What can we do to change the minds of decision makers and people in general to actually do something about preparing for the forthcoming economic/energy crises (the ones after this one!)?
clv101 wrote: ↑04 Jun 2024, 16:37
Immigration is going to be a huge issue in the coming weeks. The key question to ask, the key question to understand is exactly *why* the most nationalist Tory party, with a big majority, on the back of Brexit *chose*, because it was a series of specific policies they enacted, to have the highest level of migration in decades.
Tories need to explain why they did that, and what has changed so they (& Labour, Reform etc) won't do it anymore. They need to explain the impact of moving from many hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, or zero.
Without asking and understanding these questions, the immigration discussion will be a load of uninformed, reactionary nonsense.
Absolutely. The underlying problem, of course, is that the only way to keep economic growth going in a time of depleting resources is to keep increasing the population. And since the generation of people entering their child-producing years who actually grew up in this country have been forced into a lifetime of rent slavery, and are therefore deciding en-masse that they cannot afford to have children, mass immigration is the only tool left in the box. This is a short-term fix that actually makes the long-term problem ever worse.
The absolute bottom line, which almost nobody actually talks about anymore, is that both the planet and the UK are already seriously overpopulated. Literally, if you could just get rid of 10 million people then the housing problem would be solved and all our other infrastructural and ecosystemic problems made simpler. Obviously we cannot get rid of 10 million people, but we absolutely can and must have this discussion.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
The bottom line is that Farage may well have a very good campaign, may well win in Clacton, and that poses a long-term existential threat to the tory party as we know it. How can the tories get rid of the threat from their right? Brexit was supposed to do exactly that, but in order for that solution to stick, immigration had to come down. Farage may not hold all of the cards, but he's got the Ace of Spades.
Nige better watch his pack and steer clear of windows above ground level!
Overconfidence, not just expert overconfidence but general overconfidence,
is one of the most common illusions we experience. Stan Robinson
Ralphw2 wrote: ↑04 Jun 2024, 17:47
Yougov tracker shows immigration as third after economy and health as key issues, but has been rising steadily from 20% to 40% in the last 3 years.
Economy and health are always going to be top of the agenda, because they effect almost everybody in ways that nobody can possibly ignore. And they are directly linked, since it is only those who can afford private healthcare who can afford to not be concerned with the state of the NHS. Immigration isn't like that, in that in recent years there has at least been two sides to the debate -- everybody wants economic stability and a functioning NHS, but opinions on immigration range from extremely opposed to thinking it is a grand idea, either because it boosts growth and depresses wages or because it punishes white people for colonialism and rams multiculturalism down their unwelcoming throats. The debate has now shifted. The pro-immigration people have either gone very quiet, or are converting to the other side. Farage's central claim is that the whole of mainstream politics has failed the people on this, and he's absolutely correct. Even after Brexit, they still didn't learn. Maybe this election is when the message finally penetrates their skulls.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Our first MRP of the 2024 general election shows that if the election were to take place today, Labour are on course to win a historic majority of 324 seats which would be the largest ever majority in modern British politics.
The MRP analysis is based on online and telephone collected interviews of 30,044 people undertaken by Survation on behalf of Best for Britain with fieldwork carried out between 22nd May- 2nd June 2024.
Survation moved to a full ballot-prompted methodology on May 30th and this approach is reflected in the most recent waves of sample, with the model taking into account time – giving more weight to recently collected data.
Our probabilistic approach estimates the probability of each party winning each seat and aggregates them to give us an idea of how the election would play out. For example, if a party has a 50% chance of winning in 4 seats, we allocate 2 seats to them. This approach indicates that Labour is currently estimated to be the largest party in the next parliament with 487 seats, the Conservatives second with 71 seats, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 43 seats and the SNP with 26 seats. This model currently finds Plaid on two to three seats, while there is a possibility that Reform could win three.
Very close to the Electoral Calculus MRP poll. If they are broken, then both are likely to be broken in the same way, whatever way that is.
Seats: (Survation/EC)
Lab 476/487
Con 66/71
LD 59/43
SNP 26/26
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Biggest takeaway here from the tetchy spat on ITV last night was angry the body language of the
audience. They mainly just glowered in a show of dumb insolence. Maybe they are waking up to
the fact that whatever is promised and whoever is in no 10 after the election very little will change.
Overconfidence, not just expert overconfidence but general overconfidence,
is one of the most common illusions we experience. Stan Robinson
Neither of those men is anywhere close to being 'popular' with hardly anyone. It's hard to imagine what a popular, unifying figure would even look like these days.
Stephen Fry? Attenborough (20 yrs younger)? Jeremy Clarkson?
clv101 wrote: ↑05 Jun 2024, 11:20
Neither of those men is anywhere close to being 'popular' with hardly anyone. It's hard to imagine what a popular, unifying figure would even look like these days.
Stephen Fry? Attenborough (20 yrs younger)? Jeremy Clarkson?
There can be no unifying figure without a unifying set of ideas. And that is not possible without an underlying meta-ideology which permits unification to be built around a collective commitment to realism. And the reason we find this so hard to imagine is that it runs contrary to the general cultural direction western society has been heading in since the 1960s. Attenborough only managed to remain a unifying figure because he resolutely stayed out of politics until very recently, and even now he's only dipped his foot in. Fry and Clarkson are both non-starters. Fry is too committed to metaphysical naturalism -- too opposed to anything resembling the spiritual, and too cynical. Clarkson is a pseudo-intellectual pillock.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
I'm thinking have Regan and Schwarzenegger managed to achieve broad popular support (in the beginning at least) - without political backgrounds. Does the UK have anyone like these two?
clv101 wrote: ↑05 Jun 2024, 12:53
I'm thinking have Regan and Schwarzenegger managed to achieve broad popular support (in the beginning at least) - without political backgrounds. Does the UK have anyone like these two?
Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yes, these people start out with broad popular support for something non-political, as did Imran Khan and Volodymyr Zelensky. That only helps to get them a foot in the door. In the end they have to embrace some sort of politics and at that point they'll end up with the same problems as everybody else.
Does the UK have anybody similar? Closest was Glenda Jackson, but it turned sour for her and she eventually went back to acting.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
clv101 wrote: ↑05 Jun 2024, 12:53
I'm thinking have Regan and Schwarzenegger managed to achieve broad popular support (in the beginning at least) - without political backgrounds. Does the UK have anyone like these two?
Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yes, these people start out with broad popular support for something non-political, as did Imran Khan and Volodymyr Zelensky. That only helps to get them a foot in the door. In the end they have to embrace some sort of politics and at that point they'll end up with the same problems as everybody else.
Does the UK have anybody similar? Closest was Glenda Jackson, but it turned sour for her and she eventually went back to acting.
Zelensky was a political satirist / comedian, no ?
Ian Hislop ?
Rory Bremner ?
Billy Bremner....., ah, no, he's dead...
Got it...., Jurgen Klopp !!!
In our divided and highly multi-cultural society there's a slim to non-existent chance of getting somebody with universal appeal...
The best we can hope for is somebody we could listen to for 5yrs (in small doses) without putting a boot through the telly...
Reform UK has pulled to within two points of the Conservatives, according to the latest YouGov poll of the election campaign for Sky News.
The latest exclusive weekly survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday before the head-to-head TV debate, puts Labour on 40%, the Tories on 19%, Reform UK on 17%, the Liberal Democrats on 10% and the Greens on 7%.
Most of the poll, which was carried out using different methodology to last week's survey, was conducted after Nigel Farage became leader of Reform on Monday.
Compared to the last voting intention poll taken on Thursday and Friday, the Conservatives are down two, Labour is down six, the Lib Dems are up two and Reform is up two.
This means under the new methodology, the lead for Labour is 21 points.
YouGov interviewed 2,144 GB adults online.
The impact of the methodological change - which applies modelling to turnout and the behaviour of don't knows - is typically to reduce the Labour lead by three and increase the Lib Dem share by about two. There is usually no boost to the Tory share.
Don't underestimate the power of Nigel Farage to truly screw things up for the tories. I think he's going to win in Clacton, and I will not be remotely surprised if we get a poll in the next week or so which shows Reform catching and overtaking them.
Plug these figures into Electoral Calculus's seat predictor and you get:
If Labour get 493 seats (which they won't!) it'll be the end of our electoral system. The public will revolt at a party with significantly less than half of the popular vote taking over 75% of parliament. We can't have effective opposition in a parliament like that, which breaks the adverserial system.
