Do you want to discuss boring politics? (130 Viewers)

[chiefdave]

People aren't asking what's wrong with Labour, they are asking what's so appealing about the Tories to the working class and so far the best answer we've had is something about aspirations, which makes no sense.

There was a report by the IFS released this week which again highlighted decreasing social mobility which seems directly at odds with the idea that working & middles class voters are voting Conservative due to being aspirational.

Millennials could see their wealth boosted by almost a fifth from inheritance, researchers have found, amid warnings of a widening gap between the rich and poor.

Inheritances have been growing as a share of national income in the UK since the 1970s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), but the economic think tank believes they are now set to grow dramatically compared with other sources of income - meaning people's overall wealth is increasingly likely to be determined by their parents' assets rather than their own earnings.

The IFS, which publishes its findings in a report on Monday, also suggests people with higher incomes tend to be more likely to reduce the amount they save in anticipation of receiving future inheritances - meaning they could see a larger effect on their current living standards.

David Sturrock, a senior research economist at IFS and an author of the report, said: "The increasing levels of wealth held by older generations and the lack of income growth for younger generations are together driving an inter-generational economic divide.

"But these trends also mean that inheritances are set to become more important in future, widening the gap between those with rich parents and those with poor parents. The growing importance of inherited wealth will be a profound societal shift, one with worrying consequences for social mobility.

"As inheritances become larger, any policies that redistribute inheritances will have bigger impacts on inequality and social mobility, and this should increase the pressure to rationalise our system of inheritance taxation."

The IFS expects existing disparities between older and younger generations to translate into reduced social mobility within younger generations in the future. The smaller inheritances received by those with poorer parents will mean they have more ground to make up - making it increasingly hard for those with poor parents to move into higher income distribution brackets.

For people born in the 1980s, average inheritances could be nearly twice as large as for the 1960s generation. According to IFS projections, inheritances will be worth nine per cent of household lifetime income for those born in the 1960s, rising to 16 per cent for those born in the 1980s.

Alex Beer, welfare programme head at social well-being charity the Nuffield Foundation, said: "The pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the social and economic inequalities within our society. This research shines a light on ways in which those inequalities are set to increase even further with the growing importance of inheritances in lifetime incomes."

 

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[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Wasn't for a second suggesting everyone is about to vote Green, or even that they should. But its very odd that people who seem to favour polices diametrically opposed to Conservative policies vote for them.

Its nothing to do with how good or bad any other party is. The question that keeps being asked is why are people voting Conservative and nobody seems able to come up with an answer.

Tradition. We've had a long,long period of right-wing politics and even the only break from that was centre-left at best. Ingrained belief they're a steady hand, party of law-and-order etc and it's just becomes almost Pavlovian.As people get older they tend to move the right as fear of change intensifies and we've had an ageing population for some time.

 

[chiefdave]

Ingrained belief they're a steady hand, party of law-and-order etc and it's just becomes almost Pavlovian.

Saw a truly bizarre post on Facebook today from Jay Singh-Sohal, the Conservative candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner.

He had Priti Patel endorsing him as candidate on the basis he would stop rising levels of crime. So you've got the Home Secretary of the party under which this rise in crime has taken place, under whose leadership huge cuts to the police have been made, saying vote for the same party to resolve issues they've caused. The other thing he keeps pushing is that he will stop the closure of police stations, something which again has happened under his parties leadership.

Andy Street uses the same tactic. In fact his main polices this time round are pretty much identical to what he promised to deliver if he won the last election. It must work though as they keep winning!

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Saw a truly bizarre post on Facebook today from Jay Singh-Sohal, the Conservative candidate for Police and Crime Commissioner.

He had Priti Patel endorsing him as candidate on the basis he would stop rising levels of crime. So you've got the Home Secretary of the party under which this rise in crime has taken place, under whose leadership huge cuts to the police have been made, saying vote for the same party to resolve issues they've caused. The other thing he keeps pushing is that he will stop the closure of police stations, something which again has happened under his parties leadership.

Andy Street uses the same tactic. In fact his main polices this time round are pretty much identical to what he promised to deliver if he won the last election. It must work though as they keep winning!

I watched the debate for the WM Mayor and Street was an odd one. Half of the stuff he was talking about i swear he promised last time and/or his party has specifically worked against during that time.

He also seemed pretty fixated on the tram infrastructure as well so he might be a bit boris-like with his expensive pet projects but when social issues came up he didn't really seem particularly engaged. Although to be fair none of the candidates seemed to have that much to say on them as i don't think anyone truly has any idea on how to tackle them and certainly within their own powers without relying on massive legislative change at a national level which none of them can promise.

 

[Grendel]

Tradition. We've had a long,long period of right-wing politics and even the only break from that was centre-left at best. Ingrained belief they're a steady hand, party of law-and-order etc and it's just becomes almost Pavlovian.As people get older they tend to move the right as fear of change intensifies and we've had an ageing population for some time.

As people get older they generally grow up and enjoy the benefits of capitalism - it’s nothing to do with fear

 

[skybluetony176]

As people get older they generally grow up and enjoy the benefits of capitalism - it’s nothing to do with fear

Benefits such as the capitalist led banking crisis leading to a world recession and ten years of austerity in this country that punished everyone aside from the capitalists that caused the problem in the first place. Yeah I see your point.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

As people get older they generally grow up and enjoy the benefits of capitalism - it’s nothing to do with fear

For some it is. But for most it's an increasing fear of change as the brain loses its plasticity. They just can't contemplate things being different. Fewer and fewer people are 'enjoying' the benefits of capitalism in this country. Wealth division is huge and increasing at an ever quickening rate.

 

[PVA]

Grendel has just solved the poverty crisis in this country: All those people in poverty who struggle to put food on the table just need to grow up and enjoy it.

 

[skybluetony176]

Grendel has just solved the poverty crisis in this country: All those people in poverty who struggle to put food on the table just need to grow up and enjoy it.

Was reading something the other day regarding food banks and by far the biggest users of them are in full time employment. Cheers capitalism.

Capitalism is OK so long as it has a social conscience and in this country and elsewhere around the world it’s been allowed to abandon that conscience.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

Was reading something the other day regarding food banks and by far the biggest users of them are in full time employment. Cheers capitalism.

Capitalism is OK so long as it has a social conscience and in this country and elsewhere around the world it’s been allowed to abandon that conscience.

The irony is for capitalism to truly work the theory has to assume everyone has the same power and spending ability, thus the best ideas and solutions come to the fore purely on merit. It totally ignores the imbalance which can lead to the best ideas not being implemented because of the imbalance of power in favour of the systems and solutions already in place. And those will use that to retain their power and influence. We should have moved on from stuff like fossil fuels and nuclear long ago and it's taken so long just because those industries are so powerful they've stifled development and implementation.

Capitalism in its purest form could be argued to have no social conscience at all. It's all about greed and what you can get for yourself. In order to climb to the top of that particular tree you need to essentially be sociopathic - any sign of weakness or empathy and someone will push you out of the way until those that eventually end up right at the top are the worst examples for it as a means to run a society.

But I agree that a similar system with a social conscience would work alright i think. As I've said before, it needs to learn one word - enough.

 

[shmmeee]

This one will do.

Oh, any news on when the Forde Inquiry is going to report?

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'As Labour councillors we support the recent call from colleagues for new leadership at the top of our party.


Keir Starmer is an honourable man with a record of public service stretching back more than five years


We are drawn from a number of traditions within our movement, including those who voted for Keir last year.


It has now become clear, however, that he is unable to command the confidence of the whole party nor of many traditional Labour supporters we speak with on the doorstep.


Our country is facing a crisis – and the neighbourhoods we represent are on the front line. We urge Keir Starmer to make way for the new leadership that our communities so desperately need.


Yours sincerely,

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OMG you found an internal argument in Labour!

Call Fleet Street and claim your scoop!!

 

[Deleted member 4439]

It's worse than I could have imagined

Edwin Poots tipped to succeed Arlene Foster as DUP leader

NI agriculture minister, a young Earth creationist, thought to have been key figure in toppling of Foster

www.theguardian.com

 

[Evo1883]

Many of the people w

It's worse than I could have imagined

Edwin Poots tipped to succeed Arlene Foster as DUP leader

NI agriculture minister, a young Earth creationist, thought to have been key figure in toppling of Foster

www.theguardian.com

"A young earth creationist "

 

[Deleted member 4439]

Edwin Poots: Matthew, you're telling me that cosmic balls of dust gathered and there was an explosion. We've had lots of explosions in Northern Ireland and I've never seen anything come out of that that was good. And you look at this earth and you tell me that there was a big bang and all of a sudden all tat is good about this earth came out of it?

Matthew Parris: Good heavens! You're the culture minister and you don't believe in evolution?

Edwin Poots: Yes, absolutely. And you're telling me that all of this evolution took place over billions of years, and yet it's only in the last few thousand years that Man could actually learn to write?

William Crawley: How old is the earth?

Edwin Poots: My view on the earth is that it's a young earth. My view is 4000 BC.

BBC - Will & Testament: Are religious politicians "nutters"?

We had a little spat on Sunday Sequence this morning between the Times columnist Matthew Parris and Northern Ireland's culture minister, after the latter, Edwin Poots, made it clear that...

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[shmmeee]

I used to work for young Earth creationists at Grace Academy. Bunch of loons, never met anyone as batshit in real life before or since.

 

[Evo1883]

Edwin Poots: Matthew, you're telling me that cosmic balls of dust gathered and there was an explosion. We've had lots of explosions in Northern Ireland and I've never seen anything come out of that that was good. And you look at this earth and you tell me that there was a big bang and all of a sudden all tat is good about this earth came out of it?

Matthew Parris: Good heavens! You're the culture minister and you don't believe in evolution?

Edwin Poots: Yes, absolutely. And you're telling me that all of this evolution took place over billions of years, and yet it's only in the last few thousand years that Man could actually learn to write?

William Crawley: How old is the earth?

Edwin Poots: My view on the earth is that it's a young earth. My view is 4000 BC.

BBC - Will & Testament: Are religious politicians "nutters"?

We had a little spat on Sunday Sequence this morning between the Times columnist Matthew Parris and Northern Ireland's culture minister, after the latter, Edwin Poots, made it clear that...

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Grendel]

For some it is. But for most it's an increasing fear of change as the brain loses its plasticity. They just can't contemplate things being different. Fewer and fewer people are 'enjoying' the benefits of capitalism in this country. Wealth division is huge and increasing at an ever quickening rate.

Rubbish

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Scottish independence yes vote polling at its lowest for a good while .

Have no idea why , just putting the information out their

46% yes currently

A few factors I think

Anas Sarwar doing particularly well leading Scottish Labour (doubled approval rating in a short space of time)

The shift of the election away from forcing Brexit on a country that didn’t want it and on to the UK led vaccination programme

Perceived splintering of the pro independence factions

With a bit of luck the vile Sturgeon will be denied a majority yet again.

 

[shmmeee]

For some it is. But for most it's an increasing fear of change as the brain loses its plasticity. They just can't contemplate things being different. Fewer and fewer people are 'enjoying' the benefits of capitalism in this country. Wealth division is huge and increasing at an ever quickening rate.

Recent evidence suggests brain plasticity isn’t lost in adulthood as much as thought.

It’s mostly economic. Old people have less economic mobility and are reliant on assets more to maintain their lifestyle (I.e. care less about wages and more about pensions and house prices).

 

[clint van damme]

Edwin Poots: Matthew, you're telling me that cosmic balls of dust gathered and there was an explosion. We've had lots of explosions in Northern Ireland and I've never seen anything come out of that that was good. And you look at this earth and you tell me that there was a big bang and all of a sudden all tat is good about this earth came out of it?

Matthew Parris: Good heavens! You're the culture minister and you don't believe in evolution?

Edwin Poots: Yes, absolutely. And you're telling me that all of this evolution took place over billions of years, and yet it's only in the last few thousand years that Man could actually learn to write?

William Crawley: How old is the earth?

Edwin Poots: My view on the earth is that it's a young earth. My view is 4000 BC.

BBC - Will & Testament: Are religious politicians "nutters"?

We had a little spat on Sunday Sequence this morning between the Times columnist Matthew Parris and Northern Ireland's culture minister, after the latter, Edwin Poots, made it clear that...

www.bbc.co.uk

I was about to laugh until I remembered that in a time of austetrity we gave them a billion quid back hander.
Sweet mother of God!!

 

[Deleted member 4439]

Odd that he believes in evolution yet this appears not to apply to humans, just fish presumably. This not about whether you believe in a God or not, it's a whole new, simply amazing fruitcake level 10.

 

[skybluetony176]

The irony is for capitalism to truly work the theory has to assume everyone has the same power and spending ability, thus the best ideas and solutions come to the fore purely on merit. It totally ignores the imbalance which can lead to the best ideas not being implemented because of the imbalance of power in favour of the systems and solutions already in place. And those will use that to retain their power and influence. We should have moved on from stuff like fossil fuels and nuclear long ago and it's taken so long just because those industries are so powerful they've stifled development and implementation.

Capitalism in its purest form could be argued to have no social conscience at all. It's all about greed and what you can get for yourself. In order to climb to the top of that particular tree you need to essentially be sociopathic - any sign of weakness or empathy and someone will push you out of the way until those that eventually end up right at the top are the worst examples for it as a means to run a society.

But I agree that a similar system with a social conscience would work alright i think. As I've said before, it needs to learn one word - enough.

The biggest myth in capitalism is trickle down economics. If we had it working people wouldn’t be dependent on food banks. We’ll get to the point where we’ll have work houses again, Rees-Mogg will be describing them as uplifting, Boris will ruffle his barnet while saying something in Latin that he doesn’t understand, someone else will say trickle down economics will save the day and the plebs will lap it up.

 

[shmmeee]

Capitalism is the best innovation mechanism we have, and a reasonably good resource allocation method (although modern marketing is kind of skewing that IMO). But it’s not a stable economic system. It rewards monopoly and creates feedback loops that funnel money upwards constantly. It also rewards the worst of human nature and needs curbing for humanitarian reasons.

Without a mechanism for extracting wealth from the top and recycling it back into the masses at the bottom we don’t get good capitalism. Good capitalism relies on the wisdom of crowds voting with their money on priorities, not small cabals of lucky individuals making choices.

Anyone against trickle up economics isn’t a capitalist, they’re a feudalist.

 

[Philosoraptor]

The biggest myth in capitalism is trickle down economics. If we had it working people wouldn’t be dependent on food banks. We’ll get to the point where we’ll have work houses again, Rees-Mogg will be describing them as uplifting, Boris will ruffle his barnet while saying something in Latin that he doesn’t understand, someone else will say trickle down economics will save the day and the plebs will lap it up.

The second-biggest myth is to say large scale infrastructure projects where money goes straight into the hands of the workers, works as well. The only thing that saved America's 'New Deal' was a World War which paid for all the infrastructure being built and full employment.

 

[Philosoraptor]

 

[mrtrench]

The biggest myth in capitalism is trickle down economics. If we had it working people wouldn’t be dependent on food banks. We’ll get to the point where we’ll have work houses again, Rees-Mogg will be describing them as uplifting, Boris will ruffle his barnet while saying something in Latin that he doesn’t understand, someone else will say trickle down economics will save the day and the plebs will lap it up.

 

[Grendel]

But certainly not logical Jim

 

[mrtrench]

I am not working class.

 

[Grendel]

Imagine Spock doing a Vulcan mind probe on The Tonester and PVA

 

[skybluetony176]

Imagine Spock doing a Vulcan mind probe on The Tonester and PVA

Well. If nothing else you’re moving on from homo erotic fantasies about me so I guess that’s something.

 

[mrtrench]

Well. If nothing else you’re moving on from homo erotic fantasies about me so I guess that’s something.

 

[Skybluefaz]

Labour 11 points behind nationally and in the Wales/Midlands area Labour is a whopping 21 points behind.

 

[Philosoraptor]

Faz, there is only one real thing to watch for in the Local Elections in Coventry and the vote for the WMCA Mayor overall and this is how low the turnout will be.

Apathy rules any local area when there's not a distinctive difference to be made between the main parties.

The lower the turnout gets the more chance that when a voice is heard which offers something different, be it good or bad, people will jump on it, and if it is bad then there won't be any significant support to stop it.

Whilst we can all argue about the rights and wrong of policies of the Brexit Party the lessons are there to be learned for everyone of what an orchestrated quick campaign can achieve in an election.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Faz, there is only one real thing to watch for in the Local Elections in Coventry and the vote for the WMCA Mayor overall and this is how low the turnout will be.

Apathy rules any local area when there's not a distinctive difference to be made between the main parties.

The lower the turnout gets the more chance that when a voice is heard which offers something different, be it good or bad, people will jump on it, and if it is bad then there won't be any significant support to stop it.

Whilst we can all argue about the rights and wrong of policies of the Brexit Party the lessons are there to be learned for everyone of what an orchestrated quick campaign can achieve in an election.

The lesson is to merge Labour/LD/Green and keep the Tories out for good

 

[Skybluefaz]

Faz, there is only one real thing to watch for in the Local Elections in Coventry and the vote for the WMCA Mayor overall and this is how low the turnout will be.

Apathy rules any local area when there's not a distinctive difference to be made between the main parties.

The lower the turnout gets the more chance that when a voice is heard which offers something different, be it good or bad, people will jump on it, and if it is bad then there won't be any significant support to stop it.

Whilst we can all argue about the rights and wrong of policies of the Brexit Party the lessons are there to be learned for everyone of what an orchestrated quick campaign can achieve in an election.

I think you are right about low turnout. My reply was meant mainly to point towards the difference in these opinion polls/surveys. They are all over the place.

I'd be surprised if Andy Street doesn't romp home in the mayoral vote though. He and the conservatives are hammering Facebook with content in both local groups and paid for advertising.