Sunak visits homeless shelter for the purposes of In the Thick of it type excruciating exchanges. Rishi - Do you work in business? Homeless Man - No, I’m homeless. https://news.sky.com/video/share-12774169
Favourite part of the exchange was: - 'I used to work in finance' - 'Yeah, I know, investment banking' - 'I did a few roles...'
Today's WTF moment from Mad Nad: Boris Johnson could be back in Downing Street by next Christmas Nadine Dorries predicts Well worth clicking that link to hear Rachel Johnson's (relation) defence of de Pfeffel.
It would be crazy, but what will the Tories do, if in another year or so they still look like being on the end of a tonking? Will they go quietly into the night or will there be a highly enjoyable round of bloodletting? If the latter, all bets are off. Of course, if they do get Johnson back they will get thrashed. It would be madness. But no option looks good for them right now.
I've just read Owen Jones's latest drivel think-piece where he makes the most extraordinary claim (quoting de Pfeffel): FFS! He's right:
Some quite interesting research (primarily out of America but also mirrored in the UK) that Millennials are not moving further to the right in their views as every generation before them has done. Gen X slowed the trend down a bit but Millennials are going in the opposite direction. Initially I thought this would be the result of making it very difficult to buy a house before their parents die, creating an insecure labour market, paying them lower wages until they're deemed to be grown ups, making it harder for them to start families until later, then demonising them for buying coffees or wanting to go on holiday. However, the data journalist John Burn-Murdoch points out in a very interesting Twitter thread that it's more complicated than that. Always found it odd that the Tories would hitch their wagon so firmly to older voters. The 'old man yelling at a cloud' battalion that's so useful to the right in the culture war is not going to be around for ever. Younger people are the ones who are going to shift the economy away from exploitative and unrewarding work and towards a universal income. You'd think a savvy billionaire [sic] like Sunak would be a little better at reading the future. But no, he's hellbent on making people work harder while they also become poorer. Not smart politics at all.
I think the "old man yelling at the clouds" has been a permanent feature up until now because the "leftie hippie" type grew into them as they got older. The traditional right wing base was constantly being refreshed, as were the young activist traditionally left leaning supporters. It will be interesting if that trend has changed. I wonder if climate change has a part to play in that? If someone fundamentally believes that the consumer led traditional capitalism is the cause of climate change and a direct threat to our future, will their opinion be as easily swayed as they age?
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1608746369505976323?s=20&t=4Vb0Fv0p_BeEcbnSMDNr2A Quite a lot of good points in the comments too.
It's because Boomers were handed the world on a stick and then completely made a mess of things. Meanwhile, Millennials and Zoomers have come of age into an absolutely ****ed up society and have grown up watching right wing failure after failure every step of the way, while all the while being pissed on and told it's actually rain. Small wonder they're rejecting the traditional narrative. The recent US midterms saw an incredible level of engagement from voting age Zoomers. My intern is early 20s and he didn't know a single person in his age circle who wasn't planning to vote, which is an enormous difference versus earlier generations. The upcoming US generation is extremely politically active and engaged, well beyond you'd expect for their age group based on historical trends, and if they remain that way the US right wing is in spectacular trouble. I wouldn't be surprised to see this pattern mirrored in the UK.
It wasn’t exactly ‘the World on a Stick’ but there was social housing and increasing home ownership (both now in decline), good in work pensions for many, a largely functional health service as well as a free university education for many and nationalised utilities that kept costs down. Those things are all gone because neo-liberalism demanded that wealth must be extracted from all of those social transactions and the state must be as small a burden as possible to the ruling class. Instead we have ideology. Privatised services are neither better or cheaper and have meant the huge growth of in work benefits. Landlordism and property speculation has meant soaring costs for renters and a decline in home ownership. Assets constructed often more than 100 years ago are worth millions and beyond the class that used to reside in many of them. An angry population sees this decline in their wealth and in the services they receive. Are carefully directed towards immigration, the EU. Anything but the ruling class.
I simply can't agree with that. They grew up in the aftermath of a world devasted by two closely consecutive World Wars, where a significant percentage of the population above them had been killed. Enormous reconstruction efforts went into effect. They were able to buy incredibly cheap houses and ride the values all the way up. They were able to progress their careers with easy upward mobility due to lack of competition from older workers due to workforce shortages caused by the enormous casualties of working age men in the World Wars. The Boomers largely had it very, very easy and then pulled the ladder up behind them.
What do you mean they pulled up the ladder? Who are you talking about? Just saying “Boomers” tells us nothing, 99.99% of them had no influence in economics or politics. They just went on living their lives like everyone else does at any time. Ridiculous generalisation.
99.99% had no influence in politics? Very strange thing to say when you're talking about representative democracies. Have you heard of voting?
So they deliberately voted in such a way as to deprive future generations of the ability to buy property at cheap prices or to have an easy career progression? I genuinely don’t understand what you are on about, but you seem to have an enormous chip on your shoulder.
The world is the one they've formed, yes. If it makes you feel better, #NotAllBoomers. The overall arc of the generation is stark and obvious though.
Right, so you’re basically slagging off an entire generation who simply did what they thought was best for them and their families at that time, just as most people do today (of course there are exceptions, as there were then). That’s just lazy and nasty ageism, I’m afraid.
No, I'm "basically" not. I'm criticizing years of poor economic management and poor social policy that has resulted in borderline broken societies, seeing generations saddled with debt. I'm criticizing a generation that has largely sided with cutting taxes again and again and again, continuing championing the now-obvious lie of trickle down economics, leaving public funding in an absolute mess and making crumbling infrastructure and poorly performing schools a reality. I'm criticizing a generation that had roundly ignored science again and again, valuing feels over facts and doing absolutely nothing to address the climate disaster that is already unfolding before our eyes. You can dismiss that as "ageism" if you like, but given that age has absolutely nothing to do with these criticisms that's a pretty poor argument, to put it mildly. The legacy of the Boomers is objectively beyond awful, not because of their age but because as a collective they have consistently made horrendous decisions that the generations after them will be feeling for decades to come. They have not been remotely good stewards. And frankly, someone "simply doing what was best for them" is more than reason enough to criticize them if what was best for them came at the expense of others, without a wider consideration of the impact to others/future generations. That's borderline sociopathic behavior. You can't just handwave that away.
Well, it is ageism because you are labelling a particular generation (you explicitly laid the blame at the door of “Boomers”). That’s what really irks me about this generational stuff, it’s borderline discrimination in its generalisation. If you had said that about a race, or a religion, it would have been totally unacceptable. Tens of millions of people were born in that era. Are you saying that they are all the same? But to come back to the point. Yes, plenty of people (absolutely not an entire generation, though) voted for lower taxes. Plenty of people still do that today, don’t they? In fact, they have been doing it for decades, maybe centuries. It’s unpleasant for those of us who are somewhat left of centre, but it’s ultimately a product of human self-interest. I don’t see that any generation is any more culpable in that respect than any other. Unless, that is, you bring in ideology, as Moose suggests. In which case, blame Reagan, Thatcher etc, not the millions of ordinary people. I don’t think people do just do what is best for themselves, no. They consider their children, and their children’s children. What most people don’t consider is the rest of society outside their small little worlds. That’s very unfortunate, I agree - but I don’t think it’s generational. Perhaps I am wrong - I may not live to see it though.
While I agree that there are horrific boomer attitudes and entitlement (just look at any thread a right wing older person starts on Twitter about young people), it was never as easy across society as you make out. Many never got on the property ladder and through job insecurity, periodic recession, many fell off again. That’s why, amongst the retirement riches, there is huge pensioner poverty. Many also worked very hard, in roles that were not rewarding and took into older age poor health, that they will now queue until they die for treatment for. Most boomers also retain a belief in a socialised economy. Support for the NHS, the BBC, for state support remains strong. But they are easily manipulated around culture to feel they are under threat from a variety of permissive and external forces rather than the economic medicine they are conned to accept. So they still vote for parties that fail to invest in them and put first the needs of the wealthy.
I’m not sure the generation born between 1946 & 1964 can be roundly blamed for Thatcherism & Reganomics; many weren’t even eligible to vote when they were first elected. In the UK the 1950s and early 1960s saw Tory governments elected by the boomers’ parents and much of the lack of adequate investment to take advantage of the opportunities on offer occurred then. It could be said that UK won the war but lost the peace. It may sound ridiculous, but many people in that era truly saw even ‘democratic socialism’ as the thin end of a much-feared Communist wedge.
Why we are f**ed part #34531 Some no mark banging on about "boomers" Listen pointdexter , if your parents or grandparents didn't buy their property because they were idle no marks , and left nothing to you after their passing , don't blame those who did . If you wish to apportion blame . Then look at the grave stones
More drivel from the government today as it desperately scraps around to pull together some sort of agenda. "Do more maffs" is the policy of the day. Will there be more funding for schools and post-16 education places, teacher training and incentives to bring in private sector folk into secondary education? Will there squat. It's just complete fantasy land stuff.
It's a well known fact that there are oodles of redundant modern languages teachers out there who could easily be re-trained to teach A-Level Maths...and they'd do it for the love of it.
Boomers, Zoomers, Millennials, Gen X.... what does it all mean? Bring back young adults, the middle aged and senior citizens
It does make you wonder what GCSE Maths is for if that’s now suddenly insufficient for students staying on to do Drama or Art. Pure In the Thick of It policy most likely to put some maths weary kids off post 16 education. But what exactly is it you want the private sector to do in secondary education? Teach kids how to bid low for a public sector contract and how to litigate away the bits of it they can’t fulfil?
What I really hate is how millions and billions seem to be quite interchangeable terms these days. As an example, Ross Clark (right wing journo) was being interviewed on LBC a couple of weeks ago and he stated in a very authorative manner that there was no money left for decent public sector pay increases as the governemnt was struggling with huge national debt and it was costing £100 million per year to finance this debt. He didn't correct himself, the presenter didn't pick him up and as far as I know no one rang in to correct this error. I wonder if you surveyed 100 people at random what proportion would know how many millions there are in a billion?
I meant attracting prospective teachers into the profession who have otherwise been doing maffs related stuff in the private sector and either haven't considered teaching as a career choice or have ruled out it based on crummy terms and conditions. Probably didn't make that awfully clear.
It would make much more sense to me for them to include more practical subjects up to 18 rather than force all kids to do advanced maths. What they need know how to open a bank account, what APR means, how to calculate the real cost of pay day loans, how to manage a household budget etc etc Your average person doesn't have any use for trigonometry, logarithms etc.
Migrant crisis, NHS on its ar5e, rampant inflation, people can't afford to turn the heating on, trains not running.... the country is clearly crying out for 18 year olds to be given more maths lessons. Unbelievable
[Anecdote]When I was attached to the RCA in lieu of an end of term ball it was decided to run a 'charity night' on the swanky new outdoor decking I would run a pontoon 'school'. We weren't getting much 'action' so this was, on the fly, changed into a blackjack table. It was when the rules were explained for the 100th time that I realised that very, very few of the (UK) students (4* in the RAE at the time - all studying for postgrad degrees) could add-up to 21.[Anecdote] The post-16 maths may be in areas that might be 'better' for the kids such as geometry and probability/risk?
