Hartlepool By-Election - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15173035
blackjack21 wrote:..... My sister is a court reporter and we amuse ourselves by pronouncing every consonant--like pronouncing the k in knight or the g in night.

Apparently, that's how it was originally pronounced ? Ker -niggut ?

In regards politics; Labour has been in decline since their catastrophic 2019 general election meltdown. People have lost faith in socialism, they have lost faith in Labour for opposing Brexit, and they LIKE Boris Johnson.
By B0ycey
#15173039
Gardener wrote:In regards politics; Labour has been in decline since their catastrophic 2019 general election meltdown. People have lost faith in socialism, they have lost faith in Labour for opposing Brexit, and they LIKE Boris Johnson.


Have people lost faith in Socialism? Brexit lost the last election FYI. Remain just split the vote. Very much like Scotland, FPTP favors parties that stand alone on divisive issues. Had Labour backed Brexit the last election we may have had Swinson in power given the voting intentions during the European Elections. And people don't like Johnson. He is marmite. His polling have been up and down. He seems to have the support from Covid at the moment but that can change given we are in testing times. A successful role out clouds all other issues it seems. Although Corbyn wasn't a Socialist but a Social Democrat and I suspect his manifesto under someone else may well win the next election - and if not a future one given he had the youth vote. So I wouldn't say it is dead.
#15173040
Gardener wrote:I was NOT a Tory in any way shape of form, and at the time I disliked Margaret Thatcher intensely. But Labour went all Internationalist and anti-British. There where also the lies about the war in Iraq. And the ongoing rush to European supernationalism. I voted Tory in 2005, and thereafter. (I might have considered the Liberals, if it wasn't for their pro-European stance. )


Welcome to the board.

Sorry to ask another question...it reads like an interrogation!

But are you a 'Tory', or just someone who votes Tory because the other options are worse? And do you see a difference?

What this by-election has shown us is quite how unelectable Labour have become, but I'm not convinced that it shows us how popular the Tories are. Rather, it shows us that our current system is like a see-saw and as one side goes down, the other goes up automatically.

Hence my first question... ;)
#15173043
Cartertonian wrote:Welcome to the board.

Sorry to ask another question...it reads like an interrogation!

But are you a 'Tory', or just someone who votes Tory because the other options are worse? And do you see a difference?

What this by-election has shown us is quite how unelectable Labour have become, but I'm not convinced that it shows us how popular the Tories are. Rather, it shows us that our current system is like a see-saw and as one side goes down, the other goes up automatically.

Hence my first question... ;)


Hmm.. that's an interesting question. I guess I vote because the other options are worse ?
Having said that, there ARE positive things I like about the current Tories. They've put a lot of money into the NHS, they've spent money on the Military, particularly the Navy, and they seem economically trustworthy ?
#15173044
B0ycey wrote:Have people lost faith in Socialism? Brexit lost the last election FYI. Remain just split the vote. Very much like Scotland, FPTP favors parties that stand alone on divisive issues. Had Labour backed Brexit the last election we may have had Swinson in power given the voting intentions during the European Elections. And people don't like Johnson. He is marmite. His polling have been up and down. He seems to have the support from Covid at the moment but that can change given we are in testing times. A successful role out clouds all other issues it seems. Although Corbyn wasn't a Socialist but a Social Democrat and I suspect his manifesto under someone else may well win the next election - and if not a future one given he had the youth vote. So I wouldn't say it is dead.


I'd probably agree that had Labour backed Brexit, they would have done MUCH better. But then how could they ? As a left-wing party, they HATE Britain and the British, and LOVE the idea of a supranational entity controlling everything, ESPECIALLY when it seeks to dilute and suppress pride in nationality.

Well, you say "I wouldn't say it is dead", to which I can only say... 'Hartlepool'. :)
By B0ycey
#15173045
Gardener wrote:I'd probably agree that had Labour backed Brexit, they would have done MUCH better. But then how could they ? As a left-wing party, they HATE Britain and the British, and LOVE the idea of a supranational entity controlling everything, ESPECIALLY when it seeks to dilute and suppress pride in nationality.

Well, you say "I wouldn't say it is dead", to which I can only say... 'Hartlepool'. :)


Do you think Labour would have done better backing Brexit? I doubt it. They might have retained Brexit strongholds like Hartlepool but they would have split the leave vote meaning a Lib Dem coalition or even a Lib Dem majority.

Labour, like the Lib Dems, shouldn't have backed the last election actually. And if they did they should have worked together and stepped down in key seats. The issue Labour had is they wanted to retain both sets of votes and instead lost both. But it was clear the last election was all about Brexit so they couldn't/shouldn't have done that. Labour doesn't hate Britain. And if you look at Corbyns manifesto many of his policies are universally supported - even now. And his manifesto is clearly affordable given the money spent on Covid which was another issue at the time. So no the issue wasn't Corbyns policies but his links to Red Action. Perhaps someone like Long Bailey might have been better given that. Also Corbynism isn't dead. It had strong membership. The issue this local election was that nobody knew what Labour stands for. It isn't Socialism or Blairiteism or Corbynism or anything really. So rather than back an unknown people vote something that is safe like the Tories. It is only a matter of time until Labour are forced to return to more traditional values. They have lost the Blairites so it is time to look at trends for the future. And given the youth vote is more Liberal, I would look there.
#15173050
B0ycey wrote:Do you think Labour would have done better backing Brexit? I doubt it. They might have retained Brexit strongholds like Hartlepool but they would have split the leave vote meaning a Lib Dem coalition or even a Lib Dem majority.

Labour, like the Lib Dems, shouldn't have backed the last election actually. And if they did they should have worked together and stepped down in key seats. The issue Labour had is they wanted to retain both sets of votes and instead lost both. But it was clear the last election was all about Brexit so they couldn't/shouldn't have done that. Labour doesn't hate Britain. And if you look at Corbyns manifesto many of his policies are universally supported - even now. And his manifesto is clearly affordable given the money spent on Covid which was another issue at the time. So no the issue wasn't Corbyns policies but his links to Red Action. Perhaps someone like Long Bailey might have been better given that. Also Corbynism isn't dead. It had strong membership. The issue this local election was that nobody knew what Labour stands for. It isn't Socialism or Blairiteism or Corbynism or anything really. So rather than back an unknown people vote something that is safe like the Tories. It is only a matter of time until Labour are forced to return to more traditional values. They have lost the Blairites so it is time to look at trends for the future. And given the youth vote is more Liberal, I would look there.


Hmm.. perhaps. But.. what ARE Labours "Traditional Values" ?
#15173052
Gardener wrote:Hmm.. that's an interesting question. I guess I vote because the other options are worse?

Precisely.

I may still be naive - at the tender age of 53 - but I would prefer to vote for someone and something I believed in, rather than having no choice other than to vote for the 'least-worst option'.

That's problematic for me because since I first became interested in politics as a teenager, thirty-seven years ago, I have found little to believe in from the Tories or Labour. I vote Lib Dem, not so much as a protest vote per se, but more as a way of having it recorded that not everyone in whichever constituency I happen to be in at the time, or in the country as a whole, is either Tory or Labour.

Having said that, there ARE positive things I like about the current Tories. They've put a lot of money into the NHS, they've spent money on the Military, particularly the Navy, and they seem economically trustworthy ?

I've commented elsewhere that whichever party is in government, throwing money at a problem is little more than an attempt to salve people's consciences and divert attention away from having to ask ourselves why the problem(s) exist in the first place and whether there are other things we should be doing to rectify the cause(s). It's putting a band aid on a suppurating, infected wound.

Elsewhere on the wonderful world wide web, people think I'm passionately and ideologically anti-Tory, but I'm not.

But I'm 'anti-' two things that make the Tories an unnatractive option for me; authoritarianism and prioritising the economy over people. Francis Bacon's aphorism that money is a good servant but a bad master is what I'm on about in respect of the latter. One only has to look at the number of right-wing folk on both sides of the pond whose attitude to the pandemic was essentially, "I don't give a fuck about people dying...this lockdown is making me lose money!", to see why I dislike the notion of money being our master rather than our servant.

None of that however makes me pro-Labour, because whilst they are more inclined to think about the causes of problems than the Tories, their solutions rest on an ideological footing that is flawed in my view. Like religious scripture, socialist theory was a product of its time...and time has moved on, to the point where neither are wholly relevant. There are still pearls of wisdom to be found in both but as a universally applicable ideology, neither are suitable to the modern world. To its credit, socialist theory at least has the ability to question itself and change with the times and Marx's view of class as being the individual's economic relationship with the mode and ownership of production still has some relevance, but just like pearls of wisdom in the Koran have been contaminated by Jihadi extremism, so pearls of wisdom in socialist theory have been contaminated by functional socialism in practice.
By B0ycey
#15173054
Gardener wrote:Hmm.. perhaps. But.. what ARE Labours "Traditional Values" ?


Labour were formed by union groups. I would say working class issues. You mentioned the NHS, that was created by Labour. And Hartlepool is a funny one given that many of its issues like the closing of it hospital and its court were down to Tory legislation rather than Labour in any case.
#15173060
blackjack21 wrote:That's not too difficult. Southwick is pretty non-intuitive. Keighley is too. Belvoir is downright funny. Cholmondeley.

I have a sneaking suspicion that most of these are inside jokes that got out of hand, to be honest. Happisburgh (pronounced "Hayes-bruh") is another one. :lol:
#15173065
GandalfTheGrey wrote:My interpretation of that is that at this moment communities are fixated on cultural/identity issues - but without any, or little economic grievances.


SueDeNîmes wrote:There are economic grievances aplenty and they are, in large part, what's driving the cultural/identity polarisation:

Johnson’s Tories are reaping the rewards of an economy built on rising house prices


Thanks for the link, I must have missed that one.

Even taking into account the potential for some degree of partisanship in William Davies' assessment, what he writes resonates with my experience.

I wouldn't blame the Thatcher government necessarily, because promoting home ownership is not in and of itself a bad thing, but it's just another example of our collective inability to properly contemplate consequences of political decisions. Whether those consequences were intended or unintended will probably be down to partisan perspective, but in general I believe more in 'cock-up' than I do in, 'conspiracy'.

It would be interesting to hear responses from some of the architects of the Thatcher era policies in light of the issues raised by Davies.

Personally, I have a number of examples that reflect the stagnation of wages versus the inflation of house prices but the most prominent is this; when my father retired from the police in 1981, his pension gratuity was sufficent for him to buy a four-bedroomed, detached house with garage in a pleasant Yorkshire market town outright. Thirty-two years later, when I retired from the Armed Forces in the same comparative rank as my father had been when he retired and on very similar pension terms, my gratuity was only enough to put down a deposit on a four-bedroomed, detached house with garage in a similarly pleasant part of the country and thereafter be saddled with a mortgage that was a clear third of my income.

I wouldn't presume to bore you further with my personal story, except to endorse Davies' analysis on the basis that having (for complicated reasons) had to subsequently sell our house and (for other complicated reasons) not being able to buy another, I now face an uncertain future of having to rent until I retire for good, after which God knows what will happen. Short of finding a reliable way to make an awful lot of money in a very short time, in the current housing climate I expect we'll end up having to go into 'social housing' when I retire. :hmm:
#15173168
Cartertonian wrote:Personally, I have a number of examples that reflect the stagnation of wages versus the inflation of house prices but the most prominent is this; when my father retired from the police in 1981, his pension gratuity was sufficent for him to buy a four-bedroomed, detached house with garage in a pleasant Yorkshire market town outright. Thirty-two years later, when I retired from the Armed Forces in the same comparative rank as my father had been when he retired and on very similar pension terms, my gratuity was only enough to put down a deposit on a four-bedroomed, detached house with garage in a similarly pleasant part of the country and thereafter be saddled with a mortgage that was a clear third of my income.


Here's the thing. If we relate all these economic realities to Britain's electoral map, the way I see it, we are looking at a consolidation, even strengthening of the Tory vote. Here's my rather crude calculation: the key tory constituency are older Brits who, similar to your father, were lucky enough to get a house when they were still cheap. They also had reliable work when they were young, so that now they have a comfortable nest egg for their retirement. Whats more, as house prices continue to to soar, they have a most valuable asset to hand to their kids. On the other side, you have the core labour constituency - or in other words, the people who would suffer in the economic conditions you describe, won't be voting tory anyway.

I am no expert on British electoral demographics, but my guess is that at least some of the demographic of former labour voters who have turned tory, for example those in the so called 'red wall' - are working class, but nonetheless from that generation where they had better opportunities when they were young to buy a house and get a stable job - than the current young generation is having. So these people, despite their working class roots, have already 'made it' in terms of securing their comfortable retirement with home ownership and retirement funds. Its these people who are not affected by the type of economic hardship that the younger generations are feeling. It is also these same people who are social conservatives at heart, and who would be particularly influenced by the cultural/identity issues that are being actively pushed by the conservative media.

Thats why I say, a "real" economic downturn is required to significantly shift this electoral map away from the tories: the housing market especially must take a hit, affecting the older generation's nest eggs.
By B0ycey
#15173174
There is no point trying to link house prices to real wages given homes are a desirable asset in short demand. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that house prices have gone up when social housing projects stopped and Thatcher sold off the ones we had. Also it isn't just home prices that have gone up but rent as well I might add - which again shows you the impact of the housing crisis.

As for real wages, wages really only does up when unemployment goes down. There was a time you could walk out of a job, down the road and into another without even an interview. Today it isn't like that. Which means wages relies on government intervention (rise of the minimum wage) or they wouldn't go up at all. It isn't in the business owner to keep wages up with inflation as it effects their profit margins. Tesco for example are one of the largest companies in the country, with profits in the billions and yet most of their employees are on the minimum wage. They were also deemed key workers last year. Had we built social homes, the problem would still exist due to self interest.
#15173425
Cartertonian

Gandalf

Boycey


That's about the size of it. What happens when the working man gets decent jobs and wages? He buys houses and votes Conservative. Nothing new there but, since land (the real driver of housing costs) is a finite resource, it eventually creates a propertyless underclass :

It’s time to call the housing crisis what it really is: the largest transfer of wealth in living memory

"Generation rent" AKA "the precariat" is arguably now the true working class - though typically more educated, metropolitan and cosmopolitan than a retired homeowner who might have once worked in a shipyard.

Labour's problem is that these two working classes are divided by both economic interests and an escalating culture war (with flames fanned Daily by the billionaire press). Combine that with FPTP and loss of Scotland to the SNP, and Labour has an electoral arithmetic problem that no policy or "narrative" can solve.
By B0ycey
#15173434
SueDeNîmes wrote:That's about the size of it. What happens when the working man gets decent jobs and wages? He buys houses and votes Conservative. Nothing new there but, since land (the real driver of housing costs) is a finite resource, it eventually creates a propertyless underclass :


Great analysis and yes that is the crux. The problem is that the solution to the housing crisis is to build more homes but that means people lose the value of their homes they have which means they will vote to conserve what they have rather than something that benefits society on the whole and as such the political party in charge will maintain a poor social housing program given the retired are the main voting force who also are the main generation of home ownership. But we weren't always property owners. So when that was the case everyone supported social home building and we had a boom in 60s.

Labour's problem is that these two working classes are divided by both economic interests and an escalating culture war (with flames fanned Daily by the billionaire press). Combine that with FPTP and loss of Scotland to the SNP, and Labour has an electoral arithmetic problem that no policy or "narrative" can solve.


Labours problem is the Blairites wear blue today. There is no point trying to gain them back in times of prosperity. They need to look long term. Yes they won't be in power for a decade or perhaps longer. But the youth are more Socialist given they are the losers in generation rent and they are where the votes are long term. So they should focus on them and build up their membership in the meantime. Either that or wait until the Tories fuck up the economy which may not be that long given we have borrowed greatly and have Brexit to contend with.
#15173614
There’s been an awful lot said since I last logged on, but nobody seems to have mentioned the terrible affect momentum had on traditional Labour voters.
Far from labours refusal to support brexit being a factor in their downfall, I’d say it was Jeremy corbyns wholehearted support of it that played the biggest part. He wanted to turn Britain into a socialist state and believed being a member of the EU would stop him doing that. Socialism in one country was his mantra. Probably still is.
I cannot stand the man, but I still voted Labour feeling confident he’d never manage to get his wish should they win

Edit: knight was pronounced kahnitt, which is the closest I can spell the pronunciation. The ah sound between the k and n isn’t really there. Just k and n very close together.

I did the prologue to the Canterbury tales for English literature O level more years ago than you could ever believe, but it feels like yesterday. To this day I pronounce incompetent with the accent on pet, because my English teacher told us firmly that was how it was pronounced. IncomPETent.
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