Election prediction time

[leicsmac]

4 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

He doesn't need to though does he?  He can continue to blame everyone else until and unless he is actually in Government.  The point is the actual Government could and should address some of these underlying issues through both action and education to reduce the opportunity for Reform to talk shit.

In theory, that's the way things should work.

 

In practice, there's another complication with the fact that these days Farage and those like him can exert a lot of influence over those "issues" and what people think and "need" without having to win at the ballot box at all.

 

So that's an additional complication, even though the elected government really does need to do better.

Edited 19 June by leicsmac

[Daggers]

7 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

Youthquake in Clacton.

 

 

Why do so many of them look like out of work celebrity lookalikes? On the bottom right you've got David Gilmour sitting behind Richard Hammond who's sitting behind Derek Jacobi. In the middle are the Mitchell brothers off Eastenders sitting next to Qyburn off Game of Thrones. 

 

 

 

 

[Torquay Gunner]

My partner and I went to our local hustings last night.  Probably couple of hundred or so people there, reflecting the demographics of the area ie white and 50 plus.  Disappointing, but perhaps not so surprising to see such little representation of people under the age of 30.  The Labour and Green Party candidates spoke very well, the Lib guy was quite stolid, the incumbent ( since 2005) Tory was slick and trotted out the not really our fault, it was covid and Putin mantra.  The candidates from the Yorkshire and Reform party could have been two random middle age guys from the local pub,  discussing what they had just read in the red tops, so not a lot of clarity on display.  The Labour candidate seemed to be getting the biggest applause, although we did not stay until the end and missed the inevitable question on immigration.  All in all quite predictable.  However, highlight of the evening whilst driving to the venue was spotting a suited and booted Aiden Gillen crossing the road just in front of us! 🤩

 

 

 

 

[StanSP]

 

 

[izzymuzzet]

9 hours ago, Daggers said:

Bye bye Magic Grampy

 

 

Only one view from the ground, but I was chatting with someone at the weekend who's been out canvassing for Labour in Islington North and they think it will be a comfortable but not huge Labour win. Personally I think it will be quite close but I don't know the area at all so I'm going purely off vibes.

[EnderbyFox]

8 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

Youthquake in Clacton.

 

 

Why do so many of them look like out of work celebrity lookalikes? On the bottom right you've got David Gilmour sitting behind Richard Hammond who's sitting behind Derek Jacobi. In the middle are the Mitchell brothers off Eastenders sitting next to Qyburn off Game of Thrones. 

 

 

Not a single person in that room would give your ball back if you kicked it over their fence

[foxy boxing]

9 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

Youthquake in Clacton.

 

 

Why do so many of them look like out of work celebrity lookalikes? On the bottom right you've got David Gilmour sitting behind Richard Hammond who's sitting behind Derek Jacobi. In the middle are the Mitchell brothers off Eastenders sitting next to Qyburn off Game of Thrones. 

 

Absolute sheep, so used to being dog whistled.

[urban.spaceman]

1 hour ago, izzymuzzet said:

Only one view from the ground, but I was chatting with someone at the weekend who's been out canvassing for Labour in Islington North and they think it will be a comfortable but not huge Labour win. Personally I think it will be quite close but I don't know the area at all so I'm going purely off vibes.

I honestly think this would satisfy me more than the actual national Labour win.

[Sampson]

I wish a party would just admit that we’re all going to have to pay more tax to fix the country’s shitshow of public services. The debate in the uk around tax is so ****ed up, politicians have been scared to talk about the benefits of taxation since Thatcher. Country needs a decent Social Democratic Party who are prepared to invest in infrastructure and public services for a few years. Labour are supposed to fulfill that role but seem to be bizarrely ashamed to talk about the need to raise tax despite that being their MO.

Edited 19 June by Sampson

[izzymuzzet]

16 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I wish a party would just admit that we’re all going to have to pay more tax to fix the country’s shitshow of public services. The debate in the uk around tax is so ****ed up, politicians have been scared to talk about the benefits of taxation since Thatcher. Country needs a decent social Democratic Party who are prepared to invest in infrastructure and public services for a few years. Labour are supposed to fulfill that role but seem to be bizarrely ashamed to talk about the need to raise tax despite that being their MO.

I agree that we need to increase taxes but the problem for Labour is that every time it's gone into an election while in opposition with even a hint that it's going to raise taxes, it loses. The party is scarred by 1992 and 2015. The British public want European public services with US-level taxes.

 

I think Labour has one shot at a 'Doctor's Budget' in the autumn where Rachel Reeves says something along the lines of: "We've looked at the figures and the Tories have messed up the public finances even more than we thought - we need to operate. To fix this we're going to need to raise specific taxes for a bit and we'll try to bring them back down once we've fixed stuff." Osborne did the mirror image of this in 2010 when his nonsense 'emergency budget' laid the foundations for a decade of austerity.

[FoxyPV]

I don't mind paying more tax if things work but paying more tax to allow the Tory fvcks to enrich their mates and spaff public money on tax cuts for the rich is incredibly frustrating.

 

[bovril]

10 hours ago, urban.spaceman said:

Youthquake in Clacton.

 

 

Why do so many of them look like out of work celebrity lookalikes? On the bottom right you've got David Gilmour sitting behind Richard Hammond who's sitting behind Derek Jacobi. In the middle are the Mitchell brothers off Eastenders sitting next to Qyburn off Game of Thrones. 

 

Has there ever been a generation more determined to make their kids' and grandkids' lives worse than these ****ers. 

[RoboFox]

3 minutes ago, bovril said:

Has there ever been a generation more determined to make their kids' and grandkids' lives worse than these ****ers. 

They don't care as long as they can keep Johnny Foreigner out. 

 

And I guarantee less than 10% of the people in that room have as much as glanced at Farage's so-called manifesto.

[Jon the Hat]

3 hours ago, StanSP said:

 

 

The Chair doesn’t run the bank.

[leicsmac]

18 minutes ago, bovril said:

Has there ever been a generation more determined to make their kids' and grandkids' lives worse than these ****ers. 

At least equally self interested previous generations, if there were any, had the excuse of ignorance regarding their effect on the future.

 

Current generations do not.

[Greg2607]

My Mrs has recently started watching "Rich House, Poor House" on Netflix.   I'd never seen it before, ubt it does make quite compelling viewing.   I suspect the vast majority of people that have disposable wealth, don't realise they are SO MUCH better off than the majority of the country.   I also suspect, they really can't imagine a world where a family has £60-£70 a week to may for food and activities once all of the bills have been paid. Most of the "Rich House" participants have around £1300 a week to just spend. (after bills) 

 

They assume everyone who is like that, is a feckless layabout, with no ambition and just "living a life of benefits". 

 

I watched a show last night, where a woman with 3 children, is living in a 2 bedroom flat in South London.  Two of her kids share a room obviously, and her 3rd child who is 15, is sleeping in the lounge.  Now, for that 15 year old, regardless of her ambition, ability, or aspiration, has absolutely no space whatsoever in the flat to do homework.  Her mum couldn't afford to buy her a laptop to do school work and even if she could, her daughter was looking after the two younger kids in the evenings so her mum could go out to her 2nd job, just to be able to put food on the table. £80 a week she had spare to provide for her family. 

 

that's an example of how broken society is in places.  A single mum, having to work two jobs to live in an unsuitable property and have £80 a week spare after bills. A daughter, who's destiny in life is strongly linked to her current situation. She's unlikely to do be doing well at school, albeit, through no fault of her own. 

 

I don't think that large parts of the population realise that those kind of situations exist and it feels entirely wrong and unjust to me. 

 

Edited 19 June by Greg2607

[Torquay Gunner]

I don’t think it’s so much that large parts of the population don’t realize, I think it is that many don’t actually care.  My partner’s sister lives in a house in North London.  She is married with two kids.  Her husband is an accountant and earns a significantly above average age.  His salary enables them to enjoy a good lifestyle.  Now nothing wrong with that so far.  However, she believes that if someone does not have a certain expensive item,  say a Bugaboo pushchair ( £500-£1,000+) then “ they’re a loser”.   I can’t get my head around that attitude, but it’s really not that uncommon.   

[Greg2607]

1 hour ago, Torquay Gunner said:

I don’t think it’s so much that large parts of the population don’t realize, I think it is that many don’t actually care.  My partner’s sister lives in a house in North London.  She is married with two kids.  Her husband is an accountant and earns a significantly above average age.  His salary enables them to enjoy a good lifestyle.  Now nothing wrong with that so far.  However, she believes that if someone does not have a certain expensive item,  say a Bugaboo pushchair ( £500-£1,000+) then “ they’re a loser”.   I can’t get my head around that attitude, but it’s really not that uncommon.   

You may well be right... I do think we've become inherently selfish as a society.  We don't tend to "help our neighbours" in the way that I was used to growing up (albeit, I'm only 42) - But I think because a lot of people's lifestyle sit on a pretty precarious balance, we choose the options that suit us the best.  I guess that's human nature.... but it's a bit ugly... 

[Greg2607]

here's the other INSANE thing that is happening thanks to the performance of our economy recently.... there is now such a disparity in salaries in the UK versus the US, that US firms are outsourcing work to the UK, as it's far cheaper for us to do it for them, than for them to do it with local staff.     

 

a Manager of a Taco Bell in the US is earning on average around $100,000.... circa £80k...... 

 

it shows just how far we have fallen. 

Edited 19 June by Greg2607

[HighPeakFox]

1 hour ago, Torquay Gunner said:

I don’t think it’s so much that large parts of the population don’t realize, I think it is that many don’t actually care.  

I'm not sure on this. I think many are in denial, because if they realised how unequal society is, it would cause them existential issues. So it is easier to just stay ignorant. 

[Innovindil]

10 minutes ago, Greg2607 said:

here's the other INSANE thing that is happening thanks to the performance of our economy recently.... there is now such a disparity in salaries in the UK versus the US, that US firms are outsourcing work to the UK, as it's far cheaper for us to do it for them, than for them to do it with local staff.     

 

a Manager of a Taco Bell in the US is earning on average around $100,000.... circa £80k...... 

 

it shows just how far we have fallen. 

Tbf they are welcome to send their manufacturing here too. 

 

Sign me up Boeing, I'll have you flying straight and true without doors popping off or costing hundreds of lives when they inevitably crash. 

[leicsmac]

17 minutes ago, Innovindil said:

Tbf they are welcome to send their manufacturing here too. 

 

Sign me up Boeing, I'll have you flying straight and true without doors popping off or costing hundreds of lives when they inevitably crash. 

Yeah, but then an additional overhead will be personal protection experts just in case they decide you're a whistle-blower and send their own "experts" after you...

[Sampson]

If people still aren’t convinced Reform are hard right conspiracy theory peddling nationalists using cuddlier language to appeal to centrists, and its apparently not on to call them fascists, they’re literally just using any old remotely international sounding organisation as a bogeyman now

 

 

[leicsmac]

Just now, Sampson said:

If people still aren’t convinced Reform are hard right conspiracy theory peddling nationalists using cuddlier language to appeal to centrists, and its apparently not on to call them fascists, they’re literally just using any old remotely international sounding organisation as a bogeyman now

 

 

I can't hear anything, but my dog is going nuts.

[Daggers]

1 minute ago, Sampson said:

If people still aren’t convinced Reform are hard right conspiracy theory peddling nationalists using cuddlier language to appeal to centrists, and its apparently not on to call them fascists, they’re literally just using any old remotely international sounding organisation as a bogeyman now

 

 

But that exactly what the WEF want you to believe.