Quite. It is a good thing that they r not succeeding.
But also with that much power, they don’t need to come close to success to cause unspeakable damage. Just look at, like, everything.
His inner circle just does not seem sufficiently competent for a job that big.
In a functioning democracy, they would have been impeached. In a functioning autocracy, they would have been purged.
The U.S. is somehow neither atm, so here we r.
Considering how much the GOP is panicking, I am not sure even his party believes they can do it.
Just creating inconvenience is not enough to discourage the high-engagement coalition the DEM has.
U would have to hard rig it, and I have trouble seeing their pull it off.
The idea of two groups within the “struggling many:” one is locked out of the economy, the other struggling in it. Policy interventions would differ for the two.
And socially, how helpful is to deduce a “working class” position on cultural values when it covers two very different groups?
@labour4transrights.bsky.social is doing very important work now more than ever.
Really excited to see what is to come.
That is right I think. The salience of some of those issues has caused people to self-sort: 1 social con view is enough to draw one to a con environment, and vice versa. People then get conditioned by their group on other views.
IMO, This explains a lot of “were they always like this?”
My odd take is that comparisons of UK-US politics is often of worse quality than UK-others.
With other countries, people go in with a sense of “the UK is quite different culturally.” With America, it *looks* similar enough that people don’t have that awareness and end with bad takes.
So I think I lean towards needing both delivery and vibes.
Weirdly, I struggle to define this government’s outlook on this. I sort of think there r people on both extremes in Gov.
We have extreme stances on both end of the “is it vibes or is it material conditions debate?”
In the U.S., I think Trump 2 has an entirely vibe based approach. And Biden was all about economic fundamentals with no vibes. Both failed.
The chart drills into more detail about how the burden is shared, recording tax payments across the income spectrum in one recent year. Four things jump out. First, the totality of direct taxes is progressive. Second, the variation between the very top and the bottom is huge, even on average: around 12 per cent of what the poorest families have coming in goes out in Income Tax, National Insurance and Council Tax; for the very richest that figure is 31 per cent, more than three times higher. Third, the progressive work of the system is to some extent done by National Insurance, but much more particularly by Income Tax, a levy that the very richest pay more than five times more of than the poorest. Finally, and in sharp contrast to the general pattern, Council Tax is strongly regressive – absorbing only about 1 per cent of income at the very top, against nearly 5 per cent at the very bottom.
On aggregate, direct taxes in the UK *are* progressive.
The very richest pay more than five times more in income tax than the poorest.
Council Tax is the big exception. It absorbs only about 1 per cent of income at the very top, but nearly 5 per cent at the very bottom.
Maybe I am too naive. But I just don’t get why one would choose to be in politics with such a bleak view on voters’ humanity.
A premise of democracy is that people do, to some degree, care for each other.
There is a level of cynicism here. Some of them think the median voter will disregard value for economic gains, like somehow they don’t care about their immigrant neighbours if energy price is lower.
I suspect they underestimate how decent the median voter is.
So I am often sympathetic to “it’s the economy” argument in politics.
But the party’s instinct towards everything is “our economic policy needs a reset.” And we should at least try to ask “is that true?”
In this case, as u say, it is not.
So in a lot of cases, people lack the reference to how bad a policy can be.
When I explain the impact of a policy, I sometimes get by sympathetic people “so what is the workaround? Who can u talk to to change this?” And the answer is “well, there is none.”
My reflection is that we need to convey to the public the far reaching effect of immigration policies.
It overhauls life in fundamental ways. Most people just don’t get into situations where a state’s single decision can wreck ur life, where there is no room for negotiation.
This is a frustrating column by Martin Wolf - which is sadly typical of a lot of economics commentary on GB energy.
It does identify some of the key causes of high electricity prices - including Britain’s high exposure to gas prices and rising network costs. But there’s a lot it leaves out…
I find the "voters only care about the cost of living" narrative a bit cynical. No doubt it is the most important issue and an election decider.
But if the implication is "oh our voters just want cheap energy. They don't care about social values," that reads quite patronising.
My blog today on three steps the Government should take to put the local gov reform agenda back on track:
#1 Create their own map
#2 Adopt the "Cornwall solution" in the shires
#3 Leave straggler local authorities with chaotic local politics behind
Also depend on the specific part of the immigration proposal in question.
IMO, all of it is pretty bad, but the rebellion against some parts (settlement for people already here) is probably gonna draw the most opposition and have more room to grow (as MPs process the implications)
Yes. Sorry. That is what I meant. It is not primary legislation. But I guess the PLP can force one.
Unfortunately, settlement changes to legal migration rule does not need a vote in the commons.
Hoping the PLP can convince them to backdown still
This is probably related to the increasing sorting of personalities into political sides.
Especially on the extreme of the right, u get a voter coalition that is more anti-social and cynical.
The coalition on the centre left has far fewer such personalities (though it has its own flaws)
“Were told who to vote”. That is a campaign. If he didn’t try to tell people who to vote, what was his campaign for???
Right? We r not perfect but we r exemplary in many ways.
The country has problems. But at least we can make everyone feel included as equal companions in said problems.
Their immigration reform, especially on settlement, was a political move to appeal to voters. And it may have costed them votes in this election.
That feels symbolic of many things in this Gov. And while I think they delivered a lot of good things, I can’t fault people not voting Labour over this
Often parties on the centre left don’t account for how angry and cynical people can be.
Labour assumed its voters were more cynical then they were (i.e. refusing to believe many were very committed to liberal principles or that they would stomach a general tax rise with the right argument)
The worst part is that I get why they did not vote Labour even though I really disagree with that reasoning.
I am at a loss for what action is possible too. But ultimately, the only thing that could snap the party out of it is pain like this. At least that is what I tell myself.
A much better sell would be: “do u actually want ur elections to be hundred of localized game theories in which the price of coordination failure is electing someone u hate?”
“I cited Thomas.”
“Clarence?”
“No. Acquinas.”
U know how economists sometimes treat disasters as natural experiment for research?
I wonder if political scientists r using this as a natural experiment for “what if no political actors r behaving rationally?”
