New YouGov polling finds Tory collapse in its its heartlands – politicalbetting.com

ydoethur said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

Nigelb said:

HYUFD said:

Cicero said:

The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rage-is-swallowing-even-the-middle-ground-9s0lg2nf0 (Paywall)

I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.

The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).

There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.

Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.

The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.

The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.

This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.

Good.

In 5 years we could have a high tax, even higher inflation and higher interest rates deeply unpopular Labour government plagued with even more frequent strikes and with a big deficit and rising unemployment. The idea Labour will win the next general election and be in power for all time is complacency of the first degree from you and other left liberals

I believe that Cicero is a former Tory voter ?

Complacency is the belief that the Tory party is now anything more than a parody of what once could claim to be the natural party of government.

It is complacency for any party to say they are 'the natural party of government' in a democracy, the Tories have suffered heavy defeats before in 1997, 2001. 1966, 1945, 1906, 1880 and against Palmerston on many occasions and always come back.

The Whigs/Liberals I’m sure used to say the same thing. The only sure thing on this planet is change. Things are changing. Cameron has managed to discredit Euroscepticism and destroy the Tory Party. Well done him.

The Liberals split three times in just 15 years (and when I say 'split' I mean, actually had separate organisations standing candidates against each other) to achieve that result. Also extensive changes in the franchise and the rise of a competitor party which was well-funded, well-organised and linked to a pre-existing mass movement.

I do not say the Tories can't go the same way, but I do say the circumstances they face are not analogous to those of the Liberals from 1916-32.

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.

Another Brexit dividend.

The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.

Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.

The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt

I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.

The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!

Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite

Yes they will.

Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?

Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?

While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979

...

Exclude the 2008-2010 GFC under Labour and it was higher since 1979.

Strikes less frequent, industry more efficient, gdp per capita and home ownership also higher than 1945-1979

..

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.

That's just the rule of law. If you want to get rid of that fine but I wouldn't recommend it.

eek said:

Phil said:

another_richard said:

Is there any reason why this deserves sympathy ?

Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".

The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233

It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.

The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.

I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.

The issue are 4 fold

House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.

ydoethur said:

another_richard said:

Pulpstar said:

another_richard said:

Pulpstar said:

Scott_xP said:

@steve_hawkes

You do get the sense that - just like with energy bills - the Govt will ultimately cave to some degree on mortgages and come up with a support package of some kind.

Some potential levers :.

1) Longer term mortgages. Nationwide I believe offer the longest right now - Hunt could encourage other banks to offer long terms.
2) 99 year heritable mortgages - a more extreme version of 1), done in Japan I think.
3) Encourage banks to offer long term fixes (30 yr ?) - as happens in the USA. This way there's no shock for anyone midway through.

Those would all be free for the Gov't, and of course it won't help the poor schmucks who can barely afford their interest only as it is ( I think theres still some about that were offered at the bottom of the rates cycle o_O !!! )

There would be bitter regret and years of paying too much if interest rates dropped sharply - as happened in 2008.

IIRC tracker mortgages have a lower rate on the long term average than fixed rate or they at least did so when I had a mortgage.

I think I'd probably tracker now rather than 2 year fix if I had to now.

Making the mortgage market ever more complicated hasn't worked.

Instead simplify to:

1) Minimum 5% deposit
2) Maximum 30 years
3) All mortgages are tracker at base rate +1%
4) Interest only banned

I would have said 3 would make things much worse, as it makes future financial planning very difficult. Yes, I know we've had stable interest rates for a long time but that's abnormal. A more usual scenario is they go up and down like Johnson's trousers.

Instead, the presumption should be fixes for 7-10 years to give more stability.

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.

Another Brexit dividend.

The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.

Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.

The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt

I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.

The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!

Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite

Yes they will.

Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?

Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?

While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979

...

Exclude the 2008-2010 GFC under Labour and it was higher since 1979.

Strikes less frequent, industry more efficient, gdp per capita and home ownership also higher than 1945-1979

..

That looks like a ChatGPT response And as we know, ChatGPT isn't good with figures.

Farooq said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

The whole misuse of the concept of "elites" by people like HYUFD strikes me as so much playing with fire. To hear populist narratives coming out of the mouths of "conservatives" is disturbing.

The danger is that normalising such language opens the door of the town hall to far worse people than either the stupid conservatives speaking like this or the stupid people they are trying to attack.

Populism isn't a plaything. It's a vicious weapon that should only be unleashed when it's really, really needed. If your target is tweedy academics and pride flags, you can be damn sure it's not needed.

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

another_richard said:

Is there any reason why this deserves sympathy ?

Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".

The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233

It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.

The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.

I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.

The issue are 4 fold

House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.

Rubbish. When interest rates are low, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are a fraction of those on a repayment mortgage.

Consider a £200k mortgage. At 1.5%, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are £250 / month. For a repayment mortgage they’re £800 / month.

You can borrow far, far more on an IO mortgage for the same monthly payment which is why they’re so pro-cyclical & inflationary - they amplify the booms in house prices as people chase the prices up to limit of that which banks are willing to lend. In a more perfect world banks would restrict lending themselves in boom times but the internal incentives just don’t line up to make that happen.

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Roger said:

Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.

It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?

But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.

This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.

What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.

Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.

You want to rejoin. Cool.

Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...

For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.

So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.

It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.

But freedom of movement didn't reduce wages for low-skilled Brits; it reduced wages for low-skilled occupations. This is an important difference and one that people repeatedly fail to appreciate.

When freedom of movement ended, we had almost full employment. There weren't hordes of low-skilled Brits sitting around twiddling their thumbs while immigrants did the crap jobs. No, the low-skilled Brits were more likely to have had roles one step up the ladder. When freedom of movement ended, the wages for the crap jobs rose, but to fill those crap jobs, Brits need to take a step down the ladder to a rung that has risen but isn't as high as the one they were on.

That's why the end of freedom of movement will mean lower, rather than higher, wages for low-skilled Brits. This will gradually become more evident as time goes on.

In reality those low skilled jobs disappear or are replaced by machines.

FeersumEnjineeya said:

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Roger said:

Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.

It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?

But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.

This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.

What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.

Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.

You want to rejoin. Cool.

Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...

For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.

So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.

It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.

But freedom of movement didn't reduce wages for low-skilled Brits; it reduced wages for low-skilled occupations. This is an important difference and one that people repeatedly fail to appreciate.

When freedom of movement ended, we had almost full employment. There weren't hordes of low-skilled Brits sitting around twiddling their thumbs while immigrants did the crap jobs. No, the low-skilled Brits were more likely to have had roles one step up the ladder. When freedom of movement ended, the wages for the crap jobs rose, but to fill those crap jobs, Brits need to take a step down the ladder to a rung that has risen but isn't as high as the one they were on.

That's why the end of freedom of movement will mean lower, rather than higher, wages for low-skilled Brits. This will gradually become more evident as time goes on.

In reality those low skilled jobs disappear or are replaced by machines.

Some will, but not all.

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Roger said:

Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.

It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?

But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.

This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.

What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.

Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.

You want to rejoin. Cool.

Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...

For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.

So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.

It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.

But freedom of movement didn't reduce wages for low-skilled Brits; it reduced wages for low-skilled occupations. This is an important difference and one that people repeatedly fail to appreciate.

When freedom of movement ended, we had almost full employment. There weren't hordes of low-skilled Brits sitting around twiddling their thumbs while immigrants did the crap jobs. No, the low-skilled Brits were more likely to have had roles one step up the ladder. When freedom of movement ended, the wages for the crap jobs rose, but to fill those crap jobs, Brits need to take a step down the ladder to a rung that has risen but isn't as high as the one they were on.

That's why the end of freedom of movement will mean lower, rather than higher, wages for low-skilled Brits. This will gradually become more evident as time goes on.

In reality those low skilled jobs disappear or are replaced by machines.

Some will, but not all.

And wages would rise in those that would still exist.

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.

That's just the rule of law. If you want to get rid of that fine but I wouldn't recommend it.

It isn't really the rule of law - Cameronite reforms that made quangos quasi-independent have a lot to answer for. Most would agree that the NHS is badly run, but have any of those mismanaging it been dismissed or even challenged?

*edit - ah I get you were speaking about the Rwanda policy specifically - sure. Just an example that Tory Ministers (especially right wing ones it would appear) aren't part of the elite.

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

another_richard said:

Is there any reason why this deserves sympathy ?

Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".

The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233

It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.

The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.

I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.

The issue are 4 fold

House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.

Rubbish. When interest rates are low, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are a fraction of those on a repayment mortgage.

Consider a £200k mortgage. At 1.5%, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are £250 / month. For a repayment mortgage they’re £800 / month.

You can borrow far, far more on an IO mortgage for the same monthly payment which is why they’re so pro-cyclical & inflationary - they amplify the booms in house prices as people chase the prices up to limit of that which banks are willing to lend. In a more perfect world banks would restrict lending themselves in boom times but the internal incentives just don’t line up to make that happen.

Nigelb said:

Dura_Ace said:

mickydroy said:

what 3 word slogan they run on now, beats me

Obvious.

Should really have been a bulldog, or the Dulux sheepdog, but otherwise spot in.

The Tory party is just going through the motions.

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

another_richard said:

Is there any reason why this deserves sympathy ?

Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".

The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233

It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.

The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.

I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.

The issue are 4 fold

House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.

Rubbish. When interest rates are low, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are a fraction of those on a repayment mortgage.

Consider a £200k mortgage. At 1.5%, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are £250 / month. For a repayment mortgage they’re £800 / month.

You can borrow far, far more on an IO mortgage for the same monthly payment which is why they’re so pro-cyclical & inflationary - they amplify the booms in house prices as people chase the prices up to limit of that which banks are willing to lend. In a more perfect world banks would restrict lending themselves in boom times but the internal incentives just don’t line up to make that happen.

FeersumEnjineeya said:

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Roger said:

Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.

It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?

But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.

This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.

What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.

Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.

You want to rejoin. Cool.

Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...

For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.

So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.

It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.

But freedom of movement didn't reduce wages for low-skilled Brits; it reduced wages for low-skilled occupations. This is an important difference and one that people repeatedly fail to appreciate.

When freedom of movement ended, we had almost full employment. There weren't hordes of low-skilled Brits sitting around twiddling their thumbs while immigrants did the crap jobs. No, the low-skilled Brits were more likely to have had roles one step up the ladder. When freedom of movement ended, the wages for the crap jobs rose, but to fill those crap jobs, Brits need to take a step down the ladder to a rung that has risen but isn't as high as the one they were on.

That's why the end of freedom of movement will mean lower, rather than higher, wages for low-skilled Brits. This will gradually become more evident as time goes on.

In reality those low skilled jobs disappear or are replaced by machines.

Some will, but not all.

And wages would rise in those that would still exist.

Yes, I did say that. The point is that the people now doing them would otherwise have had better paying jobs.

CorrectHorseBat said:

I am Horse.

Farooq said:

Pulpstar said:

If we joined the Euro we'd be in the ECB. The addition of Kyiv in a few years will keep it generally poor enough to maintain a generally weaker Euro compared to a western Europe only deal and we'd have lower interest rates courtesy of the ECB.

What's not to like

I don't think Ukraine's joining any time soon. There are accession criteria that are quite challenging to meet. There are national vetos. It'll be a long process and success is far from guaranteed. Witness Turkey.

eek said:

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

another_richard said:

Is there any reason why this deserves sympathy ?

Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".

The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233

It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.

The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.

I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.

The issue are 4 fold

House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.

Rubbish. When interest rates are low, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are a fraction of those on a repayment mortgage.

Consider a £200k mortgage. At 1.5%, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are £250 / month. For a repayment mortgage they’re £800 / month.

You can borrow far, far more on an IO mortgage for the same monthly payment which is why they’re so pro-cyclical & inflationary - they amplify the booms in house prices as people chase the prices up to limit of that which banks are willing to lend. In a more perfect world banks would restrict lending themselves in boom times but the internal incentives just don’t line up to make that happen.

My problem is I don't believe anyone has been able to get an interest only mortgage for the past 10 years - banks don't trust the repayment mechanisms so it adds risk and risks means higher interest rates.

Phil said:

Barnesian said:

Phil said:

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.

Another Brexit dividend.

The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.

Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.

The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt

I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.

The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!

Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite

Yes they will.

Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?

Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?

While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979

...

Exclude the 2008-2010 GFC under Labour and it was higher since 1979.

Strikes less frequent, industry more efficient, gdp per capita and home ownership also higher than 1945-1979

..

Is this ChatGPT output?

It is Bard output.

Untrustable then.

Christ people, just drop the numbers in a spreadsheet. You can’t trust an LLM to get sums right reliably, they’re just not capable of it.

Pulpstar said:

Taz said:

Pulpstar said:

If we joined the Euro we'd be in the ECB. The addition of Kyiv in a few years will keep it generally poor enough to maintain a generally weaker Euro compared to a western Europe only deal and we'd have lower interest rates courtesy of the ECB.

What's not to like

Interest rates for savers.

They've got all the world's stock markets to invest in.

HYUFD said:

Barnesian said:

BlancheLivermore said:

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Barnesian said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

HYUFD said:

Mexicanpete said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

15% swing since the GE from the Tories to Lab in rural areas.

Another Brexit dividend.

The Tories aren’t in stepmom territory they are looking at Canada 1993.

Wouldn't it be nice if the current Conservative Party died on its arse, and from the ashes came a right of centre internationalist, non racist party perhaps called "One Nation" and all the corrupt halfwits and drama queens that have decimated your party just returned back up into Farage's rectum.

The only party that would replace the Tories is Farage's. About 2/3 of the current Tory vote is closer to Farage than Hunt

I don't believe we have an appetite for right wing extremism in this country.

The Conservative Party as it stands is an unhappy coalition of right wing populists and One Nation Tories. There is a much bigger voter base for a party of One Nation Tories to tap into. Butskellism lives!

Heathism over Thatcherism in other words. In reality only if Labour returns to the Corbynite left, otherwise swing voters won't switch from a more centrist Labour party unless a Labour government mucks up the economy whether the Tories are Thatcherite or Heathite

Yes they will.

Have you not heard of the Post-War (pre-Thatcher) Consensus?

Which saw Labour win 6 out of 10 general elections between 1945 and 1979?

While the Conservatives have won 8 out of 11 general elections since Thatcher came in in 1979

...

Exclude the 2008-2010 GFC under Labour and it was higher since 1979.

Strikes less frequent, industry more efficient, gdp per capita and home ownership also higher than 1945-1979

..

Why would 45-79 decrease when you exclude 08-10?

Because I moved from GDP growth to GDP per capita growth in response to HYUFD

In 1979 the UK had amongst the lowest gdp per capitas in western Europe, by 1990 the highest. That was when the main growth went even if you switched from GDP growth to per capita when it didn't suit your argument.

UK gdp per capita $7k in 1979, $19k in 1990
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.

Yes, try and find a socially conservative, pro Brexit senior civil servant, judge or head of a quango or even FTSE 100 company

Could you please list the senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos and FTSE100 companies and their political ideologies, please? Asking for a forum.

See the number of FTSE 100 directors who signed a letter opposing Brexit or the SC's rulings against Boris or civil servants briefings v Braverman and Patel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36592782

51 directors out of (and this is an estimate) 700 directors?

How are you getting on with the list of senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos?

Nigelb said:

Farooq said:

Pulpstar said:

If we joined the Euro we'd be in the ECB. The addition of Kyiv in a few years will keep it generally poor enough to maintain a generally weaker Euro compared to a western Europe only deal and we'd have lower interest rates courtesy of the ECB.

What's not to like

I don't think Ukraine's joining any time soon. There are accession criteria that are quite challenging to meet. There are national vetos. It'll be a long process and success is far from guaranteed. Witness Turkey.

I'm not so sure about that.
Of the EU awkward squad, only Hungary would be likely to oppose.

Dura_Ace said:

Nigelb said:

Farooq said:

Pulpstar said:

If we joined the Euro we'd be in the ECB. The addition of Kyiv in a few years will keep it generally poor enough to maintain a generally weaker Euro compared to a western Europe only deal and we'd have lower interest rates courtesy of the ECB.

What's not to like

I don't think Ukraine's joining any time soon. There are accession criteria that are quite challenging to meet. There are national vetos. It'll be a long process and success is far from guaranteed. Witness Turkey.

I'm not so sure about that.
Of the EU awkward squad, only Hungary would be likely to oppose.

It'll depend on who exactly is on the hook for rebuilding whatever's left of Ukraine because that's going to be decades and hundreds of billions. If China and the USA can be hoodwinked into paying for some, or ideally, most of it then opposition inside the EU to Ukraine's membership will be attenuated. If all the EU are getting is a wrecked shit hole that's a money furnace then there will be more Ukro-skeptics than just Hungary (and Slovakia if Fico wins this year's election).

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

another_richard said:

Is there any reason why this deserves sympathy ?

Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".

The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233

It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.

The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.

I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.

The issue are 4 fold

House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.

Rubbish. When interest rates are low, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are a fraction of those on a repayment mortgage.

Consider a £200k mortgage. At 1.5%, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are £250 / month. For a repayment mortgage they’re £800 / month.

You can borrow far, far more on an IO mortgage for the same monthly payment which is why they’re so pro-cyclical & inflationary - they amplify the booms in house prices as people chase the prices up to limit of that which banks are willing to lend. In a more perfect world banks would restrict lending themselves in boom times but the internal incentives just don’t line up to make that happen.

My problem is I don't believe anyone has been able to get an interest only mortgage for the past 10 years - banks don't trust the repayment mechanisms so it adds risk and risks means higher interest rates.

NB https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/2023-06/UK Finance Interest Only Mortgages Update.pdf says that there are currently ~1million outstanding IO (or partial IO) mortgages in the UK: 700k pure IO & 222k part/part.

That’s about 10% of the UK mortgage population. Be interesting to know what the % is by value.

There were 3million IO mortgages outstanding back in 2013, presumably a hangover from the 2008 boom/bust.

Pulpstar said:

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

eek said:

Phil said:

another_richard said:

Is there any reason why this deserves sympathy ?

Rachelle Gleed, 53, from Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, describes the situation as "ridiculous, scary and very, very stressful".

The mother-of-two has a rental property with an interest-only mortgage deal that ends in October and is facing an increase from £500 a month to £1,471.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-65761233

It seems a lot of people have been buying houses on IO mortgages & they’re finding out exactly what that means: It’s just renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, only you have all the responsibility for keeping the property maintained.

The BoE/government should probably have banned IO mortgages for house purchase decades ago. They’re incredibly pro-cyclical & strongly contribute to the boom/bust housing cycle which has been the bane of this country for my entire life.

I don't believe that for a second - interest rates were low but the capital repayment in the early years of a mortgage is so low that it hardly makes any difference.

The issue are 4 fold

House prices are too high (because supply is dire)
Wages are too low (it's remarkable how many jobs that paid £30k 13 years ago still pay that now)
Banks lent people too much over too long a period - with interest rates at 2% loans should have been 20 years max but instead banks were happy to extend to 35 years
Debts / Monthly repayments that looked affordable when interest rates were 2% don't look so great when rates are 5%+ and still rising.

Rubbish. When interest rates are low, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are a fraction of those on a repayment mortgage.

Consider a £200k mortgage. At 1.5%, the monthly payments on an IO mortgage are £250 / month. For a repayment mortgage they’re £800 / month.

You can borrow far, far more on an IO mortgage for the same monthly payment which is why they’re so pro-cyclical & inflationary - they amplify the booms in house prices as people chase the prices up to limit of that which banks are willing to lend. In a more perfect world banks would restrict lending themselves in boom times but the internal incentives just don’t line up to make that happen.

My problem is I don't believe anyone has been able to get an interest only mortgage for the past 10 years - banks don't trust the repayment mechanisms so it adds risk and risks means higher interest rates.

NB https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/files/2023-06/UK Finance Interest Only Mortgages Update.pdf says that there are currently ~1million outstanding IO (or partial IO) mortgages in the UK: 700k pure IO & 222k part/part.

That’s about 10% of the UK mortgage population. Be interesting to know what the % is by value.

There were 3million IO mortgages outstanding back in 2013, presumably a hangover from the 2008 boom/bust.

A huge amount of the IO will be BTL I think seeing as tax rules make capital mortgages a complete non starter. I was on a small IO till about 2015 iirc. The criteria for OO tightened up after that.

Benpointer said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.

Yes, try and find a socially conservative, pro Brexit senior civil servant, judge or head of a quango or even FTSE 100 company

Could you please list the senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos and FTSE100 companies and their political ideologies, please? Asking for a forum.

See the number of FTSE 100 directors who signed a letter opposing Brexit or the SC's rulings against Boris or civil servants briefings v Braverman and Patel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36592782

51 directors out of (and this is an estimate) 700 directors?

How are you getting on with the list of senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos?

You anti Brexit, left liberals are pathetic. Always have to be the victims, always oppressed by the elite.

When the elite largely shares your anti Brexit, social liberalism.

Just 25% of finance workers in the City of London voted Leave, compared to 52% of voters UK wide. Civil servants were even more anti Brexit.

Indeed over 60% of investment bankers in London voted Remain, so you have more in common with them on Brexit than people in Stoke

https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2016/07/this-is-how-city-of-london-workers-voted-in

Which way did you vote btw?

Scott_xP said:

@steverichards14
I recall EU diplomats telling me post 2016 that UK was least suited to leave partly because of N.Ireland.. but also its dependence on single market in which its economy had flourished.They spoke out of bewilderment..the argument already lost.And here we are..

HYUFD said:

Benpointer said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.

Yes, try and find a socially conservative, pro Brexit senior civil servant, judge or head of a quango or even FTSE 100 company

Could you please list the senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos and FTSE100 companies and their political ideologies, please? Asking for a forum.

See the number of FTSE 100 directors who signed a letter opposing Brexit or the SC's rulings against Boris or civil servants briefings v Braverman and Patel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36592782

51 directors out of (and this is an estimate) 700 directors?

How are you getting on with the list of senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos?

You anti Brexit, left liberals are pathetic. Always have to be the victims, always oppressed by the elite.

When the elite largely shares your anti Brexit, social liberalism.

Just 25% of finance workers in the City of London voted Leave, compared to 52% of voters UK wide. Civil servants were even more anti Brexit.

Indeed over 60% of investment bankers in London voted Remain, so you have more in common with them on Brexit than people in Stoke

https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2016/07/this-is-how-city-of-london-workers-voted-in

Which way did you vote btw?

Remain but I am not pretending to be an anti elite rebel.

The real anti elite rebels are the few who are Socialists, voted for Corbyn but also voted Leave and still back Brexit and are religious social conservatives.

Everyone else is still largely in agreement with today's UK elite on at least half the issues

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Sandpit said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

another_richard said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Roger said:

Brexit is the ticking time bomb as anyone listening to the two interviews this morning will know. The public now sense that something has gone badly wrong and they want answers.

It's becoming the disaster that dares not speak it's name. Even the interviewers skipped around it like they were dancing on coals. Surely now it's chief architect had been banished in shame someone would break the omerta?

But not a word. Just platitude after tedious platitude.

This could well end up costing Labour. At the moment It's a Tory disaster. For some reason Labour look determined to share it.

What do you expect them to do, Roger? Commit to rejoin? Seriously. Have think about what that entails. Many of us want to rejoin but you coming on here night after night after night day after day after day moaning about it is not going to allow for that. It's a generational project and sadly many of us on here will be dead when it happens. 2016 is over. We lost. Get over it. Fight the next one. You are incredibly tedious on this topic.

Oh, and your "Boris ever finds his way to the Cote d'Azur he'll be strung up" comment on expat property woes last night was exactly the reason we need people like you to STFU.

You want to rejoin. Cool.

Work out how to get from here to there. If you simply expect the magic fairy to wave a wand etc...

For example, Starmer isn't going to actively seek to reduce the wages of the low skilled. So, freedom of movement will be and issue - until a way round that is put in place.

So what you need to do is construct a set of policies by which you can freedom of movement, without reducing wages at the low end. This is possible.

It does mean that the shortage of sufficiently obsequious waiters may continue. But we all have to make sacrifices.

But freedom of movement didn't reduce wages for low-skilled Brits; it reduced wages for low-skilled occupations. This is an important difference and one that people repeatedly fail to appreciate.

When freedom of movement ended, we had almost full employment. There weren't hordes of low-skilled Brits sitting around twiddling their thumbs while immigrants did the crap jobs. No, the low-skilled Brits were more likely to have had roles one step up the ladder. When freedom of movement ended, the wages for the crap jobs rose, but to fill those crap jobs, Brits need to take a step down the ladder to a rung that has risen but isn't as high as the one they were on.

That's why the end of freedom of movement will mean lower, rather than higher, wages for low-skilled Brits. This will gradually become more evident as time goes on.

In reality those low skilled jobs disappear or are replaced by machines.

Some will, but not all.

And wages would rise in those that would still exist.

Yes, I did say that. The point is that the people now doing them would otherwise have had better paying jobs.

Except there’s full employment. Those people already have better-paying jobs, and the vacancies are at the bottom. So they either need to raise wages, or invest in capital equipment to substitute labour.

Importing hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage (or worse) workers shoudn’t be an option.

Yes, that is exactly my point. The wages for the lowest-paying occupations will indeed rise, but, in a full-employment environment, the people filling them will be coming from jobs that currently pay better.

If you remove a load of people doing low-skilled work from the labour market in a full-employment environment, the net result is that the wages for that work increase and some of it is mechanised. But the remaining jobs will have to be filled with people would would otherwise have continued in better paying jobs.And the only way this happens is that there are fewer better paying jobs, which means there has to be economic shrinkage and rising unemployment.

On the face of it, it's pretty obvious that the outcome of removing a bunch of people who do useful work for low pay isn't going to have a beneficial effect on a country's economic situation.

Why would anyone be voluntarily moving from a higher-paying job to a lower-paying job?

For those moving involuntarily, they should be very happy that the legal minimum wage is no longer the ceiling in so many industries.

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.

Yes, try and find a socially conservative, pro Brexit senior civil servant, judge or head of a quango or even FTSE 100 company

Could you please list the senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos and FTSE100 companies and their political ideologies, please? Asking for a forum.

See the number of FTSE 100 directors who signed a letter opposing Brexit or the SC's rulings against Boris or civil servants briefings v Braverman and Patel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36592782

51 directors out of (and this is an estimate) 700 directors?

How are you getting on with the list of senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos?

You anti Brexit, left liberals are pathetic. Always have to be the victims, always oppressed by the elite.

When the elite largely shares your anti Brexit, social liberalism.

Just 25% of finance workers in the City of London voted Leave, compared to 52% UK wide. Civil servants were even more anti Brexit.

Indeed over 60% of investment bankers in the UK voted Remain, so you have more in common with them on Brexit than people in Stoke

https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2016/07/this-is-how-city-of-london-workers-voted-in

Who said I'm a victim? I'm challenging your purported facts, that's all. You spoke of "senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos" political beliefs and I started from the assumption that you weren't just pulling it out of your arse and you had some facts.

So cough up or admit that you were pulling it out of your arse.

kinabalu said:

HYUFD said:

Benpointer said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Farooq said:

HYUFD said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

I think he's referring to senior civil servants, judges and heads of quangos and coporates. Who never seem to get sacked, aren't accountable, yet wield the power to contradict elected politicians and even topple them. Suella Braverman isn't a member of the elite - she can't even get a plane to Rwanda.

Yes, try and find a socially conservative, pro Brexit senior civil servant, judge or head of a quango or even FTSE 100 company

Could you please list the senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos and FTSE100 companies and their political ideologies, please? Asking for a forum.

See the number of FTSE 100 directors who signed a letter opposing Brexit or the SC's rulings against Boris or civil servants briefings v Braverman and Patel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36592782

51 directors out of (and this is an estimate) 700 directors?

How are you getting on with the list of senior civil servants, judges, heads of quangos?

You anti Brexit, left liberals are pathetic. Always have to be the victims, always oppressed by the elite.

When the elite largely shares your anti Brexit, social liberalism.

Just 25% of finance workers in the City of London voted Leave, compared to 52% of voters UK wide. Civil servants were even more anti Brexit.

Indeed over 60% of investment bankers in London voted Remain, so you have more in common with them on Brexit than people in Stoke

https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2016/07/this-is-how-city-of-london-workers-voted-in

Which way did you vote btw?

Remain but I am not pretending to be an anti elite rebel.

The real anti elite rebels are the few who are Socialists, voted for Corbyn but also voted Leave and still back Brexit and are religious social conservatives.

Everyone else is still largely in agreement with today's UK elite on at least half the issues

Religious, socially conservative, Corbynite leavers ... that's quite a niche group of people you're homing in on there.

Farooq said:

Alanbrooke said:

Farooq said:

Alanbrooke said:

Scott_xP said:

@steverichards14
I recall EU diplomats telling me post 2016 that UK was least suited to leave partly because of N.Ireland.. but also its dependence on single market in which its economy had flourished.They spoke out of bewilderment..the argument already lost.And here we are..

"flourished" as in we had 6 0f the 10poorest regions in Western Europe, Which wasnt the case when we went in,

Where were the poorest regions in Western Europe when we went in?

Start with Ireland

Is that you saying you don't know exactly? Because I don't even know where to look for these data.

148grss said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Farooq said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

Malmesbury said:

OnlyLivingBoy said:

HYUFD said:

'@GoodwinMJ
·
17h
The old elite projected their social status through their wealth, estates & titles. The new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by preaching radical woke progressivism'

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1671518796559818757?s=20

Goodwin is really disappearing ever deeper up his own backside.

Yes. It is quite evident that the new elite project their status & distinguish themselves from the masses by uttering mantras which *appear* to be progressive.

The reality is nothing changes, but they all give each other awards for being on message - see the revelation about how much money the Met Police spends on awarding itself awards.

Goodwin just isn't thinking structurally about who the 'elite' are. Being an academic, he probably thinks that leftie academics with pride flags in their twitter profile are a part of the elite - ie it's pure narcissism. The elite are people who control the levers of political and economic power, ie people in business and finance and the Tory party. These are not people you will bump into at a BLM protest, believe me.

The whole misuse of the concept of "elites" by people like HYUFD strikes me as so much playing with fire. To hear populist narratives coming out of the mouths of "conservatives" is disturbing.

The danger is that normalising such language opens the door of the town hall to far worse people than either the stupid conservatives speaking like this or the stupid people they are trying to attack.

Populism isn't a plaything. It's a vicious weapon that should only be unleashed when it's really, really needed. If your target is tweedy academics and pride flags, you can be damn sure it's not needed.

Yes, reading the Spectator these days is like reading a student Trotskyist pamphlet: full of talk of 'our rulers', 'the ruling class', 'the ruling elite' etc. My theory is that a certain type of middle-class conservative bitterly regrets letting the 1970s and punk rock pass them by and is desperate for another go.

Goodwin just dislikes the evolution of societal norms. Most of Goodwin's recent book (which has very few actual citations for an academic) claims that the new "elite" are essentially just all university graduates, women, and ethnic or sexual minorities, and the old elite are white working class people and the elderly. Which is clearly not the case, that's just generational divide.

The "elite" are the same people who have owned and controlled land since their ancestors landed on these shores in 1066. The "elite" are the same narrow group of people who go to one of two or three public schools and one of two universities. The "elite" are the people who have the opportunity to leverage their preexisting wealth and networks into cushy jobs where they can publish in national newspapers on a regular basis or get a peerage before the age of 30.

What the new generation have is the ability for the old elites to hear them, because social media allows the plebs to shout at anyone. They also have more willingness to "talk back" to their "betters". Graduates may have more pluralistic attitudes because they interact with a different set of people whilst at university - people from across the country and across the world.

I want to know what significant impact the "new elite" have had. If we're talking about the press - that's overwhelming right wing in this country. The government has been right wing / centrist since Thatcher. Yes, we have progressed on open racism, sexism and homophobia - but barely and only if it is really obvious (in his book Goodwin complains that the "new elite" think doing accents and complaining that people don't speak English in the UK are racist is bad, actually, and thinks that we should define the number of people who hold racially prejudicial views on the basis of a poll that asked people if they self defined as racist).

The problem with Goodwin, HYUFD, and a lot of British conservatism is they're complaining about winning too much. They won the economic argument - everyone's a Thatcherite now. They won on the EU - we're leaving. They won most of the culture war - gay rights begins and ends with the right to act like straight people with same sex marriage, and it's more important that 5 rich people are likely dead out of their own hubris than it is 500 migrants were killed when their boat was sank. But winning doesn't make your enemies shut up and respect you, and that's what they want - for the goddamn poors and women and gays and ethnics to just accept their place in the world and stop asking for a better world. They believe it was shit for them (despite most of them living through the golden age of the welfare state and investment into their progress) and therefore demand that it must be shit for the rest of us. "Didn't do me any harm..." etc etc, bullcrap bullcrap

Alanbrooke said:

Farooq said:

Alanbrooke said:

Farooq said:

Alanbrooke said:

Farooq said:

Alanbrooke said:

Scott_xP said:

@steverichards14
I recall EU diplomats telling me post 2016 that UK was least suited to leave partly because of N.Ireland.. but also its dependence on single market in which its economy had flourished.They spoke out of bewilderment..the argument already lost.And here we are..

"flourished" as in we had 6 0f the 10poorest regions in Western Europe, Which wasnt the case when we went in,

Where were the poorest regions in Western Europe when we went in?

Start with Ireland

Is that you saying you don't know exactly? Because I don't even know where to look for these data.

well being old enough to recall when we went in reland was miles behind the UK and the whole of the Mezzogiorno wasnt exactly rolling in cash. Thats where youll find the poorest regions in 1973.

So you don't know. Your economic data is... you went for a drive fifty years ago.

%0 years ago I was 12 so I didnt drive anywhere,

Cicero said:

The current teenage scribbler for the Times, James Marriott is a little perturbed by what he calls "Centrist Populism"- i.e. the gathering wrath of moderates towards Brexit and all other works of Torydom.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rage-is-swallowing-even-the-middle-ground-9s0lg2nf0 (Paywall)

I think I can explain the gathering disaster for the Conservatives in very simple terms.

The educated middle class have had more than a decade of being told that experts don´t matter (they are trying to do it again today, seeking to transfer the blame for the UK´s economic woes towards the Bank of England, rather than their own policy incompetence).

There has been decades of utter bullshit, absurd power stance policies which do not even begin to scratch the surface of under investment and misallocation of capital across the whole economy for decades.

Then there is the more than 40 years of the playground shit show of internal Tory party politics, which culminated in the travesty of "Prime Minister" Boris Johnson, but covered so much else in childish personality clashes The mass expulsion of adults, from the Conservatives by Johnson was the last chance for the Tories.

The patient people of Britain are waiting for the fat lady to sing, and she is clearing her throat.

The Tories are going to face a whole new world of pain at the next election, but more to the point I think we are going to see a long overdue period of radical change. The country in 10 years will have changed in ways- economic, political, social and constitutional- that I do not see the Tories being able to survive.

This is not just about the 2024/5 election, it will be epochal.

Good.