with either side.
Second, local government - there is no "one size fits all" solution if you are trying to abolish two-tier.
And now, for the thing no one has been waiting for, the only thing less successful than a Conservative local election candidate (too soon?) - the Stodge Saturday Patent.
Off to Lingfield for their best turf flat card of the whole year and from the later races:
3.50 Lingfield: SHE DO 4.25 Lingfield: RAVENS ARK 5.00 Lingfield: SMOKEY MALONE
Stick a 1-point win patent on those if you've got some winnings on backing the Conservatives to win Harrow (can't actually recall Smarkets putting up any prices for that but I might be wrong).
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
You're fooling no-one Roger.
How we've missed you! Still selling tractors in Ludlow? Trade must be brisk after the Neil Parish affair.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) immediately *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes.
The stress test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
No it is not just about money.
In most countries it is about money and wealth and to some extent education level too.
In the UK however money is just a small factor in it, birth is also important and where you went to school also matters. Alan Sugar and David Beckham for example will never be posher than the Duke of Richmond even if they are now richer than him.
Prince Andrew even if he lived in a bedsit on UC would still be posher than Frank the labourer even if Frank won the lottery and became much richer than him
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
You're fooling no-one Roger.
How we've missed you! Still selling tractors in Ludlow? Trade must be brisk after the Neil Parish affair.
He seems to know where to go dogging in the West Midlands. Or at least be familiar with the online directories.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
To play devil’s advocate to some extent, it’s a rather metropolitan view that trains, rather than roads, contribute more to levelling up. The Red Wall want local jobs, not a faster way to get to Manchester, Newcastle, or London.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
Prince Andrew could lose all his money and he still wouldn't become working class.
He could rent a flat above a shop, cut his hair and get a job, smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend he never went to school, but still he'd never get it right, cause when he's laying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if he called his mum he could stop it all.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
Easy to solve if the economy is growing, and the question is who gets the goodies from a growing cake.
Much harder to solve if you can't/ won't grow the cake. And the problem with populism is that often it does things that make people feel good but shrink the economy.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
Don't forget Northern Poorhouse Rail. That project has been cut right back, with Bradford left out in the cold.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
Prince Andrew could lose all his money and he still wouldn't become working class.
He could rent a flat above a shop, cut his hair and get a job, smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend he never went to school, but still he'd never get it right, cause when he's laying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if he called his mum he could stop it all.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
Don't forget Northern Poorhouse Rail. That project has been cut right back, with Bradford left out in the cold.
I've been to Bradford. The idea that it could ever be anything other than cold is frankly silly.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
You're fooling no-one Roger.
How we've missed you! Still selling tractors in Ludlow? Trade must be brisk after the Neil Parish affair.
My tractor videos have been proving enormously successful, I let your friend Giuseppe Veneziano do the editing and it just took off.
Ludlow is just springing back to life but in the week I am now working in Stoke. Etruria to be prcise, which as you know is latin for Tuscany. I fill my days drinking fine reds and eating salsiccia before I go to the welding shop and spend happy hours with an angle grinder.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
To play devil’s advocate to some extent, it’s a rather metropolitan view that trains, rather than roads, contribute more to levelling up. The Red Wall want local jobs, not a faster way to get to Manchester, Newcastle, or London.
The Red Wall want the opportunity for better jobs for their children than they have. Just like anybody else does. Simply opening a new factory or a Home Bargains isn't aspirational.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
You're fooling no-one Roger.
How we've missed you! Still selling tractors in Ludlow? Trade must be brisk after the Neil Parish affair.
My tractor videos have been proving enormously successful, I let your friend Giuseppe Veneziano do the editing and it just took off.
Ludlow is just springing back to life but in the week I am now working in Stoke. Etruria to be prcise, which as you know is latin for Tuscany. I fill my days drinking fine reds and eating salsiccia before I go to the welding shop and spend happy hours with an angle grinder.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
Prince Andrew could lose all his money and he still wouldn't become working class.
He could rent a flat above a shop, cut his hair and get a job, smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend he never went to school, but still he'd never get it right, cause when he's laying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if he called his mum he could stop it all.
Are you sure?
It's the Divine Right of Kings that does it, as conferred by the C of E (prop: HMtQ).
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
To play devil’s advocate to some extent, it’s a rather metropolitan view that trains, rather than roads, contribute more to levelling up. The Red Wall want local jobs, not a faster way to get to Manchester, Newcastle, or London.
My point is HS2 eastern leg was cancelled and replaced by nothing but hot air. A 3 lane motorway up to Newcastle would be good for example. I think rail, especially light rail, is a part of the solution especially extending the metro in line with the vision of NECA.
It is not jobs we want. We have plenty. It is well paying jobs we need.
On the topic of the "Westminister bubble", I think that MPs are more immune to it than the media. The MPs go back to their constituencies, the Lobby never does. It is the media that most loves the fetid late night gossip, and this is pretty unhealthy for our democracy. The fact that the PM and various ministers are journalists themselves is also part of the problem. Partygate and other microscandals are deeply unserious and discredit British politics around the world. As a former Finnish PM said last week "Britain needs to pull its socks up".
Well said. The bubble stuff looks ridiculous watching from afar.
Lying to parliament isn't bubble stuff. The Ministerial Code is there for a reason. Standards in public life are there for a reason. And the same pattern of dishonesty and hypocrisy runs through everything this PM and his coterie does. They are poisoning the well of political life in this country. This matters.
“Were there any more ‘parties’?” “No” “But, but two years ago you spent nine minutes being ambushed by your wife with a birthday cake. You’re a lying liar who should resign for lying”
It looks ridiculous watching from afar.
I thought the same when Princess Di met her maker. I was coming back from South Africa and was told by a British Airways stewardess. I could see that being able to tell someone who didn't already know made her day. But within two minutes I'd stopped thinking about it......When I got back I couldn't believe it. It was epic!
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
You put out a post like that and think you can cover up your days dogging behind the KFC in West Bromwich.
You're fooling no-one Roger.
How we've missed you! Still selling tractors in Ludlow? Trade must be brisk after the Neil Parish affair.
He seems to know where to go dogging in the West Midlands. Or at least be familiar with the online directories.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
Easy to solve if the economy is growing, and the question is who gets the goodies from a growing cake.
Much harder to solve if you can't/ won't grow the cake. And the problem with populism is that often it does things that make people feel good but shrink the economy.
The anger at the idea of levelling up is interesting.
As is the idea that it must be imposed on the grateful, grimy Northerners by The Right People. Doing the Right Things. Which, of course aren’t the things that the Northerners want. Since they are too ignorant to know what they need.
I am in my Lake District home alone for three glorious weeks! Hooray!!!
Husband working in London. Eldest Son also working there. Youngest Son (just turned 24 - how the hell did that happen?!) has gone to London to spend time with friends then travel before starting his new job. Daughter is in Greece enjoying a well-earned holiday.
The weather is set fine and I can please myself with no pesky family to worry about.
NorthWest Electrics will be taking down an unnecessary electricity pole in the land I have acquired and the wooden poles will (a) provide the basis for some raised planting beds; and (b) allow me to move a Portakabin to its final location, to be turned - once suitably cladded with wood - into a summer house where I can rest after tending to my veg etc. It is of course stuffed full of rubbish which Husband insists "will come in useful one day" but he's not here is he? 🤫
Meanwhile I have created a sort of mini auricula theatre.
And the wisteria is beginning to bloom.
My very dispersed family gathered at the Daffodil Hotel in Grasmere last week-end. It's easy to forget what a uniquely beautiful place the Lakes can be when the sun shines. It was a busy bank holiday week-end but despite this as soon as you leave Windermere behind you are faced with scenes so astonishing they take your breath away
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
The same issue as Northumberland. To attempt to solve it they put us all together. And split Cumbria up. They've just put Somerset and Bucks together. And split Northants up. Local government is a hotch-potch mess.
It is. A few years back new labour put out a consultation on merging several authorities into one unified Durham county council. In spite of a lack of enthusiasm from the voters, who cares what they want after all, they went ahead and formed Durham county council which has been far from a success. The introduction of parking charges in the towns to help fund the Durham park and ride has been a disaster for the High streets and labour just focused on Durham city (and to a lesser degree seaham and bishop Auckland) to the detriment of other towns.
Their loss of power last year was well deserved.
Another Hazel Blears thing?
I was working in Shropshire when they did it there - disaster.
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
That's one route. The other is to to go full-on American Republican; shout more, rub the left's noses in woke, Europe and Corbyn. State cuts to pay for tax cuts.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
Day 47 of our Shanghai Covid lockdown and we woke up, like we often do, to a man in a hazmat suit downstairs yelling through a bull horn for us to come down for our tests
As ever John Harris adds something to the conversation that is worth sitting up and listening to. No one in political journalism does more thinking and scratching around beneath the headlines than this guy imho.
Thread of the evening.
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h You won't hear much political sociology in reporting of these election results. But a lot of them tell you about how a large chunk of the English middle class no longer meets old-fashioned stereotypes. (1)
John Harris @johnharris1969 · 4h Replying to @johnharris1969 It's increasingly liberal & worldly, thanks partly to the expansion of Higher Education, but also to how far cities' cultures now stretch well into suburbia and the commuter belt (2)
John Harris @johnharris1969 P.s Blair's expansion of Higher Education May yet prove to be as transformative as Thatcher's sale of council houses
Its a combination of the expansion of graduates with degrees of little use and the massive expansion of debt they're stuck with to get those degrees of little use.
The result is a huge number of new graduates each year who having been to university think they're entitled to a middle class lifestyle but don't have the skillset to achieve it.
Which inevitably leads them to blaming the government, the economic system, society as a whole.
And produces a class of people who require the creation of public sector middle class non-jobs for them to achieve the middle class lifestyle they think they're entitled to.
HYUFD is that you?
Utter classist rubbish. Education is the key to a civil society. Right wing populists demanding education only for the elites (generally themselves) reminds me why I have never voted Conservative.
I also disagree the middle class is only the highest 10% of earners.
The middle class is defined now as about 50% of the population ie upper middle class ABs and lower middle class C1s. You can be AB even if not in the top 10% of earners if a professional still and C1 basically as long as you have a job which is not manual labour
So you think that working in a call centre makes someone middle class? Or scanning groceries at a supermarket checkout?
That’s bananas.
Class distinctions have always been bananas! In some cultures being a merchant put you bottom of the pile apparently.
I'm sure some would argue any job where you spend most of it sat down would count as middle class, even if it was low paid, if they focus on physicality of work.
Really? That’s nuts.
(What about me? Teaching you spend most of your time standing up…)
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
To play devil’s advocate to some extent, it’s a rather metropolitan view that trains, rather than roads, contribute more to levelling up. The Red Wall want local jobs, not a faster way to get to Manchester, Newcastle, or London.
The Red Wall want the opportunity for better jobs for their children than they have. Just like anybody else does. Simply opening a new factory or a Home Bargains isn't aspirational.
Exactly right. It isn’t jobs, we have those, it’s well paying jobs and great opportunities. We currently lose our aspirational younger people to other places where those opportunities exist. People like sandpit seem to think we just want jobs, whatever they are, be it min wage call centre work or shop work. Not sure how someone can say what we, who live in the region, actually wants when they don’t even live in the region or the country.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
Prince Andrew could lose all his money and he still wouldn't become working class.
He could rent a flat above a shop, cut his hair and get a job, smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend he never went to school, but still he'd never get it right, cause when he's laying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if he called his mum he could stop it all.
Are you sure?
It's the Divine Right of Kings that does it, as conferred by the C of E (prop: HMtQ).
The GE question for me is how badly the Tories lose and who with?
If Boris remains then the Conservatives don't even reach "toast" status, More like stale bread that fails to make it out of the wrapper. In the leafy Conservative seats Boris is seen as a vulgar lying oaf that you'd cross the street to avoid - Advantage LibDems.
In the Red Wall and suburbs some of the spiv shine remains but then it'll be "the economy stupid" that rubs away the remaining gloss - Advantage Labour and Others.
Boris Remains = Electoral Catastrophe Boris Goes = Electoral Hope .. Perhaps.
How Stupid Do The Stupid Party Want To Be?
I agree with this. Boris really has to go to get the Tories in the game.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
That's one route. The other is to to go full-on American Republican; shout more, rub the left's noses in woke, Europe and Corbyn. State cuts to pay for tax cuts.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
Trump was also more big government than Reagan just as Boris is more big government than Thatcher.
Trump and Boris are both culturally populist and nationalist, especially Trump but on economics they are relatively centrist.
I am in my Lake District home alone for three glorious weeks! Hooray!!!
Husband working in London. Eldest Son also working there. Youngest Son (just turned 24 - how the hell did that happen?!) has gone to London to spend time with friends then travel before starting his new job. Daughter is in Greece enjoying a well-earned holiday.
The weather is set fine and I can please myself with no pesky family to worry about.
NorthWest Electrics will be taking down an unnecessary electricity pole in the land I have acquired and the wooden poles will (a) provide the basis for some raised planting beds; and (b) allow me to move a Portakabin to its final location, to be turned - once suitably cladded with wood - into a summer house where I can rest after tending to my veg etc. It is of course stuffed full of rubbish which Husband insists "will come in useful one day" but he's not here is he? 🤫
Meanwhile I have created a sort of mini auricula theatre.
And the wisteria is beginning to bloom.
My very dispersed family gathered at the Daffodil Hotel in Grasmere last week-end. It's easy to forget what a uniquely beautiful place the Lakes can be when the sun shines. It was a busy bank holiday week-end but despite this as soon as you leave Windermere behind you are faced with scenes so astonishing they take your breath away
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
The same issue as Northumberland. To attempt to solve it they put us all together. And split Cumbria up. They've just put Somerset and Bucks together. And split Northants up. Local government is a hotch-potch mess.
It is. A few years back new labour put out a consultation on merging several authorities into one unified Durham county council. In spite of a lack of enthusiasm from the voters, who cares what they want after all, they went ahead and formed Durham county council which has been far from a success. The introduction of parking charges in the towns to help fund the Durham park and ride has been a disaster for the High streets and labour just focused on Durham city (and to a lesser degree seaham and bishop Auckland) to the detriment of other towns.
Their loss of power last year was well deserved.
Another Hazel Blears thing?
I was working in Shropshire when they did it there - disaster.
It was during the 2001-5 labour govt so probably the hapless Blears. It’s not gone well.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
To play devil’s advocate to some extent, it’s a rather metropolitan view that trains, rather than roads, contribute more to levelling up. The Red Wall want local jobs, not a faster way to get to Manchester, Newcastle, or London.
The Red Wall want the opportunity for better jobs for their children than they have. Just like anybody else does. Simply opening a new factory or a Home Bargains isn't aspirational.
Exactly right. It isn’t jobs, we have those, it’s well paying jobs and great opportunities. We currently lose our aspirational younger people to other places where those opportunities exist. People like sandpit seem to think we just want jobs, whatever they are, be it min wage call centre work or shop work. Not sure how someone can say what we, who live in the region, actually wants when they don’t even live in the region or the country.
I really must introduce you to HYUFD one of these days
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Thank you! Also just tipped the winner of the agreement grand national at badminton so obviously on fire. If only the things I got right and the things I had money on were more closely aligned
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Thank you! Also just tipped the winner of the agreement grand national at badminton so obviously on fire. If only the things I got right and the things I had money on were more closely aligned
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
The question of what defines the class system cannot be answered until you define what the classification of the class system is for.
For a Marxist, primarily concerned with analysing power relations within society, then classes will be defined by how they stand in relation to the exercise of power over one's own work. So white collar professionals ca be considered working class because they don't have control over their own work, whereas an independent plumber is middle class.
Traditionally, in Britain, class distinction was a social imperative, a question of who it was right to mix with socially - hence, "Not Quite Our Class Darling". There is therefore a lot more about whether one can pass as the right class, in terms of accent, knowledge of cutlery, etc, and so a definition based on education, or office/shop floor differences is one that has a lot more meaning to people.
Where money does come into play is with the growth of the rentier class, parasitising on the labour of others.
Mélenchon says he won't personally be a candidate in the legislative elections despite campaigning to become Prime Minister: "It's not necessary. I have enough popular legitimacy to be able to represent the country with dignity."
On the local side, I worry about the new local authority. The problem with the previous one was that, based in Carlisle, it cared not a jot for areas like mine. Many of the officials responsible for services in our areas have not even visited it. That problem is not going to be solved by having Cumberland Council focused - again - on Carlisle and with the ruling group having most of its councillors based elsewhere. Also there is no natural link with Carlisle. It takes at least 2 hours - often more - to drive there and in that time I can be halfway to London. And cutting us off administratively from our natural hinterland with Barrow and the rest of the Duddon Estuary is absurd.
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
A couple of other points:-
1. The Labour councillor for Millom is a friend of Husband. According to him, he is good, which is very encouraging. Husband views most politicians with considerable distaste so praise from him is praise indeed. Hopefully that will help ensure that this area is not ignored.
2. There was a time when in the adjacent ward (Millom Without) the Tory would be elected unopposed. There is now a reasonable Labour and a smaller Lib Dem vote.
Does levelling up threaten the Tories in the south west?
It doesn't mean anything it practical terms, so no.
It doesn't mean a great deal in practical terms. But, the more the Tories bang on about it, and the more the PM appears driving a forklift in hi-viz round a widget warehouse Up North, the more folk Down South wonder why they are paying vast taxes for someone else's benefit? It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019. Not sure that is easily solvable.
I recall sometime last year, before things started going south, ahem, for the Tories, that there was some snide comments about Red Wall MPs getting a bit too much attention, and a bit demanding. The implication was that the BoJo tendency is obsessed with doing well in the Red Wall, recognising it was key to the 2019 success, but to the detriment of the southern base, which had been the heartland but might now feel the government doesn't give a crap about them.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
I've got a feeling it's more than a regional issue. Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned. They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming. Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Yet for all this bollocks about levelling up and helping the so called red wall, which seems to piss off the entitled, wealthy, southern middle classes in their large expensive properties, what has actually been done apart from a load of hot air.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
To play devil’s advocate to some extent, it’s a rather metropolitan view that trains, rather than roads, contribute more to levelling up. The Red Wall want local jobs, not a faster way to get to Manchester, Newcastle, or London.
The Red Wall want the opportunity for better jobs for their children than they have. Just like anybody else does. Simply opening a new factory or a Home Bargains isn't aspirational.
Exactly right. It isn’t jobs, we have those, it’s well paying jobs and great opportunities. We currently lose our aspirational younger people to other places where those opportunities exist. People like sandpit seem to think we just want jobs, whatever they are, be it min wage call centre work or shop work. Not sure how someone can say what we, who live in the region, actually wants when they don’t even live in the region or the country.
Not at all, I was arguing for more better-paid jobs locally, rather than minimum wage work supported by more trains to the big city.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
The question of what defines the class system cannot be answered until you define what the classification of the class system is for.
For a Marxist, primarily concerned with analysing power relations within society, then classes will be defined by how they stand in relation to the exercise of power over one's own work. So white collar professionals ca be considered working class because they don't have control over their own work, whereas an independent plumber is middle class.
Traditionally, in Britain, class distinction was a social imperative, a question of who it was right to mix with socially - hence, "Not Quite Our Class Darling". There is therefore a lot more about whether one can pass as the right class, in terms of accent, knowledge of cutlery, etc, and so a definition based on education, or office/shop floor differences is one that has a lot more meaning to people.
Where money does come into play is with the growth of the rentier class, parasitising on the labour of others.
Indeed - and inviting a chap who runs a plumbing company to diner is now considered AOK in the Merlot & Cocaine world.
Mélenchon says he won't personally be a candidate in the legislative elections despite campaigning to become Prime Minister: "It's not necessary. I have enough popular legitimacy to be able to represent the country with dignity."
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
The question of what defines the class system cannot be answered until you define what the classification of the class system is for.
For a Marxist, primarily concerned with analysing power relations within society, then classes will be defined by how they stand in relation to the exercise of power over one's own work. So white collar professionals ca be considered working class because they don't have control over their own work, whereas an independent plumber is middle class.
Traditionally, in Britain, class distinction was a social imperative, a question of who it was right to mix with socially - hence, "Not Quite Our Class Darling". There is therefore a lot more about whether one can pass as the right class, in terms of accent, knowledge of cutlery, etc, and so a definition based on education, or office/shop floor differences is one that has a lot more meaning to people.
Where money does come into play is with the growth of the rentier class, parasitising on the labour of others.
Indeed - and inviting a chap who runs a plumbing company to diner is now considered AOK in the Merlot & Cocaine world.
Ah great, another outing for "what does working class mean?"
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
The question of what defines the class system cannot be answered until you define what the classification of the class system is for.
For a Marxist, primarily concerned with analysing power relations within society, then classes will be defined by how they stand in relation to the exercise of power over one's own work. So white collar professionals ca be considered working class because they don't have control over their own work, whereas an independent plumber is middle class.
Traditionally, in Britain, class distinction was a social imperative, a question of who it was right to mix with socially - hence, "Not Quite Our Class Darling". There is therefore a lot more about whether one can pass as the right class, in terms of accent, knowledge of cutlery, etc, and so a definition based on education, or office/shop floor differences is one that has a lot more meaning to people.
Where money does come into play is with the growth of the rentier class, parasitising on the labour of others.
Indeed - and inviting a chap who runs a plumbing company to diner is now considered AOK in the Merlot & Cocaine world.
I thought the MPs would move earlier this year, and I was wrong. So I’m wary about predicting the letters going in now, but I do think these results should spell out to MPs just how much of a liability Johnson is.
He was chosen because he was seen as an election winner. He isn't anymore. And this is because of his failings. Not just mid-term blues. So he should go.
What rules has Starmer broken? Seems to me that unless there is conclusive proof Starmer was partying and that will be from sources inside the room, there is nothing to see here?
So what happens to the Chelsea money? Although we are not bound by Abramovich's wishes, if he wants it to go to Ukraine I don't see why that can't be agreed.
Surely what happens to sanctioned assets is already a legal minefield. If the state formally agrees to what seems like a "reasonable" idea in this instance, wouldn't they just be making it even more complex to deal with other people's assets in the future?
My flat doesn't have a bath. Social mobility is an impossible dream here.
If you were working class you could cobble one together from a couple of car bonnets and a welding torch.
Proper working class would start with you making your own toolbox and the tools* to go in it…
*that’s how apprentices were trained in The Goode Olde Days Of Yore.
When I was at sixth form/university I had a part time job in a workshop that prepared rally cars. The first thing I had to do was make my own welding cart. It took fucking forever and the end result was a load of crap that needed three grown men to move it and fell apart when they did. Now you can buy good ones from MachineMart/Screwfix for about 60 quid.
After that display of youthful ineptitude the second thing they got me to weld were bits of a rollcage for an RS2000 on the integrity of which lives would depend. That was my first introduction to the ethics of the car business.
Comments
To me education / learning / training should be thought of as a lifetime thing and financially supported as and when required rather than the 'all or nothing' roulette game of 18-21 university.
That the internet now allows far easier (and cheaper) lifetime learning should be made use of.
Instead we have boomers, for whom their debt free university education was usually a pathway to a good career, wanting to see ever higher numbers going to university irrespective if that's the right choice for the teenagers involved.
Not just a pre internet mentality but very much something from the 1970s.
One incident was covered by the exception for deaf people, as you know full well; the other was certainly a silly lapse, 12 hours before the ending of the rules.
But compared to No 10? Forget it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/05/06/the-russian-frigate-admiral-makarov-might-be-the-juiciest-target-in-the-black-sea/amp/
Can’t judge how accurate it is but it makes to my very inexpert eye a plausible case.
But if they do get rid of Johnson, then Labour are in a tricky spot if Starmer does get a fine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22007058
Esher of course is the same. At the time SWS was a LD target Esher was rock solid Tory. Now SWS is safe Esher isn't. Nothing has changed within the constituency make up, but events have.
As for politics -
- V bad for the Tories. Boris should go but Tory MPs are too frit / complacent to force him out. If they did, they might have a fighting chance at the next GE. If they don't, they are looking at almost certain defeat.
- Very good for the Lib Dems - despite having an uncharismatic and largely invisible leader.
- Pretty good for Labour if not brilliant.
My ward was one of 2 which voted - by a pretty large majority - Tory. Millom was very close, the Labour guy winning by only 37 votes. My local Tory councillor campaigned purely on local issues, almost as if he was a Tory independent.
I am not surprised that Cumberland as a whole has turned Labour.
Some thoughts as to why:-
1. It is a reversion to the norm in many ways. There used to be Labour MPs here for quite some time before the Copeland victory in 2017 started the process of turning the area Tory. It was Corbyn which turned a lot of people away from Labour.
2. The West coast of Cumbria is the industrial part of the Lakes which tourists often don't see / know about. Like all such areas it is trying to reinvent itself, with mixed success.
3. The sort of Labour you get here is old-fashioned conservative Labour: unimpressed with Corbynism and metropolitan values which sneer at places such as this. It is not impressed with gold wallpaper, lies and people not following the rules. During Covid, people here tried hard to follow the rules.
4. But don't assume that this is ignorant / redneck country: it is an area which has seen a lot of immigration over the decades - from the Irish in Cleator Moor to Poles and Hungarians from the 1940's onwards. Our first Ukrainian families have arrived this week. Lots of people who live here work in big cities during the week or WFH. There is also quite a thriving cultural community here and a lot of effort is being put into expanding it.
5. People turned away from Labour, partly because of Brexit but also because of levelling up and a feeling of long-term neglect by Labour.
6. The Tories have not done enough to make good on their promises: there is money from the New Towns Fund for my area - a big plus. But farming is cross with the trade deals and proposed changes to the support for them, the hospitality and tourist sectors were hard hit by Covid and are finding it tough now with difficulties in recruitment and costs going up and not much else has been done on "levelling up". In particular, transport links are not good and housing is a big issue - not enough houses being built and it being v v difficult for locals to find places to rent / buy because of AirBnB etc.
So - in short - a mix of broken/unfilled promises and an untrustworthy PM. Trudi Harrison is a reasonably good local MP (and comes from the area) but nowhere near as good / active as Tim Farron on local issues. And, to my mind, too inclined to trot out the party line on controversial issues.
tbc ...
Labour will have to prove themselves. If they become complacent and ignore us again, anything could happen. Saying that they will get these seats at a GE as one spokesman appeared to be saying yesterday is a bit hubristic IMO.
Your Woman on the Spot etc ....xx
But like all politicians she has a great big streak of hypocrisy which encourages he to throw stones in her glasshouse.
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1522860978722988032
It comes back to the issue of the entirely divergent interests of the vast coalition put together in 2019.
Not sure that is easily solvable.
But the frigates are about as big as Russia can make a non-nuclear surface combatant these days, for reasons that—ironically—have everything to do with the current war. Throughout the Soviet era and for years after the USSR’s collapse, Russia acquired its big marine engines from Ukraine.
After Russia in 2014 invaded and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula—including the port of Sevastopol where Admiral Makarov now is based—Kyiv barred certain exports to Russia, including the marine engines Russia requires for any fast, conventional vessel displacing more than 5,000 tons or so.
Which is to say, after 2014 the Russian navy struggled to build big warships. That made it impossible to replace, like for like, the biggest Soviet-vintage ships such as Moskva, which displaced 12,000 tons.
So the Ukraine Armed Forces aren't claiming to have sunk it, so seems fairly certain it wasn't sunk.
Social mobility is an impossible dream here.
Properly done, education is partly about breaking down the mental barriers to new ideas.
Given the Express's take on these locals, the feeling of lack of care toward the south will continue.
Some things just hit a nerve and Boris Partying at that moment did it in a way that few other things have. I suppose if you analysed it it was several things coming together ....an imperious feeling of entitlement when everyone was having a bad time.....and all catalogued with unforgettable images....the smug grin .....the table in the sunshine ..the hapless Aleggra...Rees Mogg......It was quite cinematic. It was the moment Marie Antoinette quaffed one too many buns.
In any case if it were true the only option would be to get rid of districts, counties an unitaries etc altogether, and just have everything done by parishes who are the only genuinely local bodies (even then some are bi pretty big and disparate in their communities), and I don't think they are set up for that.
Yes, education is a good thing and we need more of it. That doesn’t mean that we need half of 18 year olds moving across the country, to get £50k into debt in exchange for a mostly worthless piece of paper.
The whole sector is ripe for reform of the products it offers, we need more flexible learning options such as two-year crammer degrees, online-only courses, part time study etc, as well as more of what the US calls Community Colleges.
Local government is a hotch-potch mess.
Three types of balsamic does not make me middle class.
(Actually, one has run out, so only two now.)
Public sector? Underfunded and getting worse. Professional classes? Effete latte sipping, human rights obsessed pansies. Rural areas? Utterly ignored. Cities? Openly scorned.
They add up to a vast majority of the nation. Somerset, Cumbria and N Yorkshire were the most fascinating results I entirely didn't see coming.
Hat tip to @IshmaelZ who I think had been raising rural lack of love for the PM for a while.
Their loss of power last year was well deserved.
You're fooling no-one Roger.
Even without him, however, it is going to be very difficult with a poor set of cards. Inflation is going to be high from here to the election. It should be past its peak by the election but it will be far higher than we have got used to. The government finances will benefit from that inflation to some degree both by fiscal drag and by a reduction in the real value of the debt mountain but the treasury is not so much empty as seriously overborrowed so there will be no more than token freebies for anyone.
What does a new post Boris party have to do? I would suggest:
1. Get sensible working arrangements with the EU both generally and specifically in NI. If that involves compromises on our part about standards etc so be it. The anger of natural Tories who were remainers must be defused. Many of these are the people who did not vote on Thursday.
2. Clean up as much as possible of the horrendous backlogs in the NHS that have come as a result of Covid. This affects everyone but specifically their older supporters.
3. Get the Social Care plan actually working. God knows how but do it.
4. Get as many infrastructure plans to the spades in the ground point as we can afford. It won't be many.
5. Try to be more competent. Its a bloody low bar but you look at a lot of the existing cabinet and despair. There must be more talent on the backbenches to bring forward.
6. Calm down a bit. Use softer language, do not unnecessarily create culture wars, talk consensually, acknowledge the many challenges we face and be open about the choices available.
It is an interesting question. Is it about money? - you're working class if you don't have any. Or occupation? - you're working class if your job isn't white collar professional managerial. Or culture? - you're working class if you have "working class values" (tbd).
My view is it's about money. The "occupation" test doesn't fit for how the workplace is these days. And the "values" test is too soft and allows too much bullshit into the equation. So, it's money, pure and simple. You're working class - regardless of whether you actually work - if you don't have much capital and your income is modest or low. All such people are working class and nobody else is.
To stress test this:
A bloke called Frank who's been a labourer for 25 years, just about managing, wins the lottery. No, let's make it more heartwarming, he gets an acca up on the horses and it pays out £2m.
And at about the same time -
Prince Andrew loses everything but his title. Gets kicked out of Windsor Castle and starts a new life on Universal Credit in Slough. Is allocated a bedsit and has £50 a week for extras like food and heating.
Has Frank ceased to be working class? Has Prince Andrew (and he is still a Prince remember) *become* working class?
The answer to both is Yes. The test is passed. My definition is the one to go with.
Levelling up died the day the eastern leg of HS2 got canned and was replaced with nothing but hot air. A new factory here or there cannot change that.
Two quick thoughts before the day and the demands of the Saturday Patent overtake me.
First, excellent results for the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland - it will be good to have a strong third force in the Assembly which isn't strongly associated with either side.
Second, local government - there is no "one size fits all" solution if you are trying to abolish two-tier.
And now, for the thing no one has been waiting for, the only thing less successful than a Conservative local election candidate (too soon?) - the Stodge Saturday Patent.
Off to Lingfield for their best turf flat card of the whole year and from the later races:
3.50 Lingfield: SHE DO
4.25 Lingfield: RAVENS ARK
5.00 Lingfield: SMOKEY MALONE
Stick a 1-point win patent on those if you've got some winnings on backing the Conservatives to win Harrow (can't actually recall Smarkets putting up any prices for that but I might be wrong).
In most countries it is about money and wealth and to some extent education level too.
In the UK however money is just a small factor in it, birth is also important and where you went to school also matters. Alan Sugar and David Beckham for example will never be posher than the Duke of Richmond even if they are now richer than him.
Prince Andrew even if he lived in a bedsit on UC would still be posher than Frank the labourer even if Frank won the lottery and became much richer than him
He could rent a flat above a shop, cut his hair and get a job, smoke some fags and play some pool, pretend he never went to school, but still he'd never get it right, cause when he's laying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, if he called his mum he could stop it all.
Much harder to solve if you can't/ won't grow the cake. And the problem with populism is that often it does things that make people feel good but shrink the economy.
So much harder to give propaganda to the masses these days.
Ludlow is just springing back to life but in the week I am now working in Stoke. Etruria to be prcise, which as you know is latin for Tuscany. I fill my days drinking fine reds and eating salsiccia before I go to the welding shop and spend happy hours with an angle grinder.
Simply opening a new factory or a Home Bargains isn't aspirational.
It is not jobs we want. We have plenty. It is well paying jobs we need.
As is the idea that it must be imposed on the grateful, grimy Northerners by The Right People. Doing the Right Things. Which, of course aren’t the things that the Northerners want. Since they are too ignorant to know what they need.
I was working in Shropshire when they did it there - disaster.
I know which one I'd prefer, and which one I suspect works better.
I fear which one the Conservative Party will have more fun doing.
Day 47 of our Shanghai Covid lockdown and we woke up, like we often do, to a man in a hazmat suit downstairs yelling through a bull horn for us to come down for our tests
https://twitter.com/JaredTNelson/status/1522597026982252544
Trump and Boris are both culturally populist and nationalist, especially Trump but on economics they are relatively centrist.
For a Marxist, primarily concerned with analysing power relations within society, then classes will be defined by how they stand in relation to the exercise of power over one's own work. So white collar professionals ca be considered working class because they don't have control over their own work, whereas an independent plumber is middle class.
Traditionally, in Britain, class distinction was a social imperative, a question of who it was right to mix with socially - hence, "Not Quite Our Class Darling". There is therefore a lot more about whether one can pass as the right class, in terms of accent, knowledge of cutlery, etc, and so a definition based on education, or office/shop floor differences is one that has a lot more meaning to people.
Where money does come into play is with the growth of the rentier class, parasitising on the labour of others.
*that’s how apprentices were trained in The Goode Olde Days Of Yore.
https://twitter.com/nicolasberrod/status/1522642533704212480
1. The Labour councillor for Millom is a friend of Husband. According to him, he is good, which is very encouraging. Husband views most politicians with considerable distaste so praise from him is praise indeed. Hopefully that will help ensure that this area is not ignored.
2. There was a time when in the adjacent ward (Millom Without) the Tory would be elected unopposed. There is now a reasonable Labour and a smaller Lib Dem vote.
Providing he is successful enough…..
I would love to do that as a part time course.
Making tools can great fun - made some lathe tools, and the satisfaction from doing machining with a tool you have made yourself….
After that display of youthful ineptitude the second thing they got me to weld were bits of a rollcage for an RS2000 on the integrity of which lives would depend. That was my first introduction to the ethics of the car business.