Brexit vote: The breakdown

mayonnaise

mrginge wrote: »

Not really hamish because they have nowt at the moment.
So it'll be you who has to fork out all the extra tax to keep paying their benefits.

Unlucky mate.

Benefits?
I thought those disaffected Brexit voting underclasses - once freed from the shackles of the EU - would turn into highly skilled, highly paid Empire Beer brewing professionals making a roaring success of our Nimble Tiger Economy?

Sapphire

Moby wrote: »

I always groan when I see the 'people I know' post knowing it's actually code for what 'I' think.;)

Sorry you can't do better than that. Idiot.

Conrad

Moby wrote: »

I always groan when I see the 'people I know' post knowing it's actually code for what 'I' think.;)

I always groan when people place their faith in hugely naïve out of touch liberal academics.


I prefer some expert input but I test this against real world lived experience. A pompous liberal pontificating over 'expert' evidence on immigrants and benefits, is a major red warning light.


Liberal luvvies adore the anecdotes told them by indigenous peoples when on their travels to far flung lands. I see them hooked on every word of the sand bushman or indigenous Australian, talking of their lives in the bush, marvelling at the wealth of ANECTOTAL experience. Simon Reeves for example.


Trust a luvvie to apply a double standard when it comes to the lived experiences of white working class - 'its just anecdote informed by the gutter press'

Conrad

michaels wrote: »

You are so right Hamish, when an employer in the service sector with a vacancy to fill can get unlimited eu labour at minimum wage rather than having to increase wages to attract local labour and is thus able to keep pices low for his middle class customes, it is the lower paid worker who gets no raise who benefits at the expense of the middle class customer who is forced to continue buying cheaper coffee......:rotfl:

In the north I have heard people talking of huge resentment at how the lucrative shifts were taken entirely by immigrants - to met with the usual sneering contempt from liberals suggesting only immigrants work those shifts (it's as if in 2004 Blair ordered all Brits to become lazy)


I love authoritarian liberals brining me up to speed - I had no idea that pre-Blair we had no cabbages or plums as no one ever picked them.


Turns out that prior to mass immigration the NHS was unable to function, wow, amazing that Germany and France recruit almost their entire health needs from within. Us British are too dozey to train and encourage young people into nursing apparently


Or perhaps we simply don't bother, as it's easier to import ready made nurses from very poor countries - don't you just love Africa being denuded of its vital skills, hooray for compassion

lush_walrus

mwpt wrote: »

I think you need to learn how percentages work. When you use the word "only" that implies 100%. Scroll up and see if there any 100% figures there?

Oh the irony, thank you for your suggestion to 'learn how percentages work' - as you have been so courteous, let me help you too - the elderly and poor are not one and the same? There are such things as wealthy elders and poor youths. And in which unique situation can you guarantee 100 percent result... Now put those two thoughts together and?

Whoopsy

kabayiri

We can argue about the sample set or the limitations of the survey until the cows come home.

What interests me is the mere existence of the survey. It does feel like the bodies trying to help steer or support government are struggling to understand the changing attitudes amongst the electorate.

We spent about half a billion pounds on a once in a decade Census, and yet the people behind it admitted in private that the data would already be out of date by the time it was processed.

I would ask how quickly these attitudes have developed or have underlying concerns simply been ignored for too long?

I always felt that New Labour tried to buy off the voters in the past. Schemes like the free laptop were just bribes.

When those bribes run out the loyalty ceases too. Funny eh.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

mrginge wrote: »

Not really hamish because they have nowt at the moment.
So it'll be you who has to fork out all the extra tax to keep paying their benefits.

Tory govt for the foreseeable future.

So there'll be no extra taxes.

Just even more brutal cuts to benefits.

Unlucky mate.

For you....

Thrugelmir

mwpt wrote: »

So you're saying that constraining the supply of labour is a way of giving people higher wages. If this worked, why would you need to go through all that effort, why not just mandate a higher minimum wage?

A higher national minimum wage could force some employers to cut their headcount. The ability to pay has to be a consideration. In essence a blunt instrument. Regional variations have to be factored in as well.

michaels

Thrugelmir wrote: »

A higher national minimum wage could force some employers to cut their headcount. The ability to pay has to be a consideration. In essence a blunt instrument. Regional variations have to be factored in as well.

Thank you, saved me from saying the same and put more eloquently than I would have managed.

Jason74

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

Except you're not them, so you have no idea if they believe the price they will pay is worth paying to solve the issues they face.

I'm genuinely sick of the bigotry on here now.

These people are not turkeys voting for Christmas, they're bloody people Hamish, with a different perspective on life to yourself. Perhaps their wages are squeezed, perhaps they've lost out on jobs, perhaps they're raging racists, perhaps they are xenophobes.

Fact is - you don't know! So you've no right to categorise them and assert that they will pay the heaviest price when you don't know anything about what price they will pay either!

I think there's some truth in this. People voted the way they did for all sorts of reasons. My job actually sees me working quite closely with a lot of people on lower incomes, and I think that gives me some (but only some, we are talking about a professional relationship after all rather than close friends, albeit one that involves a large element of trust) insight into where people are coming from. The job involves delving quite deeply into people's circumstances, and sometimes people start talking more generally in a way that gives an insight into where they are coming from.

The big thing that comes across for me is just the extent to which many people who are just about getting by (or worse) are frustrated with their circumstances. Now some of that is about immigration fore sure, and I sometimes have to bat away comments on that subject that I'm more than a little uncomfortable with. But there is a wider dissatisfaction than that imho. It's about the struggle to get stable good quality work, the struggle to live on what work is available to many people, and the way that so much of how the system works just doesn't support people on low incomes (you only have to look at how little extra money people have for each extra pound earned in the benefit trap to see that). That grind breeds a simmering resentment and frustration that simply can't be grasped unless you see it close up.

The out vote from that group was imho largely driven from that frustration. Yes, if there was a single 'EU related" factor that swung their vote, it was imho immigration. But based on my conversations with many people who are struggling (to be fair, relatively few people spoke about the referendum itself, but many spoke about issues around it) , I think the out vote for many in that group was actually about the EU at all. It was about people who felt that they had been ignored for decades taking an opportunity to "kick" the establishment in the hope that someone might listen.

Now in one sense I think Hamish is right. I don't think coming out of the EU will do much to help many of those people, and there are a number of ways where it might make things worse (not least by potentially handing the levers of power to some of the politicians least interest in their situation, although May has perhaps been a pleasant surprise on that score so far).

But I get why they did it. When you feel you have nothing, and that nobody who has any power to address the situation has any interest in doing so, it's not a great place. I think to dismiss people using what they felt was the only opportunity to make their voice heard as "Turkeys voting for Christmas" is more than a little unafir, even if I agree that there is a high risk that the decision to do so will backfire.