Sampson

I wish a party would just admit that we’re all going to have to pay more tax to fix the country’s shitshow of public services. The debate in the uk around tax is so ****ed up, politicians have been scared to talk about the benefits of taxation since Thatcher. Country needs a decent Social Democratic Party who are prepared to invest in infrastructure and public services for a few years. Labour are supposed to fulfill that role but seem to be bizarrely ashamed to talk about the need to raise tax despite that being their MO.

The polls show they are much most likely to be pensioners than young men.

The strong correlation of demographics by age continues, but the crossover point has shifted significantly.

It’s supply of what’s sold though more than a lack of housing. The biggest problem imo was in the 80s and 90s landlords buying out 4 or 5 houses each, turning them into houses of multiple occupancy and renting out each separate room so they have 5 incomes for one house and making a profit off the mortgage and living on that. If every couple or single person just owned 1 house or flat they’d be very few problems with the housing market imo.

On this note - I give it by tomorrow morning until Farage is calling the IFS woke leftists and has his voters eating out his hands over these tens of billions Reform have just invented. The fact Brexit happened, has been a disaster, people’s lives haven’t improved and have largely got worse and people are still willing to fall for his endless lies, made up statistics and blind calls for patriotism should tell you all you need to know. Need to give up the ghost on these people, you can’t reason with them.

I’m sorry but I hate this argument, it didn’t get their back ups even more, they weren’t listening to reasonable arguments so what could you do? As soon as you tried to have a genuine argument with them about the impacts of leaving the EU, you just got “project fear” and “you don’t back Britain” back. You can’t win with these people. You call a spade a spade and you get three word slogans and calls for blind patriotism back.

Nigel Farage pulls made up numbers out of thin air, who’d have thought it?

On this not I saw a 1 minute clip of Rishi Sunak at a building sure earlier and he used the word “clear” 5 times. It seems to be the Tories buzzword of the election.

She isn’t. Cameron parroted this exact line for all of Brown, Milliband and Corbyn. It’s a standard Tory line they’ve been trotting out for 14 years, it’s been used so often people are bored of it though.

It’s not that though (though I agree with your point It’s not the argument I’m making) they’re taking about leaving the European Court of Human Rights ffs? It’s more that it’s a comfort that people think things will never happen to them or their loved ones so are happy to give away powers that protect them because they’ve become so blasé about how hard fought these were and believe democracy and paid labour and genuinely just and fair courts of laws are and always will be without the checks and balances needed to hold them up. It’s not that the believe well “those people deserve it”, it’s more why they are selling away powers and laws for this which could be used by the politician you most hate in 20 years time when the public have all forgotten why they gave those laws, checks and balances away in the first place. The old ““I didn’t think the leopard would eat my face” says man who voted for leopard face-eating party” line is more accurate to what I’m getting at. Seeing clips of Farage’s manifesto launch, I just can’t wrap my head round it.

Why the **** would anyone genuinely vote to leave the European Court of Human Rights just so you can fly a few assylum seekers to Rwanda? It’s tukeys voting for Christmas because Christmas said he’d kick the parsnips off the dinner table. I understand we’re told we’re always supposed to not be in a bubble and genuinely listen to what the other side has to say but I just can’t get my head round something like this.

First they came for the EU workers, and I did not speak out - because we were taking back control. Then they came for all immigrants, and I did not speak out - because I was British born and raised. Then they came for the woke, and I did not speak out - because in my day we didn’t have that. Then they came for the climate change protesters - and I didn’t not speak out because net zero is all a scam and besides, I’ll be dead by then. Then they came for the Muslims - and I did not speak out because I am not a Muslim Then they came for me - and I did not speak out, because Nigel always says it like is and speaks for me.

Exactly. It’s easy to look like a good public speaker when you just make up numbers or offer some variant attack of “you’re not patriotic and don’t believe in British people” towards the other parties/arguments for every argument. Sadly it’s not just the uk, it’s the whole of the western world. Seeing the headlines this morning in the bbc about the Greek coastguard are heartbreaking, but this is the path this rhetoric is taking us in the whole western world and sadly feel like just the beginning

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0vv717yvpeo Greek coastguard threw migrants overboard to their deaths, witnesses say. Just heartbreaking.

Interesting on the discussion on who the new Tory leader will be from those that remain

Thatcher was an economic extremist though and she won and transformed where the “moderate centre ground” is in this country still to this day. As were Cameron and Osborne’s brutal austerity measures. They were just good at dressing it up in a way that makes it sound acceptable to centrists, Farage does the same in a lot of ways too. I agree most people consider themselves moderate, the problem is when you have politicians who are very successful at moving the moderate centre ground.

I wanted to edit the thread title to say he sadly passed away but can’t seem to now. If a mod could that would be great

The one thing about Farage which gives me some crumb for comfort is he only seems to make headway amongst a certain generation of over 65s, all the polls show he never makes any in roads in people younger than that and well, without being morbid, he’ll have lost a lot of his voters by 2029 through natural causes. The guy’s popularity has a natural clock on it imo. The vote in the UK has become so extreme in its generational split that it’s hard to see the right not just being phased out of power for a long time as it’s hard to see the younger generation of current 13-17 year olds who’ll be 18+ come 2029 voting Tories or Reform and replacing the older voters who die and those in their late 40s where the median voting age lies don’t seem to switching from Labour to the Tories either and have spent most of their working life under 14 years of Tory government that’s only burnt the economy to the ground which will be hard to forget.

Sadly not unpopular.

The US already banned people under the age of 35 and people not born in the US from running, even if they are US citizens who have 2 US parents and lived in the US since the age of 1, surely that is more undemocratic? Every democracy in the world already has minimum ages you can run, how are maximum ages any different?

The problem with the “socialist state” stuff is it’s too long ago now. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, you have to be 53 to have that in your adult conscience mind. The majority of voters don’t have that negative association of the eastern block to it, hence why the right in the uk only makes headways to older voters with this rhetoric. Younger people have instead seen the failiures of austerity and neoliberalism first hand so have that as a far more negative association. Not making judgement on anyone’s opinions of either philosophy, just don’t understand why the Tories think “socialist state” will wash off on anyone under 50, it’s too long ago and no one under that age has any real reference points to it. Just makes me feel like they’re still in the headspace of the world is still like it was and the population still is like it was in the 1980s. They’re going on about a bogeymonster that the majority of the voting public won’t remember.

Nothing to do with Starmer being boring, I’d happily take boring in a pm if they make the country better and let’s face it, that’s not difficult given how far it’s been run into the ground the past 14 years, and I get it’s not an overnight fix, it would just be nice if they ultimately laid out long term goals in the same way the LibDems said that the ultimate goal is to rejoin the single market but that’s probably an election cycle away (not saying it has to be on this topic just used as an example).

I’m very interested how far or watered down it would be. Starmer looked promising when he first became leader but seems to have rolled back all his promises and taken them off his website since then so we’ll see how much is actually in it.

I think a lot of it the obsession with older politicians and it’s even more exaggerated in the us than in Europe. It’s like you need to be in your 60s before you start being considered PM or president worthy in a lot of cases. The fact it was big news how young Blair or Macron were because they were in their 40s on becoming pm feels weird.