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  • Plato said:

    Oh the creepy photo-shoot. I thought his intentions were good, but the execution?!?!

    And the vodka ice bar, trying to get your date blotto and freezing her nips off doesn't appeal to me either.

    I'd give Most Annoy Award to the smug nerdy gay bloke who's dad owned Cookie Diet, he was just So Single For A Reason. Another great one was the medical doctor cum lawyer who spent his entire time bragging. As you say, self awareness is not their strong point.



    A Plastic Surgeon that wants to operate on his date - I can't believe that's a real person! I also saw an episode where a bloke took photos of his date (weird) in a professional photo-shoot, and that Stacey Kessler woman who showed a bloke a movie about herself on a date! The lack of self-awareness among some of these people is astounding.

    Then there was the ep where this guy said that women's role was to be mothers and housewives, and took his date into some ice-cubicle thing and froze her ass off!

    OMG the cookie diet bloke! Patti was so right about his dress sense - and his love of that guy Jimmy was really creepy. When his date threw a drink over him, I didn't feel one bit sorry for him.
  • surbitonsurbiton Posts: 13,549
    Plato: Is there a particular reason why you are so instinctively right wing ?
  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897

    Moses_ said:


    I really wish people would not put the BBc in the same argument as the Daily mail simply to muddy the waters. These are entirely different ways of funding.

    No one Is forced to pay for the Daily mail under the threat of a court summons and jail if you don't. You can quite safely walk by a newsstand or even tear the rag in half at a Labour conference if you chose to do so with absolutely no penalty. ( yes I know it was the sun but the point remains the same)

    If they think are so fecking brilliant then they should just grow a pair and go pay per view.

    On a slight tangent, I read this morning that Gove wants to stop non-payment of the licence fee being a criminal offence. This in some quarters is being hailed as a good thing, however people should be careful what they wish for.

    If final enforcement is taken away from the magistrates court it will revert to being a civil matter. That is to say the BBC, through their subcontractors, will just send round the debt collectors. Unless the rules are very carefully complied with (fat chance) it will become harder for people who do not have to pay the licence fee to avoid being penalised.

    If the magistrates are removed from the equation Gove will have to implement some ombudsman or other independent authority to make judgement in cases in dispute otherwise the poor, the elderly and the people who are not very good at dealing with authority are going to get unfairly hammered.
    You're joking right? The elderly and the vulnerable are the most likely to immediately cave when a Capita TV Licensing Drone arrives at their door asking if they watch live TV / why they don't have a license. They are already at risk of exploitation. They do send the debt collectors currently.
    This can be seen in this quite profanity filled video of the collection:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnGG8SEYDoQ
    This just stops people getting a criminal record for something so trivial and frees up significant Magistrate resources to deal with genuinely horrible crimes.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    I quite agree. I was APPALLED when Private Eye went all uber over MMR. IIRC the Speccy did too.

    Just shows how something emotive backed with pseudo science [you all know what I'm thinking here] can get momentum. The damage done by MMR hysteria did really harm - I don't think herd immunity levels have quite recovered even now.
    Pauly said:

    Plato said:

    Given I really don't like the Mail per se, I feel you're forgetting the Mirror claiming British soldiers pissed on Iraqi POWs.

    Or that it was the Mail that stood up and campaigned/got Stephen Lawrence's killers.

    The MMR scandal embarrassed a lot of publications - most notably Private Eye.

    @Plato I think the Tories had grounds for complaint against the BBC. Its political coverage was distinctly pro-Labour during the Blair and particularly the Brown years. It has swung a good deal to the right since then, and the article by Nick Robinson you posted earlier is a typical example. (Though to be fair, you picked the most pro-government bit.)

    The defining feature of this forum is that we are all interested in polls, so I think it is fair to say we all reasonably well informed about how our particular views compare to those of the majority. So yes, I am aware that my views are not as popular as I would like them to be. That doesn't make them wrong

    I repeat, the Mail is owned by big business vested interests and is biased towards the establishment. It also has a long history of running stories that are not accurate. In the case of the MMR vaccine scare story, this actually became a public health issue. If they can't even get a science story like that right, I don't think they should be trusted on their political coverage.

    I actually think that scare did more good than harm. It serves as a wonderful case study to encourage media scepticism and critical thinking - even intelligent cynicism if you're willing to go that far.
    That's also why I have a problem with state-owned media and media that claims to be "neutral" or politically independent. It lulls you into a false sense of security that you should never have with the media stories / claims.
  • JEOJEO Posts: 3,656
    edited August 2015

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    Plenty of people get married and have children in their 20s. If a 31 year old isn't young, what is she? Middle aged? You are making the mistake of assuming your subset of young people are representative of young people.

    However, I do think it's fair to say there is increasingly a split between young people that still live in a self-centred phase in their life and those that are family-oriented.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    John McDonnell to be shadow chancellor says Indie.
  • Moses_Moses_ Posts: 4,865
    edited August 2015

    Moses_ said:

    @Plato I think the Tories had grounds for complaint against the BBC. Its political coverage was distinctly pro-Labour during the Blair and particularly the Brown years. It has swung a good deal to the right since then, and the article by Nick Robinson you posted earlier is a typical example. (Though to be fair, you picked the most pro-government bit.)

    The defining feature of this forum is that we are all interested in polls, so I think it is fair to say we all reasonably well informed about how our particular views compare to those of the majority. So yes, I am aware that my views are not as popular as I would like them to be. That doesn't make them wrong

    I repeat, the Mail is owned by big business vested interests and is biased towards the establishment. It also has a long history of running stories that are not accurate. In the case of the MMR vaccine scare story, this actually became a public health issue. If they can't even get a science story like that right, I don't think they should be trusted on their political coverage.

    .
    On a slight tangent, I read this morning that Gove wants to stop non-payment of the licence fee being a criminal offence. This in some quarters is being hailed as a good thing, however people should be careful what they wish for.

    If final enforcement is taken away from the magistrates court it will revert to being a civil matter. That is to say the BBC, through their subcontractors, will just send round the debt collectors. Unless the rules are very carefully complied with (fat chance) it will become harder for people who do not have to pay the licence fee to avoid being penalised.

    If the magistrates are removed from the equation Gove will have to implement some ombudsman or other independent authority to make judgement in cases in dispute otherwise the poor, the elderly and the people who are not very good at dealing with authority are going to get unfairly hammered.
    Valid point.

    It's the proof you have used the service and not paid for it would be the decider. The "forcing you to take the service" should end as well. It can't be hard to put a block on the service if it's not paid for. Sky manage it quite well. I suspect the blocking the service route would be necessary first before the Bailiffs start kicking in the front door.

    Would be interesting viewing on "can't pay won't pay" though as they storm people's houses for the telly tax. What would they do? Take the telly? Yet you have paid fully for Sky and now can't watch it as a competitor organisation has "broken in and stolen your telly" the contradictions are going to be huge given that you simply plead you never wanted that service in the first place.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    edited August 2015
    Did GE TO change post 45mins/Iraq? I've no idea. There was a great deal of fuss about it, so I'd expect it to motivate a few more sofa dwellers to vote.
    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955

    Corbyn is just weird to me, especially his foreign policy views. While I don't want to see Labour decimated in 2020, I equally don't want him as PM. I don't trust him on foreign policy and defence, and for that matter - taxation. Which gives me a dilemma as to who I vote for in 2020, if he's still there.

    If he is still there in 5 years, you will be 5 years wiser - and the choice will be that much clearer...!
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    I voted LD in 1992 as I couldn't vote for the Big Two, yet still needed to X my ballot. At least back then there was apparently no possibility they'd be in power.

    Totting up the truly deliberate NOTA protest votes would be a great exercise. OMRLP are scrapping for them :smiley:

    Corbyn is just weird to me, especially his foreign policy views. While I don't want to see Labour decimated in 2020, I equally don't want him as PM. I don't trust him on foreign policy and defence, and for that matter - taxation. Which gives me a dilemma as to who I vote for in 2020, if he's still there.

  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
  • Scott_P said:

    Victory is assured!

    @JohnRentoul: "Ed Miliband is also thinking of breaking his silence to urge his party to step back from precipice" @bbcnickrobinson http://t.co/mDke8NoGAy

    If I rang the Samaritans and EdM answered, I'd jump.
  • Fantastic PB Tory Propaganda piece there, TSE! :)
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
    I'll turn 40 in three months - I'm single and childless.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753
    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    Shades of 1992? Maybe. But I can also see a lot of potential Labour supporters unable to support such nonsense but reluctant to vote for anyone else.
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
    I'll turn 40 in three months - I'm single and childless.
    No need to boast, old boy.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited August 2015

    I'll turn 40 in three months - I'm single and childless.

    Hence why I said "more likely to be", not all. There are exceptions to every average - there are some 18 year olds with a few kids already too at the other extreme.
  • Corbyn is just weird to me, especially his foreign policy views. While I don't want to see Labour decimated in 2020, I equally don't want him as PM. I don't trust him on foreign policy and defence, and for that matter - taxation. Which gives me a dilemma as to who I vote for in 2020, if he's still there.

    Michael Portillo has a famous motto: "Who Dares Wins"!

    WE dare! WE will WIN!
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382
    edited August 2015
    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    Iwill be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
    I'll turn 40 in three months - I'm single and childless.
    No need to boast, old boy.
    Boast? Avast, Mr Llama! Forgot to add "depressed face" at the end :(
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good afternoon, everyone.

    Dr. Prasannan, Basil II was single and childless. For that matter, the Golden Age of Imperial Rome only ended when the idiot Marcus Aurelius broke the tradition of adoption and left the purple to his lunatic son.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Post Of The Day :love:

    Scott_P said:

    Victory is assured!

    @JohnRentoul: "Ed Miliband is also thinking of breaking his silence to urge his party to step back from precipice" @bbcnickrobinson http://t.co/mDke8NoGAy

    If I rang the Samaritans and EdM answered, I'd jump.
  • Good afternoon, everyone.

    Dr. Prasannan, Basil II was single and childless. For that matter, the Golden Age of Imperial Rome only ended when the idiot Marcus Aurelius broke the tradition of adoption and left the purple to his lunatic son.

    Mr Dancer! Let's not forget our present Queen's illustrious 16th century namesake!
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    ydoethur said:

    Ydoether... wont the youngsters be getting older...it certainly happened to me and most people I know...

    Yes youngsters get older. But will they start voting as they age? That's the question I'm not convinced we can answer 'yes' to.

    Turnout seems to me to be dropping steadily, and I think it's those groups that never got into the habit of voting that are ageing and pushing through declining turnout in those age groups. Those over 65 will have grown up in the 60s, when voter engagement was still high. But you look through it later on, and you will see that with every succeeding decile group turnout has been a little less - and it does increase with age, but not by enough to compensate.

    The current very low levels among those of my age and younger is therefore a big worry to me.
    Well 2015 did see the fourth consecutive increase in general election turnout - though 66% remains low by 20th century standards.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    And there's a very good biological reason for that!

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
    I'll turn 40 in three months - I'm single and childless.
  • JEO said:

    Plenty of people get married and have children in their 20s. If a 31 year old isn't young, what is she? Middle aged? You are making the mistake of assuming your subset of young people are representative of young people.

    However, I do think it's fair to say there is increasingly a split between young people that still live in a self-centred phase in their life and those that are family-oriented.

    People do get married and have kids in their twenties, however most people - especially my generation don't, for the most part. Not least because between the ages of 18-24, a lot of people are at uni, and after that need to find a guy around a similar age who actually wants to commit which is rare. Most young guys want to the play to field until they are in their 30s. Then there is the matter of getting a mortgage - which again, is quite difficult for many people in their twenties to do.

    31 isn't young but it isn't old - so yeah, it's middle-aged. I would also say I am a family orientated young person - I study from home after all, which is kind of unusual.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
    Good for you, but I was never claiming it was the same as 18-24s, ie those who have just left school or at college. The sample in question was 25-34s ie a separate age bracket including those starting careers, getting married, looking to start a family etc which all happens from the age of 25. Most people do not start careers etc at 30 but 25 at the latest if they are graduates and have done professional qualifications.

    As for being homeowners, by 2025 over 50% of under 40s will be renting as you need at least two reasonable incomes to even consider a mortgage, in that case those in their thirties have more in common with those renting in their twenties than home owners over 40
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    Good afternoon, everyone.

    Dr. Prasannan, Basil II was single and childless. For that matter, the Golden Age of Imperial Rome only ended when the idiot Marcus Aurelius broke the tradition of adoption and left the purple to his lunatic son.

    Mr Dancer! Let's not forget our present Queen's illustrious 16th century namesake!
    Indeed. Maybe Henry VIII had a point after all.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.
    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited August 2015


    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?

    I'm 32, unmarried, childless, and rent. I also work unbelievably unsociable hours, so two of them are not likely to change for a while anyway. Maybe I'm just unusual? I did after all spend eight and a half years at university.

    I think trying to generalise about any age group is rather difficult unless you have a huge mass of statistical data to back it up. With voting patterns we do - I don't think, pending the release of census data, we've got quite such good information on the rest.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    I'm not surprised about graduates (with careers and all) but I thinking more in general. MORI's sample may well be that, but there's still a significant amount of over 30s.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Dr. Prasannan, indeed.

    Or Epaminondas, the Theban king who crushed Sparta at both Leuctrea and Mantinea, making Thebes [briefly] the dominant military power in Greece. When he was dying and those around him lamented he left them no sons, he replied that he had two beautiful daughters [the battlefield victories].
  • Corbyn is just weird to me, especially his foreign policy views. While I don't want to see Labour decimated in 2020, I equally don't want him as PM. I don't trust him on foreign policy and defence, and for that matter - taxation. Which gives me a dilemma as to who I vote for in 2020, if he's still there.

    If he is still there in 5 years, you will be 5 years wiser - and the choice will be that much clearer...!
    I hope it's clear. I can see myself easily spoiling my ballot.
  • Plato said:

    I voted LD in 1992 as I couldn't vote for the Big Two, yet still needed to X my ballot. At least back then there was apparently no possibility they'd be in power.

    Totting up the truly deliberate NOTA protest votes would be a great exercise. OMRLP are scrapping for them :smiley:

    Corbyn is just weird to me, especially his foreign policy views. While I don't want to see Labour decimated in 2020, I equally don't want him as PM. I don't trust him on foreign policy and defence, and for that matter - taxation. Which gives me a dilemma as to who I vote for in 2020, if he's still there.

    This year before I voted Labour, I considered voting LD/Green as a protest vote tbh. Went for Labour eventually, but under Corbyn there is no chance of that.
  • Plato said:

    And there's a very good biological reason for that!

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groupnd that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
    I'll turn 40 in three months - I'm single and childless.
    You don't have to be married to have kids - ask the Lord God himself :)
  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897
    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I've never seen anyone self-identify as a neoliberal at least :D
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Ydoether... wont the youngsters be getting older...it certainly happened to me and most people I know...

    Yes youngsters get older. But will they start voting as they age? That's the question I'm not convinced we can answer 'yes' to.

    Turnout seems to me to be dropping steadily, and I think it's those groups that never got into the habit of voting that are ageing and pushing through declining turnout in those age groups. Those over 65 will have grown up in the 60s, when voter engagement was still high. But you look through it later on, and you will see that with every succeeding decile group turnout has been a little less - and it does increase with age, but not by enough to compensate.

    The current very low levels among those of my age and younger is therefore a big worry to me.
    Well 2015 did see the fourth consecutive increase in general election turnout - though 66% remains low by 20th century standards.
    I think you'll find that with the exception of the 58.9% turnout in the general election of 1918 - where about one-fifth of the voters were accidentally disenfranchised by a muddle over the arrangements for army voting, which probably had some bearing on it - it was well below any turnout in the twentieth century. The next lowest was I think 1923 (70.8%).

    Admittedly, it has gone up slowly in the last few elections, but that was from a shockingly low base in 2001 (when there wasn't even the excuse of 8 million men serving overseas to hide the scale of the national apathy).
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    edited August 2015
    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Ydoether... wont the youngsters be getting older...it certainly happened to me and most people I know...

    Yes youngsters get older. But will they start voting as they age? That's the question I'm not convinced we can answer 'yes' to.

    Turnout seems to me to be dropping steadily, and I think it's those groups that never got into the habit of voting that are ageing and pushing through declining turnout in those age groups. Those over 65 will have grown up in the 60s, when voter engagement was still high. But you look through it later on, and you will see that with every succeeding decile group turnout has been a little less - and it does increase with age, but not by enough to compensate.

    The current very low levels among those of my age and younger is therefore a big worry to me.
    Well 2015 did see the fourth consecutive increase in general election turnout - though 66% remains low by 20th century standards.
    But much higher than the USA (58% in 2012)

    India hit a record high (also 66%) at last year's election
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,955
    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I refuse to be insulted by something its proponents can't even define...
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    I'd never watched Jeremy Kyle until a few months ago. It's an entirely different planet from my own experience/parental values.

    I thought working for the plod gave me a certain perspective - the more I watch C5 and Kyle the more I feel like an alien.
    ydoethur said:


    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?

    I'm 32, unmarried, childless, and rent. I also work unbelievably unsociable hours, so two of them are not likely to change for a while anyway. Maybe I'm just unusual? I did after all spend eight and a half years at university.

    I think trying to generalise about any age group is rather difficult unless you have a huge mass of statistical data to back it up. With voting patterns we do - I don't think, pending the release of census data, we've got quite such good information on the rest.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited August 2015


    You don't have to be married to have kids - ask the Lord God himself :)

    Or Frederick Augustus of Poland. Or Charles II.

    Admittedly both were married, but that wasn't quite the whole story...
  • MarkHopkinsMarkHopkins Posts: 5,584

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I refuse to be insulted by something its proponents can't even define...

    You refuse to be insulted? That's so neo-liberalist.

  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    In Northern seats - it's prime Kipper territory. If they aren't gearing up their campaigners - they need to get their arses shifted.
    DavidL said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    Shades of 1992? Maybe. But I can also see a lot of potential Labour supporters unable to support such nonsense but reluctant to vote for anyone else.
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382
    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    Political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    Corbyn is just weird to me, especially his foreign policy views. While I don't want to see Labour decimated in 2020, I equally don't want him as PM. I don't trust him on foreign policy and defence, and for that matter - taxation. Which gives me a dilemma as to who I vote for in 2020, if he's still there.

    If he is still there in 5 years, you will be 5 years wiser - and the choice will be that much clearer...!
    I hope it's clear. I can see myself easily spoiling my ballot.
    Be careful when you do - these things can go a bit wrong if not done correctly:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/32658907/election-2015-mp-thanks-voter-for-penis-ballot-paper-mark
  • MarkHopkinsMarkHopkins Posts: 5,584
    Yorkcity said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    Political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services.

    Why don't you just call it common sense then?

  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    An excellent empirical point there - neither have I :no_mouth:
    Pauly said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I've never seen anyone self-identify as a neoliberal at least :D
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    TBH, everyone knew Blair was going to win. I imagine that very many voters from both Tories and Labour didn't bother for that reason.
    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Ydoether... wont the youngsters be getting older...it certainly happened to me and most people I know...

    Yes youngsters get older. But will they start voting as they age? That's the question I'm not convinced we can answer 'yes' to.

    Turnout seems to me to be dropping steadily, and I think it's those groups that never got into the habit of voting that are ageing and pushing through declining turnout in those age groups. Those over 65 will have grown up in the 60s, when voter engagement was still high. But you look through it later on, and you will see that with every succeeding decile group turnout has been a little less - and it does increase with age, but not by enough to compensate.

    The current very low levels among those of my age and younger is therefore a big worry to me.
    Well 2015 did see the fourth consecutive increase in general election turnout - though 66% remains low by 20th century standards.
    I think you'll find that with the exception of the 58.9% turnout in the general election of 1918 - where about one-fifth of the voters were accidentally disenfranchised by a muddle over the arrangements for army voting, which probably had some bearing on it - it was well below any turnout in the twentieth century. The next lowest was I think 1923 (70.8%).

    Admittedly, it has gone up slowly in the last few elections, but that was from a shockingly low base in 2001 (when there wasn't even the excuse of 8 million men serving overseas to hide the scale of the national apathy).
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    edited August 2015

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    'Of course they are' = over 30 isn't young - I don't know anyone in my age group who has lots of over 30 friends, and who has lots in common with over 30s. They are two fundamentally different age groups. So you can't compare a sample which includes over 30s, when talking about young voters - because over 30 isn't young. At that point many women/men have already had children, gotten married and are looking to settle down (30 is now the average age for giving birth I think, and around that age women also tend to marry). That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    People in their thirties are working, a long time out of education, more likely to be parents - that's full on adulthood and not remotely like 18-24s.

    I'm 33, married, a father and a homeowner. Now do I share more in common with a typical 40 year old or a typical 18 year old?
    I'll turn 40 in three months - I'm single and childless.
    Plenty of time yet Sunil, after all Andrew Neil got married yesterday for the first time at 66!
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527

    Plato said:

    More on the Tories plans during the Autumn.

    Votes or launch of Bills on:

    - fiscal responsibility requiring HMGs to run a surplus
    - trade union funding and strike thresholds
    - immigration
    - welfare cuts

    The intention is to push Labour leftwards even if Corbyn doesn't win, using the Corbynites to lobby moderate PLPers/leadership. http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1594314.ece

    What will be the penalty for Chancellors who do not run a surplus? Will they have to change their name to George Osborne?
    There has only been one Tory Chancellor since 1945 who has managed a surplus - Lawson. On the other hand, Labour can cite - Cripps - Gaitskell - Jenkins - Brown.
  • PaulyPauly Posts: 897
    Plato said:

    An excellent empirical point there - neither have I :no_mouth:

    Pauly said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I've never seen anyone self-identify as a neoliberal at least :D
    Maybe when the Blairites finish the hostile takeover of the Liberal Democrats they'll rename it to the Neoliberal Democrats. :D
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753
    Plato said:

    In Northern seats - it's prime Kipper territory. If they aren't gearing up their campaigners - they need to get their arses shifted.

    DavidL said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    Shades of 1992? Maybe. But I can also see a lot of potential Labour supporters unable to support such nonsense but reluctant to vote for anyone else.
    I may be wrong (have been many times before, especially on this topic) but I think UKIP will be doing well to get half as many votes at the next election as they did at this last one, especially if Farage insists on hanging about.

    The lack of any meaningful alternative in these safe urban seats is why Labour will be very hard to shift. In Scotland they tested this to the limits with some of the worst MPs ever to embarrass the House of Commons and survived perfectly well until the SNP came along.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    Some data that may be of interest to punters, leaving aside my personal inclinations. I wasn't at the Broxtowe nomination meeting (on holiday) but have now got the figures: Corbyn 75%, Burnham 21%, Kendall 4%, Cooper zero. Only Corbyn and Burnham had organised anyone to speak on their behalf. Turnout for this August meeting was low, though - about 20% of the membership - so it's possible that the wider membership will take a different view. Anecdotally I know a number of members considering Cooper.

    In the much larger Islington N meeting that I did attend (where Burnham and Watson hadn't organised speakers), Corbyn walked it (home territory) but there were significant votes for the others, and this too only had about 20% of the membership. Creasy won the deputy nomination in both CLPs, though by a narrow margin (over Eagle in Islington and Watson in Broxtowe). There is a widespread view that nominations aren't all that important, so don't bet too heavily on that basis.

    I do expect Corbyn and Watson to win, but not by a huge margin and it's not quite a sure thing IMO. A significant issue is that Burnham and Cooper have only partial networks of supporters in different areas, so a lot will depend on transfers. All the leadership candidates are relying heavily on email - I've received only a couple of leaflets - though Watson has sent a very hefty booklet packed with organisational promises and endorsements and is clearly the best-organised in logistical terms.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    edited August 2015
    It reminds me of Red Dwarf and Lister calling everyone a *crypto-fascist*

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M0GnI_cIDg

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I refuse to be insulted by something its proponents can't even define...
  • HurstLlamaHurstLlama Posts: 9,098

    Yorkcity said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    Political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services.

    Why don't you just call it common sense then?

    We really do need that like button back.
  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382

    Yorkcity said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    Political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services.

    Why don't you just call it common sense then?

    Because as I said before it can not continue for ever with :

    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
  • Plato said:

    An excellent empirical point there - neither have I :no_mouth:

    Pauly said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    ightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I've never seen anyone self-identify as a neoliberal at least :D
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
  • Is there any polling/survey on why young people are so much less likely to vote?
    I have my theories, but no data to back them up.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Yougov measured 18 to 29s so the Mori 18 to 24 figures you gave were not an equal comparison

    I assumed 18-24 year olds for some reason re YG. Still, it's only one poll (and in this case MORI is historically more reliable than YouGov) and really we need MORI 18-29 breakdowns for a comparison, which sadly we don't have.

    In any case as said before (in a previous discussion on this as well) most young people don't even vote (18-24 I'm talking about here). I tried looking in the YG for any turnout samples, but they don't seem to give them.
    The figures are almost identical given Labour had a smaller lead with 25 to 34s with Mori than it did with 18 to 29s with yougov and as you say under 24s vote less often anyway
    I don't see how they are identical, as it's not a given that when combined with 18-24 year olds, the lead will be small. On top of that, a significant part of the 25-34 sample includes those over 30, who aren't young people.
    Of course they are indeed Tories were on 33% with Mori in 25 to 34s but only 32% with yougov with 18 to 29s and as you say 18 to 24s rarely vote anyway
    That's a completely different stage of life for my age group, and those in their mid twenties even.
    35 is now the age for having a first child for graduates. I am between 30 and 35 and not yet married although some of my contemporaries are. In any case the Mori sample of 25 to 34s included slightly more under 30s than over 30s anyway even if it did not exclude over 30s like yougov
    I'm not surprised about graduates (with careers and all) but I thinking more in general. MORI's sample may well be that, but there's still a significant amount of over 30s.
    Across the UK as a whole the age at first child is nearer 30 than 35, but as you say for graduates it is 35 as they try to get established in their careers first and also spend more years out of the workplace studying. Well it was Mori who set the sampling, perhaps you should recommend they follow yougov and have a 29 cut off for the youngest age bracket
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited August 2015
    Plato said:

    TBH, everyone knew Blair was going to win. I imagine that very many voters from both Tories and Labour didn't bother for that reason.

    Fair point Plato. But the result was a foregone conclusion in 1997, 1983, 1966 and 1959 as well. In all those elections, turnout was above 70% - in 1959, it was close to 80%.

    I think there is now a belief among particularly the under-40s that voting is a right to be exercised only if you can be bothered to make the effort because it doesn't change much, rather than earlier ones who saw it as a hard-earned right that people had a duty to use in order to ensure that it was not taken away again. They did of course have the fairly recent examples of Weimar Germany and Eastern Europe to show what happened when democracy died or was deliberately killed off to help them.

    America of course has traditionally had lower turnout as someone pointed out upthread. I can't explain that, except to suggest that as candidates have to be elected by a fairly wide popular mandate (via primaries) in order to run in the first place anyway, it's seen as an extension of the voting process rather than the pivotal part of it.

    I don't think it helps however that there hasn't been a half-decent President in many decades - Kennedy enthused people, and was in many ways the worst of the lot, but the others have tended to be either very bland (Carter) or very divisive (Reagan, Clinton).
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    So Tory then?
    Yorkcity said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    Political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    ydoethur said:

    Plato said:

    TBH, everyone knew Blair was going to win. I imagine that very many voters from both Tories and Labour didn't bother for that reason.

    Fair point Plato. But the result was a foregone conclusion in 1997, 1983, 1966 and 1959 as well. In all those elections, turnout was above 70% - in 1959, it was close to 80%.

    I think there is now a belief among particularly the under-40s that voting is a right to be exercised only if you can be bothered to make the effort because it doesn't change much, rather than earlier ones who saw it as a hard-earned right that people had a duty to use in order to ensure that it was not taken away again. They did of course have the fairly recent examples of Weimar Germany and Eastern Europe to show what happened when democracy died or was deliberately killed off to help them.

    America of course has traditionally had lower turnout as someone pointed out upthread. I can't explain that, except to suggest that as candidates have to be elected by a fairly wide popular mandate (via primaries) in order to run in the first place anyway, it's seen as an extension of the voting process rather than the pivotal part of it.

    I don't think it helps however that there hasn't been a half-decent President in many decades - Kennedy enthused people, and was in many ways the worst of the lot, but the others have tended to be either very bland (Carter) or very divisive (Reagan, Clinton).
    Reagan and Clinton consistently poll as the most popular presidents since WW2 alongside JFK and IKE
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    Electoral support is now much more fragmented than back in the 1980s when a Labour vote share of circa 30% – with the Alliance at 20% or so – implied that the Tories were receiving well in excess of 40%. The progress of UKIP/Greens/SNP in recent years now could well mean that a Labour vote share of 32/33% would only give the Tories 35/36% as compared with the GB share of 43.3% they polled in 1987 when Labour received 31.5%.
  • Plato said:

    So Tory then?

    Yorkcity said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    Political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services.
    In a dramatic act of defiance against neoliberal globalization, South Korean farmer and former president of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation Lee Kyung-hae committed suicide by stabbing himself in the heart during a meeting of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico in 2003. Prior to his death he expressed his concerns in broken English:

    "My warning goes out to the all citizens that human beings are in an endangered situation that uncontrolled multinational corporations and a small number of bit WTO members officials are leading an undesirable globalization of inhuman, environment-distorting, farmer-killing, and undemocratic. It should be stopped immediately otherwise the failed logic of the neo-liberalism will perish the diversities of agriculture and disastrously to all human being."[198]


  • YorkcityYorkcity Posts: 4,382
    edited August 2015
    Plato said:

    So Tory then?

    Yorkcity said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    Political-economic theory favouring free trade, privatisation, minimal government intervention in business, reduced public expenditure on social services.
    No because

    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals it can not continue.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    It may well be my failing nous here - does anyone have the Kippers second place list to hand?

    Totally agree re Mr Farage, he needs to retire pronto. Paul Nuttal or Suzanne Evans or AN Other.
    DavidL said:

    Plato said:

    In Northern seats - it's prime Kipper territory. If they aren't gearing up their campaigners - they need to get their arses shifted.

    DavidL said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    Shades of 1992? Maybe. But I can also see a lot of potential Labour supporters unable to support such nonsense but reluctant to vote for anyone else.
    I may be wrong (have been many times before, especially on this topic) but I think UKIP will be doing well to get half as many votes at the next election as they did at this last one, especially if Farage insists on hanging about.

    The lack of any meaningful alternative in these safe urban seats is why Labour will be very hard to shift. In Scotland they tested this to the limits with some of the worst MPs ever to embarrass the House of Commons and survived perfectly well until the SNP came along.
  • Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.[5] The transition of consensus towards neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root of financialization, with the financial crisis of 2007–08 one of the ultimate results.[13][14][15][16][17]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
  • MJWMJW Posts: 1,282
    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    The word 'neoliberalism' should be banned as it has become entirely meaningless through its overuse by the daft and has effectively become a synonym for capitalism. In fact, those who throw the word 'neoliberalism' about's main complaint isn't with that particular group of theories claiming that the market knows best but with crony capitalism - the perception that the market is rigged against them, which may be a valid complaint, with the question then being whether it's an ill that can be cured or an inevitable bug of a capitalist system. Politicians of course tend not to subscribe to an economic theory exclusively but to what they they think will deliver them power and help their key suppoters (whether voters or donors) - George Osborne may cast himself as the ultimate 'neoliberal' but if we were to see a repeat of the 2008 crash I think he'd discover the virtues of economic interventionism extremely quickly.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Fair point too. I think 97 is in a league of its own - it's such a strange mix of superb shiny new leader/HMG dead from exhaust and scandal + added optimism from great positive campaigning.

    1983 - I just recall how chaotic and angry the Left was. And the Tories were VERY Tory - a curious blend of patrotism and fighting domestic foes. I honestly watched the coverage of Longest Suicide Note with an open mouth. I simply couldn't believe what I was seeing.
    ydoethur said:

    Plato said:

    TBH, everyone knew Blair was going to win. I imagine that very many voters from both Tories and Labour didn't bother for that reason.

    Fair point Plato. But the result was a foregone conclusion in 1997, 1983, 1966 and 1959 as well. In all those elections, turnout was above 70% - in 1959, it was close to 80%.

    I think there is now a belief among particularly the under-40s that voting is a right to be exercised only if you can be bothered to make the effort because it doesn't change much, rather than earlier ones who saw it as a hard-earned right that people had a duty to use in order to ensure that it was not taken away again. They did of course have the fairly recent examples of Weimar Germany and Eastern Europe to show what happened when democracy died or was deliberately killed off to help them.

    America of course has traditionally had lower turnout as someone pointed out upthread. I can't explain that, except to suggest that as candidates have to be elected by a fairly wide popular mandate (via primaries) in order to run in the first place anyway, it's seen as an extension of the voting process rather than the pivotal part of it.

    I don't think it helps however that there hasn't been a half-decent President in many decades - Kennedy enthused people, and was in many ways the worst of the lot, but the others have tended to be either very bland (Carter) or very divisive (Reagan, Clinton).
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:


    I don't think it helps however that there hasn't been a half-decent President in many decades - Kennedy enthused people, and was in many ways the worst of the lot, but the others have tended to be either very bland (Carter) or very divisive (Reagan, Clinton).

    Reagan and Clinton consistently poll as the most popular presidents since WW2 alongside JFK and IKE
    Which is my point. Reagan would also feature on a poll of most hated presidents - I'm not quite so sure about Clinton, but bearing in mind he was only the second president ever to be impeached, it gives some idea of the depths his unpopularity touched in certain quarters. Remember, the Democrats were so nervous about him they refused to let him campaign for them in 2000 (a monumental mistake, in my view, because he would have at least turned out the core vote, and Gore wasn't going to attract swing votes anyway).

    The others have been Truman, Nixon, Ford, Carter, the Bushes and Obama. Hardly a great list (although Obama might be another one for the 'divisive' category).
  • Anyone else depressed that there is only one Briton in Arsenal's team today... and only three in Man U's on Friday?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited August 2015

    Anyone else depressed that there is only one Briton in Arsenal's team today... and only three in Man U's on Friday?

    To what extent is the Premier League a league of English football clubs (I think I'm right in saying they are all English?) and to what extent an international franchise-based sporting competition that happens to be held in English cities?

    Discuss.

    Edit - how wrong can one be? I had forgotten Abertawe.
  • MTimTMTimT Posts: 7,034
    Good article on Kasich and the New Hampshire primary. Personnaly, I think he has to be the favorite to win that State now. Bush will have to inject some fire into his delivery to really challenge down the stretch and I don't know whether he has it - he may. Rubio's position on abortion is probably too right wing for NH. Christie is probably to New Jersey. But the article is, IMO, right that these are the real competition for Kasich in NH

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/08/16/john_kasichs_moment_127786.html
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    ydoethur said:


    The others have been Truman, Nixon, Ford, Carter, the Bushes and Obama. Hardly a great list (although Obama might be another one for the 'divisive' category).

    Sorry - add Johnson to that list (Eisenhower was in the original post). Careless oversight.

    He was a funny one, but I think we'll call him 'divisive' - there was a little number in Vietnam going on that made him a few enemies, culminating in the famous protests of 1968 were students stripped naked and had sex in front of the Democratic convention. He was also a bit eccentric. On being wished 'good morning' he replied 'thank you', and on being told by a junior officer at a USAF base 'That's your helicopter, Mr President,' replied, 'Son, they're all my helicopters.'
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    edited August 2015
    For me, Carter is the Iran hostage crisis and doing 180 turn on the CIA. He went from being all Urgh, to handing them an almost blank cheque.

    If you haven't read Charlie Wilson's War - it's brilliant - I've read it 4x and still marvel at the detail, nuggets and historical context, most of it first person. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008V43QWQ?keywords=charlie wilson&qid=1439729526&ref_=sr_1_3&s=books&sr=1-3
    ydoethur said:

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:


    I don't think it helps however that there hasn't been a half-decent President in many decades - Kennedy enthused people, and was in many ways the worst of the lot, but the others have tended to be either very bland (Carter) or very divisive (Reagan, Clinton).

    Reagan and Clinton consistently poll as the most popular presidents since WW2 alongside JFK and IKE
    Which is my point. Reagan would also feature on a poll of most hated presidents - I'm not quite so sure about Clinton, but bearing in mind he was only the second president ever to be impeached, it gives some idea of the depths his unpopularity touched in certain quarters. Remember, the Democrats were so nervous about him they refused to let him campaign for them in 2000 (a monumental mistake, in my view, because he would have at least turned out the core vote, and Gore wasn't going to attract swing votes anyway).

    The others have been Truman, Nixon, Ford, Carter, the Bushes and Obama. Hardly a great list (although Obama might be another one for the 'divisive' category).
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    edited August 2015
    Plato said:

    For me, Carter is the Iran hostage crisis and doing 180 turn on the CIA. He went from being all Urgh, to handing them an almost blank cheque.

    If you haven't read Charlie Wilson's War - it's brilliant - I've read it 4x and still marvel at the detail, nuggets and historical context, most of it first person.

    I haven't. Recommendation noted, thank you.

    EDIT - for me, I am afraid Jimmy Carter will always be the President who was attacked by a somewhat vexed rabbit.
  • FinancierFinancier Posts: 3,916
    @Plato: This may help.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11595121/Election-2015-second-place-results-How-it-all-could-have-been-so-different.html

    Will remit my usual fee.
    Plato said:

    It may well be my failing nous here - does anyone have the Kippers second place list to hand?

    Totally agree re Mr Farage, he needs to retire pronto. Paul Nuttal or Suzanne Evans or AN Other.

    DavidL said:

    Plato said:

    In Northern seats - it's prime Kipper territory. If they aren't gearing up their campaigners - they need to get their arses shifted.

    DavidL said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    Shades of 1992? Maybe. But I can also see a lot of potential Labour supporters unable to support such nonsense but reluctant to vote for anyone else.
    I may be wrong (have been many times before, especially on this topic) but I think UKIP will be doing well to get half as many votes at the next election as they did at this last one, especially if Farage insists on hanging about.

    The lack of any meaningful alternative in these safe urban seats is why Labour will be very hard to shift. In Scotland they tested this to the limits with some of the worst MPs ever to embarrass the House of Commons and survived perfectly well until the SNP came along.
  • notmenotme Posts: 3,293

    Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.[5] The transition of consensus towards neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root of financialization, with the financial crisis of 2007–08 one of the ultimate results.[13][14][15][16][17]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

    Banking crisis in 2007/8 did not have its roots in the 1980s, it barely had its roots in the 1990s. It was a post 2000/2001 phenomena on both sides of the altantic.
  • Anyone else depressed that there is only one Briton in Arsenal's team today... and only three in Man U's on Friday?

    wait for Man C v Chelsea...

    more depressed that arsenal have now just moved above spurs in the PL table for the first time in the season and are likely to remain there until the end.
  • ydoethur said:

    Anyone else depressed that there is only one Briton in Arsenal's team today... and only three in Man U's on Friday?

    To what extent is the Premier League a league of English football clubs (I think I'm right in saying they are all English?) and to what extent an international franchise-based sporting competition that happens to be held in English cities?

    Discuss.

    Edit - how wrong can one be? I had forgotten Abertawe.
    Manceinion :)
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    In a dramatic act of defiance against neoliberal globalization, South Korean farmer and former president of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation Lee Kyung-hae committed suicide by stabbing himself in the heart during a meeting of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico in 2003. Prior to his death he expressed his concerns in broken English:

    "My warning goes out to the all citizens that human beings are in an endangered situation that uncontrolled multinational corporations and a small number of bit WTO members officials are leading an undesirable globalization of inhuman, environment-distorting, farmer-killing, and undemocratic. It should be stopped immediately otherwise the failed logic of the neo-liberalism will perish the diversities of agriculture and disastrously to all human being."[198]


    My sympathy for his worldview is, essentially, zero.

    Globalization means that I get to choose from whom I buy my books, my rice, my laptop, my music, my wine. I, the consumer, get to choose.

    This is hard on people in protected markets (French pop singers, South Korean farmers and the like). But it is both good for everyone in the long run, and it is morally right to allow me to choose with whom I spend the fruits of my labours.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Pauly said:

    Plato said:

    An excellent empirical point there - neither have I :no_mouth:

    Pauly said:

    Plato said:

    What does neo-liberalism mean in this context?

    It's an all purpose insult from what I've seen so far.

    Yorkcity said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are
    One of the.
    You are very confident this neo-liberalism economics will continue ?
    With 0% interest rates, continued QE and rising debt been transfered from banks to
    Individuals to keep the ponzi scheme going.
    I've never seen anyone self-identify as a neoliberal at least :D
    Maybe when the Blairites finish the hostile takeover of the Liberal Democrats they'll rename it to the Neoliberal Democrats. :D
    Better than the Liberal Neodemocrats?
    ydoethur said:

    justin124 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Ydoether... wont the youngsters be getting older...it certainly happened to me and most people I know...

    Yes youngsters get older. But will they start voting as they age? That's the question I'm not convinced we can answer 'yes' to.


    The current very low levels among those of my age and younger is therefore a big worry to me.
    Well 2015 did see the fourth consecutive increase in general election turnout - though 66% remains low by 20th century standards.

    Admittedly, it has gone up slowly in the last few elections, but that was from a shockingly low base in 2001 (when there wasn't even the excuse of 8 million men serving overseas to hide the scale of the national apathy).
    Right. So it's been going up, even if it's still not as high as one would hope. So it certainly is not the case that turnout is inevitably dropping forevermore, or even dropping steadily (yes the overall trend is definitely down, but so many GE's in a row seeing it increase means it's hard to ignore there has been a recovery, who is to say there won't be yet another one). I'm not saying it isn't a problem still, or might not get worse again, but clearly it is not something that we have entirely failed to deal with.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    It covers Iran hostages, Sandinistas, purging the CIA, arming the Afghans against the Soviets and manipulating sub-committees.
    ydoethur said:

    Plato said:

    For me, Carter is the Iran hostage crisis and doing 180 turn on the CIA. He went from being all Urgh, to handing them an almost blank cheque.

    If you haven't read Charlie Wilson's War - it's brilliant - I've read it 4x and still marvel at the detail, nuggets and historical context, most of it first person.

    I haven't. Recommendation noted, thank you.

    EDIT - for me, I am afraid Jimmy Carter will always be the President who was attacked by a somewhat vexed rabbit.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    edited August 2015
    notme said:

    Neoliberalism is famously associated with the economic policies introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.[5] The transition of consensus towards neoliberal policies and the acceptance of neoliberal economic theories in the 1970s are seen by some academics as the root of financialization, with the financial crisis of 2007–08 one of the ultimate results.[13][14][15][16][17]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

    Banking crisis in 2007/8 did not have its roots in the 1980s, it barely had its roots in the 1990s. It was a post 2000/2001 phenomena on both sides of the altantic.
    There are many causes of the Global Financial Crisis: political (the push for wider home ownership by the Democrats in the US), psychological (the belief that house prices only ever went up), regulatory (the end of Glass Steagall), and - perhaps most importantly of all - the massive creation of liquidity by central banks to alleviate the post 2000 recession.
  • calumcalum Posts: 3,046
    Some of the comments are scary:

    " Such a commie RT @maxhawk4: @stuartpstevens @billpostmus @BernieSanders @IowaStateFair please shoot everyone of those communist "

    https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/status/632771670625927168
  • RodCrosbyRodCrosby Posts: 7,737
    The Clunking Fist coming up...
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    Ace. Can we skip the Nutella this time? :wink:
    Financier said:

    @Plato: This may help.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11595121/Election-2015-second-place-results-How-it-all-could-have-been-so-different.html

    Will remit my usual fee.

    Plato said:

    It may well be my failing nous here - does anyone have the Kippers second place list to hand?

    Totally agree re Mr Farage, he needs to retire pronto. Paul Nuttal or Suzanne Evans or AN Other.

    DavidL said:

    Plato said:

    In Northern seats - it's prime Kipper territory. If they aren't gearing up their campaigners - they need to get their arses shifted.

    DavidL said:

    SeanT said:

    DavidL said:

    MattW said:

    It's amazing that the myth of falling turnout is still being recycled on PB. The turning point was the millennium, and we are back up to 70%.

    Garglegoons of the Owen Jones stripe were using it (*) as mood music before the Election for their doom-mongering, but here's the graph to 2010

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7e/Graph_1_UK_election_voter_turnout_1945-2010.jpg

    We are not back to 70% and we have not recovered from the massive fall caused by disillusionment with Blair post 97 at a time when the Tories were also not electable. Just as with the deficit fixing the problems caused by the last Labour government is a long term task.
    One of the reasons people aren't voting is that they see no reason to, as there is no real difference between the main parties - no proper choice to be made. Give people a stark and mightily important choice and they WILL vote in their millions, as we saw in indyref, which got Britain's biggest ever turnout.

    This is where Corbyn could help British politics. If he leads Labour into 2020 voters will have an important choice to make, between continued centre-right competence under the Tories, or insane socialist bankruptcy under Labour.

    I expect we would see turnout well over 70%.
    Shades of 1992? Maybe. But I can also see a lot of potential Labour supporters unable to support such nonsense but reluctant to vote for anyone else.
    I may be wrong (have been many times before, especially on this topic) but I think UKIP will be doing well to get half as many votes at the next election as they did at this last one, especially if Farage insists on hanging about.

    The lack of any meaningful alternative in these safe urban seats is why Labour will be very hard to shift. In Scotland they tested this to the limits with some of the worst MPs ever to embarrass the House of Commons and survived perfectly well until the SNP came along.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 5,997
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:


    The others have been Truman, Nixon, Ford, Carter, the Bushes and Obama. Hardly a great list (although Obama might be another one for the 'divisive' category).

    Sorry - add Johnson to that list (Eisenhower was in the original post). Careless oversight.

    He was a funny one, but I think we'll call him 'divisive' - there was a little number in Vietnam going on that made him a few enemies, culminating in the famous protests of 1968 were students stripped naked and had sex in front of the Democratic convention. He was also a bit eccentric. On being wished 'good morning' he replied 'thank you', and on being told by a junior officer at a USAF base 'That's your helicopter, Mr President,' replied, 'Son, they're all my helicopters.'
    Surely Johnson was bit more than just divisive and eccentric. Such as the most corrupt President in US history.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    Anyone else depressed that there is only one Briton in Arsenal's team today... and only three in Man U's on Friday?

    Football clubs are businesses like any other. They exist by creating a product (entertainment) that people pay to watch.

    If people were prepared to pay extra to watch a team with a majority of British players, then it would exist.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    calum said:

    Some of the comments are scary:

    " Such a commie RT @maxhawk4: @stuartpstevens @billpostmus @BernieSanders @IowaStateFair please shoot everyone of those communist "

    https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/status/632771670625927168

    I do like the quote about what you cannot buy - what they don't list is 'an election'.

    Sanders actually does call himself a socialist, doesn't he? Is that why the communist comments are coming out, because 'socialist' isn't scary enough if they already refer to themselves as that?


  • They are not going to cross the floir. They are not Tories.

    More interestingly - what happens to the LDs if eight or more Labour MPs join them? The party could be taken over and moulded quite quickly. Even the name could be changed!

    You'd certainly need to get rid of the notions of liberalism and democracy within it. 'The Party' perhaps?



  • SpeedySpeedy Posts: 12,100
    edited August 2015
    For those last night saying that such a generation gap is normal, I present this very useful archive:

    http://www.earlhamsociologypages.co.uk/vbint.htm

    "The Analysis of Voting Behaviour in Great Britain"

    The gap did exist but it was very small in the past, ranging from just 8% in 1979 to 18% in 1997. Young people actually voted conservative in 1979 & 1983.
    The generation gap was 33% in 2015 and in the latest Comres poll it's grown to 47%.

    This is so extreme it has never happened before in Britain and can only be compared with voting behaviours of minorities, that is that young & middle aged people and old people are no longer part of the same society but form distinct societies of their own.
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    What on Earth is Gordon wibbling about. Is he going to talk sans cliches?

    I've never heard such empty speechifying
  • RodCrosbyRodCrosby Posts: 7,737
    Brown paces up and down as an empty carousel spins behind him...
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,005
    rcs1000 said:

    In a dramatic act of defiance against neoliberal globalization, South Korean farmer and former president of the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation Lee Kyung-hae committed suicide by stabbing himself in the heart during a meeting of the WTO in Cancun, Mexico in 2003. Prior to his death he expressed his concerns in broken English:

    "My warning goes out to the all citizens that human beings are in an endangered situation that uncontrolled multinational corporations and a small number of bit WTO members officials are leading an undesirable globalization of inhuman, environment-distorting, farmer-killing, and undemocratic. It should be stopped immediately otherwise the failed logic of the neo-liberalism will perish the diversities of agriculture and disastrously to all human being."[198]


    My sympathy for his worldview is, essentially, zero.

    Globalization means that I get to choose from whom I buy my books, my rice, my laptop, my music, my wine. I, the consumer, get to choose.

    This is hard on people in protected markets (French pop singers, South Korean farmers and the like). But it is both good for everyone in the long run, and it is morally right to allow me to choose with whom I spend the fruits of my labours.
    But you don't have one world currency and countries are not all pursuing balance of trade policies as Keynes said they should. As for it being good for everyone in the long run, it's interesting how the opening of global markets has not been that wonderful for living standards across the west (so they're higher in 2015 than in 1980 - well they were higher in 1980 than in 1945). Perhaps you take the view that the living standards for the majority in the west need to be reduced as those in China rise until they meet?
  • stjohnstjohn Posts: 1,777
    He's making me dizzy with this pacing up and down.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Miss Plato, has he not called for free owls yet?
  • PlatoPlato Posts: 15,724
    edited August 2015
    Like a bored polar bear in a zoo.

    The point of moving around on a stage is to engage with your audience, not move like Dalek on rails from left to right on a loop.
    stjohn said:

    He's making me dizzy with this pacing up and down.

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,708
    Speedy said:

    For those last night saying that such a generation gap is normal, I present this very useful archive:

    http://www.earlhamsociologypages.co.uk/vbint.htm

    "The Analysis of Voting Behaviour in Great Britain"

    The gap did exist but it was very small in the past, ranging from just 8% in 1979 to 18% in 1997. Young people actually voted conservative in 1979 & 1983.
    The generation gap was 33% in 2015 and in the latest Comres poll it's grown to 47%.

    This is so extreme it has never happened before in Britain and can only be compared with voting behaviours of minorities, that is that young & middle aged people and old people are no longer part of the same society but form distinct societies of their own.

    Mainly with women under 50, men over 25 vote Tory
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