UK Politics: Striking at the heart of the nation

[Raja]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

a truly progressive manifesto approved by the voters

It's just difficult to see him putting *anything* close to that manifesto out based on what he has been saying for the last 1-2 years. It would require him to walk back a lot of that, which I don't see happening.

I get saying things to try and get elected, and given the recent local elections I would say Starmer has no incentive to move from the current strategy - if elected, will he make the policy changes that this country needs? I dunno, it's very difficult to have that faith in him as I don't really think he's earned it.

[kiko]

6 hours ago, Gorn said:

Any article that takes Bulgaria of all places as a shiny example of childhood prosperity is suspect, to put it mildly.

Way to miss the point. Bulgaria is a shining example because the had the chance to improve a lot. Mainly because they opted for something that the UK rejected.

I rather not engage with the rest of your racist post 

 

[mormont]

7 hours ago, karaddin said:

If Corbyn was as terrible at selling his ideas as you all (spooky excluded) say, and I can only take your word for it that he was, then surely a large part of his electoral failures are due to his failings as a leader rather than a rejection of the left wing policies? Yeah he failed to sell them to the electorate, but Starmer advocating for right wing policies sure as shit isn't going to do a better job of selling people on left wing ones.

The problem is, Starmer seems to have taken the wrong lessons from Corbyn's failure. At some point he concluded, not entirely unreasonably, that he needed to appeal to Tory voters to win. At the moment he's aping Blair in opposition, trying to avoid any possible angle of attack from the right by refusing to have any 'uncosted' spending pledges.

One difference is Starmer does not have a Gordon Brown figure who can produce a substantial manifesto for him. (Say what you like about Brown and his policies, there's no denying he wrote a very substantial manifesto.) So what Starmer has instead is a few holdover policies like renationalising rail and not much else. No big ideas. That's disappointing. He needs someone with a concept beyond 'don't make any mistakes'.

[BigFatCoward]

He also has none of Blair's charisma.  Which is fine, i don't care if he is bland, but as soon as he has power the shackles need to come off a little bit. 

2 of the by elections tomorrow should be definite losses, the most important one is Selby and Aintsy, if Labour win that next election is going to be a bloodbath, it will be very very worrying for Rishi if that happens.  

Edited July 19, 2023 by BigFatCoward

[Which Tyler]

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/rishi-sunak-right-wing-think-tank-anti-protest-laws-policy-exchange/

[Heartofice]

12 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/rishi-sunak-right-wing-think-tank-anti-protest-laws-policy-exchange/

Oh wow, policy exchange which is a pretty well established conservative think tank once received a very small donation from an oil company to it's american arm.. therefore?! Who knows. 

Could it be that actually Just Stop Oils protests are very unpopular with the general public and therefore the tories thought doing more to prevent their disruptive protests was a vote winner, and policy exchange and other think tanks often work with governments for this sort of thing?

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/science/survey-results/daily/2023/04/18/25178/1

btw, I'm against the anti protest laws, but at the same time I think Just Stop Oil are idiots, and I'm going to point out conspiracy theories whenever the same people keep posting them up.. like you know theories about Jeremy Corbyns hat (hint, it was a curved screen)

 

[karaddin]

3 hours ago, mormont said:

The problem is, Starmer seems to have taken the wrong lessons from Corbyn's failure. At some point he concluded, not entirely unreasonably, that he needed to appeal to Tory voters to win. At the moment he's aping Blair in opposition, trying to avoid any possible angle of attack from the right by refusing to have any 'uncosted' spending pledges.

That's certainly a familiar issue, same is true of our Labor after their loss in 2019

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

He also has none of Blair's charisma.  Which is fine, i don't care if he is bland, but as soon as he has power the shackles need to come off a little bit. 

Thats actually a pretty significant issue. Voters on the left want to feel inspired, and if the policies aren't doing it (which they aren't) then a charismatic leader can still carry that. In the absence of both it can leave them falling over the line with a barely workable majority.

[mormont]

 

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Thats actually a pretty significant issue. Voters on the left want to feel inspired, and if the policies aren't doing it (which they aren't) then a charismatic leader can still carry that. In the absence of both it can leave them falling over the line with a barely workable majority.

Not just voters on the left. Many, many voters (particularly 'floating voters') don't have the strong ideological/policy bias we on the board tend to have when it comes to deciding who to vote for. They look for competence and personality. That's one of the reasons the Tories are in such dire straits: voters don't think they know what they're doing. Starmer isn't facing any significant competition in the competency or personality stakes, to be frank: Sunak is desperately clawing after both with no success.

[Gorn]

10 hours ago, kiko said:

Way to miss the point. Bulgaria is a shining example because the had the chance to improve a lot. Mainly because they opted for something that the UK rejected.

I rather not engage with the rest of your racist post 

 

Quote

Over 400,000 children in Bulgaria live at risk of poverty and social exclusion and this is a persistent trend. Every third child lives in material deprivation, and 25% of children live in households with severe material deprivation.

https://www.eurochild.org/news/implementing-the-european-child-guarantee-in-bulgaria-what-its-needed/

People's height has as much to do with genes as with nurture, so the entire premise of the quoted article is pointless. My father's side of the family comes from eastern Herzegovina, and my grandfather's and great-grandfather's generation grew up in semi-famine conditions, with no running water, awful hygienic conditions, every disease imaginable, and child mortality of roughly 50%. Their generation still had the mean male height of 185cm due to simple genetic lottery for that part of the world.

What exactly is racist about my post? That tall parents will have tall children, and short parents will have short children? That's called genetics.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Gorn

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

 

Not just voters on the left. Many, many voters (particularly 'floating voters') don't have the strong ideological/policy bias we on the board tend to have when it comes to deciding who to vote for. They look for competence and personality. That's one of the reasons the Tories are in such dire straits: voters don't think they know what they're doing. Starmer isn't facing any significant competition in the competency or personality stakes, to be frank: Sunak is desperately clawing after both with no success.

Fair point. I don't think voters on the right look to be inspired in the same way, I'd say the desire to feel secure plays a heavier role for example, so what is "charismatic" can be different but the desire for a leader that fits your idea of charismatic is pretty universal.

I doubt Sunak meets anyone's definition of charismatic though lol, so yeah that helps Starmer.

[Gaston de Foix]

44 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Fair point. I don't think voters on the right look to be inspired in the same way, I'd say the desire to feel secure plays a heavier role for example, so what is "charismatic" can be different but the desire for a leader that fits your idea of charismatic is pretty universal.

I doubt Sunak meets anyone's definition of charismatic though lol, so yeah that helps Starmer.

British voters were not exactly inspired by Boris, but they were entertained by him and they admired his optimism and carefully projected can-do spirit in the run-up to the 2019 bloodbath.  Then again, he also benefited from a very significant sense that Westminster dysfunction and internecine politics were stifling Brexit at birth. 

When you actually look at the electoral choices made by British voters in the last two decades, they generally chose the most charismatic option.   

Starmer's decision to systematically mitigate any instance of political risk in light of the broad Tory unpopularity carries a certain logic.  But a hundred risk-averse decisions does not add up to an overall risk free approach or even the least risky approach on the birds-eye view adopted by voters.  

[Spockydog]

First they gave us Shaun Bailey. Now it's a Trump-loving, Boris Johnson fangirl, who praised Kwasi Kwarteng's economy-wrecking budget. What a nutter. 

It's clear the Tories do not want to win this election. 

 

 

[kiko]

3 hours ago, Gorn said:

https://www.eurochild.org/news/implementing-the-european-child-guarantee-in-bulgaria-what-its-needed/

People's height has as much to do with genes as with nurture, so the entire premise of the quoted article is pointless. My father's side of the family comes from eastern Herzegovina, and my grandfather's and great-grandfather's generation grew up in semi-famine conditions, with no running water, awful hygienic conditions, every disease imaginable, and child mortality of roughly 50%. Their generation still had the mean male height of 185cm due to simple genetic lottery for that part of the world.

What exactly is racist about my post? That tall parents will have tall children, and short parents will have short children? That's called genetics.

You have to compare the life situation in Bulgaria now with before they joined the EU. If you can't see the improvement than I'm not sure what to say.

My capabilities to search sources are limited because I'm in China (where I meet a lot of tall people contrary to many popular myths) but try this link :

https://randalolson.com/2014/06/23/why-the-dutch-are-so-tall/

 

 

The racist part is more connected but not exclusively to your theory about boat people polluting the good English stock. Think about it, I won't explain more.

 

 

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, kiko said:

The racist part is more connected but not exclusively to your theory about boat people polluting the good English stock. Think about it, I won't explain more.

Christ you are literally just making stuff up. 

[horangi]

1 hour ago, kiko said:

The racist part is more connected but not exclusively to your theory about boat people polluting the good English stock. Think about it, I won't explain more.

 

Gotta agree with HoI on this one.  That's... quite a stretch.  While genetics isnt quite destiny, the more we delve into that area of biology, the more its becoming clear just how much of who we are is determined by our DNA.  Even more interesting is the emerging understanding of epigenetics and how impactful our environment is on turning on and off genes.  Critically, those epigentic factors can be passed down to offspring meaning that, in addition the to skills/knowledge aspects of 'nurture', the environment that you grow up in has ramifications for the genes your children receive and which are turned on, beneficial,  detrimental, or neutral.  Note, none of this should be construed to have an ethical or moral reflection, which I would think is necessary to claim discussing it racist.

Edited July 19, 2023 by horangi

[kiko]

23 minutes ago, horangi said:

Gotta agree with HoI on this one.  That's... quite a stretch.  While genetics isnt quite destiny, the more we delve into that area of biology, the more its becoming clear just how much of who we are is determined by our DNA.  Even more interesting is the emerging understanding of epigenetics and how impactful our environment is on turning on and off genes.  Critically, those epigentic factors can be passed down to offspring meaning that, in addition the to skills/knowledge aspects of 'nurture', the environment that you grow up in has ramifications for the genes your children receive and which are turned on, beneficial,  detrimental, or neutral.  Note, none of this should be construed to have an ethical or moral reflection, which I would think is necessary to claim discussing it racist.

Not disputing that but may I remind you that the discussion was that kids in UK become smaller. And the UK population is genetically very diverse. The argument that the loss in average size is caused by boat people is 

[Heartofice]

13 minutes ago, kiko said:

Not disputing that but may I remind you that the discussion was that kids in UK become smaller. And the UK population is genetically very diverse. The argument that the loss in average size is caused by boat people is 

Not sure why you keep using offensive terms like ‘boat people’, it’s only you saying that. ( btw wasn’t it you who previously got caught out making offensive statements about Indians?)

Either way, I think it’s pretty reasonable to suggest immigration might play a part in the average height of the population, seeing as a majority of the population growth in the last couple of decades was from immigration, much of it from poorer countries with statistically shorter populations. As one of many factors I’d say it makes some sense. If we only got immigrants from Sweden and the Netherlands maybe we’d be getting taller. 
 

It’s you who is adding racist connotations here.

[polishgenius]

34 minutes ago, kiko said:

The argument that the loss in average size is caused by boat people is 

 

 

No-one said boat people. They said immigrants. Do you think the only people immigrating to England are refugees on boats? What are you talking about? 

 

The article is a joke, by the way. People should actually click through to the study, which makes it clear that the answer is neither immigration nor Tory austerity. The height age five actually increased marginally between 1985 and 2019- it's just that other countries increased more. Almost every country in Western Europe, and a few other western nations, dropped heavily (some of them the height did actually decrease, but also only a little). The answer, basically, seems to be that average height age five increased almost everywhere in the world in the timeframe- but it increased a lot more in other places than in Europe, and therefore many European countries dropped on the list. 

As far as I can tell the ones who might actually have something to worry about are Belgium, I think the only European country where the height dropped in any significant way (and who went from 1st to 99th). 

 

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

( btw wasn’t it you who previously got caught out making offensive statements about Indians?)

 

Yes that was him.

[James Arryn]

On 7/18/2023 at 1:30 PM, kiko said:

But isn't that the failure of the left? Staying ideological pure is more important than beating the enemy. Let's rather concentrate our ire on the people's liberation front of Starrmistan.

I’m unsure what is being argued here. Is it that politics is a meritocratic sphere? Is it that the left is too idealogical? Is it that Starmer’s personal failings are to blame? There seems to be differing, even contradictory premises being offered. 
 

Re: the first, well, okay. Putin’s opponents within Russia have demonstrated a severe lack of ability for decades, right? Or is it maybe not that simple? A lot of studies (to be fair the ones I’ve seen were almost exclusively about the US, but I assume the general premise applies) show that, contrary to basing political choices on the effectiveness of the respective candidates, voters are increasingly and to a degree willingly walling themselves off from access to what politicians they don’t support do or say excepting when w/e news source they have chosen is criticizing it. So effectiveness doesn’t get much of a look in. 
 

And while it’s not as cut and dried as Bobo Doll et al make it seem, the general truth is that people *choose* which political affiliation they have fairly early, very often that of their parents or guardians. As they age there can be stages of rejection, reconsideration, disillusionment, but my understanding is that online bubbling is making that less and less likely to happen, and even still people are overwhelmingly likely to vote as their parents did.
 

So it may be reassuring to think of politicians as rising or falling on their merits, or the merits of their positions, but if ‘who did our parents vote for?’ is over 70% of the time who we vote for, is it an accurate rationale? 
 

edit for more information: studies in political psychology and political neuroscience has also revealed some more basic divides. For example, a conservative personality is more likely to be motivated by fear, a progressive by anger. Conservatives value security and predictability much more than progressives do, and are more positively responsive to authoritarian figures. Progressives are much more comfortable with the new, the complicated, the nuanced, and much more suspicious of authoritarian figures. 
 

This is why, despite even myself at times falling for the ‘liberals suck at messaging’ type easy explanations, I also know that for example group psychology plays a significant role. Ie, the fear vs. anger thing, just think of group behaviour. Frightened crowds are much more easily directed than angry ones, and fear is generally much more sustainable than anger. If you are in a crowd and guns start going off, you are extremely likely to follow anyone who says they know the way out. If you are united by anger, the results are much less predictable and diffused into differences. Herd vs. mob. That’s just one aspect, but imo illustrative. 
 

It also plays out in practices. Can’t speak for the UK, but I know that for example Democrat presidents have been much more willing to appoint or retain Republican candidates for positions in government than the reverse. You can argue optics or principles, or w/e, but that’s the pattern, and obviously it has tactical benefits for conservatives.
 

As just one example…and a hilarious one given this sudden anti-FBI movement in the GOP…in the entire history of the FBI, going back ~ a century, there have been 8 directors. Or those 8, 8 were Republicans. Can you imagine the conspiracy theories if that was reversed? The person directly in charge of domestic intelligence has come exclusively from one of two parties? Just allowing this and similar occurrences (and with virtually zero outcry) might not prove the left is ‘too’ idealogical, but it probably shows that their ideology walks the walk more often. (Edit: in retrospect, no, this is wrong, it assumes they both have ideologies that prioritize inclusiveness and ‘fairness’ or w/e. I mis-stated this, apologies. It does seem to prove that Democrats walk their ideology in practice even when it is tactically disadvantageous, but it proves nothing about how much Republicans walk their own talk. On things like family values, religion et al, well, Trump, but that’s separate from the point I was making.) Final caveat: I forgot to include the concession that of course both liberals and conservatives are motivated by both fear and anger. This is about general tendencies, not absolute excursions. 

 

That might well be naïveté, if regarded from a ‘winning is all that matters’ perspective. Whether that is what we do (or should) want from our leaders or not is a matter of debate. 

Edited July 19, 2023 by James Arryn

[Fragile Bird]

Holy crap, after reading this thread I looked up the two-child benefit policy.

How the hell does anyone in their right mind vote for this inhumane bullshit?

Tax the frigging billionaires, you stupid gits.