In years to come, enterprising Belfast traders will be selling t-shirts with the Conservative Party logo and/or Rishi's face and the legend "The Tories were fine when they left here"
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
Don't migrants become old and require care? Could it be easier to deal with a smaller number of elderly now than a much larger number in the future and embrace a little of the Japanese approach?
Sure, but that would require slashing support for our current generation of pensioners. We've spent the last 14 years doing the opposite!
1/ As Rishi Sunak’s suit dries out and Keir Starmer’s copy of #ThingsCanOnlyGetBetter is stashed for another day, our first poll since the #GeneralElection was called looks like this:
🔴 Lab 47% (+1) 🔵 Con 22% (-1) ⚪ Ref 12% (+1) 🟠 LD 8% (NC) 🟢 Green 6% (-2) 🟢 SNP 3% (+1)
Perhaps we need to get used the concept of 'swingaway'.
Sunak called the election just before running out of road.
1/ As Rishi Sunak’s suit dries out and Keir Starmer’s copy of #ThingsCanOnlyGetBetter is stashed for another day, our first poll since the #GeneralElection was called looks like this:
🔴 Lab 47% (+1) 🔵 Con 22% (-1) ⚪ Ref 12% (+1) 🟠 LD 8% (NC) 🟢 Green 6% (-2) 🟢 SNP 3% (+1)
Perhaps we need to get used the concept of 'swingaway'.
Early days yet, but I've argued before that the Green vote is the easiest vote to squeeze, and perhaps that poll is evidence of it.
I suspect that Sunak hoped that his surprise GE announcement would catch Labour on the back foot, as they were assuming an autumn election.
Unfortunately for him, it appears that the announcement has caught his own party much more on the back foot, as they were sure it would be an autumn election.
Already, there's no doubt which party is more pissed off with his precipitous election call.
1/ As Rishi Sunak’s suit dries out and Keir Starmer’s copy of #ThingsCanOnlyGetBetter is stashed for another day, our first poll since the #GeneralElection was called looks like this:
🔴 Lab 47% (+1) 🔵 Con 22% (-1) ⚪ Ref 12% (+1) 🟠 LD 8% (NC) 🟢 Green 6% (-2) 🟢 SNP 3% (+1)
Perhaps we need to get used the concept of 'swingaway'.
Early days yet, but I've argued before that the Green vote is the easiest vote to squeeze, and perhaps that poll is evidence of it.
A lot of disgruntled Momentum types have flounced to the Greens but they could probably equally be siphoned to BWP if available, or other alts (or most likely, DNV)
1/ As Rishi Sunak’s suit dries out and Keir Starmer’s copy of #ThingsCanOnlyGetBetter is stashed for another day, our first poll since the #GeneralElection was called looks like this:
🔴 Lab 47% (+1) 🔵 Con 22% (-1) ⚪ Ref 12% (+1) 🟠 LD 8% (NC) 🟢 Green 6% (-2) 🟢 SNP 3% (+1)
Perhaps we need to get used the concept of 'swingaway'.
Early days yet, but I've argued before that the Green vote is the easiest vote to squeeze, and perhaps that poll is evidence of it.
I vote green around 1 in 10 elections, generally the criteria are 1) its not important, 2) there is no-one bigger worth voting for and 3) there is no-one I am desperate to vote against.
This time around greens are ruled out on 1 and 3 and 2 is under consideraion.
The first few % of the green vote is probably very loyal, but once they start getting to 8% plus those additional votes are mostly signals to the main parties to be "green" more than they are approvals of the Green party.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Based on demographics, only Africa looks good for the kind of growth we built western capitalism on. However, we will have to get used to it, the planet cannot cope with 11 billion humans anyway, and even a projected population peak of 9.6 billion in 2064 is going to be a strain. A new economic model is struggling to be born- and still no one has any clue as to what it will look like.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Based on demographics, only Africa looks good for the kind of growth we built western capitalism on. However, we will have to get used to it, the planet cannot cope with 11 billion humans anyway, and even a projected population peak of 9.6 billion in 2064 is going to be a strain. A new economic model is struggling to be born- and still no one has any clue as to what it will look like.
The debt overhang is going to be the difficult thing.
Like RCS says, this is a promise to do some work in the future, but there will be fewer people to do the work.
Why will companies invest for the future when the market they're selling into is shrinking?
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
It's a very long term and high dollar pyramid scheme!
I'm surprised the problem with skilled staff in the UK is not blatatntly obvious. Hardly a day goes by in Germany without hearing on the news the word "Fachkraftmangel" (Skills shortage). It has become so ubiquitous it has become an excuse for bad employers,... "we can't provide a proper service because of the Fachkraftmangel"
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
Oh sure I know plenty of friends of my parents and some have been retired for 30 years since the age of 50 with big fat pensions and their main problem is trying to find ways to spend their money. This surely cannot be sustainable and i dont think its even good for the retirees who become ever more complacent and set in their ways and out of touch with mainstream society. The fact this same generation derides the young as being lazy is the icing on the cake.
Reform twice as popular with 18-24s compared to 25-29s, 6% vs 3%.
I was most struck how LD support is pretty much the same for every age band.
Suggests the yellows are underperforming with younger people given they're more likely to have educational qualifications, and usually that increases the LD vote. Maybe they're going Green instead.
Oh my god. 1.5 days in - Tragic speed in the rain, awful launch, annoying journos from the sun, planted qs, welsh euros gafe and visiting the titanic. Just incredible density of screw-ups. And this is things they likely had planned!
Aussie Isaac Levido is Sunak's campaign manager I believe.
Reform twice as popular with 18-24s compared to 25-29s, 6% vs 3%.
I was most struck how LD support is pretty much the same for every age band.
Suggests the yellows are underperforming with younger people given they're more likely to have educational qualifications, and usually that increases the LD vote. Maybe they're going Green instead.
Likely a function of losing third party status to SNP, and for those a bit older, tuition fees and coalition.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Anyone can read about WW2. This "distant in time" thing doesn't wash for me.
Anyone can read about ancient Rome too. Just because you can read about it, doesn't stop it feeling distant in time.
Fun fact: George III was born closer to the time that the Roman Empire existed, than to today.
You need to define your terms.
The Classical Empire fell in the West in AD 476 when Romulus Agustulus was overthrown by Odacer. The Byzantine Empire, which spoke Greek, not Latin and was a radical change from Classical Rome, even though it claimed continuity, fell with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Meanwhile the Holy Roman Empire, which claimed descent from the Western Empire, despite being founded in AD 800 by Frankish barbarians, did not formally dissolve until 1806. So George III, who lived from 1738 until 1820, that is 204 years from our own time, either lived 1262 years from the fall of the Western Empire, or he lived 286 years after the fall of Constantinople (so still lived closer to our own time), or he was actually contemporary with the Holy Roman Empire.
Oh, and one minor point, I did say "was born", not "lived". I was maximising the effect by choosing someone famous who was born just before the half way point.
You did, I was just making the point that the Roman Empire with togas really was a long time ago. The Byzantine Empire was only Roman in name, and quite a lot of places called themselves heirs to the Romans, including the HRE and even definitively barbarian Muscovy.
Indeed, Tsar comes from Ceasar. (Something that is more obvious when you realise the alternative spelling of Tsar is Czar.)
The standard Romanisation of 'Ц ' is 'ts', the 'cz' variant is the archaic form that was used to write Russian and Church Slavonic names, toponyms, etc. in Latin.
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I know why politically Labour won't announce this during a GE campaign but they really should scrap the triple lock and focus on making working people the priority. We have been utterly left out to dry.
The triple lock is a red herring. We have among the lowest state pensions in Europe. If you want to hit pensioners, look instead at higher rate tax relief on private pension contributions which favours the rich, including all the pundits who complain about the triple lock.
This must be quite a sobering time for Keir Starmer, knowing that in less than 1,000 hours he's going to be handling nuclear codes, talking to Biden, dealing with Putin's antics, etc.
Well he's never going to use the first, he can cope with the second by speaking LOUDLY AND SLOWLY and there isn't much he can do about the third.
His biggest problem will be if RR's monotone white noise drone is audible through the walls from next door.
I suspect that Sunak hoped that his surprise GE announcement would catch Labour on the back foot, as they were assuming an autumn election.
Unfortunately for him, it appears that the announcement has caught his own party much more on the back foot, as they were sure it would be an autumn election.
Already, there's no doubt which party is more pissed off with his precipitous election call.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
I suspect that Sunak hoped that his surprise GE announcement would catch Labour on the back foot, as they were assuming an autumn election.
Unfortunately for him, it appears that the announcement has caught his own party much more on the back foot, as they were sure it would be an autumn election.
Already, there's no doubt which party is more pissed off with his precipitous election call.
As no-one is sure why Sunak has called the election now and with just 6 weeks notice, I'm just wondering if Sunak has been given secret information that it's about to get seriously scary in Gaza and/or Ukraine and has decided to let Starmer deal with WWIII.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
If there is one thing I learned from watching Seabiscuit and Secretariat is that a true champion thoroughbred, like the Tory Party, allows the other runners to surge ahead to lull them into a false sense of security and then at the turn into the final strait they give it a few cracks of the whip and roar past by several furlongs for victory.
Keep believing people, don’t forget, Keir Starmer is an anagram of Devon Loch.
If I were Labour I'd quickly get some factory in a red wall seat to manufacture a few thousand of these Tory "Keir" figures and sell them to Labour activists to raise a bit of cash. Lean into it and make funny little collectable, and create a couple of jobs in the process.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Ive known people who have been tory all their lives now firmly stating they will vote Labour. People arent optimistic but they are angry. Also Sunak has interfered with the euros with his silly election call.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Maybe the swingback will get the Tories back to where they were a month or two ago when it eventually arrives...
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
Yes, that's it. I saw the image and it took me a good few seconds to parse it as an attack. First glance you see Starmer's face and a cheerful design. Oh, god, it's just the worst. The Tories used to be GOOD at this.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Remember that the big lead of 50-25 from ComRes came a few days after the 2017 election was called, and that was the high point before things went downhill.
So, if this was going to be a re-run of 2017, where the party with a huge lead blows it, we are still exactly on the flightpath.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
On face value, it's completely shit. Then I think, the people coming up with this are presumably highly paid professionals who know what they are doing and I'm just an arsehole on the Internet with a barn full of dismantled cars so what the fuck do I know? But then I look again and, no, it's shit.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Remember that the big lead of 50-25 from ComRes came a few days after the 2017 election was called, and that was the high point before things went downhill.
So, if this was going to be a re-run of 2017, where the party with a huge lead blows it, we are still exactly on the flightpath.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
The trouble the Conservatives have is that they've retreated into talking to themselves. If you spend your time in the CCHQ Banter Bunker, this probably seems both really funny and the thing that, if only the public would understand it, would turn the election around.
That's never a good thing for any political party, but when they are as much of a niche clique as today's Conservative Party, it's fatal. See what happened to Labour in the runup to 2019.
If I were Labour I'd quickly get some factory in a red wall seat to manufacture a few thousand of these Tory "Keir" figures and give sell them to Labour activists to raise a bit of cash. Lean into it and make funny little collectable, and create a couple of jobs in the process.
Did you never have an Action Man? If so, you'd remember there's one big snag - the bits under the underwear*. Or lack of. Just imagine, if you put them in you upset half the population and if you don't then ...
*Not WD issue, admittedly. But my mum knitted mine a woolly set.
There are reports that another Russian S400 SAM setup got the good news last night
Russia are losing a fair few of their best SAM systems.
Not sure if this is that one, or the one from the day before, but here's one being hit *whilst* launching. There are lots of nice secondary explosions.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
You're assuming that the state will always favour redistribution of wealth towards the old.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Maybe the swingback will get the Tories back to where they were a month or two ago when it eventually arrives...
Hmmm perhaps. I am seeing the campaign reveal the incompetence and division within the party. I am a great believer in the numbers being the numbers. We have to bracket our hopes and wishes and not mistake them for analysis. The tories have to be careful not to get wiped out, here I think. They just don't seem to be in control and the electorate is reading every tory message the way the devil reads the Bible.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The problem really is people expecting the government to keep more than their end of the bargain.
The triple lock was/is a big error.
The greedy young wanting everything for nothing is eth scandal , wnat their children brought up and paid for them, free houses , part time work for astronomical wages, we have bred a generation of lazy , greedy , good for nothing losers.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
This is a policy choice. Without state intervention, a situation where a large number of pensioners in aggregate have lots of assets and the pool of workers is restricted would lead to a transfer of wealth in favour of the young.
I agree. In a world where there was no government, the outcome would be as you suggest.
However, that is not the world we live in. In the world we live in, retirees have votes, and make up an increasing proportion of voters.
Look around the world: in Italy the old have shafted the young by keeping them in the Euro. Look at the rust belt in the US: the reason the young are fleeing to the sunbelt is because of the high taxes needed to pay benefits to retirees. And every young person that leaves makes the voter base ever more dominated by oldies. Look at Japan, where ghost towns proliferate and the birth rate continues to plummet, because who needs the twin burdens of paying for oldies and paying for children.
Somebody once said that democracy dies when we realize we can all vote ourselves a pay rise. The greying of the electorate is causing exactly that scenario: a class of voters who are deeply invested in the status quo, at the expense of the young.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
On face value, it's completely shit. Then I think, the people coming up with this are presumably highly paid professionals who know what they are doing and I'm just an arsehole on the Internet with a barn full of dismantled cars so what the fuck do I know? But then I look again and, no, it's shit.
It looks so shit I couldn't even be bothered to read the captions.
Contrast with this from Labour, re the Titanic cockup.
If I were Labour I'd quickly get some factory in a red wall seat to manufacture a few thousand of these Tory "Keir" figures and give sell them to Labour activists to raise a bit of cash. Lean into it and make funny little collectable, and create a couple of jobs in the process.
Did you never have an Action Man? If so, you'd remember there's one big snag - the bits under the underwear*. Or lack of. Just imagine, if you put them in you upset half the population and if you don't then ...
*Not WD issue, admittedly. But my mum knitted mine a woolly set.
Uh oh. Nobody knows which bathroom "he" should use. Abort the manufacturing run! Curse you, clever Conservatives, beating me at 4D chess again!
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
On face value, it's completely shit. Then I think, the people coming up with this are presumably highly paid professionals who know what they are doing and I'm just an arsehole on the Internet with a barn full of dismantled cars so what the fuck do I know? But then I look again and, no, it's shit.
It looks so shit I couldn't even be bothered to read the captions.
Contrast with this from Labour, re the Titanic cockup.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Remember that every person working in an old age people's home, is a person who isn't building things for export. Remember too, that the jobs looking after the oldies are the least automatable out there.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Yes - I was going to say this. The cost of paying for the pensions and care of the 65+ is at least as pertinent as housing pressures, and at least the migrants from other countries are generally working for a living, unlike (and I am purposefully saying a negative stereotype that is not my actual view) the Mail-reading, free-movement-denying boomers with no mortgage, triple-locked pensions and the petty self-entitled attitude of your average toddler.
Sweeping statement there claiming immigrants are all working and your pathetic degeneration of indigenous pensioners who worked hard all their lives for a pittance pension ( lowest in teh developed world ) tells me you are an arsehole extrodinaire.
Roll on the manifestos. This is a borefest so far. Sunak is being crap and Labour are being careful. So exactly the same as the last 18 months.
Wednesday afternoon was one of the most entertaining moments in recent politics, although the Conservatives have contrived to have a lot of top 20 entries.
The PM drowned out by rain and Labour’s 1997 anthem will linger long in the memory. It was a fitting finale to a farcical 5 years (14 if you’re a Labour apparatchik)
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
On face value, it's completely shit. Then I think, the people coming up with this are presumably highly paid professionals who know what they are doing and I'm just an arsehole on the Internet with a barn full of dismantled cars so what the fuck do I know? But then I look again and, no, it's shit.
It looks so shit I couldn't even be bothered to read the captions.
Contrast with this from Labour, re the Titanic cockup.
It's reached the stage in the West Wing where Bartlet wins the debate so comprehensively the staff decline to offer any spin...
Sunak is hopeless on the campaign trail. I know exactly what he is going to say before he even opens his mouth. It is just so tired.... he is going to regret making this a 6 week campaign.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Yes - I was going to say this. The cost of paying for the pensions and care of the 65+ is at least as pertinent as housing pressures, and at least the migrants from other countries are generally working for a living, unlike (and I am purposefully saying a negative stereotype that is not my actual view) the Mail-reading, free-movement-denying boomers with no mortgage, triple-locked pensions and the petty self-entitled attitude of your average toddler.
Sweeping statement there claiming immigrants are all working and your pathetic degeneration of indigenous pensioners who worked hard all their lives for a pittance pension ( lowest in teh developed world ) tells me you are an arsehole extrodinaire.
It's not the pensioners fault that the politicians lied to them. But lie to them they did.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Remember that every person working in an old age people's home, is a person who isn't building things for export. Remember too, that the jobs looking after the oldies are the least automatable out there.
Or every job automated frees up someone for the care sector.
This must be quite a sobering time for Keir Starmer, knowing that in less than 1,000 hours he's going to be handling nuclear codes, talking to Biden, dealing with Putin's antics, etc.
Most of us will breathe a huge sigh of relief just to have someone competent back in charge
The last one? Probably David Cameron imho. I may dislike him over Greenshill etc but at least he could organise a piss up in a brewery unlike every one of his successors.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
There is clearly a group of people for whom Starmers flip flopping clearly aggravates, look at Isam on here who gets frustrated that most of pb don't take issue with it. But its probably like 10% of the electorate, and there are another 10% who positively approve of him being a bit Machiavellian and pragmatic, and another 80% who aren't bothered either way.
Not to mention this parliament has been the most flip floppy set of governments in our lifetimes by far, and flip flopping for reasons of personal ambition and party disagreements, not pragmatism.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Remember that every person working in an old age people's home, is a person who isn't building things for export. Remember too, that the jobs looking after the oldies are the least automatable out there.
Or every job automated frees up someone for the care sector.
If only we had a manufacturing base to automate, eh @Alanbrooke
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
On face value, it's completely shit. Then I think, the people coming up with this are presumably highly paid professionals who know what they are doing and I'm just an arsehole on the Internet with a barn full of dismantled cars so what the fuck do I know? But then I look again and, no, it's shit.
It looks so shit I couldn't even be bothered to read the captions.
Contrast with this from Labour, re the Titanic cockup.
"Having found the correct location, you would have been forgiven for thinking that all would go to plan from here on in, but in true Thick Of It style, it was like a clown running through a minefield."
Oh my god. 1.5 days in - Tragic speed in the rain, awful launch, annoying journos from the sun, planted qs, welsh euros gafe and visiting the titanic. Just incredible density of screw-ups. And this is things they likely had planned!
Aussie Isaac Levido is Sunak's campaign manager I believe.
I take issue with the idea of mentioning the Euros in Wales is somehow a gaffe. Are you not allowed to be interested in a major tournament if your team isn't competing? Will no-one other than Man Utd and Man City fans watch the FA Cup final? Desperate times.
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I know why politically Labour won't announce this during a GE campaign but they really should scrap the triple lock and focus on making working people the priority. We have been utterly left out to dry.
The triple lock is a red herring. We have among the lowest state pensions in Europe. If you want to hit pensioners, look instead at higher rate tax relief on private pension contributions which favours the rich, including all the pundits who complain about the triple lock.
He is just a dumb whining arsehole, same brain again and he would be dangerous. Hopefully be no pension when the arsehole gets there and he is poverty stricken.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Remember that the big lead of 50-25 from ComRes came a few days after the 2017 election was called, and that was the high point before things went downhill.
So, if this was going to be a re-run of 2017, where the party with a huge lead blows it, we are still exactly on the flightpath.
For all his faults, Corbyn is a much better campaigner than Sunak.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Yes, it reminds three separate groups of voters why they might like him.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
On face value, it's completely shit. Then I think, the people coming up with this are presumably highly paid professionals who know what they are doing and I'm just an arsehole on the Internet with a barn full of dismantled cars so what the fuck do I know? But then I look again and, no, it's shit.
It looks so shit I couldn't even be bothered to read the captions.
Contrast with this from Labour, re the Titanic cockup.
"Having found the correct location, you would have been forgiven for thinking that all would go to plan from here on in, but in true Thick Of It style, it was like a clown running through a minefield."
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
Oh sure I know plenty of friends of my parents and some have been retired for 30 years since the age of 50 with big fat pensions and their main problem is trying to find ways to spend their money. This surely cannot be sustainable and i dont think its even good for the retirees who become ever more complacent and set in their ways and out of touch with mainstream society. The fact this same generation derides the young as being lazy is the icing on the cake.
My dad retired around 1997 so has had 27 years of lovely police pension (retired as an acting superintendent, so he did well). Three more years and its more pension years than years served.
I've made different life choices and thoroughly enjoy my job. The idea of affording to retire from it in 5-6 years time (the equivalent to what my dad did) is not obtainable.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Anyone can read about WW2. This "distant in time" thing doesn't wash for me.
No, these things do fade. Young Germans - under 30 - have zero guilt about the war. I’ve noticed it (and I don’t blame them)
It’s a human universal. At some point even the greatest atrocity becomes a quaint or eye raising passage in history books. Some fade away very quickly - the Armenian genocide. Some last much longer like WW2, Nazism and the Holocaust - but they too are now losing emotional force, even in Germany itself
I read a tweet the other day about young people knowing F all about Anne Frank, for instance
Yet the German government seems obsessed about causing no offence to Israel, more so than any other European government afaIcs. I can’t think that isn’t connected to Holocaust guilt.
That’s my point. Middle aged and old Germans - politicians - still guilt. Young Germans? Not at all
He brings the total number of Tory MPs quitting ahead of the number who left in 1997
I do find this obsession with the number of Tory MPs standing down to be slightly strange. I don't remember PB being so preoccupied with this in 2010 when 100 Labour MPs stood down.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Ive known people who have been tory all their lives now firmly stating they will vote Labour. People arent optimistic but they are angry. Also Sunak has interfered with the euros with his silly election call.
In what way has he interfered with them? Are we banned from watching now?
Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock dies aged 53
Just one month of eating too much McDonalds proving fatal.
Apparently cancer got him.
Unfortunately his standing in more recent years has suffered from MeToo allegations (well he admitted to some of them) and the discovery that Super Size Me was predicated on a huge lie. He claimed to be in perfect health and didn't drink, however he had been a long term alcoholic which is why his liver was shot, he was suffer shakes / depression etc as withdraw from drinking.
Its a bit like Catch Me If You Catch guy, it was all lies, but no matter how many people expose it was all a lie, it gets repeated time and time again.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Do you have a source on the claim that they are more tolerant in areas of high immigration than low?
Yes London is more tolerant, but elsewhere I'm not convinced that places like Blackpool, Burnley, Blackburn, Bolton etc are full of just tolerance. And they have high migration levels too.
So maybe it's not migration levels but prosperity and investment that builds tolerance?
Those B towns have had the migration but haven't had the investment London has had.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a growing population, but it needs to be met with growing investment and construction.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Remember that every person working in an old age people's home, is a person who isn't building things for export. Remember too, that the jobs looking after the oldies are the least automatable out there.
Or every job automated frees up someone for the care sector.
If only we had a manufacturing base to automate, eh @Alanbrooke
We.ve hidden it all in services. Feel free to chop.
✅ Get caught lying to a grieving mother ✅ Refuse to pay up on a bet for charity ✅ Abandon your flagship anti-smoking policy and proudly tell journalists “this shows the type of Prime Minister I am.” ✅Photo opp at the Titanic
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Remember that every person working in an old age people's home, is a person who isn't building things for export. Remember too, that the jobs looking after the oldies are the least automatable out there.
But as you note, work is to a great extent fungible. The more productive the rest of the economy, the more labour is available for that (though it will cost).
This sums up our current attitude to further education.
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/annual-report-education-spending-england-2023 1. In the 2023–24 academic year, we estimate that spending per student aged 16–18 in further education (FE) colleges will be £7,100, compared with £5,800 in school sixth forms and £5,400 in sixth-form colleges. Higher funding for FE colleges reflects extra funding for costly technical programmes and for students from more deprived areas. 2. Between 2010–11 and 2019–20 financial years, spending per student aged 16–18 fell in real terms by 14% in colleges and 28% in school sixth forms. For colleges, this left spending per student at around its level in 2004–05, while spending per student in sixth forms was lower than at any point since at least 2002. 3. In the 2021 Spending Review, the government announced £1.6 billion in extra funding for colleges and sixth forms by 2024–25. Yet even with the additional funding, college spending per student in 2024–25 will still be about 10% below 2010–11 levels, and school sixth-form spending about 23% lower than in 2011..
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Yes - I was going to say this. The cost of paying for the pensions and care of the 65+ is at least as pertinent as housing pressures, and at least the migrants from other countries are generally working for a living, unlike (and I am purposefully saying a negative stereotype that is not my actual view) the Mail-reading, free-movement-denying boomers with no mortgage, triple-locked pensions and the petty self-entitled attitude of your average toddler.
Sweeping statement there claiming immigrants are all working and your pathetic degeneration of indigenous pensioners who worked hard all their lives for a pittance pension ( lowest in teh developed world ) tells me you are an arsehole extrodinaire.
"and I am purposefully saying a negative stereotype that is not my actual view"
Oh my god. 1.5 days in - Tragic speed in the rain, awful launch, annoying journos from the sun, planted qs, welsh euros gafe and visiting the titanic. Just incredible density of screw-ups. And this is things they likely had planned!
Aussie Isaac Levido is Sunak's campaign manager I believe.
I take issue with the idea of mentioning the Euros in Wales is somehow a gaffe. Are you not allowed to be interested in a major tournament if your team isn't competing? Will no-one other than Man Utd and Man City fans watch the FA Cup final? Desperate times.
I mean, sure, but put the question in a different way. It was obvious he didn’t realise Wales didn’t make it through. Just a complete lack of awareness. The guy hasn’t got a clue about ordinary people.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man. This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
The trouble the Conservatives have is that they've retreated into talking to themselves. If you spend your time in the CCHQ Banter Bunker, this probably seems both really funny and the thing that, if only the public would understand it, would turn the election around.
That's never a good thing for any political party, but when they are as much of a niche clique as today's Conservative Party, it's fatal. See what happened to Labour in the runup to 2019.
One wonders if another underrated problem is what is now the age, and to a lesser extent, educational profile of Conservative support. According to the polls if for a while now if you're in your 30s or under you're more likely to believe the moon landings are faked than vote Tory.
It's not been quite this bad, but has drifting that way for 10 or so years now - and is quite different to the old "left-wing" student vote in that people began becoming more conservative from their mid-20s onwards.
Older voters have kept them more than competitive thanks to demographics until the Boris/Truss scandals/shambles - but it may have badly thinned out the pool you draw upon for the kind of clever, young junior aides who tend to do the legwork of coming up with ideas and ensuring the basics are run smoothly.
Among those in their 20s and 30s who will apply for those roles the Tories are currently drawing from a very online, group of ideologically committed, posh, largely male people who think they are Dominic Cummings or Steve Bannon and understand the country despite living on another planet. Or Durham University as it's otherwise known.
A well-educated but vaguely normal talented person in their 20s, interested in politics and with some media experience simply isn't applying to work for CCHQ - because they're voting Labour en masse.
He brings the total number of Tory MPs quitting ahead of the number who left in 1997
I do find this obsession with the number of Tory MPs standing down to be slightly strange. I don't remember PB being so preoccupied with this in 2010 when 100 Labour MPs stood down.
I remember it being discussed a fair bit, and it was indeed taken as an indicator that a lot of them saw change coming and quite a useful straw in the wind in betting terms.
With hindsight, those who did so were vindicated - change was coming, and they'd have had a long, hard slog in opposition ahead of them. The Tory MPs retiring now will probably be similarly vindicated.
The labour leads seem to be pulling ahead now...wow.. . Just inching ahead across all the polling firms. What a horrific start to the campaign for the tories.
Remember that the big lead of 50-25 from ComRes came a few days after the 2017 election was called, and that was the high point before things went downhill.
So, if this was going to be a re-run of 2017, where the party with a huge lead blows it, we are still exactly on the flightpath.
For all his faults, Corbyn is a much better campaigner than Sunak.
That may be so, but how many people said so at the start of the 2017GE campaign?
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Remember that every person working in an old age people's home, is a person who isn't building things for export. Remember too, that the jobs looking after the oldies are the least automatable out there.
Or every job automated frees up someone for the care sector.
If only we had a manufacturing base to automate, eh @Alanbrooke
We.ve hidden it all in services. Feel free to chop.
I have worked in manufacturing all my adult life, since 1982.
He brings the total number of Tory MPs quitting ahead of the number who left in 1997
I do find this obsession with the number of Tory MPs standing down to be slightly strange. I don't remember PB being so preoccupied with this in 2010 when 100 Labour MPs stood down.
I think it was taken as a sign that Labour MPs knew the election was lost and were looking for other things to do. As it was and is.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
Oh sure I know plenty of friends of my parents and some have been retired for 30 years since the age of 50 with big fat pensions and their main problem is trying to find ways to spend their money. This surely cannot be sustainable and i dont think its even good for the retirees who become ever more complacent and set in their ways and out of touch with mainstream society. The fact this same generation derides the young as being lazy is the icing on the cake.
My dad retired around 1997 so has had 27 years of lovely police pension (retired as an acting superintendent, so he did well). Three more years and its more pension years than years served.
I've made different life choices and thoroughly enjoy my job. The idea of affording to retire from it in 5-6 years time (the equivalent to what my dad did) is not obtainable.
I can retire today if I want. I will go to the end of the year. Margin of safety and build up my cash pot even more.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Yes - I was going to say this. The cost of paying for the pensions and care of the 65+ is at least as pertinent as housing pressures, and at least the migrants from other countries are generally working for a living, unlike (and I am purposefully saying a negative stereotype that is not my actual view) the Mail-reading, free-movement-denying boomers with no mortgage, triple-locked pensions and the petty self-entitled attitude of your average toddler.
Sweeping statement there claiming immigrants are all working and your pathetic degeneration of indigenous pensioners who worked hard all their lives for a pittance pension ( lowest in teh developed world ) tells me you are an arsehole extrodinaire.
"and I am purposefully saying a negative stereotype that is not my actual view"
Malc doing his best to personify that negative stereotype there.
How widespread is this? Dunno. But it is certainly surprising to see apparently affluent white Germans openly doing Hitler moustache-and-salute moves while dancing
Young people are increasingly distant from WW2. Growing up, the war was an ever present reference point in my life, as it had shaped my grandparents' lives, and hung over my parents'. For my kids it's ancient history, like the Boer war was for me. As memories of the war fade I think a lot of the taboos around the far right are fading with them. Perhaps we have to relearn the lessons of where this kind of politics leads.
Also, how about reducing the insane levels of immigration? Young people are noticing
I'd quite like to avoid the point where these views become widespread
It might help or it might not. Young people are generally more positive on immigration than older people, and more tolerant in areas of high immigration than in areas of low immigration. I'm not convinced that London is swarming with young white men who are violently opposed to multiculturalism - they all speak with a Jamaican accent for a start. But my kids aren't white so I'm not an expert on young white people and their cultural practices.
Young people are overwhelmingly the ones who pay the price for mass immigration, in a literal sense, in the form of competition for housing and suppression of wages.
Sure: but young people are also by far the most likely to have friends who are from different countries, and they are the ones who will pay the most for an unbalanced population pyramid.
So, it's swings and roundabouts.
Isn't it better for the young to have a top heavy pyramid if immigration is zero? Wouldn't it drive wages in the services sectors up and over time reduce the demand for housing?
Except for the fact that the government needs to extract money from a diminishing number of workers to pay for the care of an increasingly number elderly.
Look at the proportion of the UK government budget taken up by pensions and healthcare.
I don't know what you think, Robert, but I think the underlying economic numbers point quite positively to the future. Investment is well up, over the past three years, the savings ratio is high, retail sales down, and the trade deficit falling.
Well, I'm generally negative - economically - on pretty much the entire developed world.
Look at Italy and Japan. Lots of old people. Not a lot of young people.
There's a broad philosophical point which I think is really misunderstood, and that is that care for the old always comes out of the economic output of workers. If you have saving and pensions, then it comes out of companies' profits via dividends and bond payments. If you do not, then it comes out via taxation.
But economic output cannot be bottled up and stored. Saving is just a time transfer of work, and work is (largely) ephemeral. Someone needs to be there in the future to actually provide the healthcare, harvest the food, and wipe the butt.
In the UK, and I've shown a chart of this in the past, the proportion of government spending on oldies has risen inexorably. And will continue to do so. It's why we both have austerity (reduced government spending as a % of GDP in most departments), and record government taxes and spending.
People have worked all their lives, and paid taxes, and expect the government to keep their part of the deal. But young people, seeing their taxes rise to pay for the oldies, are likely to cry foul. And the solution the government has - import more workers! - brings with it a host of other issues.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic, all things considered.
The other possible solution, as Alanbrooke sensibly points out, is a significant increase in productivity. Though it's not at all clear how that's to come about in the UK in a manner which solves our problems.
Remember that every person working in an old age people's home, is a person who isn't building things for export. Remember too, that the jobs looking after the oldies are the least automatable out there.
Or every job automated frees up someone for the care sector.
If only we had a manufacturing base to automate, eh @Alanbrooke
We.ve hidden it all in services. Feel free to chop.
I have worked in manufacturing all my adult life, since 1982.
Comments
https://x.com/DavidEvennettMP
Unfortunately for him, it appears that the announcement has caught his own party much more on the back foot, as they were sure it would be an autumn election.
Already, there's no doubt which party is more pissed off with his precipitous election call.
This time around greens are ruled out on 1 and 3 and 2 is under consideraion.
The first few % of the green vote is probably very loyal, but once they start getting to 8% plus those additional votes are mostly signals to the main parties to be "green" more than they are approvals of the Green party.
Like RCS says, this is a promise to do some work in the future, but there will be fewer people to do the work.
Why will companies invest for the future when the market they're selling into is shrinking?
I'm surprised the problem with skilled staff in the UK is not blatatntly obvious. Hardly a day goes by in Germany without hearing on the news the word "Fachkraftmangel" (Skills shortage). It has become so ubiquitous it has become an excuse for bad employers,... "we can't provide a proper service because of the Fachkraftmangel"
His biggest problem will be if RR's monotone white noise drone is audible through the walls from next door.
The £38.5 billion stuff is especially weak as it invites comparison with the Tory black hole, which is even bigger.
Remember to Microchip your Cat by June 24.
After June 24, you have 3 weeks or there can be a fine of £500, unless it is a feral cat, or under 21 weeks old.
Can you hear me, Mrs Galloway? Are you listening, Larry?
Which stunt seeking journo is going to ask him if he has been chipped?
Press release:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/treasured-pets-now-safer-as-microchipping-for-cats-becomes-compulsory
Link to a non-embedded photo of a worried looking cat:
https://www.cats.org.uk/help-and-advice/neutering-and-vaccinations/microchipping-your-cat
They're making a dull, sensible guy seem like Action Man.
This is not incompetence from the Tories, it's suicide. They are trying to erase themselves.
Keep believing people, don’t forget, Keir Starmer is an anagram of Devon Loch.
I mean - there is the kernel of a point in there. He's a bit all-things-to-all-men. But all men like someone who is all things to them. I'm no expert, but I'd have thought you're surely better off picking one thing your opponent is probably going to do and saying why that's bad.
Were we told not to post the mews?
So, if this was going to be a re-run of 2017, where the party with a huge lead blows it, we are still exactly on the flightpath.
That's never a good thing for any political party, but when they are as much of a niche clique as today's Conservative Party, it's fatal. See what happened to Labour in the runup to 2019.
https://tankmuseumshop.org/search?q=action+man&type=article,product&options[prefix]=last&sort_by=relevance&filter.p.product_type=Collectables
Did you never have an Action Man? If so, you'd remember there's one big snag - the bits under the underwear*. Or lack of. Just imagine, if you put them in you upset half the population and if you don't then ...
*Not WD issue, admittedly. But my mum knitted mine a woolly set.
https://x.com/paulwaugh/status/1793939028015718436
25% is another eye-watering poll lead
However, that is not the world we live in. In the world we live in, retirees have votes, and make up an increasing proportion of voters.
Look around the world: in Italy the old have shafted the young by keeping them in the Euro. Look at the rust belt in the US: the reason the young are fleeing to the sunbelt is because of the high taxes needed to pay benefits to retirees. And every young person that leaves makes the voter base ever more dominated by oldies. Look at Japan, where ghost towns proliferate and the birth rate continues to plummet, because who needs the twin burdens of paying for oldies and paying for children.
Somebody once said that democracy dies when we realize we can all vote ourselves a pay rise. The greying of the electorate is causing exactly that scenario: a class of voters who are deeply invested in the status quo, at the expense of the young.
Contrast with this from Labour, re the Titanic cockup.
A Labour source said: “Sorry: there is no Labour source quote that can make this more ridiculous than it already is”
https://x.com/johnestevens/status/1794001816625041501
The PM drowned out by rain and Labour’s 1997 anthem will linger long in the memory. It was a fitting finale to a farcical 5 years (14 if you’re a Labour apparatchik)
The Republican National Committee's "senior counsel for election integrity" has updated her profile pic to feature her mug shot...
She was recently arraigned in Arizona for her role in a plot to overturn the state's election results.
https://x.com/Timodc/status/1793988493322150377
The last one? Probably David Cameron imho. I may dislike him over Greenshill etc but at least he could organise a piss up in a brewery unlike every one of his successors.
Not to mention this parliament has been the most flip floppy set of governments in our lifetimes by far, and flip flopping for reasons of personal ambition and party disagreements, not pragmatism.
https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/news-opinion/captaining-sinking-ship-prime-ministers-29233530
"Having found the correct location, you would have been forgiven for thinking that all would go to plan from here on in, but in true Thick Of It style, it was like a clown running through a minefield."
Desperate times.
I've made different life choices and thoroughly enjoy my job. The idea of affording to retire from it in 5-6 years time (the equivalent to what my dad did) is not obtainable.
Rishi Sunak - standing in front of the exit (sign)
(picture goes here)
@akmaciver
On a visit to the Titanic Quarter. Titanic.
This is, so far, the worst campaign handling I have seen in 20+ years doing/observing/analysing this stuff.
#GeneralElection
I'd forgotten about twitter/X user CricketWyvern, otherwise known as Professor David Paton. He was quite famous during the lockdown.
https://x.com/cricketwyvern
Unfortunately his standing in more recent years has suffered from MeToo allegations (well he admitted to some of them) and the discovery that Super Size Me was predicated on a huge lie. He claimed to be in perfect health and didn't drink, however he had been a long term alcoholic which is why his liver was shot, he was suffer shakes / depression etc as withdraw from drinking.
Interesting how the lie can become fact, see BBC write up on him
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4nnz3ze3l7o
Its a bit like Catch Me If You Catch guy, it was all lies, but no matter how many people expose it was all a lie, it gets repeated time and time again.
Yes London is more tolerant, but elsewhere I'm not convinced that places like Blackpool, Burnley, Blackburn, Bolton etc are full of just tolerance. And they have high migration levels too.
So maybe it's not migration levels but prosperity and investment that builds tolerance?
Those B towns have had the migration but haven't had the investment London has had.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a growing population, but it needs to be met with growing investment and construction.
Day 2 of the Campaign:
✅ Get caught lying to a grieving mother
✅ Refuse to pay up on a bet for charity
✅ Abandon your flagship anti-smoking policy and proudly tell journalists “this shows the type of Prime Minister I am.”
✅Photo opp at the Titanic
The more productive the rest of the economy, the more labour is available for that (though it will cost).
This sums up our current attitude to further education.
https://ifs.org.uk/publications/annual-report-education-spending-england-2023
1. In the 2023–24 academic year, we estimate that spending per student aged 16–18 in further education (FE) colleges will be £7,100, compared with £5,800 in school sixth forms and £5,400 in sixth-form colleges. Higher funding for FE colleges reflects extra funding for costly technical programmes and for students from more deprived areas.
2. Between 2010–11 and 2019–20 financial years, spending per student aged 16–18 fell in real terms by 14% in colleges and 28% in school sixth forms. For colleges, this left spending per student at around its level in 2004–05, while spending per student in sixth forms was lower than at any point since at least 2002.
3. In the 2021 Spending Review, the government announced £1.6 billion in extra funding for colleges and sixth forms by 2024–25. Yet even with the additional funding, college spending per student in 2024–25 will still be about 10% below 2010–11 levels, and school sixth-form spending about 23% lower than in 2011..
It's not been quite this bad, but has drifting that way for 10 or so years now - and is quite different to the old "left-wing" student vote in that people began becoming more conservative from their mid-20s onwards.
Older voters have kept them more than competitive thanks to demographics until the Boris/Truss scandals/shambles - but it may have badly thinned out the pool you draw upon for the kind of clever, young junior aides who tend to do the legwork of coming up with ideas and ensuring the basics are run smoothly.
Among those in their 20s and 30s who will apply for those roles the Tories are currently drawing from a very online, group of ideologically committed, posh, largely male people who think they are Dominic Cummings or Steve Bannon and understand the country despite living on another planet. Or Durham University as it's otherwise known.
A well-educated but vaguely normal talented person in their 20s, interested in politics and with some media experience simply isn't applying to work for CCHQ - because they're voting Labour en masse.
With hindsight, those who did so were vindicated - change was coming, and they'd have had a long, hard slog in opposition ahead of them. The Tory MPs retiring now will probably be similarly vindicated.
Dear me.
Bring back Demon Eyes.
We do have a manufacturing base.
https://www.makeuk.org/insights/publications/uk-manufacturing-the-facts-2023#/
This place was always in the news when I was young. Either shit cars or strikes or both.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsbirmingham/longbridge-s-former-mg-rover-plant-site-to-be-home-to-new-research-unit/ar-BB1mYoMJ?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=1a3b361aebcf49a9b257d079e47bb867&ei=9
Edit: Probably.
I will have worked 42 years.