ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

demographics are on our side, people under 40 are not getting the comfortable life which makes them buy into the system.

Maybe depends on whether this works in a world where newspapers are less of a thing and where the problems might be different, i.e. your house is flooded.

Yeah but it’ll be too late by then.

Boris dodged the floods last year and the north still voted for him in numbers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it doesn't matter about demographics unless there's a mainstream party that represents change

They disbanded after the Euros last year, sorry.

it's "Democratic People's Republic" level bulshittery that the only policy of Change UK was "let's not change the UK"

i said mainstream tbf

Demographics are a thing too although I think a lot of younger people are radicalised in different directions.

Do think also much of the Lab offer wasn't radical enough during the Corbyn years. Social democracy is a huge part of the story of this country post-WWII (Thatcher is really known as someone who fought against it) and I think it's return got short shrift from a public that knew we got here by having that stuff in the first place.

Yeah but it’ll be too late by then.

― ciorapomenitul (gyac), Thursday, 24 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

That isn't really true. Climate change isn't a big bang event.

There a graph that I can no longer find that broke down the last decade's worth of elections by age - the blue and red lines were much closer together in 2010, the blue had the slight edge on the red among older voters but it wasn't that pronounced. They'd started to diverge by 2015 and then massively by 2017, young voters overwhelmingly voted Labour and pensioners overwhelmingly voted Tory.

The difference between 2017 and 2019 was that in the first election, Labour and the Tories were virtually neck and neck among middle-aged voters (Labour had more of the 40-somethings and the Tories slighty more of the 50-somethings, it evened out in general). In 2019, Labour had lost the middle-aged decisively - understanding why is the important thing and there were plenty of conflicting reasons.

So forget about spiteful pensioners, they aren't going to be won round, it's the middle-aged that need to be convinced. Obviously a lot of these are a) at parenting age and b) worrying about their own ageing parents. If the government's response to the pandemic is going to swing voter intention, it's going to happen there.

Suspect it is only going to be worse without the newspapers, which have acted as a bit of a restraint on the total lunacy of WhatsApp-forward-land. The BBC, massively imperfect as it is, has been an unhelpful weight against the Foxicification of radio and TV, so that’ll change too.

The goal is the perfect combo of nothing-matters-nothing-is-true social (QAnon already making inroads among the whatsappery here) with truly polarised broadcast.

They can wedge-issue and voter-disenchant themselves to power for a century on that sort of terrain.

and c) gammons

xpost

The other way in which the pandemic might have an effect is remote white collar workers moving out of cities and taking their voting habits with them.

Yeah but it’ll be too late by then.

― ciorapomenitul (gyac), Thursday, 24 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

That isn't really true. Climate change isn't a big bang event.

"WhatsApp-forward-land"

Isn't the demographics for this at the older end?

the comments under the momentum tweet along the lines of "this arguing amongst yourselves is why labour are out of power for a generation!" are as annoying as ever, need to draw a clear line that blue labour oxford ppe career politician cunts are not "us" and any movement which seeks to include them is probably doomed.

The west is already going full fascist on small numbers, what happens when hot regions become uninhabitable and bigger numbers of people start moving north?
― ciorapomenitul (gyac), Thursday, 24 September 2020 bookmarkflaglink

A lot of borders could become unsustainable?

The right is much, much better at making electoral hay from disasters than the left or even the centre is, that's been shown time and time again in recent years. And in any case, climate change isn't going to be an election-defining event for years, maybe even decades.

I don't believe that younger voters are exactly immune to dumb conspiracy theory thinking either.

'Climate change becomes more pronounced -> people demand action on climate change -> this benefits the left' is the sort of logical, linear thinking that never seems to actually play out.

my one full covid conspiracy chum is in his 20s so yep

"WhatsApp-forward-land"

Isn't the demographics for this at the older end?

"The right is much, much better at making electoral hay from disasters"

Like in 1945?

Seriously though the upcoming disasters could be of such scale that electoral answers will seem highly inadequate. Just looking at the response to a thing like covid here..

The number of red rose emoji student dickheads on Twitter who seem very attracted to antisemetic conspiracy theories also suggests this sort of thinking doesn't break down by age.

The problem isn't necessarily age, it's a mistrust of information sources and an inability to distinguish between reliable information and bullshit. The mainstream press has helped fuel this environment in numerous ways but we are moving towards a complete free-for-all.

The numbers on supporting lockdown/mask wearing in public suggest these people are still very much in the minority but they're a growing one.

I know it wasn’t the point but gyac seemed otm with the “too late” simply because I want change before I’m in my 60s and that’s how long it will take if we have to wait for the last Boomer voter to cast their final ballot. And the Right will have pivoted its offer by then anyway.

I got an URGENT letter from Labour this morning saying they were suckers and my membership is about to close and so please renew so we can go forward together.... etc. Love to get mailshot that is paid for by donations from Bet365 and various billionaire property developers and contemptuously throw it in the bin. Can't wait for the next membership audit when they find out at as well as the mass desertion, at least 80000 of them were apolitical entryists who only joined to vote for Babs for leader and aren't renewing.

The thing about the Right's offer..

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/24/rishi-sunak-to-unveil-new-covid-economic-support-measures-furlough

Thank you all for your messages of support. My statement below: pic.twitter.com/7pZWFUYZzs

— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) September 24, 2020

i just Tweeted her some love, yeah

That was good.

Sadly others have not come through as hoped

A really important read from @DanJarvisMP 👇 https://t.co/TNRUXV9rwS

— Charlotte Nichols (@charlotte2153) September 23, 2020

RLB should have ran a venomous campaign against KS instead of the milquetoast crap her team presided over. It should have been: this is a life death struggle for the soul of the party, are you really going to trust a reconstructed Tory cunt QC to continue in a centre-left direction? Even if didn't work they could have gone down fighting instead of the pathetic manner they fizzled into insignificance in the face of a blatant right-wing takeover.

Not the whole tweet but prefer it this way.

@DanJarvisMP
29m
This is utter bullshit.

so the furlough scheme is finishing and being replaced with... something which is very similar to the furlough scheme?

This scheme is so much less generous than the headlines make it look! This chart shows the reality https://t.co/uSF1YzNxqJ

— Tom Walker (@tomwalkr) September 24, 2020

Cue the usual slavering that occurs whenever Rishi gets his package out

according to the bbc super Rishi has such strength and agility, he could crush a grape whilst jumping over a doll's house.

Sunak will be PM within the year.

This is the surprise for me: part-time work scheme will help sectors/firms facing somewhat deficient demand, not those currently being obliterated. For their staff it looks like Universal Credit. https://t.co/Jjhp2zj7RJ

— Rory Macqueen (@RNMacqueen) September 24, 2020

Johnson will be PM longer than May come hell or high wa-oh those are both here.

i was perhaps naive to think that even this shower of cunts wouldn't countenance 3, 4, 5 million unemployed

RIP British cultural sector.

^not “viable” so can fuck off and die iirc

hold on, so under this deal in return for paying 55% of the wages employers get 33% time? That's a big premium versus them just following their instincts and laying people off then hiring temps to work 33% time for 25% pay and no bens.

And even if appealing to the paternal instincts of capital does somehow work, it still only applies to business that can afford to keep staff on at all, business that are fully closed aren't helped at all here.

I don't know if Labour have changed tack on this, but a few weeks ago I heard Lucy Powell on the radio saying that only "viable jobs" should be served by the furlough scheme, no point throwing good money after bad etc. At least say it like it is: "we are happily throwing 4-5 million people onto the scrapheap because both parties agree on the limits of state intervention and don't gaf about people". The party of "jobs jobs jobs" would quite happily see whole economic sectors completely erased! I've not really being paying attention, but I couldn't imagine the French and Germans doing this as well.

think this probably means my job is gone. gatwick currently only has the north terminal open and the unit i work in is in the south. we'll see i guess.

Yeah I was just puzzling over that - it took me a little while to get that the govt is only paying (100 - n)/3 of your salary because of the way they said it on the radio (or because I’m thick) and when I figured that’s what it meant I was explaining it to my workmate and he was like “so the employers pay more for less work?!”

I guess for employers who have been topping up furlough you could say paying 55% for 33% hours work is better than paying 20% for no work but I’m sure a lot of bosses won’t see it that way. Goes without saying it’s weak stuff, v unimpressive package xps

I'm guessing the vast majority of job losses and business closures will be in hospitality and physical retail, in and of itself that's a massive hole in the tax base but people will want those things to exist when we get through the pandemic. Like, how is Britain supposed to revive its tourism industry post-covid when all the hotels and restaurants have closed? A lot of them are only temporarily unviable, unless the government is considerably more pessimistic about the likelihood of a vaccine then they're letting on.

A lot of the people working in those industries will be EU residents or other migrants. A lot of the former might just decide to return home, which I'm sure would delight the government but it's the latter group who are really screwed.

Also if a) we are living through a historical decline in demand for labour and b) it's imperative that millions of people stay at home and not spread the virus, then it follows that societal attitudes to work and money need to change entirely. There's never been a better time to be paying people not to work, but unfortunately we have a government that believes that if you don't then you basically don't deserve to live properly.

that's not fair Matt, i'm pretty sure they don't give a fuck whether people in work can live properly either