ELECTION TIME!!!

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mediocrity511
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by mediocrity511 » Mon May 10, 2021 11:22 am

headshot wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 9:25 am
Enjoy this video of a very confused old Hartlepool man blaming Labour for the state of the local hospital after 11 years of Tory cuts.

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson_MP/sta ... 93985?s=20

Where do you even start?!?
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... ital-axed/

Hartlepool was promised a new hospital by Labour, the project was then scrapped by the incoming Coalition government. So whilst it wasn't Labour's fault, hospital services in Hartlepool are a particular local issue, where they were promised better and then it didn't materialise.

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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon May 10, 2021 12:17 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 7:39 am
On Labour Party demographics, using data form here:

75.9 per cent live in what are defined as middle or upper class households (income earner is in an ABC1 occupation - managerial, professional, administrative, supervisory or clerical) and 56.3 per cent are graduates.

These are objective class assessments and don't necessarily accord with someone's self identity (eg a friend is a teacher and would be included in the above, but I expect she thinks of herself as working class).

In the general population 53.1 per cent live in middle class households and 33.9 per cent are graduates.

In comparison the Conservative Party members are 83.1 per cent middle or upper class, but 37.9 per cent are graduates. (If you're wondering about the disparity, I assume a lot of it is due to current and retired businesspeople).

Both parties are much more upper or middle class then the general population, and Labour Party members are much more likely to have been to university.

And as an aside, if we're going to continue the class analysis, in the UK as a whole a further 20.94 per cent work in skilled manual occupations (grade C2 eg electrician, driver). Since the 80s large numbers have been inclined to vote Tory (especially those who are self-employed). And a further 26.05 per cent are retirees, unemployed or work in low skilled or casual work.
Thanks for bringing some data! :)

I suspect party membership - and that level of conventional political engagement in general - are likely to be somewhat more common amongst people with a bit more spare time, money and confidence at engaging with the system.

But nevertheless, the data on voter demographics (from the 2019 election at least) seems to agree that class isn't the big split, but rather age and education (which are going to be fairly well correlated, given increases in education) https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/ar ... l-election
In the EU referendum and again in 2017 age was a new dividing line in British politics. The data indicates that little has changed on this front over the past two years, with Labour still winning a majority of younger voters and the Conservatives miles ahead among older Britons.

In fact, for every 10 years older a voter is, their chance of voting Tory increases by around nine points, and the chance of them voting Labour decreases by eight points.

The tipping point - the age at which a voter is more likely to have voted Conservative than Labour - is now 39, down from 47 at the last election.
The Conservatives comfortably outperformed Labour across all social grades, further evidence that class is no longer a key indicator of how people vote. In fact, the Conservatives actually did better amongst C2DE voters (48%) than they did amongst ABC1 voters (43%). Labour performed the same amongst both social grade groups (33%).
The highest level of education someone has achieved remains an important dividing line in how people vote. Labour did much better than the Conservatives amongst those who have a degree or higher, by 43% to 29%.

The Liberal Democrats also performed very well amongst this group with 17% of the vote share. We saw in 2016 that those with a higher education level were overwhelmingly more likely to back remaining in the EU, and this has seemingly transferred into party voting.

The Conservatives won amongst the much larger group of voters who do not hold a degree, however. They outperformed Labour by more than two to one (58% to 25%) amongst those whose highest level of education is GCSE or lower.

Compared to 2017, the Conservatives have improved amongst those without a degree, but performed worse amongst those with a degree or higher. Labour lost voters amongst all three education level groups.
Now, to a certain extent age will correlate with traditional class indicators - average age of home ownership has risen from 28 in 2007 to 34 in 2020, for instance, with the cost of rent continuing to rise far faster than wage increases. I wonder whether Conservatives get more votes in areas where people own homes, for instance.

And less tangible stuff that I perceive to be important from talking to my fellow kids - conditions, contracts, stability, progression - seems to be worse for them than their parents can understand. And those things seem to be worse for educated folks persuing professional careers than for the people I know doing stuff like removals, bar work and supermarkets, which might be low-paid and repetitive but which tend not to generate so much anxiety about the future.

But yes, Labour clearly isn't reaching its traditional demographic of lower-education workers any more. The perceived focus on "social progress" rather than promising bread and circuses certainly seems to alienate a lot of older people. I think the root of the problem may be Labour's internal identity crisis making it impossible for them to sell a clear position to anybody, beyond people who really really hate the Tories because they read a lot of news.

Under PR there could be a range of leftish parties working together on certain issues and disagreeing on others, but Blair f.cked that, and then the Lib Dems f.cked it again. For instance in Portugal there's the mainstream Old Labour-ish Socialist Party who get a lot of votes, but also the Communist Party (popular in the industrial areas that drove the 1974 revolution), the Left Bloc (a more modern, youngish left party more interested in technology and gender identity and stuff), plus some ecosocialists and stuff too. The right-wing party is a pretty broad tent, with the only recent splits being right-wing populists who are too overtly racist to stomach, and some neoliberals who want to do away with loads of the welfare state who are therefore wildly unpopular. AFAICT that's a pretty normal way of doing things in the rest of Europe.
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by headshot » Mon May 10, 2021 12:57 pm

mediocrity511 wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 11:22 am
headshot wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 9:25 am
Enjoy this video of a very confused old Hartlepool man blaming Labour for the state of the local hospital after 11 years of Tory cuts.

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson_MP/sta ... 93985?s=20

Where do you even start?!?
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... ital-axed/

Hartlepool was promised a new hospital by Labour, the project was then scrapped by the incoming Coalition government. So whilst it wasn't Labour's fault, hospital services in Hartlepool are a particular local issue, where they were promised better and then it didn't materialise.
So this guy isn't voting for Labour because the hospital Labour promised 11-12 years ago was cancelled by two parties working in coalition against Labour to keep them out of Government where they could have continued to deliver on the promise they made had people voted to keep/put them back in power.

Cool, cool, cool.

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Martin Y
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by Martin Y » Mon May 10, 2021 6:12 pm

science_fox wrote:
Sat May 08, 2021 10:05 pm
I'm not at all sure policies and Deals etc make the blindest bit of difference - if they don't get significant and continual positive media coverage (not just the BBC but that would help), then no-one will know they exist.
I think this is important. For the last year or more the official opposition has been a virus. Labour might as well have been hiding in Boris's fridge for all the voters have seen of them.

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Fishnut
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by Fishnut » Mon May 10, 2021 11:27 pm

bolo wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 9:55 pm
Fishnut wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 9:19 pm
TL:DR: I don't think the position should exist. If it has to exist I don't think it should be an elected position. And if it has to be an elected position the bar to entry and the support given to candidates has to be signficantly increased so we can at least have a chance of an informed electorate.
Thanks Fishnut. I had forgotten what PCC stood for and was thinking it was some sort of local council. Makes more sense now.
Belatedly replying to this to note that it illustrates quite nicely just how little recognition there is of the position.

I can't find anything more recent than 2016, which was the last PCC election, but according to an Electoral Reform Society survey only 11% of people in England thought they knew who their PCC was (and 10% of them were wrong). While voter turnout improved in 2016 the Electoral Commission say that this was "clearly influenced by combining the PCC contests with other elections in both England and Wales", rather than being held separately as they were in 2012. Local election turnout in 2016 was around 33% [PDF] and the Electoral Commission reported that,
The ballot box turnout was 32.8% in those areas of England with combined local and PCC elections; 20.2% in those places with standalone PCC contests.
So it looks like if people went to vote for in their local elections they voted for PCC as well, but far fewer people bothered to turn out if it was just a PCC election. Given that the PCC constituencies are so large there will be areas where local elections are taking place and others where there aren't. The lower turnout for standalone PCC elections means that those areas essentially get less of a say in who is their PCC. Of course, there's nothing stopping those people from voting in their PCC election but it's clear that a lack of awareness means most won't.

It will be interesting to see how the turnout compares this year. I'm curious to see how independent candidates do - they won 12% of the races in 2012 but only 7% in 2016 and all of them were incumbents. I know that Avon & Somerset were one of those and they decided not to run this time and the Conservatives won. I suspect that we've seen the end of independent PCCs and now they'll just be another way for parties to exert themselves. I'm also curious to see if the data will allow me to see how much influence, if any, local elections has on who gets elected.

Most immediately, I'm interested to see how Wiltshire voters respond to this. Jonathan Seed ran as the Conservative candidate. He either failed to disclose a 30-year-old drink driving offence (the party's claim) or he disclosed it and was told it wasn't a problem (Seed's claim) and when it was made public he ended up either being disbarred from running (the party's claim) or withdrawing from the race (Seed's claim) on Sunday. He won the vote and now there has to be a rerun costing, potentially costing the council £1.5 million. Questions are understandably being asked about why the council should pay this bill when it's the Conservative Party's error that has caused the need for the election to be rerun. Personally I'm hoping the voters show them they don't appreciate their money being wasted like this and elect someone else but I fear I'm going to be bitterly disappointed.

What's most surprising to me is how they thought the conviction wouldn't be a problem. The high bar for candidates has been known since the elections were first held in 2012, with the Guardian reporting that,
The strict rules on past offending forced out Bob Ashford, the Labour candidate for Avon and Somerset, because of a £5 fine 46 years ago for two minor offences at the age of 13. He was told by the Home Office and Electoral Commission that his conviction was enough to bar him from standing for the post. In September Mike Quigley, a 65-year-old Tory councillor, was forced to bow out as the Tory choice in Nottinghamshire, over a drink-related offence committed on his 21st birthday.
If a £5 fine as a 13 year old disqualifies you from standing, a drink-driving as an adult and an army officer sure as hell would. That anyone thought this wasn't an issue is beyond me.
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by bolo » Tue May 11, 2021 12:00 am

Fishnut wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 11:27 pm
bolo wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 9:55 pm
Thanks Fishnut. I had forgotten what PCC stood for and was thinking it was some sort of local council. Makes more sense now.
Belatedly replying to this to note that it illustrates quite nicely just how little recognition there is of the position.
Well, yeah, although in my defense I'm not a UK voter and I haven't lived there in almost 50 years. ;)

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Fishnut
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by Fishnut » Tue May 11, 2021 6:32 am

bolo wrote:
Tue May 11, 2021 12:00 am
Fishnut wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 11:27 pm
bolo wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 9:55 pm
Thanks Fishnut. I had forgotten what PCC stood for and was thinking it was some sort of local council. Makes more sense now.
Belatedly replying to this to note that it illustrates quite nicely just how little recognition there is of the position.
Well, yeah, although in my defense I'm not a UK voter and I haven't lived there in almost 50 years. ;)
Fair point!
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mediocrity511
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by mediocrity511 » Tue May 11, 2021 7:59 am

Fishnut wrote:
Mon May 10, 2021 11:27 pm
bolo wrote:
Fri May 07, 2021 9:55 pm
Fishnut wrote:
Thu May 06, 2021 9:19 pm
TL:DR: I don't think the position should exist. If it has to exist I don't think it should be an elected position. And if it has to be an elected position the bar to entry and the support given to candidates has to be signficantly increased so we can at least have a chance of an informed electorate.
Thanks Fishnut. I had forgotten what PCC stood for and was thinking it was some sort of local council. Makes more sense now.
Belatedly replying to this to note that it illustrates quite nicely just how little recognition there is of the position.

I can't find anything more recent than 2016, which was the last PCC election, but according to an Electoral Reform Society survey only 11% of people in England thought they knew who their PCC was (and 10% of them were wrong). While voter turnout improved in 2016 the Electoral Commission say that this was "clearly influenced by combining the PCC contests with other elections in both England and Wales", rather than being held separately as they were in 2012. Local election turnout in 2016 was around 33% [PDF] and the Electoral Commission reported that,
The ballot box turnout was 32.8% in those areas of England with combined local and PCC elections; 20.2% in those places with standalone PCC contests.
So it looks like if people went to vote for in their local elections they voted for PCC as well, but far fewer people bothered to turn out if it was just a PCC election. Given that the PCC constituencies are so large there will be areas where local elections are taking place and others where there aren't. The lower turnout for standalone PCC elections means that those areas essentially get less of a say in who is their PCC. Of course, there's nothing stopping those people from voting in their PCC election but it's clear that a lack of awareness means most won't.

It will be interesting to see how the turnout compares this year. I'm curious to see how independent candidates do - they won 12% of the races in 2012 but only 7% in 2016 and all of them were incumbents. I know that Avon & Somerset were one of those and they decided not to run this time and the Conservatives won. I suspect that we've seen the end of independent PCCs and now they'll just be another way for parties to exert themselves. I'm also curious to see if the data will allow me to see how much influence, if any, local elections has on who gets elected.

Most immediately, I'm interested to see how Wiltshire voters respond to this. Jonathan Seed ran as the Conservative candidate. He either failed to disclose a 30-year-old drink driving offence (the party's claim) or he disclosed it and was told it wasn't a problem (Seed's claim) and when it was made public he ended up either being disbarred from running (the party's claim) or withdrawing from the race (Seed's claim) on Sunday. He won the vote and now there has to be a rerun costing, potentially costing the council £1.5 million. Questions are understandably being asked about why the council should pay this bill when it's the Conservative Party's error that has caused the need for the election to be rerun. Personally I'm hoping the voters show them they don't appreciate their money being wasted like this and elect someone else but I fear I'm going to be bitterly disappointed.

What's most surprising to me is how they thought the conviction wouldn't be a problem. The high bar for candidates has been known since the elections were first held in 2012, with the Guardian reporting that,
The strict rules on past offending forced out Bob Ashford, the Labour candidate for Avon and Somerset, because of a £5 fine 46 years ago for two minor offences at the age of 13. He was told by the Home Office and Electoral Commission that his conviction was enough to bar him from standing for the post. In September Mike Quigley, a 65-year-old Tory councillor, was forced to bow out as the Tory choice in Nottinghamshire, over a drink-related offence committed on his 21st birthday.
If a £5 fine as a 13 year old disqualifies you from standing, a drink-driving as an adult and an army officer sure as hell would. That anyone thought this wasn't an issue is beyond me.
It happened with the Nottinghamshire PCC. The County council had elections, the City council didn't. The Tory candidate ran on a platform of removing police from the city to prioritise rural crime. Unsurprisingly, the Tory candidate won.

The Jonathon Seed situation is crazy and a massive waste of money. He should have known that he was disbarred. I also wouldn't be surprised if more comes out about his criminal past, there are other accusations out there. He was also investigated by the RSPCA under the Hunting Act, case failed due to lack of evidence, but it's fairly clear that he has been on illegal fox hunts.

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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by Woodchopper » Wed May 12, 2021 4:55 pm

Extract from a longer piece. I don't agree with all the author writes, but its well written and interesting.
as in other nations experiencing a nationalist wave we can expect symbolism and history to become the central matter of politics, in a way that hands great advantage to our current Conservative government. The new politicisation of history is just a taste of what is coming our way. The British state, in Tory hands, will find itself engaged in a war of historical narratives to ensure its own survival. All the affective tools of nationalism and nationhood — the symbolic politics that is the very stuff of nationalism — will be employed to this purpose. The funeral of Prince Philip, a sombre festival of Britishness, was merely an early glimpse of this symbolic realm: we can expect the Queen’s funeral, whenever it comes, and the coronation that follows it, to be profoundly political and fundamentally nationalist spectacles aimed at shoring up the state and the self-identification with it of the British people.

In this, ironically, we can argue that the government will be more postmodernist than the alleged postmodernist deconstructors of British history: where our soi-disant radicals see themselves as uncovering an objective reality from within the myths of British nationhood, the government will have the need and capacity to construct new-old national myths with all the resources of the state behind it. As others have noted, a postmodernist worldview, whether adopted cynically, or playfully, could be productive territory for a Right-wing political project. We are all postmodernists now, the government as much as its critics: each has the power and will to consciously create mythic narratives for nakedly political ends, yet only one controls the levers of the central state.

Dismissing this dynamic as mere “flag-shagging” is a dangerous trap for Labour — nationalism remains the most powerful political force in Europe, as it has been since the dawn of modernity — still powerful enough, indeed, to break up our country from around us. Once historical narratives, and the emotional bonds of nationhood and solidarity they conjure up, become the central ground of politics, the realm of myth and symbol conquers all. If Labour wants to win power again, it will need to think up better stories for the country to gather around.


tl;dr the Tories have set out to construct new narratives of national identity. With the institutions and power of the British state behind them they will probably be successful.

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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by lpm » Wed May 12, 2021 7:57 pm

As I always like to say, "humans interpret the world through the stories we tell" and "false dramatic always crowds out the true mundane".

There's no doubt Johnson has got millions of people to interpret Britain through his false Boris storyline.

But I still believe there are better narratives available to the progressive left. It might not be Labour that tells it, or they might fail to tell it well enough, but there's a story that works. It would speak to older people who believe in society and compassion, as well as to young multicultural people.

I'd maybe call it the "2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony" story. Which was British and patriotic and royal and flag-wavy, but also modern and fun and global and provokative. Equally mythical in its way, but a stronger narrative for the long term.
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed May 12, 2021 9:01 pm

My mum was talking with my two Tory aunts yesterday, and criticised Johnson's sleaze and corruption.

My aunt responded, "What about Kier Starmer and Jimmy Savile?" though when pushed for details could not actually explain what, exactly, about Kier Starmer and Jimmy Savile was concerning her.

Has the UK already got its QAnon equivalent?
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Re: ELECTION TIME!!!

Post by Gfamily » Wed May 12, 2021 9:06 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed May 12, 2021 9:01 pm
My mum was talking with my two Tory aunts yesterday, and criticised Johnson's sleaze and corruption.

My aunt responded, "What about Kier Starmer and Jimmy Savile?" though when pushed for details could not actually explain what, exactly, about Kier Starmer and Jimmy Savile was concerning her.

Has the UK already got its QAnon equivalent?
Nothing to see here
https://fullfact.org/online/keir-starme ... my-savile/
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