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[Deleted member 231381]

AB, C1, C2, etc. aren't necessarily indicators of top earners. For example, a lot of people in C2 (skilled manual occupation) earn significantly more than some people in AB (intermediate managerial). The use of the AB/C1/C2/DE division as a good means of measuring class continually frustrates me because it is an incredibly outmoded conception of class that stopped fitting in the early 1980s as the UK moved away from being a manufacturing economy; it leads people to incredibly dubious conclusions because of an initial faulty assumption.

The relevant boundaries to class in the modern era are: home owner vs. non-home owner (as a proxy for net wealth), retired vs non-retired (as a proxy for running down assets as opposed to running up assets), and level of education (as a proxy for lifetime expected earnings).

 

[CCS]

People say this and I think it's an exaggeration. He inherited a strong institutional set-up that meant Canada was shielded from the worst economic damage was it was. At that point you just plug the numbers into the Taylor Rule and adjust the interest rate accordingly.

Spoiler

My economics tutor is on the shadow MPC committee and does not approve of Carney, so my inherited opinion may be biased.

Haha fair enough, not really for me to argue about because I'm probably even more biased

 

[Huw_Dawson]

*I'm teasing, but old, centre ground, economy first liberal is..hardly a maverick.

Cable was once described by Clegg as "not one of nature's team players" - I mean it in that sense. He's the person most likely to knock heads together to get things done.

 

[Spuck-uk]

AB, C1, C2, etc. aren't necessarily indicators of top earners. For example, a lot of people in C2 (skilled manual occupation) earn significantly more than some people in AB (intermediate managerial). The use of the AB/C1/C2/DE division as a good means of measuring class continually frustrates me because it is an incredibly outmoded conception of class that stopped fitting in the early 1980s as the UK moved away from being a manufacturing economy; it leads people to incredibly dubious conclusions because of an initial faulty assumption.

'Numbers don't match my pre-existing biases, so I shall ignore them'

Any way you slice it, voting intention doesn't break along income much at all. Age however..

 

[QuicheFontaine]

it doesn't surprise me that a leave voter would dislike an expert

What's with leave voters always talking down on ur experts?

We're tired of experts!

I hate that experts don't lie to make me feel better about questionable decisions I've made.

Please, I don't have a problem with experts.

People say this and I think it's an exaggeration. He inherited a strong institutional set-up that meant Canada was shielded from the worst economic damage was it was. At that point you just plug the numbers into the Taylor Rule and adjust the interest rate accordingly.

My economics tutor is on the shadow MPC committee and does not approve of Carney, so my inherited opinion may be biased.

That guy kinda sounds like an expert.

 

[Theonik]

'Numbers don't match my pre-existing biases, so I shall ignore them'

Any way you slice it, voting intention doesn't break along income much at all. Age however..

That's exactly his point. It's not a useful way of discerning earnings anymore and it doesn't reflect political leaning so it's not very useful.
Edit: In fact from the same YouGov data:

 

[KingSnake]

Reading Hammond's Brexit speech, they have already caved in pretty much in everything

- two phases in negotiations
- immigration/migration still needed
- UK will need to stay in for just a bit longer to avoid cliff edge
- free trade is important
- city is important

Hilarious.

Wait! Why do you even leave then?

 

[Theonik]

Wait! Why do you even leave then?

Because the people voted to leave.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

'Numbers don't match my pre-existing biases, so I shall ignore them'

Any way you slice it, voting intention doesn't break along income much at all. Age however..

Income is only weakly indicative of class, and becomes less and less correlated over time. There's a very shoddy understanding of what class actually means in modern journalism, I think because there's not enough study of the history and historiography of economics required in most undergraduate economics courses that then go on to inform journalists. Your class is not your income. It is not your wealth (although it does track wealth much better than income).

Your class is your relation to the means of production, or put another way, the extent to which you rely on labour rather than on capital for your means of subsistence, and then the type of labour and the type of capital you rely on.

The majority of capital-ownership in this country is in property, so the single biggest determinant of class is whether you own your own home compared to whether you rent.

The second biggest determinant of class is your expectations of what your capital relationship will be - whether you're trying to run up savings or in the process of using your savings, or in other words whether you're retired or not. In the last approximately 30 years the retired have emerged as a distinct class because of the gap between retirement age and life expectancy (and this is why we see such a large divergence in vote with age that didn't exist 30 years ago).

The third biggest determinant of class is the rate at which we expect this direction to move, and this mostly applies to those accruing capital. We're not concerned with present earnings here but expected earnings - e.g., 4 years ago I earnt nothing (being a student) but putting me in the lowest class would have been an exceptionally stupid thing to do since my expected lifetime earnings are quite high thanks to my degree and education. Happily, education is one of the best predictors of lifetime expected earnings.

Now try plotting Labour and Conservative voting shares against: home-ownership, employment status, and educational attainment. Noticing a big correlation? Bam, class matters. Age matters because it tracks these.

 

[PJV3]

Because the people voted to leave.

I hope if we ever use referenda again it is at the end of the process, vote and then make it up as you go along is the opposite of democracy in my eyes.

 

[mclem]

It'll most likely be a fight between him, Norman Lamb and Ed Davey. Vince is the clear favourite now - well known, has worked with Swinson before, liked in the media and is a bit of a maverick.

Also the proud owner of a 10 from Len. Not many people can claim that.

(Although, to be fair, that's a Christmas Ten, you can probably knock off a few marks for a score in real competition)

 

[firehawk12]

People say this and I think it's an exaggeration. He inherited a strong institutional set-up that meant Canada was shielded from the worst economic damage was it was. At that point you just plug the numbers into the Taylor Rule and adjust the interest rate accordingly.

Spoiler

My economics tutor is on the shadow MPC committee and does not approve of Carney, so my inherited opinion may be biased.

Yeah, Canada didn't really need any management because of prior regulations that prevented exotic investments.

 

[gun_haver]

Some things just shouldn't be put to the public as a simple question. I get that formally, you can't just ignore the way people voted, but there's basically no intellectual legitimacy to this 'decision' to leave the EU. The government, and the half of country who didn't get stupid, are basically being forced to pretend that this is somehow a reasonable thing to do and it's pathetic and embarrassing for everyone.

You could whip up enough shit and get a vote passed that bans Muslims from the UK. You could whip up shit and get anything reactionary and hateful passed, really. That's all this EU exit is, an exercise in hate and we're all less for even acquiescing to the idea it is anything else. I recognise that there are people on the left who are sceptical of the EU because it is neoliberal, and that I can respect - I might even agree with it when I eventually look into it - but I think 99% of the UK's popultation doesn't even understand enough about the EU to think about it on that complex a level. It was 'get the immigrants out' and 'make britain empire again'.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I'm fine with there having been an EU referendum. The EU puts pretty fundamental constitutional constraints on us. Constitutional matters are exactly the sort of thing that should be put to referenda, simply because politicians shouldn't be able to manipulate constitutional matters themselves - that's putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse. The process of leaving the EU is so complicated and demanding that if a government triggered Article 50, went through all that process, and then had a referendum at the end, and then people voted No, it would have been an enormous and tragic waste of time. The referendum quite clearly has to come at the start of the process.

So I don't think the problem was the referendum. I think the problem was that, fundamentally, the Remain side utterly failed in their duty to present a convincing and compelling case.

 

[Xun]

Some things just shouldn't be put to the public as a simple question. I get that formally, you can't just ignore the way people voted, but there's basically no intellectual legitimacy to this 'decision' to leave the EU. The government, and the half of country who didn't get stupid, are basically being forced to pretend that this is somehow a reasonable thing to do and it's pathetic and embarrassing for everyone.

You could whip up enough shit and get a vote passed that bans Muslims from the UK. You could whip up shit and get anything reactionary and hateful passed, really. That's all this EU exit is, an exercise in hate and we're all less for even acquiescing to the idea it is anything else. I recognise that there are people on the left who are sceptical of the EU because it is neoliberal, and that I can respect - I might even agree with it when I eventually look into it - but I think 99% of the UK's popultation doesn't even understand enough about the EU to think about it on that complex a level. It was 'get the immigrants out' and 'make britain empire again'.

Well said.

The amount of ignorance I still see on Facebook by Brexit voters is so incredibly frustrating.

I wish only they had to suffer the consequences of this whole mess.

 

[mclem]

So I don't think the problem was the referendum. I think the problem was that, fundamentally, the Remain side utterly failed in their duty to present a convincing and compelling case.

How do you present a case against a fantasy? Through the various campaign, the Leave option was presented as "Everything you like from EU membership, without the bits you don't". All things to all people!

Reality just can't compete. Not that I don't think Remain could have done better, but the problem was they were fighting on a completely different battlefield.

 

[CCS]

I'm fine with there having been an EU referendum. The EU puts pretty fundamental constitutional constraints on us. Constitutional matters are exactly the sort of thing that should be put to referenda, simply because politicians shouldn't be able to manipulate constitutional matters themselves - that's putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse. The process of leaving the EU is so complicated and demanding that if a government triggered Article 50, went through all that process, and then had a referendum at the end, and then people voted No, it would have been an enormous and tragic waste of time. The referendum quite clearly has to come at the start of the process.

So I don't think the problem was the referendum. I think the problem was that, fundamentally, the Remain side utterly failed in their duty to present a convincing and compelling case.

I disagree: if you're having a referendum, it has to be at the end of the process. In a normal election, if politicians lie and promise things they can't deliver, people can vote them out at the next election. But in the referendum, Leavers could lie and promise single market access and controlled immigration, and by the time that is shown to be a lie nothing can be done about it. In a situation where you can't have a second vote, the delivery on promises has to come before the vote rather than after.

 

[RetroDLC]

Japan-EU trade deal in sight as gaps narrow on autos, farm produce

Japan and the European Union are in the final phase of wrapping up a wide-ranging agreement on free trade early next month, seeking to strike deals on sensitive issues, such as access to the agriculture and automobile markets.

The two sides plan to scrap the 28-member bloc's 10 percent tariff on Japanese cars some 10 years after the trade deal takes effect, sources said recently.

The bloc is also eyeing an immediate elimination of tariffs on around 80 percent of auto parts exported from Japan, which currently stand at 3 to 4.5 percent, the sources said.

Progress on the auto negotiations would be a boost for Japan, which in 2016 exported some 600,000 cars to the EU. In return, however, the bloc is likely to force Tokyo to make concessions on agricultural access.

EU, Japan launch big push to seal trade deal by July

Japanese and European negotiators are redoubling efforts to seal a political agreement early next month on what would be the EU's biggest free trade deal.

Sources from five EU countries said the goal of the latest whirlwind of diplomatic activity is for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe to jet into Brussels for a summit July 5 or 6, ahead of a G20 summit in Hamburg on July 7. The intention is to reach a political deal covering more than 90 percent of a trade agreement, leaving only a handful of issues to be resolved later.

European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström wants to cast the EU as the new global leader in free trade, and a deal with the world's third-biggest economy would issue a defiant counter-blast against U.S. President Donald Trump's protectionist agenda. In recent remarks, Malmström called an accord with Tokyo her "main priority in the short term."

If our auto industry is so fucking important, isn't this reason enough to stay in the EU?

 

[*Splinter]

So I don't think the problem was the referendum. I think the problem was that, fundamentally, the Remain side utterly failed in their duty to present a convincing and compelling case.

I wanted to argue, but you're right. It's easy to say "the status quo can't compete with a pack of pleasing lies", but... it was the leave campaign's job to convince people to vote Leave, and they were more successful in that than the remain campaign were. They can (and will) lie all they like as long as it's not illegal...


...and on that note, is it possible to force politicians / political campaigns to be more truthful? Have any countries experimented with this?

 

[theaface]

How do you present a case against a fantasy? Through the various campaign, the Leave option was presented as "Everything you like from EU membership, without the bits you don't". All things to all people!

You can't*. Any rebuttals to lies and fantasy were labelled as scaremongering and 'Project Fear'.

*You can. Tighter regulation of the press to explicitly prohibit presenting subjective opinion as objective fact, and harsher penalties than a retraction the size of a postage stamp for printing front page lies.**

**You can't. This will never happen.

 

[*Splinter]

You can't*. Any rebuttals to lies and fantasy were labelled as scaremongering and 'Project Fear'.

*You can. Tighter regulation of the press to explicitly prohibit presenting subjective opinion as objective fact, and harsher penalties than a retraction the size of a postage stamp for printing front page lies.**

**You can't. This will never happen.

This would definitely help, and I don't think it's impossible. Seems like the kind of thing Labour should be considering without including in their manifesto (they can do that, right?).

 

[TimmmV]

I wanted to argue, but you're right. It's easy to say "the status quo can't compete with a pack of pleasing lies", but... it was the leave campaign's job to convince people to vote Leave, and they were more successful in that than the remain campaign were. They can (and will) lie all they like as long as it's not illegal...


...and on that note, is it possible to force politicians / political campaigns to be more truthful? Have any countries experimented with this?

Even if it had been illegal, how do you stop them doing it?

It would basically be like with the press reporting mistruths now - they can later make a correction, but if enough people want the lie to be true, they will believe it anyway.

I mean, just look at the bloody bus. So many people tried to say that wasn't true before the vote happened, but it didn't matter and the number stuck

So I don't think the problem was the referendum. I think the problem was that, fundamentally, the Remain side utterly failed in their duty to present a convincing and compelling case.

They should have at least allowed EU residents in the UK & UK residents in the EU vote in it. It's mental these groups were ignored given how much they rely on FOM existing

It still really pisses me off that my migrant uncle from the Seychelles was allowed to vote in it as a commonwealth citizen (lived here for about 5 years), and I wasn't as an EU citizen (lived here for 28 years)

 

[JonnyDBrit]

It's still weird to me that Boris freaking Johnson, even as he was arguing for Leave, was able to call out the Remain side for not arguing the benefits of a federalised Europe more. In hindsight, it honestly seems like he was going *wink wink, nudge nudge* to Cameron and co.

 

[*Splinter]

Even if it had been illegal, how do you stop them doing it?

It would basically be like with the press reporting mistruths now - they can later make a correction, but if enough people want the lie to be true, they will believe it anyway.

I mean, just look at the bloody bus. So many people tried to say that wasn't true before the vote happened, but it didn't matter and the number stuck

That bus seems like a good example of something that would be easy to legislate against, although you'd need much harsher penalties than the press currently get or I agree it wouldn't do anything.

(I suspect it wouldn't work anyway - you can probably always leave enough ambiguity in your statements to get around any law on truthfulness. Just curious if any country has tried it anyway).

 

[Spuck-uk]

The absolutely ludicrous lie that 'The EU needs us more than we need them', fed right into a lot of peoples Nationalistic delusions about 'Grate Britane'.

The thumb headed eejits voted for the pleasing lie much like they voted for 'Make america Great Again'. Simple populist sloganeering with not a whiff of fact to back it up.

 

[Xando]

It's still weird to me that Boris freaking Johnson, even as he was arguing for Leave, was able to call out the Remain side for not arguing the benefits of a federalised Europe more. In hindsight, it honestly seems like he was going *wink wink, nudge nudge* to Cameron and co.

I'm not suprised.
Boris is an opportunist. He thought by supporting leave he could become PM. Just like he will backstab May to try and become PM when the time is right.

I'd recon he'd sell his own mum to become PM.

 

[*Splinter]

I'm not suprised.
Boris is an opportunist. He thought by supporting leave he could become PM. Just like he will backstab May to try and become PM when the time is right.

I'd recon he'd sell his own mum to become PM.

I think the surprising part was Boris hinting at a better remain campaign while campaigning for leave.

If I'm interpreting Jonny's post correctly.

 

[Theonik]

I think the surprising part was Boris hinting at a better remain campaign while campaigning for leave.

If I'm interpreting Jonny's post correctly.

Well Cameron was a muppet. Even Corbyn whose party tried to crucify for not campaigning hard enough did a lot more to convince his voters to remain than Cameron did.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I disagree: if you're having a referendum, it has to be at the end of the process. In a normal election, if politicians lie and promise things they can't deliver, people can vote them out at the next election. But in the referendum, Leavers could lie and promise single market access and controlled immigration, and by the time that is shown to be a lie nothing can be done about it. In a situation where you can't have a second vote, the delivery on promises has to come before the vote rather than after.

This creates an untenable situation, though. If the government issues an Article 50 notification and goes to the EU with the explicit declaration that there will be a referendum at the end of the process between the deal offered and leaving, then the EU can just promise the worst possible offer in the knowledge that it will then get rejected. It makes it functionally impossible to leave the EU. If there is a declaration that the UK will definitely leave, then the EU doesn't have that same incentive, and it instead becomes in their interests to negotiate a deal both sides can live with.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

I think the surprising part was Boris hinting at a better remain campaign while campaigning for leave.

If I'm interpreting Jonny's post correctly.

Well, I think that's kinda Xando's point - he's not surprised that Boris would be doing that, since Boris ultimately wasn't likely committed to Leave as much as he claimed to be. So trying to tell Cameron how to win wouldn't be that out there.

 

[Xando]

Well, I think that's kinda Xando's point - he's not surprised that Boris would be doing that, since Boris ultimately wasn't likely committed to Leave as much as he claimed to me. So trying to tell Cameron how to win wouldn't be that out there.

Exactly.

Boris went to leave because he thought it would ultimately pay off for him.
Imo he would have been a remainer if he thought it would help him personally.
I don't think he cared either way as long as he made personal gains.

 

[Maledict]

Yep, Boris never had any intent on winning. Neither did Gove. Boris did it because he thought they would narrowly lose and that would crown him king of the brexiteers, which would guarantee a win for him against George Osborne when Cameron stepped down. As always, it was entirely about internal Tory party politics and nothing to do with what's best for the country.

Similar, ultimately, to why labour ballsed up its campaign. Seamus Milne and the rest didn't want to campaign strongly to be in Europe because they thought they would get tied to the tories in the north and lose tons of voters to UKIP like they did in Scotland after the referendum there.

Neither party was actually, really trying to do what was best. Both were riven with party politics. Oddly enough the person who campaigned the hardest to stay in Europe was Cameron...

 

[Spaghetti]

Oddly enough the person who campaigned the hardest to stay in Europe was Cameron...

Which is of no surprise considering his political career was on the line.

The EU Referendum was just a big exercise in self-serving politics, wasn't it?

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Cameron struggled, though, because the reason he wanted to stay in Europe was not the same as the sort of reasons that would have appealed to the average British voter.

Honestly, it was just a mess all round. I don't think history will judge Cameron very kindly.

 

[JonnyDBrit]

Cameron struggled, though, because the reason he wanted to stay in Europe was not the same as the sort of reasons that would have appealed to the average British voter.

Honestly, it was just a mess all round. I don't think history will judge Cameron very kindly.

I do think his biggest achievement will be the passing of same-sex marriage. Unambiguously positive and displayed a certain degree of principle, since he split his party over it.

But then, not many remember Lord Wolfenden's name either...

 

[plagiarize]

It amuses me greatly how little time it took for Britain to see it has zero leverage here, caving on the simultaneous trade negotiations in barely any time at all.

 

[nelsonroyale]

RADICAL CENTRISM TO THE RESCUE!*

They are actually trying to convince us this is a thing haha...'Pragmatic, neo-liberal centrism' has failed, but it won't admit it.

Behold, a wild Macron has appeared on the scene!

 

[Khoryos]

Exactly.

Boris went to leave because he thought it would ultimately pay off for him.
Imo he would have been a remainer if he thought it would help him personally.
I don't think he cared either way as long as he made personal gains.

I don't know, Boris had been agitating against the EU for decades - going back to when he was the Brussels correspondent for the Torygraph.

 

[Spaghetti]

The Conservatives I know are very eager to bring up passing gay marriage as an example of social progress made by their party.

Where that falls apart is that on both the second and third readings of the bill, more Conservative MPs voted against it rather than for it, and even at the House of Lords level there were only 14 more votes in support of the bill than ones that reject it from the Conservatives.

It passed by the grace of progressive parties, who voted overwhelmingly in support of the bill.

Cameron knew they would, but I don't think his party deserves any praise for it.

 

[tomtom94]

For some reason I keep picturing Vince Cable as Donald Sumpter aka That Guy Who Is In Everything:

 

[itsbenoclock]

Conservative voters dying out at rate of 2% per year, Lord Heseltine warns

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/conservative-voters-dying-off-lord-michael-heseltine-tory-part-elderly-support-base-pensioners-a7798386.html

Further calls for May to get oot

 

[FlammableD]

Conservative voters dying out at rate of 2% per year, Lord Heseltine warns

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/conservative-voters-dying-off-lord-michael-heseltine-tory-part-elderly-support-base-pensioners-a7798386.html

 

[TimmmV]

The Conservatives I know are very eager to bring up passing gay marriage as an example of social progress made by their party.

Where that falls apart is that on both the second and third readings of the bill, more Conservative MPs voted against it rather than for it, and even at the House of Lords level there were only 14 more votes in support of the bill than ones that reject it from the Conservatives.

It passed by the grace of progressive parties, who voted overwhelmingly in support of the bill.

Cameron knew they would, but I don't think his party deserves any praise for it.

I wouldn't even be that generous tbh

Its 2017. You shouldn't get praise for managing to convince yourselves to treat gay people as equals, it should be the absolute bare minimum!

 

[Hazzuh]

Total money raised during the course of the election (only counting donations over £7.5k):

 

[Meadows]

Conservative voters dying out at rate of 2% per year, Lord Heseltine warns

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/conservative-voters-dying-off-lord-michael-heseltine-tory-part-elderly-support-base-pensioners-a7798386.html

Further calls for May to get oot

Doesn't this logic completely miss that middle age voters graduate to become pensioner voters and the cycle continues?

Like it isn't the case that there's an ever increasing number of young people and a shrinking number of older voters...

Total money raised during the course of the election (only counting donations over £7.5k):

I'm a feminist but the Women's Equality Party is an absolute waste of time with our electoral system. All it does is funnel votes away from progressive parties and towards the Conservatives. They're like the UKIP of the left (along with the Greens).

 

[theaface]

Conservative voters dying out at rate of 2% per year, Lord Heseltine warns

So what happens when you reconcile these two things? Are the older Conservative voters being 'replenished' at a similar rate to how quickly they're dying?

 

[Chinner]

Doesn't this logic completely miss that middle age voters graduate to become pensioner voters and the cycle continues?

Like it isn't the case that there's an ever increasing number of young people and a shrinking number of older voters...

.

I read that this idea isn't 100% accurate, and political preferences is also generational. I have no facts to back this up tho.

 

[Coriolanus]

Cameron struggled, though, because the reason he wanted to stay in Europe was not the same as the sort of reasons that would have appealed to the average British voter.

Honestly, it was just a mess all round. I don't think history will judge Cameron very kindly.

Nor should it, tbh.

 

[Maledict]

I don't know, Boris had been agitating against the EU for decades - going back to when he was the Brussels correspondent for the Torygraph.

Yes, but never as a serious rabid brexiter. He did it because it got him press coverage and work, not because he's fanatical about restoring the empire like Jacob Rees-Mogg (one of the most loathesome individuals to ever sit in parliament).

 

[itsbenoclock]

So what happens when you reconcile these two things? Are the older Conservative voters being 'replenished' at a similar rate to how quickly they're dying?

Those stats are only based on the current electorate for 2017 though, right? So it doesn't necessarily mean all voters in 20 years time are likely to follow the same gradient. If there were stats across the last 50 years that showed the same gradient it would be more significant imo