15 Jun 2024 : LAB: 43% / CON: 19% / REF: 16% / LDEM: 11%

[steve]

Jacob Rees Mogg prepares to build his wall down the middle of the channel.

[Deleted]

johntel

Thanks for the interesting report John.

[Deleted]

alec

“ Just think back 50 years as to how many people were needed to produce the same output as compared to now."



“Spot in.”


Surely it should be spot on?

[Deleted]

robbiealive

“ Just keep yr nose clean sonny”

Only Uncle Jibby can call me sonny.

[pjw1961]

Jul 2, 2024 9:32:40 GMT johntel said:

Hustings report - the mood in Surrey.


2. The Lib Dems control the local council and are therefore responsible for Planning. The Local Plan they are supporting involves some building on the green belt - this is deeply unpopular and he got a lot of stick for it. The other candidates all went on about there being lots of brown field sites to build on, including council-owned land, which is just not true. The Labour candidate was the only one that could say anything concrete - that they will prioritise changes to Planning laws.

Not sure you intended that, but given Labour's plans to build on the 'grey belt' as they term it, not inappropriate

[pjw1961]

Jul 2, 2024 9:58:14 GMT Mark said:

*** ADMIN ***

The final polling thread befre the electin is ging up this afternoon (i'm goin out for a meal with friends tonight).

I am inclined to thin tat the results one night along with commentary of said results should be in the final polling thread, but, if a maority of members want a separate result thread, I will set one up a little before 10pm on Thursday.

In order to prevent things getting messy and members flicking between two or more threads, I feel it has to be one or the other.

If you have a preference, now is the time to state it.

Many of us on here are inclined to thin tat in our posting . 

[pjw1961]

Jul 2, 2024 9:06:56 GMT crossbat11 said:

The leaflet challenge is on. pjw1961 be warned. I'm out and about in the villages of Harvington and Norton this morning, armed with about 250 personally addressed "promise cards" to deliver around places that, before the boundaries were redrawn, have never before been part of the Redditch constituency. Every Labour voter a bonus, I would think. And every Tory abstainer too!

Two more sleeps before polling day and about 62 hours before the BBC exit poll announcement.

It's beginning to feel a lot like General Election time!

Everywhere you go.

Another Clacton canvass anecdote - an elderly lady told me that she had a postal vote but ruefully admitted she had messed it up and effectively lost her vote. She then added that it wouldn't have been for Labour. I felt a bit guilty about chalking that up as a win.  

[alec]

@fecklessmiser - "Surely it should be spot on?"

No. It should be 'get in'.

[oldnat]

Good article by Mark McGeoghegan on Scots polling 

"Cutting through [the mountain of polling] by aggregating polling data and modelling helps us to find the signal in the noise, quiet the din and identify a clear story without overstating the certainty we have about the election outcome."

www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/news-and-opinion/cutting-through-noise-what-do-polls-tell-us-about-election-scotland

[jayblanc]

Jul 2, 2024 2:19:21 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

“One of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers has endorsed Labour to win the general election for the first time in more than 20 years.

The Sunday Times said the Conservatives “have in effect forfeited the right to govern” and so it was time for a change.
HuffPost UK Daily Brief

Waiting till a matter of days before an election to give your "endorsement" isn't really a political endorsement, it's just saying who you think is going to win.

[neilj]

"The stat that stood out for me is that we used to have 4 workers supporting one pensioner. Now that's dropped to just over 3 supporting one pensioner. Bearing in mind that's with the record levels of immigration we've had in the last few years"

alec
These are utterly pointless statistics (I mean, completely, totally and absolutely pointless) unless you add in the equivalent time series of productivity gains


It was me that quoted those statistics, even if right that due to greater productivity we don't need so many workers (current problems with getting enough workers to fill jobs suggest otherwise) you are missing the elephant in the room. Namely the burden of paying for a growing pensioner population on a decreasing number of people, this isn't just the pension itself, which with the rachet effect of the triple lock means more people will get rising pension

You also need to take account of the other costs of old age, health and care costs being the biggest thing.

There will be some pensioners who will be net tax contributors, but most won't, when you take into account the extra services/benefits they get. In addition of course they get the tax break on not paying National insurance on any of their pension, private or state

I'm not saying they shouldn't get all of the above, I am saying it will put an ever increasing burden on the working age population when we already have record levels of tax

It's a big issue and to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it's not, isn't a solution

[Danny]

Jul 2, 2024 8:19:28 GMT neilj said:

The stat that stood out for me is that we used to have 4 workers supporting one pensioner. Now that's dropped to just over 3 supporting one pensioner. Bearing in mind that's with the record levels of immigration we've had in the last few years. But worse with current reproduction rates that will drop to two. It could be even worse than that as the birth rate is accelerating in it's decline. The problems with such a situation are obvious, not enough people to do the jobs or pay for the burgeoning number of pensioners

This is not really about pensioners. Its about the total income/work output of the Uk and how we choose to allocate that.  Its a reminder that although some advocate pension funds or national insurance funds which are saving up to pay for pensions and care in old age, the truth is that pensions and care will in the future be funded from income arising in the future. What happens to pensions or care will depend on how we choose to allocate resources at the time.

Its also about productivity per worker, and as Tim Harford on CH4 was observing last night, the Uk has chosen to go down a route of low productivity/high labour input. Many of those imported labourers are not very productive. First off he observed we need to fix infrastructure, inluding he suggested building 6.5 million houses, but also all the other infrastructure. That itself sounds like it needs a lot of input, and its now a 50 year backlog. We stopped building houses at a time we had workers sitting about idle and unemployed, trained in housebuilding and manual industries.

But then we need to do stuff like ending commuting to work. An hours journey, the transport equipment, the fuel, total waste. Post war there was a vision of downscaling cities, siting factories much closer to housing. We live in a throwaway society, if instead we double the life of our technology then we halve its capital costs. Do we actually need all those restauarants with people working as waiters and cooks? The advantage of higher wages should be costs of such services rise and price themselves out of the market, freeing up those workers for something else.  To help the pensioners, perhaps.  Harford also talked about the disruption which will be caused by AI, how it will make call centre employees unnecessary...but then that frees them up for something else.  And can it be applied to things like medicine?  There are a few examples, eg AI better at analysing scans than humans, for years there has been talk of AI gp services diagnosing patients. AI replacing lawyers.

So useful tools will be raising the minimum wage steadily. Building homes to push down real prices (house prices have to fall!!!). Freeing up planning to permit development much more easily.  Creating the infrastructure. Probably a national plan aiming for using fewer people to make the same stuff, and how that is to come about. 

If we free up enough labour then women might have more time and even decide to have more children.

[steve]

Sky news had a woman on whinging about she couldn't possibly afford the additional £3000 a year in school fees as she was of modest means.
The tale of woe was a little bit undermined as she appeared to be driving an Audi Q6, starting price £68,000

[pjw1961]

From the G:

"Green party on course to win in Bristol Central, poll suggests

The Green party has released a poll showing it has a eight-point lead in the newly formed constituency of Bristol Central where co-leader Carla Denyer is challenging Thangam Debbonaire, a potential cabinet member for Labour. An independent survey for the party by the pollsters WeThink suggest the Greens are on course to take 40% of the vote, compared to 32% for Labour. However, the poll also shows 18% of respondents “don’t know” which way they will vote."

[oldnat]

A questionnaire seeking to determine how closely your views align with any party - frequently sneered at, but people love to complete!

(It does, however, seem to be contributing to serious academic research on political attitudes)

Unsurprisingly, it suggests that I am 68% in agreement with SGP, 64% with SNP, 54% with LD, 43% with Alba and only 27% with Lab.

[jayblanc]

Jul 2, 2024 10:56:17 GMT neilj said:

"The stat that stood out for me is that we used to have 4 workers supporting one pensioner. Now that's dropped to just over 3 supporting one pensioner. Bearing in mind that's with the record levels of immigration we've had in the last few years"

alec
These are utterly pointless statistics (I mean, completely, totally and absolutely pointless) unless you add in the equivalent time series of productivity gains


It was me that quoted those statistics, even if right that due to greater productivity we don't need so many workers (current problems with getting enough workers to fill jobs suggest otherwise) you are missing the elephant in the room. Namely the burden of paying for a growing pensioner population on a decreasing number of people m this isn't just the pension itself, which with the rachet effect of the triple lock means more people will get rising pension

You also need to take account of the other costs of old and, health and care costs being the biggest thing.

There will be some pensioners who will be net tax contributors, but most won't, when you take into account the extra services/benefits they get. In addition of course they get the tax break on not paying National insurance on any of their pension, private or state

I'm not saying they shouldn't get all of the above, I am saying it will put an ever increasing burden on the working age policy when we already have record levels of tax

It's a big issue and to bury our heads in the sand and pretend it's not, isn't a solution

This is the massive flaw in the push to reduce immigration.

Immigration has been providing a softer-landing to the reducing work-force population. The vast majority of immigrants are healthy productive contributors to the economy. And all the efforts to quash immigration, from Brexit onwards, have not only not reduced social costs, they have increased them by draining the work force.

Sure "Immigrants coming over here, taking our jobs, putting strain on our services" is a great anti-immigrant sound byte. It just isn't true. The causes of the housing crisis have nothing, at all, to do with Immigrants, and everything to do with top-heavy economic hoarding. The causes of the decline in public services is clearly caused by Austerity policies, and the 'Brexit Dividends' of losing access to the EU's efficient blocwide support structures and workforce. 

Every single anti-immigrant policy put into practice by the Conservative government has turned out to be counter productive, wildly more expensive than advertised, and fundamentally ineffective. And that's not even mentioning the fundamental dehumanising practices of the "Hostile Environment" created as deliberately policy to try to scare people away from the UK by knowingly maltreating people.

[Danny]

Jul 2, 2024 9:58:44 GMT alec said:

Danny - "The stat that stood out for me is that we used to have 4 workers supporting one pensioner. Now that's dropped to just over 3 supporting one pensioner. Bearing in mind that's with the record levels of immigration we've had in the last few years"

Not me guv, someone else said that.

[Mark]

Jul 2, 2024 10:41:41 GMT pjw1961 said:

Jul 2, 2024 9:58:14 GMT Mark said:

*** ADMIN ***

The final polling thread befre the electin is ging up this afternoon (i'm goin out for a meal with friends tonight).

I am inclined to thin tat the results one night along with commentary of said results should be in the final polling thread, but, if a maority of members want a separate result thread, I will set one up a little before 10pm on Thursday.

In order to prevent things getting messy and members flicking between two or more threads, I feel it has to be one or the other.

If you have a preference, now is the time to state it.

Many of us on here are inclined to thin tat in our posting . 

Eek! Some shockingly bad typos on my post...I was rushing slightly and keyboard has seen better days. All corrected now.

alec makes a good point re-archiving/future reference. Still plenty of time for the rest of you to state a preference.

[Danny]

Jul 2, 2024 11:14:15 GMT steve said:

Sky news had a woman on whinging about she couldn't possibly afford the additional £3000 a year in school fees as she was of modest means.
The tale of woe was a little bit undermined as she appeared to be driving an Audi Q6, starting price £68,000

except assuming she doesnt buy a new one every year but keeps it for a few years, then it will be rather less than the school fees for one child. Enough money to get a child privately educated through their three GCSE years, perhaps.

[oldnat]

Mark

I agree with alec

[Deleted]

Really well argued jayblanc

[Deleted]

Jul 2, 2024 10:03:21 GMT alec said:

Mark - I'd go for a separate polling night thread. Much easier for archive searching in the future.

Me too. Will help if any others of a like mind just repeat the above. I think “likes” will tend to get lost

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Jul 2, 2024 10:54:07 GMT jayblanc said:

Jul 2, 2024 2:19:21 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

“One of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers has endorsed Labour to win the general election for the first time in more than 20 years.

The Sunday Times said the Conservatives “have in effect forfeited the right to govern” and so it was time for a change.
HuffPost UK Daily Brief

Waiting till a matter of days before an election to give your "endorsement" isn't really a political endorsement, it's just saying who you think is going to win.

At least they didn’t wait till after the election...

[pjw1961]

Jul 2, 2024 11:16:58 GMT oldnat said:

A questionnaire seeking to determine how closely your views align with any party - frequently sneered at, but people love to complete!

(It does, however, seem to be contributing to serious academic research on political attitudes)



Unsurprisingly, it suggests that I am 68% in agreement with SGP, 64% with SNP, 54% with LD, 43% with Alba and only 27% with Lab.

For me - Green +70%, Lib Dem +45%, Labour +40%, Reform -37%, Con -41%. 

I suspect Lib Dems narrowly beat Labour because of Europe and Reform rank higher than Con because RefUK support proportional representation. 

[Deleted]

Re the amazing “revelation” that Starmer will be the least popular PM to enter Downing Street for the first time, that fact ignores a fundamental change in society generally and how difficult and different life has become now.

Cynicism is rife in all aspects of our lives and whilst years ago there was a sort of respect for those in senior positions that is no longer the case. Also tv and social media can amplify and spread this negativity. “Starmer is dull and boring” is easier to sell than “Starmer seems really committed and is a very intelligent, able and caring man” - which I suspect is the case.

So we shouldn’t be surprised by these figures, we should expect them.

[leftieliberal]

My last Labour lead graph, based on polling by Deltapoll, We Think, Opinium, Redfield & Wilton, Savanta, and Techne. Although the lead has been dropping for the last couple of weeks, possibly because Don't Knows have now been revealed as shy Tories and Sunak's negative campaigning about a big Labour majority has had an effect, the lead is still only just below the lead in the first week of the campaign and is still above the April-May average. I cannot see anything other than a Blair-sized landslide (or larger) majority.

[alec]

neilj (& Danny) - apols didn't twig who wrote what.

My key points stands though. I'm not saying there isn't a problem, more that we're looking at the wrong problem. We can quite readily migrate to a low or negative population growth model, given the fact that economic value is now large;y decoupled from workforce numbers. That's the central fact of life. The problem then becomes not how we find the numbers of workers to support the elderly, but instead how we tax the economy to fund the required support.

One obvious route is through recycling asset values upon death. Inheritance leads to an accumulation of wealth and increased gap between rich and poor, which doing nothing in terms of funding pensions and care costs. Other more practically based options are being explored elsewhere. France and the Netherlands have been experimenting with 'dementia villages', which are in effect entire communities devoted to people with dementia. They enable a large number of vulnerable people to live with a level of support but where independence is maintained, bringing resources together to provide highly efficient and practically workable services. What we are currently doing is paying care workers naff all to spend most of their time driving round between isolated patients living in their own homes. The care village concept brings together a couple of hundred people, so the care can be delivered far more effectively, with greater patient safety.

These are all the kinds of decisions we need to be looking at, rather than boil this down to population numbers. For example, why are we worrying about what the future of elderly care looks like in terms of population decline, when the current level of elderly care is utterly abysmal, and we have plenty of potential workers to deliver it? It's all the other things that we're getting wrong.

[graham]

Jul 2, 2024 11:15:11 GMT pjw1961 said:

From the G:

"Green party on course to win in Bristol Central, poll suggests

The Green party has released a poll showing it has a eight-point lead in the newly formed constituency of Bristol Central where co-leader Carla Denyer is challenging Thangam Debbonaire, a potential cabinet member for Labour. An independent survey for the party by the pollsters WeThink suggest the Greens are on course to take 40% of the vote, compared to 32% for Labour. However, the poll also shows 18% of respondents “don’t know” which way they will vote."

Only 300 responses. MOE of over 5.5%

[lens]

Jul 2, 2024 7:37:22 GMT Danny said:

Further to the recent debate on whether Uk electric vehicles actually save ANY carbon emissions.

The website at grid.iamkate.com/ shows real time energy generation and usage in the UK. Last night renewables generation dropped to 10GW, compared to 20 GW minimum demand. The difference was made up from various sources, but fossil fuels never dropped below 2GW. In other words, at no time in the last 24 hours did the Uk stop using fossil fuels.

Electric vehicles were deliberately introduced to replace fossil fuelled vehicles, but this created extra demand for electricity meaning we needed extra generation. The flexible part of our generating package is fossil fuels, used to make up the difference from the other cheaper sources and demand. demand was raised by the electric vehicles above a level where we might have been able to switch off all the fossil fuel generation...at no time in the last day did we do this and therefore the entire electric vehicle fleet was being powered by burning fuel in power stations.

Electric vehicles are more expensive, and thus far have likely not saved any fuel burning in the UK. To do so we need to increases renewables generating capacity, which of course is something con government stopped pushing and indeed made more difficult by changing planning laws.

Danny - do you ever take any notice of what other people say?

Especially regarding your (incorrect) blanket statement "Electric vehicles are more expensive.....". Firstly, whilst it's true there are few if any BEVs at the lower end of the market (at the moment), then **if you compare like for like** there is little to choose between battery electric and petrol/diesel variants of the same model.

Secondly, your blanket statement fails to distinguish between capital cost and cost per mile to run. Highly relevant for anyone doing a high mileage. And *in general*, referring to running costs, your statement needs to be "Electric vehicles are far less expensive...." (How much will vary with individual cases, but amongst those I know with BEVs the answer seems to be "about a quarter as much per mile ".)

And why apportion the green energy in the grid at any time to other uses, implying that it's therefore all "dirty" electricity that gets used for charging BEVs!!? That's bonkers. Far more logical to look at overall generation and split between uses?

And the benefits aren't just in relation to carbon emissions. The original impetus behind moving away from internal combustion engines - originally towards hydrogen and fuel cells, before battery became a much better bet - was to reduce exhaust pollution.

But really Danny, you seem to have convinced yourself that battery electric cars aren't the answer? Would you therefore like to succinctly answer the very simple question of what you think **IS** the way forward? If not battery, then what? Or do you think we should just stay as we are? Simple question, try and answer in a single sentence.

[Deleted]

Jul 2, 2024 9:32:40 GMT johntel said:

The questions were:

How will you ensure that womens’ rights are not lost to trans rights and women’s safe spaces are preserved?

What are you going to do to get more homes built?

What are you going to do to stop building on the green belt?

What should the limit on net immigration be?

What will you do to achieve net zero?

Would you personally like the UK to rejoin the EU within the next 10 years? (My question)

What would you do to stop our rivers (i.e. the River Mole) being polluted?

What will you do to improve teacher morale?

What will you do to improve social care and the NHS (esp. mental health)?

Goodness me what a toxic list of questions! Trans, green belt, immigration, net zero, EU, river pollution... it's like reading what's trending on Twitter! 


At least the last two were likely to lead to more constructive debate.