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

[scaramanga]

On the water discharges, we've been over it in this thread. A new government isn't going to slow down or stop the sewerage discharges. Neither will nationalising water companies. Neither will reversing Brexit or any of the other gonads that's associated with this issue. They're dumping a tonne of brick into the sea as if they didn't, it would back up through the over-capacity sewer system and flood people's homes and businesses. It's either in the sea or your living room.

If they stop increasing the population size by several million every decade and stop building new houses everywhere, they might be able to catch up on the civil engineering programmes needed to safely deal with the waste water demand.

While there's a shortage of trades compared to housing demand, there's still about x100 available brickies, sparkles and chippies for every one waste water engineer. And therefore the idea that you can get anywhere near government housing targets and continue building houses at the rate we are doing and not see the sewerage problem get 10 times worse in the next few years, is pie in the sky. There isn't even currently a credible plan to deal with the problem. It's all "let's blame brexit and the greedy private water companies" or some other untrue gonads.

Careful. If you keep pointing out the problem we're not supposed to talk about, then everyone might start realising the root cause of pretty much every problem in this country.

 

[Kompakted]

Careful. If you keep pointing out the problem we're not supposed to talk about, then everyone might start realising the root cause of pretty much every problem in this country.

It is the fundamental problem though isn't it? And it's a vicious cycle of:

"oh s**t we can't train enough new doctors to provide GP services to an extra half a million people a year....what do I do?"
"Oh I know, I'll get a load of foreign doctors in. Yes, yes, their families can come too....there, problem solved."

*gets handed the next year's GP resourcing requirements which are even higher*

"WHAT? We need MORE GPs? Quick, call some more foreign doctors"

The other side of this cycle is someone in India going: "We've no doctors, they've all moved to the UK, let's move there too"

And on water, it's not just waste water. Just down the road from me, they've built two new housing estates. Smashed up about 200 houses in the space of a year in about 2021. Anyway, last year the water main under the main high street exploded and lifted half the road with it. Absolute carnage for over a week. It wasn't rated for the water pressure that was now being pumped through it to serve the extra houses. This stuff is happening all over the country.

 

[glasgowspur]

The New Britain

So things are getting pretty strange. Polling in Scotland, the UK and Wales in the last few days has shown Great Britain taking a fairly heavy swerve to the right after just five months of Sir Keir…

wingsoverscotland.com

For anyone with a spare 15 mins.
Guys a nut bar but he's right a lot more often than he's wrong.

 

[Mikey10]

The New Britain

So things are getting pretty strange. Polling in Scotland, the UK and Wales in the last few days has shown Great Britain taking a fairly heavy swerve to the right after just five months of Sir Keir…

wingsoverscotland.com

For anyone with a spare 15 mins.
Guys a nut bar but he's right a lot more often than he's wrong.

I think Farage is a read danger come the next election. The country’s problems are complex and have been decades in the making; his seemingly simple solutions will strike a chord with lots of the population who take only a passing interest in politics (see the US).

Labour need to make clearly measurable differences to people’s lives over the next four years to have a chance of re-election: waiting lists significantly down, transport improved, house prices becoming more affordable and the economy looking at least stable.

They also need to construct a narrative as to where we are headed as a nation, something they’ve completely failed to do so far. Hopefully Starmer’s speech tomorrow will see the start of that.

 

[Kompakted]

I think Farage is a read danger come the next election. The country’s problems are complex and have been decades in the making; his seemingly simple solutions will strike a chord with lots of the population who take only a passing interest in politics (see the US).

Labour need to make clearly measurable differences to people’s lives over the next four years to have a chance of re-election: waiting lists significantly down, transport improved, house prices becoming more affordable and the economy looking at least stable.

They also need to construct a narrative as to where we are headed as a nation, something they’ve completely failed to do so far. Hopefully Starmer’s speech tomorrow will see the start of that.

Think Labour are *screwed* next election. My wife isn't in to politics at all. She's just messaged me saying "this government are shocking". She's watching Loose Women and apparently the panel have been discussing how everything feels like it's rapidly going to s*** since Labour got in. That is a feeling growing in the non-political chattering class and that is highly dangerous for Labour.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

I think Farage is a read danger come the next election. The country’s problems are complex and have been decades in the making; his seemingly simple solutions will strike a chord with lots of the population who take only a passing interest in politics (see the US).

Labour need to make clearly measurable differences to people’s lives over the next four years to have a chance of re-election: waiting lists significantly down, transport improved, house prices becoming more affordable and the economy looking at least stable.

They also need to construct a narrative as to where we are headed as a nation, something they’ve completely failed to do so far. Hopefully Starmer’s speech tomorrow will see the start of that.

The main issue is it could potentially take a two term government to unravel, turnaround and improve some of the deep-seated issues the country faces.
Obviously whoever is in charge has to constantly demonstrate competency and progressive action to earn that, but it does feel like that's what's needed ie to have a long run at it.

The headwind is having the room to breathe and just get on with things. The stories and narratives will just keep coming , who knows what's true and what's not, the motives, the reasoning, the faces behind it all.

The biggest communication issue is to get anyone onboard with the 'it might be painful before it gets better'....humans just ain't havin that these days.

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

The main issue is it could potentially take a two term government to unravel, turnaround and improve some of the deep-seated issues the country faces.
Obviously whoever is in charge has to constantly demonstrate competency and progressive action to earn that, but it does feel like that's what's needed ie to have a long run at it.

The headwind is having the room to breathe and just get on with things. The stories and narratives will just keep coming , who knows what's true and what's not, the motives, the reasoning, the faces behind it all.

The biggest communication issue is to get anyone onboard with the 'it might be painful before it gets better'....humans just ain't havin that these days.

We have a big enough majority to get going with things.

It's now like with a football team, some quick adjustments to make as perform better short term while positioning yourself for the long term.

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

A peaceful settlement in Ukraine could help the government.

Lots of governments, France and Germany for example have worse to deal with.

 

[Mikey10]

Think Labour are *screwed* next election. My wife isn't in to politics at all. She's just messaged me saying "this government are shocking". She's watching Loose Women and apparently the panel have been discussing how everything feels like it's rapidly going to s*** since Labour got in. That is a feeling growing in the non-political chattering class and that is highly dangerous for Labour.

Not having a go, but am genuinely interested…what aspects of the country did she feel were functioning really well before the change in government, and what has changed since they have got in to make her feel “it’s rapidly going to s hit” now?

 

[Kompakted]

Not having a go, but am genuinely interested…what aspects of the country did she feel were functioning really well before the change in government, and what has changed since they have got in to make her feel “it’s rapidly going to s hit” now?

So she's been commenting that the trains are worse since Labour got in. She's been constantly saying it ro me. I've actually told her that I'm not sure that can be Labour's fault although I don't think caving to union pay demands without insisting on the changes to operating practices the tories were insisting on was the right thing to do. But she insists the trains are a lot worse now and keeps mentioning that it's since Labour got into power.

The rest of it is literally watching other people such as loose women moan about the government. There is a real danger for Labour that it's an undefinable feeling of "things are worse" and actually it's more dangerous for Labour that people struggle to articulate why but just have a strong sense that Labour have got in and everything is going in the wrong direction immediately and there's a sense of doom and gloom settling in amongst business and everyday people

The reason why that's dangerous is that it's incredibly hard to counter.

Easy to counter:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- Lists reasons
- Well I can tell you why that's not their fault.

Danger zone for politicians:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- I don't know they just are

And i think Labour have created this themselves by coming in and telling everyone it's s*** and being massively negative about everything, while putting taxes up and having constant negative media stories about freebies, concerts, holidays; partying at Lord Ali's house and various other shenanigans

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

So she's been commenting that the trains are worse since Labour got in. She's been constantly saying it ro me. I've actually told her that I'm not sure that can be Labour's fault although I don't think caving to union pay demands without insisting on the changes to operating practices the tories were insisting on was the right thing to do. But she insists the trains are a lot worse now and keeps mentioning that it's since Labour got into power.

The rest of it is literally watching other people such as loose women moan about the government. There is a real danger for Labour that it's an undefinable feeling of "things are worse" and actually it's more dangerous for Labour that people struggle to articulate why but just have a strong sense that Labour have got in and everything is going in the wrong direction immediately and there's a sense of doom and gloom settling in amongst business and everyday people

The reason why that's dangerous is that it's incredibly hard to counter.

Easy to counter:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- Lists reasons
- Well I can tell you why that's not their fault.

Danger zone for politicians:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- I don't know they just are

And i think Labour have created this themselves by coming in and telling everyone it's s*** and being massively negative about everything, while putting taxes up and having constant negative media stories about freebies, concerts, holidays; partying at Lord Ali's house and various other shenanigans

Massive own goal to say how bad things were. When the economy was actually standing up ok.

 

[Kompakted]

Massive own goal to say how bad things were. When the economy was actually standing up ok.

Well it's a self-fulfilling prophecy:
- You come in and say "everything is s***, but don't worry, the adults are in charge now and we are not bull***era like the tories"
- Business go "oh dear, they're saying everything is s*** and i don't think they're bull***ers like the other lot, so not sure they're trying to get everyone to hate the tories, it must be genuinely bad we better revise those investment plans. In fact, bring me a range of options to cut costs and tighten our belts"
- International business say: "let's not go with the UK for our new site, the new government have come in and have said they've found a load of stuff that means things are a lot worse there than we thought"
- Everything starts going to s***, due to loss of confidence

- It's a spiral that started the financial crash. There was a very small slowdown in the US sub prime market that led to some initial losses which then received OTT media attention causing investors to panic and the loss of confidence grew until banks refused to lend to each other as they no longer trusted the markets and the whole economy started to collapse.

Confidence is half the game in politics and actually in economics. If you tell people things are great, it's amazing how that attitude is infectious. You can even sell negative stories as positives. Boris Johnson was great at this. Tony Blair also.

It wasn't "our education system has gone to s***" with Blair, it was "education, education, education". It wasn't "there's massive regional inequality in the UK" with Boris Johnson it was "we are going to level up!"

 

[Mikey10]

So she's been commenting that the trains are worse since Labour got in. She's been constantly saying it ro me. I've actually told her that I'm not sure that can be Labour's fault although I don't think caving to union pay demands without insisting on the changes to operating practices the tories were insisting on was the right thing to do. But she insists the trains are a lot worse now and keeps mentioning that it's since Labour got into power.

The rest of it is literally watching other people such as loose women moan about the government. There is a real danger for Labour that it's an undefinable feeling of "things are worse" and actually it's more dangerous for Labour that people struggle to articulate why but just have a strong sense that Labour have got in and everything is going in the wrong direction immediately and there's a sense of doom and gloom settling in amongst business and everyday people

The reason why that's dangerous is that it's incredibly hard to counter.

Easy to counter:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- Lists reasons
- Well I can tell you why that's not their fault.

Danger zone for politicians:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- I don't know they just are

And i think Labour have created this themselves by coming in and telling everyone it's s*** and being massively negative about everything, while putting taxes up and having constant negative media stories about freebies, concerts, holidays; partying at Lord Ali's house and various other shenanigans

Kind of underlines what I thought; a mix of poor messaging and a right-wing media constantly feeding negativity.

As I said earlier, I'm hoping tomorrow's speech marks them beginning to get a much better control of the narrative. Blair (or should I say Campbell) was brilliant at it. They've got four years to get it right, so plenty of time - if they get about it in the right way.

 

[Kompakted]

Kind of underlines what I thought; a mix of poor messaging and a right-wing media constantly feeding negativity.

As I said earlier, I'm hoping tomorrow's speech marks them beginning to get a much better control of the narrative. Blair (or should I say Campbell) was brilliant at it. They've got four years to get it right, so plenty of time - if they get about it in the right way.

Blair was great at it. So was Boris Johnson. You don't have to say everything is s*** to cement people's opinions of the last government. If people were happy with the Tories you wouldn't be sat on a huge majority. Blair didn't bang on about how s*** things were in the late 90s, he sold a vision of positivity "things can only get better", "cool Britannia". Boris Johnson would only talk about how great the country was but "we are going to level up", "we are going to recruit 20,000 police officers" alluded to the investment needed in the underlying problems. In a positive manner.

 

[JerusalemMan]

The New Britain

So things are getting pretty strange. Polling in Scotland, the UK and Wales in the last few days has shown Great Britain taking a fairly heavy swerve to the right after just five months of Sir Keir…

wingsoverscotland.com

For anyone with a spare 15 mins.
Guys a nut bar but he's right a lot more often than he's wrong.

He's usually a very good read, I've checked in on his site for years. Does his work far better than an awful lot of journalists.

 

[Mikey10]

Blair was great at it. So was Boris Johnson. You don't have to say everything is s*** to cement people's opinions of the last government. If people were happy with the Tories you wouldn't be sat on a huge majority. Blair didn't bang on about how s*** things were in the late 90s, he sold a vision of positivity "things can only get better", "cool Britannia". Boris Johnson would only talk about how great the country was but "we are going to level up", "we are going to recruit 20,000 police officers" alluded to the investment needed in the underlying problems. In a positive manner.

Agree...a bit!

Blair inherited an entirely different situation - a country which was in a much better place financially, and which had a much stronger place within Europe, and within the rest of the world. And it was a world which was largely at peace. It was therefore easier for him to construct a positive narrative. But I agree that he was definitely very good at it!

Starmer has inherited a s hitshow, both on domestic and international levels. I think he felt that the previous government attempted to gaslight the public on lots of important issues and he wanted to go about it a different way. I do agree that the focus on how bad things are has been repeated too often - although I do think the model for that was the Cameron government, which spent its entire time in power blaming all of the country's ills on the previous Labour government's handling of the economy (i.e. the worldwide financial crash of 2008 and its after-effects).

I don't really agree on Johnson. His biggest reputation amongst the public now is as a liar. The skills he did have as London mayor (telling everyone how good everything was while thoroughly enjoying himself) were quickly found out on a national level. He simply didn't have what it took to be PM, as there was a hell of a lot more to it than simply saying, "Everything is wonderful!" His attempts to bury his head in the sand at the start of the pandemic - he couldn't bear to face the bad news - are symbolic of the flaws in his approach to leadership imo.

Starmer wants to do it his way, which I think is to take the fuss out of politics and to focus on delivery; but I think he is learning pretty quickly that is not enough in an age of 24 news feeds. He'll never have complete control of the narrative given the serious right wing bias in the British media, but he will need to make a much better fist of getting hold of it than he has done so far. I completely agree that we need to hear much more positivity (although realistic positivity!) from this point on.

I'm still hopeful on his premiership - although maybe less so than a 3 or 4 months ago.

 

[glasgowspur]

He's usually a very good read, I've checked in on his site for years. Does his work far better than an awful lot of journalists.

He's a really good read, says a lot of stuff no one else will say.
Seldom agree with his take on the world but it is a good read.
Ultimately he is a dog whistle reporter, it's just his dog whistle is indy and he attracts some real Heid the baws.
the comments section is usually hilarious, or at it would be if they weren't all for real. They make Gutter Boy look sane!

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

So she's been commenting that the trains are worse since Labour got in. She's been constantly saying it ro me. I've actually told her that I'm not sure that can be Labour's fault although I don't think caving to union pay demands without insisting on the changes to operating practices the tories were insisting on was the right thing to do. But she insists the trains are a lot worse now and keeps mentioning that it's since Labour got into power.

The rest of it is literally watching other people such as loose women moan about the government. There is a real danger for Labour that it's an undefinable feeling of "things are worse" and actually it's more dangerous for Labour that people struggle to articulate why but just have a strong sense that Labour have got in and everything is going in the wrong direction immediately and there's a sense of doom and gloom settling in amongst business and everyday people

The reason why that's dangerous is that it's incredibly hard to counter.

Easy to counter:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- Lists reasons
- Well I can tell you why that's not their fault.

Danger zone for politicians:
- Labour are s***
- Why?
- I don't know they just are

And i think Labour have created this themselves by coming in and telling everyone it's s*** and being massively negative about everything, while putting taxes up and having constant negative media stories about freebies, concerts, holidays; partying at Lord Ali's house and various other shenanigans

Definitely a danger zone as you suggest as it's no different to Trump...get them believing, not thinking.

It's quite ironic really.

I thought the currency of conversation was now negativity, outrage and moaning, either in a dark comforting way or a coping mechanism, BUT it appears that's ok for those in the lower decks of the ship to be like that but they don't want that from the Captain up on the bridge. Even if, ironically, a lot of what he is saying is true. Perhaps he'd be better off saying 'dont worry about the icebergs'

In all honesty they're probably being outsmarted in the SM game

 

[scaramanga]

I think Farage is a read danger come the next election.

Farage has already done huge damage. He took a large chunk out of the Conservatives vote and gave us a Labour government.

 

[JerusalemMan]

He's a really good read, says a lot of stuff no one else will say.
Seldom agree with his take on the world but it is a good read.
Ultimately he is a dog whistle reporter, it's just his dog whistle is indy and he attracts some real Heid the baws.
the comments section is usually hilarious, or at it would be if they weren't all for real. They make Gutter Boy look sane!

I've never dared look at the comments and I am on the other side of the fence to him regarding indy.
But his stuff about the SNP corruption and the weird Scot-political fixation with gender issues has been coruscating.