Quote from: IanP on July 26, 2022, 02:12:30 pmQuote from: Johnny Brown on July 26, 2022, 12:03:07 pmBeing a senior conservative is a recipe for being woefully out of touch.Not just senior conservatives, plenty of the well off (and often conservative voters) are amazingly unaware of where they fit in compared to the wider population. For my masters dissertation I wrote a model to explore the causes of income and wealth inequality in the U.K. I’ve read dozens of papers on the topic looking at both historical trends and current rich-world economies. I’m afraid to say that ignorance of income and wealth distributions is fairly well represented across the political spectrum! Don’t get me started on “I am wealthy if I earn £X..?” type discussions
Quote from: Johnny Brown on July 26, 2022, 12:03:07 pmBeing a senior conservative is a recipe for being woefully out of touch.Not just senior conservatives, plenty of the well off (and often conservative voters) are amazingly unaware of where they fit in compared to the wider population.
Being a senior conservative is a recipe for being woefully out of touch.
I don't agree that Labour should be showing solidarity with the unions and joining picket lines. The end goal should be the same (reducing inequality, fair pay and conditions for all workers) but the the unions job is to represent workers and if necessary organise strike action whereas the Labour party needs to formulate policies that make strike action unnecessary, and show they are fit to govern and gain the trust of the electorate. Joining picket lines just makes you a party of protest rather than of governance imho. Instead, Labour are doing the right thing - repeatedly hammering the Tories about making the cost of living crisis worse.As for the chuntering about rowing back on nationalisation, do keep up at the back. Truss is likely to be the next PM, and looks like taking a wild ideological punt on lower taxes kick starting the economy. Anyone with any clue about this knows this will probably fail and will push inflation up even more. The average voter who is shitting themselves about how they will afford to eat after their fixed term mortgage deal runs out will not give a flying fuck about brexit, renationalisation of services or anything else by this stage, and Labour should not be committing at this stage to be borrowing money to buy back rail etc. They need to show they are putting everything possible into keeping Workington Man and all the other swing voters above water and anything else is on the back burner. Shit is going to get savage out there.
Quote from: seankenny on July 27, 2022, 04:22:26 pmLabour is not interested in the average voter. It is interested in the marginal voter, the one who needs to be persuaded to vote for us. Appealing to what the average Labour voter wants is comfort blanket politics rather than gunning to win.If you look up thread I posted a good thing about this from a US Democrat on just this topic. Then once in power, Sir Keir Starmer will reinstate his 10 pledges, do all he said to the membership like standing shoulder to shoulder with workers, bring public services back into public ownership and he will create a new economy based on a zero carbon strategy. Is that the Strategy? Get elected by bullshitting the msm, the swing voters and establishment into thinking they have what they want. Then unleash some good 'ole environmental socialism on the masses with the huge majority gained.
Labour is not interested in the average voter. It is interested in the marginal voter, the one who needs to be persuaded to vote for us. Appealing to what the average Labour voter wants is comfort blanket politics rather than gunning to win.If you look up thread I posted a good thing about this from a US Democrat on just this topic.
Well said. If you're hoping to be a government, you don't stand on picket lines if you're on the front bench.
Quote from: TobyD on July 27, 2022, 10:18:10 pmWell said. If you're hoping to be a government, you don't stand on picket lines if you're on the front bench. That was Starmer's argument when they discussed it on The Rest is Politics.It's a nonsensical argument. The roles of the opposition and government are very different.Joining a picket when in government would be showing support for the side negotiating against your own government. Joining a picket from the opposition is to show support for the side negotiating against a government who you are trying to replace in office.
I don't agree that Labour should be showing solidarity with the unions and joining picket lines. The end goal should be the same (reducing inequality, fair pay and conditions for all workers) but the the unions job is to represent workers and if necessary organise strike action whereas the Labour party needs to formulate policies that make strike action unnecessary, and show they are fit to govern and gain the trust of the electorate. Joining picket lines just makes you a party of protest rather than of governance imho. Instead, Labour are doing the right thing - repeatedly hammering the Tories about making the cost of living crisis worse.
As for the chuntering about rowing back on nationalisation, do keep up at the back. Truss is likely to be the next PM, and looks like taking a wild ideological punt on lower taxes kick starting the economy. Anyone with any clue about this knows this will probably fail and will push inflation up even more. The average voter who is shitting themselves about how they will afford to eat after their fixed term mortgage deal runs out will not give a flying fuck about brexit, renationalisation of services or anything else by this stage, and Labour should not be committing at this stage to be borrowing money to buy back rail etc. They need to show they are putting everything possible into keeping Workington Man and all the other swing voters above water and anything else is on the back burner. Shit is going to get savage out there.
Starmer's strategy is clearly one of "not scaring the horses". Perhaps that will play well with swing voters. Is there any evidence of that?
Is it really the cost of energy going up or are the fat cats mugging us off more than they ever have? Certainly appears that those at the top of the private sector are having a field day whilst the rest of us are having a 'cost of living crisis'.eg. Profits of Centrica (owner of British Gas)= £1,300,000,000 up 500% on last year.Energy bills forecast to be up 200% on last year.Doesn't really follow the narrative they're selling us or the one you're using SK?Maybe energy does cost more but how does that explain the record profits and price increases??
I'd agree with most of the sentiment behind that but the money needs to go where it is most needed (not uniformly so that it mostly benefits the middle classes who are not struggling). I've said many times we are living in a kleptocracy (how else can we explain a decade of widening gaps in wealth between the top and bottom, leading to serious increases in poverty) and so our capitalism needs urgent proper reform in a social democratic sense, lest social unrest drives more drastic and dangerous change. I'd add that at pretty much at every possible opportunity I see the Labour leadership as pushing the cost of living crisis as their top political priority.
https://www.ft.com/content/403426e9-c3b2-4108-bab4-ff8692e789b9Operating profits at the British Gas Energy segment of the business fell 43 per cent to £98mn, driven largely by the need to buy gas and electricity for new customers for whom it had not been able to hedge in advance.
You don't hear the Nigels, Brutus's and other socialist talking-heads of this world