Bye Bye Sunak..

[Jimmy Choo]

Driving from Gloucester to Cheltenham today it was noticeable that there were signs up for the lib dems and Labour. There was one vote green and a noticeable absence of tory signs.

[dinny_g]

Anyone buying Sunak's promises ???

[Rich B]

I haven't caught up today, but this morning they were saying the tag lines were going to be that the Tories were the party of low taxes and fiscal responsibility. So essentially the opposite of what they've been for the last 14 years. Ok then.

[ZedLeg]

It’s funny that both party leaders keep using the spectre of Corbyn as a weapon while he’s quietly winning his own election.

[Rich B]

It’s funny that both party leaders keep using the spectre of Corbyn as a weapon while he’s quietly winning his own election.

i don't think anyone for a second thinks Corbyn has gone, but he's back in his little corner after failing on the big stage.

[ZedLeg]

Of course he’s gone, he’ll work for his constituents like he always has but he’s not going to be back on the front bench.

It’s just red scare nonsense, much as it was during the last election.

[Beany]

I hear the latest Tory line is bring back capital punishment, that thing that anyone with an IQ above room temperature is aware is ineffective and is inadvisable when you can have miscarriages like the Birmingham Six.

Proper scraping the bottom of the barrel.

[Shlergen]

It's so broken, where would you start.

Dentistry, GPs, hospitals, roads, unemployment dossers (circa 23% choosing not to work?!), immigration, education all fubar.

Tories, labour, green are a joke. Lib dem, reform ?!

[Rich B]

It's so broken, where would you start.

Dentistry, GPs, hospitals, roads, unemployment dossers (circa 23% choosing not to work?!), immigration, education all fubar.

Tories, labour, green are a joke. Lib dem, reform ?!

reform don't have any actual ideas, they just say broad statements about "fixing" things.

Lib Dem's again haven't really made any statements beyond don't believe the main parties" - but there's a chance they may end up as the opposition!

[IanF]

It's so broken, where would you start.

Dentistry, GPs, hospitals, roads, unemployment dossers (circa 23% choosing not to work?!), immigration, education all fubar.

Tories, labour, green are a joke. Lib dem, reform ?!

viewtopic.php?p=203493&hilit=OV9+political#p203493

[Jobbo]

It's so broken, where would you start.

Dentistry, GPs, hospitals, roads, unemployment dossers (circa 23% choosing not to work?!), immigration, education all fubar.

Tories, labour, green are a joke. Lib dem, reform ?!

reform don't have any actual ideas, they just say broad statements about "fixing" things.

Lib Dem's again haven't really made any statements beyond don't believe the main parties" - but there's a chance they may end up as the opposition!

Reform are doing surprisingly well - they may not win seats but they will take a lot of votes. Nobody is even interested in the manifestos. Can’t say the detail I’ve seen gives much to choose between the parties.

[Rich B]

they'll get a lot of votes too, but not seats.

[integrale_evo]

I’ve heard a lot of people saying they would consider voting reform. As above, I doubt they’ll win many (any) actual seats but I think they’ll get a decent chunk of votes.

[Beany]

unemployment dossers (circa 23% choosing not to work?!)

Aside, I went down a rabbit hole on this as I know that's not what economically inactive means (IE Wayne and Waynetta slob, the local layabouts who never apply for jobs etc), but I wasn't actually clear on what it does mean. The government specifically states that, if you're unemployed, you're literally not economically inactive (for the purposes of the definition)

https://researchbriefings.files.parliam ... N07119.pdf (PDF warning)

All people aged 16 and over may be classified to one of three labour market groups: employment, unemployment or economic inactivity.
People aged under 16 are not included in labour market statistics.

• A person is counted as employed if they did any paid work in a given week. Also counted as in employment are those who were temporarily away from work; doing unpaid work for their own or a family member’s business; and some people on government-supported training and employment programmes.

• Someone is unemployed if they are not in work but are looking for work (having done so at some point during the past four weeks) and are available to start work in the next fortnight.

• A person who is neither employed nor unemployed is economically inactive. This may be because someone is retired, looking after family or home, or a student, among other reasons.

Together, those in employment and those who are unemployed comprise the group of people who are economically active.

By definition, if you're neither employed nor unemployed, you're economically inactive.


A bit more detail:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlab ... edinac01sa (spreadsheet warning!)

And out of that, >85% are family carers (I'd expect primarily stay at home parents, single or otherwise), the long term sick (not actually an easy thing to get signed off, despite what the Telegraph and the Daily Mail might claim), the retired and students.

And that headline figure of economically inactive has been the same (around 8-9.0m with the odd spike - see Fig 1) for fifty years.

A quick look around some secondary sources suggests this is broadly due to fewer full time stay at home parents mixing up with more students, and fewer people 'fully' retiring etc; basically unless there's a massive societal change (IE we turn into the glorious gay communist utopia me and Zed dream of, etc - or more realistically, we were to try Universal Basic Income etc), there'll always be about 20% of people who just ain't working for any given reason.

So that was fun

[Jobbo]

they'll get a lot of votes too, but not seats.

How many pages ago did you say that? And how do you reconcile it with the lack of ideas you referred to on this page?

[Rich B]

they'll get a lot of votes too, but not seats.

How many pages ago did you say that? And how do you reconcile it with the lack of ideas you referred to on this page?

back on page 33 when farage decided to stand.

They've picked up on a mood, they've targeted the angry people who want things fixed. When you look through their (not a) manifesto it's all impossible grand statements to fix everything:

NHS waiting lists to zero in 2 years, taxes down, immigration fixed, etc...

If they could actually do everything they're saying then you'd be stupid not to vote for them. Hence they'll get a lot of votes from people who are stupid enough to think they can fix everything by just pointing out what's wrong. they'll still likely only get 2nd/3rd at best in most seats they're standing for.

[Shlergen]

unemployment dossers (circa 23% choosing not to work?!)

Aside, I went down a rabbit hole on this as I know that's not what economically inactive means (IE Wayne and Waynetta slob, the local layabouts who never apply for jobs etc), but I wasn't actually clear on what it does mean. The government specifically states that, if you're unemployed, you're literally not economically inactive (for the purposes of the definition)

https://researchbriefings.files.parliam ... N07119.pdf (PDF warning)

All people aged 16 and over may be classified to one of three labour market groups: employment, unemployment or economic inactivity.
People aged under 16 are not included in labour market statistics.

• A person is counted as employed if they did any paid work in a given week. Also counted as in employment are those who were temporarily away from work; doing unpaid work for their own or a family member’s business; and some people on government-supported training and employment programmes.

• Someone is unemployed if they are not in work but are looking for work (having done so at some point during the past four weeks) and are available to start work in the next fortnight.

• A person who is neither employed nor unemployed is economically inactive. This may be because someone is retired, looking after family or home, or a student, among other reasons.

Together, those in employment and those who are unemployed comprise the group of people who are economically active.

By definition, if you're neither employed nor unemployed, you're economically inactive.


A bit more detail:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlab ... edinac01sa (spreadsheet warning!)

And out of that, >85% are family carers (I'd expect primarily stay at home parents, single or otherwise), the long term sick (not actually an easy thing to get signed off, despite what the Telegraph and the Daily Mail might claim), the retired and students.

And that headline figure of economically inactive has been the same (around 8-9.0m with the odd spike - see Fig 1) for fifty years.

A quick look around some secondary sources suggests this is broadly due to fewer full time stay at home parents mixing up with more students, and fewer people 'fully' retiring etc; basically unless there's a massive societal change (IE we turn into the glorious gay communist utopia me and Zed dream of, etc - or more realistically, we were to try Universal Basic Income etc), there'll always be about 20% of people who just ain't working for any given reason.

So that was fun

Indeed it covers retired, carers etc but there are a lot choosing not to work, taking their £75 a week, free housing, free school meals etc. Looking at the demographic, over 50% of women with Pakistani/ Bangladesh background apparently do not work. I can't understand how you can have a choice.

[Jobbo]

They've picked up on a mood, they've targeted the angry people who want things fixed. When you look through their (not a) manifesto it's all impossible grand statements to fix everything:

NHS waiting lists to zero in 2 years, taxes down, immigration fixed, etc...

If they could actually do everything they're saying then you'd be stupid not to vote for them. Hence they'll get a lot of votes from people who are stupid enough to think they can fix everything by just pointing out what's wrong. they'll still likely only get 2nd/3rd at best in most seats they're standing for.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you - but we're on page 42 now so it's not surprising I didn't refer back to something posted 9 pages ago

The pace of social media is such that it's virtually impossible to find anything you've seen again unless you bookmark it. But I did read - just this morning - that what Reform are promising amounts to £50bn of tax cuts and haven't explained how that will be funded. Googling it brings up stories about £40bn of tax cuts (raising the income tax threshold to £20k) which will be funded by a stealth tax on banks by changing the way interest is charged to the Bank of England. That's really interesting because it sounds more like a Labour policy. But I don't think it's the same thing as the unfunded tax cuts which sound like Liz Truss/Kamikaze Kwarteng all over again.

The Brexit referendum proved that a protest vote for the unknown is appealing anyway.

[Nefarious]

Indeed it covers retired, carers etc but there are a lot choosing not to work, taking their £75 a week, free housing, free school meals etc. Looking at the demographic, over 50% of women with Pakistani/ Bangladesh background apparently do not work. I can't understand how you can have a choice.

Sounds alarmingly close to propagating the myth of the scrounger - invented by Thatcher, comprehensively disproved, but erroneously repeated for 40 years since

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpoli ... -society/

[Jobbo]

Blimey - I don't think there's any real chance this will be the result but it's within the realms of possibility (Lib Dem in orange):


Edited because the colour key was not what I thought. And it seems Clacton is still not going to Farage even on those figures.