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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Rorschach said:
There is a limit, no doubt, but the UK is nowhere near it. The ratio of workers to pensioners is going the wrong way for the UK. 4 to 1 in the 80s , now about 3 to 1 and moving fast towards 2 to 1. That means less services (resources?) rather than more. As I mentioned above Labour need to retell this story.
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The language needs to change, it's possibly too late but there has to be a redefining of the issues.
 
Rorschach said:
There is a limit, no doubt, but the UK is nowhere near it. The ratio of workers to pensioners is going the wrong way for the UK. 4 to 1 in the 80s , now about 3 to 1 and moving fast towards 2 to 1. That means less services (resources?) rather than more. As I mentioned above Labour need to retell this story.
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What about space? Are we prepared to build a new Greater Manchester every 5 or 6 years to cope with the rapidly rising population?

Personally I would set immigration at the level where it allows population to decrease very gradually.

I agree that refugees and students (both unconditional goods) needs completely separating off from economic migration (needs to be planned and managed critically)
 
Gutter Boy said:
What about space? Are we prepared to build a new Greater Manchester every 5 or 6 years to cope with the rapidly rising population?

Personally I would set immigration at the level where it allows population to decrease very gradually.

I agree that refugees and students (both unconditional goods) needs completely separating off from economic migration (needs to be planned and managed critically)
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The UK has plenty of space. It is where the 'space' is located is the issue IMHO. It is the same issue over here in Dublin. If you centralise everything then the overwhelming gravity of capital pulls everything in.

The fertility rate is the UK about 1.5 and dropping, and the number of people living beyond 85 is growing and obviously will require more care. This trend is unsustainable. The solution was/is EU migrants but that's a whole other conversation.
 
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monkeybarry said:
I think it is. It shows how the wide scope of policy making in ffp can silence voices; and that it's now possible to genuinely challenge that.
Lab 33% (410 seats)
Con 23% (120)
Reform 14% (4)
Lib 12% (80)

That's clearly not a balanced and representative democracy.
And if a party treats voters with poor representation it can be seriously hurt at the ballot box by the kind of movement from Reform, and from the independents that took seats on narrow issues: an independent being elected is huge.

It should act as a warning to Labour.
As should the actual results - it's huge in seat volumes, it's very tight in lots of areas.

It's also a lot deeper than just silly people with loud voices. 14% is a lot of people. Reform came very very close in lots of areas; it was only a small margin that stopped them getting 70-100 seats instead of 4.

It's also no coincidence that they got Clacton, Great Yarmouth and Skegness/Boston.

We now have 100 ish MPs that will bang the drum for electoral reform, as well as some Labour MPs.
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What’s the correlation with the seats they won?

You missed off the Greens who are the biggest advocates for PR. They would have stood to gain a lot power and influence over decades with an updated proportional vote.

But extremes, and voter reactions, are less pronounced and we don’t have the issue that France is facing now with the extreme right.

However there isn’t anything new here. Quasi-facists or self proclaimed fascists have long played on people’s malcontent. For 100 years or more we’ve seen politicians stand up and use race, immigration and people’s frustration to harness power. It is nothing new. It’s a quick (lazy) way to win votes. That our parliamentary system doesn’t reward these more extreme parties has to be a benefit of our particular system. It’s not ‘anti-democratic’ it’s just a nuance of a democratic system. The Swiss, you’ll find, have the closest set up to a ‘true democracy’ they vote on everything. And they have some bat shi1 crazy laws.
 
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Gutter Boy said:
What about space? Are we prepared to build a new Greater Manchester every 5 or 6 years to cope with the rapidly rising population?

Personally I would set immigration at the level where it allows population to decrease very gradually.

I agree that refugees and students (both unconditional goods) needs completely separating off from economic migration (needs to be planned and managed critically)
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That’s unrealistic, with climate change making other parts of the planet uninhabitable we need to accept that we will be sharing the space with displaced people.
 
monkeybarry said:
There isn't majority, no.
But 4m votes, from an electorate of appx 47m - that's almost 1:10 people in the country. That's a lot of people. It's more than think the LDs are better; it's double the Greens support.

The 14% spread shows the limitation of FPP, not a lack of desire for a certain ethos.

It's uncomfortable - but we shouldn't ignore it.
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Limitation or strength of FPP
 
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Rorschach said:
The genie is never going back in the bottle but the noise can be turned down considerably. For example the government could process the asylum claims backlog or set up a processing centre in France (as they offered). IMO is also good politics as it is reform and indeed the tory's main wedge issue.

As for Starmer. I am unconvinced by the man to date if not outright disappointed by a lot of his stances. The argument made that the best approach is to keep your head down until elected may be true but I am more of the opinion that these are his genuine opinions. I hope I am wrong because being a less brick version of the tories will wear thin soon enough. Anyway I'll judge him on his performance rather than his rhetoric.
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There is another way, not feasible everywhere but review our foreign policy and look at the source of what causes so many people to want to leave their countries.
 
Baleforce said:
That’s unrealistic, with climate change making other parts of the planet uninhabitable we need to accept that we will be sharing the space with displaced people.
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Birth rate is falling in all continents and only Africa is really above 2.

If we are talking about big planned migration moves on a global scale - southern Russia and southern Canada are probably the places that need to build for a billion each.
 
It's also only ever looked at from one angle.

We bring in skills from other countries, why don't we have skills that other countries want? Can we increase emigration as an offset.
 
Gutter Boy said:
Birth rate is falling in all continents and only Africa is really above 2.

If we are talking about big planned migration moves on a global scale - southern Russia and southern Canada are probably the places that need to build for a billion each.
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everyone has to to their bit, we live in a global economy now, the ideas of nations and borders will inevitably have to change
 
P.D. said:
There is another way, not feasible everywhere but review our foreign policy and look at the source of what causes so many people to want to leave their countries.
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At the moment those entering the UK are largely made up of migrants from the former colonies. "We Are Here Because You Were There" as Sanghera put it. This is happening now more because the EU migrants are not coming of course. I don't know how you would stem this trend but as I say, the UK needs them to fill a hole.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
The people I know from those towns happen to be quite racist and angry at the amount of immigrants dropped on their door steps

14% of a vote spread over the whole of the UK just shows that there isn’t a majority of people who want them in power. It’s a spread and could easily be skewed by every towns very own racist dingdongheads
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nearly every area that voted strongly for reform has low immigration. Clacton a case in point.

What you tend to find is those who have little exposure to immigration are the ones most against it.
 
monkeybarry said:
Limitation if you believe democracy should be representative.
Strength if you believe democracy should be narrow.

On the basis ffp minimises the voice of almost 10% of the electorate - limitation.
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Presumably then you’d advocate for a Swiss-like setup as they are the most democratic/representative, offering people a vote on new laws?

Is your goal to be as representative as possible? Or to have the best most effective setup?
 
monkeybarry said:
Hate to break it to you, that is incredibly elitist.
You've made judgements about how and why they voted a certain way.
It's absolutely fine to disagree with their views - but it's not ok to dismiss them, irrespective of what or why they voted a certain way.

Re: the last paragraph - I agree with the basis of it; but that doesn't stop it's existence, and therefore it's right to exist within our politics. Anything outside of that is a step backwards towards disenfranchisement of voting rights.
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I'm not denying it's right to exist and I'm not denying their views...how could I would I? I'm calling them stupid. (I'm not sure where the line is where disagreeing becomes dismissing?)

This is first hand judgement, some of them are my friends, they're stupid. I've just spoke to my mum, she's stupid. In many cases they're disaffected because of themselves...they make stupid decisions. They moan and they're negative and they like someone to blame. Farage et al will feed into that. Where it breaks down for them is the pied Piper is doing it all for himself, he's doing nothing for them. They don't see that. They think 'pulling up the drawbridge' will improve their way of life. They got Brexit, sovereignty....naff all difference, it's a red herring. It's misguided.
Most of our issues have been caused by plain bad governance...why do they not talk about that. Because as someone said above, they know fudge all about that if you have a conversation with them.

They still get 1 vote, the same as me, that's the way it's always been and always should be.
 
Rorschach said:
The fertility rate is the UK about 1.5 and dropping, and the number of people living beyond 85 is growing and obviously will require more care. This trend is unsustainable. The solution was/is EU migrants but that's a whole other conversation.
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Just wait until the generation that couldn't buy a house reach 'care age'.

Government on the hook for billions in care costs.
 
monkeybarry said:
There isn't majority, no.
But 4m votes, from an electorate of appx 47m - that's almost 1:10 people in the country. That's a lot of people. It's more than think the LDs are better; it's double the Greens support.

The 14% spread shows the limitation of FPP, not a lack of desire for a certain ethos.

It's uncomfortable - but we shouldn't ignore it.
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Hopefully this demagoguery gets nipped in the bud

https://twitter.com/x/status/1809151483448832078
 
monkeybarry said:
Limitation if you believe democracy should be representative.
Strength if you believe democracy should be narrow.

On the basis ffp minimises the voice of almost 10% of the electorate - limitation.
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But no Nazis anywhere near government, ever. Unlike Israeli, Italy and soon France
 
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