Joe Hutch
Mate of the bloke
As a side-note, I discovered HMHB through the power of Usenet; a small but perfectly formed newsgroup called alt.fan.british.accent. (Discussion of accents was banned).
Labour Leader: Keir Starmer VI
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Seanm
pfm Member
If you *actually* give people economic security then the need for scapegoating etc. diminishes considerably.
Blair's intervention is pure gaslighting. New Labour went heavy on culture war - asylum seekers, ASBOS, shirkers and strivers - as an electoral *alternative* to addressing economic concerns.
Always with the biometrics for immigrants. He's properly demented.
Tony L
Administrator
Again, that is how it works.
Where we are right now is not fixed in stone. It is Tory policy. Whilst poverty and inequality may not be possible to fix entirely, things could be made exponentially better just by say closing all the tax loopholes the Tories and their billionaire backers profit and run their various money laundering schemes through, by dramatically reducing VAT (a highly regressive tax), by building social housing, placing rent-caps, windfall taxes on profit-gouging energy companies etc etc.
The idea that people in one of the planet’s wealthiest nations are using foodbanks and dying homeless in shop doorways is a political choice. The Conservative Party have the power to change it. Very easily. They don’t want to as it is party policy.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
Yes, you can choose to follow up something which you know in advance may be of interest. Just as others can via books, journals, etc, etc. The problem is that this also means someone who has a different initial outlook can be led off into different bubbles where they find beliefs *they* find credible because they aren't looking for critical analysis of what they 'prefer'.
The issue is being able to look critically at even the ideas you 'like' or feel are plausible, and to dig elsewhere to check. The problem is that many people simply don't do that, regardless of if you or I - in different ways - *do* so. Many people get led into bubbles or echo chambers. The 'traditional' way for that to happen was for them to only read one newspaper type, etc. Now it is to get drawn into a subset of anti-social media which then doesn't show them content that indicates a possible falsification of what they think.
I do see your reports, and those of others, wrt what is on the anti-social media, and note them. I also sometimes follow up links posted, and YT videos.
But I seem to be doing a less common task. Looking at journals, books, etc, and drawing their content to the attention of others. As well as reporting my direct personal experience. Which, again, often clashed with what people saw in media.
What would be the advantage of me simply doing the same as most people? Simpler for me not to post at all.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
I wouldn't call IEEE Spectrum (for example) 'stuffy' in the sense that you use the word.
But have you spent time reading many academic science journals? Alas, like it or not, to really understand some serious science it can often be useful to be able to understand 'hard sums' or some rather difficult-to-get concepts. Once you can, though, it can be worthwhile.
e.g. I did manage to get about 2/3rds of the way though "Gravitation" by MTW some years ago and learned some really natty maths from it as well as a better idea of General Relativity. Although that mainly proved useful in getting some better understanding of the nature of magnetisim and EM, as a side-effect. The result was being able to give people some simpler explanations which give a natty 'picture' without people needing to struggle though the 'hard sums' unless they spot it is necessary to really see the point.
That said, I will admit that many research papers/reports in peer-reviewed journals seem to be written by an author who has adopted the idea that "it needs to be incomprehensible to impress people into thinking you must be clever to have been able to write it!" 8-] ...and may also at times be boloxx dressed up to confuse.
I am what I am, though - an old and ivy-covered ex-academic who moves slowly.
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
IIUC, what you're saying is that UK domestic economic policy needs fixing. That's what I think Tony Blair is saying the focus should be on to win Electorate support and I agree with that.
That Guardian headline is quite misleading. Having scanned the Peter Kellner report, (https://institute.global/sites/default/files/2022-05/From Red Walls to Red Bridges - Politics After Class, Tony Blair Institute, May 2022.pdf) I don't see advice to reject "woke" at all. It does, however, state that the Conservatives will claim that Labour is too focused on that but it should be easy to counter.
Tony L
Administrator
Everything is an echo chamber if you choose it. Unless you read absolutely everything from the far-right right through to the far-left you are choosing your bubble. Reading Private Eye or the New Statesman is no different to reading the Daily Mail or Telegraph, it is just an echo chamber, one of your choice. I tend to go with Sky News and Twitter as by doing so I can cut out a heck of a lot of third-party opinion and editorialising. I choose Sky as they tend to run the more important parliamentary debates unedited even if they last for hours, i.e. I don’t need to base my opinion what some newspaper or commentator chooses to summarise. If they cut away I’ll switch to BBC Parliament. I use Twitter because I am again my own editor.
I choose who to follow, what to read. I am my own ‘echo chamber’, but I deliberately look far, far outside it to better understand the world around me. I will on occasion actively seek out some truly repugnant content as I view myself as a lifelong anti-fascist and I need to know exactly where they are these days, so again I go straight to the sources assuming I can identify them. I’ve ventured onto 4chan, some of the darker subreddits etc etc, even 8chan when it still existed, though I’ve so far stopped short of the real ‘darkweb’ stuff. Really I should go there as it is so much part of modern political and social reality, but it is outside my current comfort zone. One can only understand 21st century technology and politics by actively researching it for oneself. Trying to pick it up from an old white conservative mainstream media doesn’t even get you into the basic ballpark. It is the equivalent of asking Nadine Dorries to explain the OSI model. There really is a whole world out there that most people over 40 haven’t even the slightest clue about. I strongly advise folk to wake up to it. It is both far better and far worse than you could possibly imagine!
PS My generation were punks, new-wave, goths, indie-kids etc. We were easily visible, we were very obviously anti-Nazi, anti-apartheid, anti-Thatcher, pro-unions etc etc. Now the 21st century equivalent is absolutely out of sight to most old people. Not even on their radar. There is a myth younger folk are disinterested and disconnected. They aren’t. They just don’t have any real use for old conservative media or much interest in our failed political structures.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
The problem is that we have a economy which depends on creating economic instability, we have an economy in which high unemployment is a necessary part.
If we do actually want economic security for individuals as well as to create a more stable and more balanced economy for the wider world, guaranteeing a job to everyone who wants one is the way to go.
The very fact that we have high unemployment at the same time as shortages in Health, Education, Housing, The Green Economy etc etc is not accidentally. It’s the deliberate consequence of an absurd economic policy in which a unemployment is seem as a necessary and natural tool to suppress wages.
Give people a job with a decent wage and you have happier, healthier people living in a happier, healthier more sustainable economy and a more sustainable planet.
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
paulfromcamden
Baffled
Lower than the 1920s, higher than the 1950s.
Though I guess it also depends how it's measured. If I'm one of the 900k people on a zero hours contract but I'm not offered any work this month it looks like I still count as being employed.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_in_the_United_Kingdom
Spraggons Den
pfm Member
Well done....you managed an entire post without using the words 'monetarism' or 'Centrist'
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Lower than the 1920s, higher than the 1950s.
Though I guess it also depends how it's measured. If I'm one of the 900k people on a zero hours contract but I'm not offered any work this month it looks like I still count as being employed.
Yes. The point behind my question was that today, it's low / uncertain income is a factor moreso than unemployment.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
I think we all know that 3.8% does not represent the real level of unemployment. But still, in an economy in which there are shortages in Health, Education and Housing, then yes, even 3.8% is high
However, the bigger story is underemployment where people have to accept low wages that are insufficient to a decent standard of living, but do not count as unemployed
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messengerman
pfm Member
Yeah but conversation will never go out of fashion and who in their right mind would seek out conversation on YouTube?
Patience grasshopper.
Tony L
Administrator
It is nothing compared to Thatcher’s 1980s which hit over 10% nationally at times, and vastly more in the real black-spots, but the employment and housing markets have changed so much over recent decades that it is no longer any indication of poverty. The problem in all alt-right countries such as the UK at present is real poverty within the working poor. Folk with two or more jobs still forced to use foodbanks etc. This is obviously getting exponentially worse since Brexit and the ongoing Ukraine situation and we have a government who absolutely refuses to place even the slightest inconvenience on its billionaire owning class to address it. Alt-right is as alt-right does.
PS Properly implemented progressive taxation and a Universal Basic Income is the answer IMHO, so I’m not just railing at venal hateful Tory shit, I do have a vaguely credible solution!
messengerman
pfm Member
Agreed. There's no doubt whatsoever selling off council housing was part of a wider effort (broadening share ownership being the other part) to make the electorate more right wing. I'm sure many here will remember the huge national TV and poster campaigns (the biggest ad campaigns of their day) pushing shares in the various privatisations. "Tell Sid" and so forth.
Mind you I don't think these things had anything more than a small effect. The share ownership thing certainly never took off. I think there were factors that turned out to be far bigger. De-industrialisation, demonisation of the unions, mortgage deregulation, extreme house price inflation, globalisation, fragmentation and colonisation of the opposition etc.
Enfield boy
pfm Member
I'm doubtful that Thatcher wanted us all to have profitable investment portfolios, like all Tories since she wanted to get stuff that belonged to all of us cheaply into the hands of the already rich. Selling BT etc at a huge discount was a ploy, she understood the less well off would mostly be happy to take a small short-term profit and the shares would then end up where intended. Getting people out of council housing into mortgaged property made striking harder.
messengerman
pfm Member
She had other far more effective ways of making striking harder. I don't think Thatcher was corrupt (though many of her colleagues were) I think she was first and foremost a ruthless ideologue.
Besides there are often many reasons policy sets are enacted and many people involved. If reasons are plausible and not mutually exclusive someone in the team will have them on their reasons to do it list.
In other words we're probably both right but your mooted motivations are probably more likely in cases like Lawson, Lilley or Brittan than Thatcher. And even then having a small mortgage making striking harder might have been a rare bird.
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