Not The Politics Thread.

[Alf Bentley]

1 hour ago, Mike Oxlong said:

What are you on about ? 

 

Mrs O just dropped it on a triple word score and with the X alone garnering her 30 points she’s well and truly out of sight 

 

I'm not a Scrabble player but if you laid "Oxlong" across her "Brexit", that would score a few points, wouldn't it? I'm sure "Oxlong" is in the dictionary.....

[leicsmac]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58708121

 

Too bad practically no one else on his side of the aisle thinks the same way and he'll end up disappointed.

[foxes1988]

11 hours ago, BlueSi13 said:

I literally don't think a single government minister or anyone associated with the government has claimed that offering visas to drivers is the "solution" to the problem.  Rather an incentive to ease some of the backlog.  We are highly unlikely to attract many with such an offer due to mainland Europe suffering similar issues but the door is now open to anyone who does want to come over.  I don't see much of a problem with this at all.  Dammed if you do dammed if you don't I guess.

 

Fully agree successive governments should have worked to help resolve this issue in the long-term but unfortunately across most of the developed world it isn't a profession many of the younger generation want to join.  Hopefully this will change in coming months/years.

 

As for filling up the supposed 100,000 vaccines I don't think anyone expects the number of drivers to ever rise by that much.  The RHA has been complaining of driver shortages for years:

 

2015:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/25/lorry-driver-shortage-christmas-deliveries-road-haulage-association

https://www.commercialfleet.org/news/truck-news/2015/11/23/hgv-driver-shortage-at-crisis-point-as-critics-question-government-steps-to-address-issue

 

2016:

https://roadstars.mercedes-benz-trucks.com/en_GB/magazine/2016/october/disappearing-drivers-why-the-uk-desperately-needs-more-truckers.html

 

We've been 50,000 to 60,000 short for years and we heard very little.  But undoubtably we need young people entering the profession.  Government and Haulage firms needs to put actions in place to encourage more to apply.  If the long term result is better pay and conditions, then fair play to them all.  It's a tough job.

 

From my experience working in this industry, the 3 main reasons I would suggest causing this shortage is 

1. Drivers retiring / Leaving the industry

2.  Brexit

3. The last pressure point is the IR35 tax reg the government put in place this year.  Basically to try and tax all drivers the same and fairly as for years you had a number of drivers being self employed and working nearly all the time for the same haulage company.   Large haulage companies are no longer allowed to do this and its severely hampered driving agencies too which has fast tracked some drivers out of the industry/ or to return home.  The government as always haven't really looked at the bigger picture with driver shortages.  While IR35 is a fair enough legislation to put in place the government has only just now started to look at driver training when the crisis happened.  The industry for years have been saying they are struggling with getting drivers into the industry.

 

Hopefully now the drivers are getting wage rises that will help but I don't think that alone will sort this.  The conditions drivers have to put up with can be very poor such as services/facilities being shut down on the road network generally being treated pretty poorly by some haulage companies, delivery points and the general public.

One of the biggest reasons they tend to give for leaving the industry is the long hours and unless there is enough drivers for the work they are still going to be asked to work long hours.  

[lgfualol]

Brexit's going well then

[Milo]

18 minutes ago, lgfualol said:

Brexit's going well then

Still slightly better than the Labour Party conference, it would seem. 

[lgfualol]

1 hour ago, Milo said:

Still slightly better than the Labour Party conference, it would seem. 

What's that got to do with Brexit? Havent been keeping up to date with what lame crap Labour is up to.

[Carl the Llama]

33 minutes ago, lgfualol said:

What's that got to do with Brexit? Havent been keeping up to date with what lame crap Labour is up to.

Afaik they'll be talking about the party being torn over their stance on improving minimum wage, something I'm unaware of the Tories even discussing.  It's unrelated to Brexit but as it's a labour problem it will be magnified and scrutinised and somehow made out to be the reason for all kinds of issues from Brexit fallout to the incumbents' continued campaign of deceit and uselessness.

[Carl the Llama]

Also worth noting there's been some discontent over how one of the labour MPs discusses trans issues with fairly TERFy overtones. Keir himself has been vocally supportive of trans rights.  I have no idea how any Tory MP feels about the issue, I've not seen anybody in the media ask them.

[Milo]

2 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

Also worth noting there's been some discontent over how one of the labour MPs discusses trans issues with fairly TERFy overtones. Keir himself has been vocally supportive of trans rights.  I have no idea how any Tory MP feels about the issue, I've not seen anybody in the media ask them.

Great point about trans rights. 

 

And fair play to Labour for at least acknowledging it and being open to discuss it. I think most MP's don't want to touch the subject with a barge pole, tbh.

 

It has the potential to be a bit of a minefield.

 

 

 

 

[Milo]

2 hours ago, Carl the Llama said:

Afaik they'll be talking about the party being torn over their stance on improving minimum wage, something I'm unaware of the Tories even discussing.  It's unrelated to Brexit but as it's a labour problem it will be magnified and scrutinised and somehow made out to be the reason for all kinds of issues from Brexit fallout to the incumbents' continued campaign of deceit and uselessness.

I am a traditional Labour voter - I have never voted Conservative. I stopped voting for Labour post Iraq and then they've never really appealed to me since.

 

Harriot Harman and Ed Milliband were a bit nothingy and then the Trotsky takeover happened and that just didn't resonate with me at all. (or anyone else if the polls showed us anything).

 

Getting angry at the Tories for being Tories I've always found a bit odd - they've historically been a bit cvntish. Surely getting angry with Labour would be more productive. The Conservatives don't need to be competent at the moment, as there is no opposition to them. 

 

The mid nineties saw a bit of a cultural shift in the country, if I remember it correctly, and Blair rode that and had his zeitgeist moment. Something similar needs to happen now but I'm not sure there is much of an appetite for it, or if there is a Blair-type waiting in the wings. 

 

Would I like the Tories to be a bit nicer? Of course. But I would like labour to be a bit more centric and electable. They are a joke at the moment, and that isn't good for the country.    

Edited 28 September 2021 by Milo

[Carl the Llama]

58 minutes ago, Milo said:

The Conservatives don't need to be competent at the moment, as there is no opposition to them. 

This is the pervasive attitude that I find so weird about people's stances on labour vs tories.  There very much is an opposition to the conservative party but somehow they keep getting held accountable for their infractions in a way that never seems to happen to the tory party.  It's all very well saying it's all their own doing but I genuinely don't think it is.  People are more tolerant of Tory malfeasance, be that because of personal biases or the effect of self-regulating media conglomerates with vested interests.  That's not to say I think labour are perfect, I just think they're the least of the various evils we have to choose from right now and I don't think it's productive to get caught up in every last bit of minutia the press try to lambast them with, least of all when it's concerning issues that we genuinely benefit from MPs actually discussing.

[Sampson]

1 hour ago, Milo said:

I am a traditional Labour voter - I have never voted Conservative. I stopped voting for Labour post Iraq and then they've never really appealed to me since.

 

Harriot Harman and Ed Milliband were a bit nothingy and then the Trotsky takeover happened and that just didn't resonate with me at all. (or anyone else if the polls showed us anything).

 

Getting angry at the Tories for being Tories I've always found a bit odd - they've historically been a bit cvntish. Surely getting angry with Labour would be more productive. The Conservatives don't need to be competent at the moment, as there is no opposition to them. 

 

The mid nineties saw a bit of a cultural shift in the country, if I remember it correctly, and Blair rode that and had his zeitgeist moment. Something similar needs to happen now but I'm not sure there is much of an appetite for it, or if there is a Blair-type waiting in the wings. 

 

Would I like the Tories to be a bit nicer? Of course. But I would like labour to be a bit more centric and electable. They are a joke at the moment, and that isn't good for the country.    

I disagree with this. I think the traditional Labour voter is just on the way out, I think Labour would actually do themselves harm in the long run trying to reconnect with the working-class, white, Northerner whose parents and grandparents all grew up within the same county, who were their lifeblood in the 70s.

I think that cultural shift and zeitgeist is already here, it just hasn't reached median voting age yet (currently 47) to be able to give it control in the polls, but I can see it in my kids and their friends and partners and younger colleagues and people I meet almost every day.

All the polls show that voting for by class has basically amalgamated now in recent years, with votes for Labour and Conservatives not really changing between the working class and middle class or those in different wage boundaries. Without doubt the 2 biggest divisions nowadays, which have massively overtaken class in terms of voting demography are age and ethnic background - far more than was the case in the 70s and 80s, when class was the biggest voting divide.

I think there are polls all the time saying the people under 35 just aren't getting more conservative as they go through their teens, 20s and 30s, people seem to remain overwhelming pro-immigration and pro-ethnic diversity and still remain pro-European integration and pro-greater state control of the Economy and none seem to be changing their minds. The influence of print media on this generation is also basicallt dead as well, which means I think the Murdoch effect is on borrowed time.

The clear division for me is that the late 30s and afterwards is the division between those who have the Cold War in living memory (or to be at an age where they could actually understand it) and have emotions associated with Eastern Europe and Socialism and those now under their mid-late 30s who don't. And I think it's also the case that if you are 31/32 now, then basically your entire adult working life has been in an era of austerity, since they were 18 in the 2008 financial crisis.

I remember something similar talking to my eldest about a year ago, he was a very young kid at the end of the Troubles, in those 5 or so years where Good Friday agreement was in the news virtually every night (similar to Brexit in recent years) between around 1995-2000 and he said he remembered how when he was a youngster he remembered hearing Sinn Fein on the UK news all the time and how he thought they were "the baddies" because that's the way the news portrayed them, but for him now they're quite a progressive party, because people his age just don't have the emotional baggage surrounding Sinn Fein that I do. I can understand what he means in a lot of ways, I still have a certain view of Sinn Fein and Gerry Adams which was painted in the 80s and 90s, but really nothing they've done in the past 20 years really means they should still have that image as they've become quite a mainstream centre-left party now and their views are probably very similar to people like the Greens and the SNP. But to me Sinn Fein has way more baggage to it than the Greens or the SNP do, that they don't for people under 30. I think it just shows how different generations have different baggage associated with different things.

It's not just age either - as the country becomes more and more ethnically diverse that's also a massive blow to the Conservatives, as people with parents or grandparents who weren't born in the UK rarely vote Tory - and the statistic doing the rounds the other month was that 70% of people living in London are now not born in the UK or have at least one parent who wasn't born in the UK - hence why London is so overwhelmingly Labour and so overwhelmingly pro-EU - that statistic is only going to go one way round the rest of the country too as globalisation continues. 

I do think there is currently a definite age divide in this country, between those old enough to remember the cold war, who were at working age pre-financial crisis and who still use print/televised media and the younger people who aren't old enough to remember the cold war, who have spent all or the vast majority of their working life in austerity and who get their news through social media - and that there's massive voting divisions in those age ranges, statistically far moreso than any other time in anyone's lifetimes - the young have statistically never been less likely to vote Conservative than they are now.

Btw, interestingly the dividing age for the last election where people switched from Labour to Tory was 39, which would make you 17 when New Labour came to power in 1997. I think there's an inevitability about the already-changed-zeitgeist becoming the majority voter in a few years and I think the Tories already know this deep down. Labour don't really need to do much I think within 10 years the Tories could well be in the wilderness for a long, long time and back into the wilderness of the Iain Duncan-Smith years.

You could argue that if Labour wanted to speed up the issue they'd go after a few people in the mid-40s to push the age at which people switch voting about the median voting age, but I'd say that's only going to be needed for the next GE.

But in my opinion, or at least, how I interpret all the voting data, to me it makes absolutely no electoral sense for Labour to concentrate on the old traditional Labour voter long-term and if there's a division between the older traditional blue-collar Labour voter and the younger university educated white-collar Labour voter then the latter is the only one it make sense for Labour to concentrate on getting votes from now.

And people who are saying "Labour needs to get back to it's roots and traditional voters" I think are missing what all the voting data is showing completely. I think there's an inevitability about the university educated, ethnically diverse pro-Europe, post-Cold War, white-collar youth getting Labour into power within the next decade and then keeping them there for a long time.

Edited 28 September 2021 by Sampson

[Adrian]

24 minutes ago, Sampson said:

 

Got vaccinated didn't we....freedom day was big gamble apparently..lefties were desperate for COVID to bring us to our knees on that one.... week of petrol shortage and it's post apocalyptic Britain....****sigh*****

Edited 28 September 2021 by Adrian

[Sampson]

1 minute ago, Adrian said:

Got vaccinated didn't we....freedom day was big gamble apparently..lefties were desperate for COVID to bring us to our knees on that one.... week of petrol shortage and it's post apocalyptic Britain....****sigh*****

Errr... what? 

[Facecloth]

2 minutes ago, Adrian said:

Got vaccinated didn't we....freedom day was big gamble apparently..lefties were desperate for COVID to bring us to our knees on that one.... week of petrol shortage and it's post apocalyptic Britain....****sigh*****

Did you even read his post?

[Adrian]

Sorry wasn't trying to quote Sampsons post...essay

 

Pressed wrong button clearly 

 

 I'm not a Tory voter but I did vote brexit but can't wait to leave Britain to support Leicester from Thailand or somewhere the sun shines and the people havnt disappeared up their own bottoms

Edited 28 September 2021 by Adrian

[LVFox]

Agree with Sampson that the “traditional” labour voter is gone. Maybe I’m playing to stereotype but I’d imagine some traditional northern “red wall” seats are far more right wing than left wing. 

For labour to make waves in the next election they need to be the only choice for people who won’t vote for this conservative government. I’d argue Starmer is equally likely to lose the Corbyn voters as he is to gain the red wall voters.

He will however, probably do very well in metropolitan areas.

[Facecloth]

23 minutes ago, Adrian said:

Sorry wasn't trying to quote Sampsons post...essay

 

Pressed wrong button clearly 

 

 I'm not a Tory voter but I did vote brexit but can't wait to leave Britain to support Leicester from Thailand or somewhere the sun shines and the people havnt disappeared up their own bottoms

Ah, vote to destroy the country and then **** off to Thailand. Thanks.

Edited 28 September 2021 by Facecloth

[Sampson]

44 minutes ago, Adrian said:

 I'm not a Tory voter but I did vote brexit but can't wait to leave Britain to support Leicester from Thailand or somewhere the sun shines and the people havnt disappeared up their own bottoms

Why did you make it so difficult for yourself or others to leave the country then for a warmer climate then? If Brexit hadn't gone through you could move to the Canary Islands or Malta or the Algave or Crete or Cyprus tomorrow without a visa or without needing to find someone who'd sponsor you for a job.

And why did you want to rob other Britons of the opportunity to move to warmer countries then, even if you are one of the lucky few who is able to get a work visa or green card abroad?

Just feels a bit like pulling up the ladder from the treehouse because you don't want to share it.

Edited 28 September 2021 by Sampson

[Claridge]

2 hours ago, Milo said:

Great point about trans rights. 

 

And fair play to Labour for at least acknowledging it and being open to discuss it. I think most MP's don't want to touch the subject with a barge pole, tbh.

 

It has the potential to be a bit of a minefield.

 

 

 

 

If Keir thinks the red wall give a shit about trans right , then it’s no surprise he is struggling. The middle class luvvie types that labour seems to attract now lap it up though

[Heathrow fox]

2 hours ago, Milo said:

I am a traditional Labour voter - I have never voted Conservative. I stopped voting for Labour post Iraq and then they've never really appealed to me since.

 

Harriot Harman and Ed Milliband were a bit nothingy and then the Trotsky takeover happened and that just didn't resonate with me at all. (or anyone else if the polls showed us anything).

 

Getting angry at the Tories for being Tories I've always found a bit odd - they've historically been a bit cvntish. Surely getting angry with Labour would be more productive. The Conservatives don't need to be competent at the moment, as there is no opposition to them. 

 

The mid nineties saw a bit of a cultural shift in the country, if I remember it correctly, and Blair rode that and had his zeitgeist moment. Something similar needs to happen now but I'm not sure there is much of an appetite for it, or if there is a Blair-type waiting in the wings. 

 

Would I like the Tories to be a bit nicer? Of course. But I would like labour to be a bit more centric and electable. They are a joke at the moment, and that isn't good for the country.    

Are the Conservatives really that nasty anymore though?You could call them incompetent,untruthful and maybe corrupt,but out and out nasty?They don’t come anywhere close to Thatcher and 

co’s level of nastiness.

[Claridge]

1 hour ago, Carl the Llama said:

This is the pervasive attitude that I find so weird about people's stances on labour vs tories.  There very much is an opposition to the conservative party but somehow they keep getting held accountable for their infractions in a way that never seems to happen to the tory party.  It's all very well saying it's all their own doing but I genuinely don't think it is.  People are more tolerant of Tory malfeasance, be that because of personal biases or the effect of self-regulating media conglomerates with vested interests.  That's not to say I think labour are perfect, I just think they're the least of the various evils we have to choose from right now and I don't think it's productive to get caught up in every last bit of minutia the press try to lambast them with, least of all when it's concerning issues that we genuinely benefit from MPs actually discussing.

Labour voters not be able to see how utterly hopeless they are seems to be a very common theme over the last decade. Since Blair left the leaders have been absolute rubbish, with Starmer seeming to be the worst of the lot. Pretend otherwise all you like, but labour are a million miles away from having a chance of winning, 

[Lionator]

10 minutes ago, Claridge said:

If Keir thinks the red wall give a shit about trans right , then it’s no surprise he is struggling. The middle class luvvie types that labour seems to attract now lap it up though

Trans rights are an odd one because I don't really notice a left/right sort of view on the topic. I follow a prominent sociologist who is a self proclaimed radical feminist (which is a left wing position) who thinks trans females should be burnt at the stake. On the right I think the view is probably dichotomous (sex over gender).

 

But yeah not an argument Keir needs to get into.

 

The minimum wage stuff on the other hand, that matters.

[Claridge]

2 minutes ago, Lionator said:

Trans rights are an odd one because I don't really notice a left/right sort of view on the topic. I follow a prominent sociologist who is a self proclaimed radical feminist (which is a left wing position) who thinks trans females should be burnt at the stake. On the right I think the view is probably dichotomous (sex over gender).

 

But yeah not an argument Keir needs to get into.

 

The minimum wage stuff on the other hand, that matters.

Exactly, but he seems to have messed that up somehow

[Carl the Llama]

6 minutes ago, Claridge said:

Labour voters not be able to see how utterly hopeless they are seems to be a very common theme over the last decade. Since Blair left the leaders have been absolute rubbish, with Starmer seeming to be the worst of the lot. Pretend otherwise all you like, but labour are a million miles away from having a chance of winning, 

This is the problem I was talking about.  You focus on the problems of labour leadership as though we haven't been experiencing incompetence and corruption from the winning party for years now.  I don't think any labour leader of the past 2 decades could hold a candle to Johnson's depravity as PM.