UK Politics Unexpected Election edition

[mormont]

47 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I never said it was the primary reason. Read my post.

But you are taking it in completely the other side of the argument, that immigration is not an issue at all, which of itself is unhelpful and untrue and one of the reasons why people are so angry, their genuine concerns are dismissed as petty and ignorant.

I did read it, and didn't mean to give the impression that you did attribute it primarily to immigration. You were clear that you don't.

But my point is that voting for a party that promises to cut immigration will in fact make these problems worse, because:

- immigration (as we agree) is not the main cause of these problems.

- cuts are the main cause of most of these problems*.

- the party promising to cut immigration (a minor cause) is also going to make the cuts (the main cause) worse.

So if your concern is not immigration per se, but the effect of immigration on public services etc., it makes no sense to vote Tory. Overall, doing so will make the problems you're concerned about worse, not better.

Now, if your concern is immigration per se, then yeah, it makes sense to vote Tory.

As for the last point, there's a distinct difference between immigration being seen as a problem and immigration actually being a problem. It's the difference between blame and cause. I don't disagree that many people have concerns (blame). But are those concerns in fact justified (cause)? The evidence suggests that they are not. As noted, immigration could be cut to nil tomorrow and the effect on house prices, public sector underfunding, etc. would likely be negligible at best, and any savings are unlikely to be ploughed back in to public services.

 

 

*except the housing market, but again, immigration is not the main cause there and no party has proposals to deal with the actual main causes.

[DaveSumm]

Where exactly do people get this idea that May is a master negotiator that will skilfully extract a great deal out of Brexit? I'm not even convinced that there are that many possible outcomes, seems to me the EU know full well they can't give us anything that great, they've probably already established their red lines. I'm not saying Corbyn would be just fine at it, but I'm starting to wonder why the logic only works one way; "I like Labour policies but he's not a good leader so I can't vote for him", but never "He's not a good leader, but I like Labour policies so I'll vote for him". I don't think he'd be good at what people think of as typically priministerial things, but if the ultimate fate of the NHS rests on this election, I don't see why policies can't trump leadership. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

I did read it, and didn't mean to give the impression that you did attribute it primarily to immigration. You were clear that you don't.

But my point is that voting for a party that promises to cut immigration will in fact make these problems worse, because:

- immigration (as we agree) is not the main cause of these problems.

- cuts are the main cause of most of these problems*.

- the party promising to cut immigration (a minor cause) is also going to make the cuts (the main cause) worse.

So if your concern is not immigration per se, but the effect of immigration on public services etc., it makes no sense to vote Tory. Overall, doing so will make the problems you're concerned about worse, not better.

Now, if your concern is immigration per se, then yeah, it makes sense to vote Tory.

As for the last point, there's a distinct difference between immigration being seen as a problem and immigration actually being a problem. It's the difference between blame and cause. I don't disagree that many people have concerns (blame). But are those concerns in fact justified (cause)? The evidence suggests that they are not. As noted, immigration could be cut to nil tomorrow and the effect on house prices, public sector underfunding, etc. would likely be negligible at best, and any savings are unlikely to be ploughed back in to public services.

 

 

*except the housing market, but again, immigration is not the main cause there and no party has proposals to deal with the actual main causes.

Yes of course, I don't expect the Tories to be pumping much money into the NHS  (although it is in their manifesto). although the NHS has been falling apart for decades, long before this government.  Nor do I think the housing problem will be solved by cutting immigration ( that has a primary causation in monetary policy that nobody is willing to address). Education isn't going to be fixed overnight either, even though the tories are at least addressing it.

But at the same time the RAPID change in population growth over the past decade or so has meant that existing infrastructure wasn't in place to cope. Its the sheer speed of demographic change that is the problem here.

So in my opinion large scale immigration might not be a major cause of these problems, but it certainly doesn't help, especially in times of financial uncertainty and recession. 

Now is immigration on its own a concern of my per se, possibly not if handled correctly and if its controlled and numbers managed. The problems we are seeing is a ghettoisation of communities and a feeling of alienation amongst the native population. Whether this is imagined or not is hard to say, but its certainly not a complete fiction. If you have been living somewhere all of your life and within 5 years half of the people where you live are speaking Polish all of a sudden then you are going to feel a bit put out, and I don't think its unreasonable to feel that way. I know many people who live in areas like Reading, Slough, West London etc who have expressed their dismay at how quickly things have changed for them, and these are areas where immigration has always been high. 

This is especially worse if you are a lower wage earner and you know immigrants will be able to work for less than you need just to survive. You see your own wages going down and the cost of living going up (again immigration isn't the only factor at play with wages but has been shown to suppress low incomes) 

I don't think any other party is willing to at least acknowledge there might be an immigration issue, except UKIP of course, and its the sheer 'head in the sand' thinking that means people won't vote for those parties. 

[mormont]

Also in the Tory manifesto are policies to make immigrants pay for using the NHS. So that rather removes the argument about them placing a strain on it.

As for NHS infrastructure, again you are missing the wood for the trees, complaining about a minor concern instead of a huge one. The NHS doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with native demographic change. That's the major issue causing a problem.

Basically you want to vote Tory because you're worried about the place being cold and they've promised to fit a draught excluder to the front door, and all the while you and they are ignoring the fact that every window in the house is broken.

ps immigrants cannot work for less than native Brits legally: there is a minimum wage. The claim that no party except UKIP is talking about immigration, meanwhile, is utter bollocks. They can hardly shut up about it. Labour have a plan. The Lib Dems have a plan. Even the SNP and the Greens have plans, though you won't like them. Contrast house prices, which as noted is a serious issue that not one party will talk about in any serious way.

[Denvek]

5 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Where exactly do people get this idea that May is a master negotiator that will skilfully extract a great deal out of Brexit? I'm not even convinced that there are that many possible outcomes, seems to me the EU know full well they can't give us anything that great, they've probably already established their red lines. I'm not saying Corbyn would be just fine at it, but I'm starting to wonder why the logic only works one way; "I like Labour policies but he's not a good leader so I can't vote for him", but never "He's not a good leader, but I like Labour policies so I'll vote for him". I don't think he'd be good at what people think of as typically priministerial things, but if the ultimate fate of the NHS rests on this election, I don't see why policies can't trump leadership. 

I'm actually moving towards this position at the moment. I guess people who feel this way just aren't as vocal as the people Corbyn's putting off.

Of course, I live in a seat where the Tory got over 50% in 2015 and UKIP still came second, so I doubt my vote will achieve much, but I'm still going to use it.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

44 minutes ago, mormont said:

As for NHS infrastructure, again you are missing the wood for the trees, complaining about a minor concern instead of a huge one. The NHS doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with native demographic change. That's the major issue causing a problem.

 

If the NHS couldn't cope with native demographic change, what sense does it make to allow hundreds of thousands more people in each year, putting further strain on it. 

There are numerous studies showing that immigration of low skilled labour affects the wage inflation of the poorest earners.

Yes Labour and Lib dems might have plans for immigration, but they never at any point really acknowledge that there is a problem with it, and so they either have no solution or their solutions are wishy washy and weak and thats why people won't vote for them on that issue. You are also in that group of people who don't acknowledge there is any problem whatsoever because your life isn't affected by it. 

But again even if we dismiss all the economic issues, the cultural one is a big deal, one that is hard to admit is a problem without sounding racist. 

 

[Slick Mongoose]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-internet-conservatives-government-a7744176.html

Theresa May is planning to introduce huge regulations on the way the internet works, allowing the government to decide what is said online.

Particular focus has been drawn to the end of the manifesto, which makes clear that the Tories want to introduce huge changes to the way the internet works.

"Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet," it states. "We disagree."

Senior Tories confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the phrasing indicates that the government intends to introduce huge restrictions on what people can post, share and publish online.

The plans will allow Britain to become "the global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet", the manifesto claims.

May's authoritarian tendancies coming to the fore again.

[Zoë Sumra]

11 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Well the issue is that I am forced to vote Tory because I feel a coalition government would be very detrimental to Brexit negotiations. All other issues are secondary right now for me. The last thing I'd want would be Corbyn arguing with every decision we try and take in the negotiations and making our position much weaker. So voting for anyone other than Tory makes little sense. Having said that I think there is a level of hysteria over the conservatives that doesn't quite bare out, their policies in the manifesto seemed mostly reasonable, with a couple I very much object to ( Fox Hunting for one)
 

The absolute best outcome of these elections vis a vis Brexit negotiations would be a coalition government.

May is pandering to the hard right Tories not because she has to but because she wants to.  I don't believe her lack of nuance in these negotiations so far is due to naivete or to wanting to put on a show or what have you - her actions make far more sense if she's already planning the no-deal WTO route, which is the absolute worst outcome for the population of this country.  We've already had most of a lost decade since 2008.  We can't afford - literally - another lost ten or twenty years.  A coalition government would be forced to take everyone's needs into consideration and not just the needs of the top 5% or so (the only group who might benefit from the hardest of Brexits).

Re. immigrants and house prices - it's always struck me as amusing (or not) how minimal our house buying regulations are compared to elsewhere in the world.  Elsewhere it is common for a foreign national house buyer to have to jump through hoops regarding time going to be spent in the country concerned (in EU countries that use this type of ruling exceptions exist for nationals of other EU countries, naturally). But introducing that rule here would put off the rich Russians and, increasingly, Chinese who are buying British property solely as a physical bank account...

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

If the NHS couldn't cope with native demographic change, what sense does it make to allow hundreds of thousands more people in each year, putting further strain on it.
 

The native demographic change with which the NHS can't cope is the aging population.  Some immigrants are old and need high levels of health services, sure.  However, the percentage of old immigrants compared to the percentage of old native born Brits is lower than the percentage of immigrant adults of the healthiest working age compared to the percentage of.Brits of the same age.

[mormont]

16 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

If the NHS couldn't cope with native demographic change, what sense does it make to allow hundreds of thousands more people in each year, putting further strain on it.

Oh, that one's easy. The demographic change we're talking about is an aging population. Immigrants tend to be young and healthy. As such, they don't get sick very much. They therefore pay more in taxes than they take in healthcare (and, as noted, will pay yet more in charges). So on balance they relieve, rather than put further strain, on NHS infrastructure.

If we were to stop or reduce immigration tomorrow, each of us would be supporting proportionately more elderly, sick people and we'd either have to pay more tax or NHS infrastructure would collapse.

Quote

There are numerous studies showing that immigration of low skilled labour affects the wage inflation of the poorest earners.

There are, and their conclusions are disputed. However, what is clear is that these studies do not show that "immigrants will be able to work for less than you need just to survive" or that immigration leads to wages dropping, which was your original claim, nor that reducing immigration leads to a rise for low skilled labour.

Again, the biggest issue here is increasing productivity for low skilled labour through training, not trying to artifically inflate their wages by creating a shortage. That can only damage UK employers and so the UK economy.

Quote

Yes Labour and Lib dems might have plans for immigration, but they never at any point really acknowledge that there is a problem with it

Labour do so constantly. Depending on your interpretation of 'acknowledge that there is a problem', so do the Lib Dems. I suspect your interpretation of that phrase is 'acknowledge that it must be cut'. But that is not the only way to address the problem.

Quote

You are also in that group of people who don't acknowledge there is any problem whatsoever because your life isn't affected by it.

How do you know that? You don't know anything about me.

In fact, I am part of a group that you don't want to acknowledge exists: people whose employment and personal life will be damaged by cutting immigration. Yes, that is a group of people in this country, and a large one. Where's our acknowledgement from Theresa May? Where's our support? We just get told off as out of touch, not worth listening to, wrong, even wicked for not listening to the 'genuine concerns' of others. Well, I have genuine concerns too, and they're as genuine as yours.

Quote

But again even if we dismiss all the economic issues, the cultural one is a big deal, one that is hard to admit is a problem without sounding racist.

Just as it's hard to admit that I can't be bothered to do the housework without sounding lazy.

[Werthead]

The UK housing market is completely unregulated compared to the rest of the world. This is the sector I work in at the moment and even my lifelong Tory-supporting, Trump-supporting boss thinks this is ludicrous and it should have the shit regulated out of it. Considering she's all for the privatisation of the NHS (she has private healthcare and resents "paying for help for druggies"), it's rather startling to hear her advocating the abolishment of buy-to-let mortgages, the imposition of mandatory 3-year price freezes after people move into properties, harsh regulatory penalties for absentee and profiteering landlords and all landlords having to submit their properties for inspection every couple of years and have to pay out for any and all improvements recommended or have to sell the property and being banned from being landlords.

Although all of that would only improve the quality of the housing stock and end some of the absentee problems with lots of empty properties sitting around. The key requirement is more houses, and lots of them quickly. We'd need maybe 2-3 million homes built in the space of a single parliament to really push back down demand and government would have to do it (since it's in private firm interests to only help stem the demand a bit, to keep prices high), and that would have to find the space to do it (mostly on brown field sites, since the regulations for anything else would be too hard to overcome) and also work out where to put them: expand housing in and around London and the big cities, do more for smaller towns or even build a few big new towns and cities from scratch? It's a big problem, but solutions are possible.

The main problem is that such an approach would be radical, and we are not a great country for radical steps even when they are urgently needed.

[williamjm]

I'm wary of paying too much attention to polling, but it does seem interesting that they're all consistently showing a Labour revival heading towards the low-to-mid 30s. For all the predictions about Corbyn being poisonous to Labour's chances it is starting to look plausible that he could get the best Labour percentage of the vote since 2005. The Tories still have a big lead, but it's starting to look like they might not increase their majority by much. The disadvantage of calling an election is that it does mean the public will start paying a bit more attention to the opposite parties' policies than they normally would.

On 19/05/2017 at 1:18 PM, DaveSumm said:

Where exactly do people get this idea that May is a master negotiator that will skilfully extract a great deal out of Brexit?

A lot of Theresa May's supposed virtues, such as the 'strong and stable leadership' thing seem to be assertions at the moment without much in the way of hard evidence. I think the narrative may have begun when she first became leader at the time when the rest of the Tory leadership contenders were so shambolic that even liberals tended to see her as the best available option (it's hard to remember now but there was a brief moment where it looked like Andrea Leadsom could have been the PM). Now it is possible she might live up to her claims about her abilities but I think it's far too early to say.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Sure there is a problem with housing stock, but actually if you spend any time in london you will see hundreds of flats being built on every scrap of land possible. 

The stock issue is just a distraction from the real problem, which has been loose lending and the historically low interest rates, as well as an obsession with home ownership and the BTL boom. The recent changes to BTL laws have already helped to stop that trend and house prices have slowed or even dropped in places. But until interest rates go up again and cause a correction nothing will change.

[mormont]

8 hours ago, williamjm said:

I'm wary of paying too much attention to polling, but it does seem interesting that they're all consistently showing a Labour revival heading towards the low-to-mid 30s. For all the predictions about Corbyn being poisonous to Labour's chances it is starting to look plausible that he could get the best Labour percentage of the vote since 2005. The Tories still have a big lead, but it's starting to look like they might not increase their majority by much. The disadvantage of calling an election is that it does mean the public will start paying a bit more attention to the opposite parties' policies than they normally would.

A lot of Theresa May's supposed virtues, such as the 'strong and stable leadership' thing seem to be assertions at the moment without much in the way of hard evidence. I think the narrative may have begun when she first became leader at the time when the rest of the Tory leadership contenders were so shambolic that even liberals tended to see her as the best available option (it's hard to remember now but there was a brief moment where it looked like Andrea Leadsom could have been the PM). Now it is possible she might live up to her claims about her abilities but I think it's far too early to say.

The Tories have run a pretty poor campaign. They've centred everything around Theresa May, which was a mistake. She's a naturally cautious politician who has spent most of the campaign meeting party activists instead of presenting herself to voters who might disagree with her. The themes of 'we need a big majority for Brexit' and 'strong and stable leadership' have worn thin remarkably quickly. Policy-wise, they've taken the chance to ditch the ridiculous triple-lock pensions policy, which was a good thing but risks depressing some of their core vote, and tried to reach out to Labour voters, which wasn't smart because they were only ever going to be able to offer a weak version of Labour policies. It's not gone well.

Labour have had their struggles too (they're still arguing publicly about Trident, for example) but since this is business as usual for Labour under Corbyn, voters have apparently priced that sort of thing in. I suspect there's also a strong influence of expectations: because voters all assume the Tories will win, some of them feel free to vote for policies they like rather than who they want to be PM.

And of course, polls do tend to overestimate the Labour vote...

[The Marquis de Leech]

9 hours ago, williamjm said:

I'm wary of paying too much attention to polling, but it does seem interesting that they're all consistently showing a Labour revival heading towards the low-to-mid 30s. For all the predictions about Corbyn being poisonous to Labour's chances it is starting to look plausible that he could get the best Labour percentage of the vote since 2005.

Amusingly, the most recent YouGov poll would have Corbyn outpolling Milliband, Brown, Foot, Kinnock '87, and Kinnock '92, while being tied with 2005 Blair.

[The BlackBear]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

And of course, polls do tend to overestimate the Labour vote...

Pollsters should take that into consideration though and skew their results accordingly. They've clearly not done the best job in recent years, but should hopefully have improved their methods.

[mormont]

25 minutes ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Amusingly, the most recent YouGov poll would have Corbyn outpolling Milliband, Brown, Foot, Kinnock '87, and Kinnock '92, while being tied with 2005 Blair.

Sure, though the comparison should really be to where those Labour leaders were in the polls a month prior to the election. And by the same token, Theresa May is outpolling every Conservative leader's election result since Ted Heath in 1970.

That poll has some interesting figures. 49% of UKIP 2015 voters now intend to vote Conservative, compared to 8% Labour. Only 37% say they'll stick with UKIP.

ETA: 27% of 2015 Lib Dems switching to Labour, 19% to Conservatives. Lib Dems feeling the squeeze?

[Maltaran]

I suspect the Lib Dems are running even more of a targeted campaign than usual, so if you're outside one of their target seats then they're pretty much ignoring you.

[Isis]

LOL Tories. You're a laughing stock.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 minute ago, Isis said:

LOL Tories. You're a laughing stock.

They have managed to pull defeat from the mouth of victory. Its almost heroic how terrible a campaign this has been.

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

They have managed to pull defeat from the mouth of victory. Its almost heroic how terrible a campaign this has been.

Oh, they're still going to win, but it's hilarious to watch.