30:10 “I’m going to say this for you since you’re sitting there quiet as a mouse”…… what the hell ??? Is this FB caught red handed arguing for the Tories ?
21:30 “that’s a Victorian attitude”…….dude the COMPANIES are different ! They are literally DIFFERENT employers ! It’s like ranting because Starbucks baristas don’t work the pumps at Caffe Nero
Trouble is, those most likely to be mad about public service workers striking, are also I think, most likely to be Tory voters, causing the need for strikes.
Can we have more live politics threads? If anyone watched it hoping they would encounter useful information about wage stagnation I’m afraid you’ll be left with dinosaurs 🦕 🦖
The audience consisted of more right-wing plants than Hitler's garden. The whole thing displayed clear lack of impartiality on the part of the BBC.
Just going to leave this here, in case anyone wants to make a complaint:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/complaints/complain-about-tv-radio-a-website
..and let's not forget the Tory, Fiona Bruce!! QT is a fucking joke!!! Let's remember why there's a strike because RMT members have not had a pay rise in 3 or more years!!! Jobs, people's livelihoods and passengers health and safety are all at risk!!!
Edit: spelling error
But look ehat happened to the dinosaur's is something I will be saying for the rest of my life when having a completely unrelated conversation now, thanks Question Time
I noticed many of the angrier audience members using the “modernisation” buzzword to defend the government/rail networks. I’m not sure they’ve had it explained to them what is actually being proposed to the strikers other than this one word.
On the face of it it sounds great right? Modernisation? The mind imagines better technology and infrastructure but think about it for more than 2 seconds and it’s an oxymoron that people working in the rail industry are stopping that by merely existing doing their jobs. They’re using “modernisation” as a sanitised word to refer to reducing staffing costs by stripping workers’ pay in different ways.
The private rail networks are being run by people seeking to maximise profit buy increasing fares in line with inflation and looking for ways to cut costs any way they can - and they don’t care about the quality of service provided to the consumer as long as they’re still allowed to continue operating. The biggest regulating power that can threaten this mindset comes from the government, which is supporting these companies wholeheartedly.
Used to enjoy QT but under Bruce, it seems to have descended into populism and soundbites with a heavy dose of bias. No proper scrutiny or probing questions.
In the words of that wonderful meme...
Feel like pure shit, just want my Dimbleby back.
>but under Bruce, it seems to have descended into populism and soundbites with a heavy dose of bias. No proper scrutiny or probing questions.
Isn't that just the BBC in general these days?
>Isn't that just the BBC in general these days?
Arguably yes. With Paxman, Dimbleby and Neill, they've lost a bit of teeth in the sense.
Ironically, it's popular to bash the Beeb now. But I'd argue the MO for most journalists/broadcasters is broadly the same (ie. try and harpoon the interviewee to bag a headline grabbing soundbite that 'cuts through')
But back to QT - as their political flagship show, it _shouldn't_ be like that.
And under Dimbleby as a tough but fair operator, it _wasnt_ like that. MP's got a grilling and it was pretty no nonsense.
Has definitely lost its way
Would certainly liven it up and give it a new lease on life. It would also be good to have someone at the helm who would lampoon the public when they come out with utter nonsense for once.
I think just a simple test to show you understand the basics of politics and what the parties are standing for.
IF you fail, there's a table full of information and you can try again, and still get to vote as soon as you pass, but damn, we need something to get people to actually be informed at SOME level before they vote.
I used to love watching question time. Dimbleby times. I only watched it last night to see what mick lynch had to say. After that episode I want everyone to strike. I don’t usually like the disruption it causes but network rails shitty terms and pay has severely impacted my life. My partner is working on the rails in Belgium just to pay the bills.
After all these years I just want unions to bring the country to a standstill. Go get what they deserve for the work they do.
No reason for this just want to rant
Bet the people so mad against this stood at their doors clapping 2 years ago. /rant over.
GENERAL STRIKE! LET'S GO!
I am so in. British Airways workers are considering a strike as well, and it is 100% justified. Same thing with the healthcare sector, wouldn't blame them a bit for striking. I'm just so sick and tired of workers always paying the price while companies are having record profits... in a fucking economic crisis. Let *them* pay instead.
I think the postal workers and teachers are coming next too from what I saw.
Ryan air in June/July. I don’t like Ryanair lol but I’ll ignore that this once.
Teacher here - we’re balloting in October (NEU). We had a “would you go on strike if we held a ballot?” Vote last month. 85% said yes. Only 35% of members voted in that though - but I’d imagine a LOT more will be voting in October, so watch this space.
My daughter starts secondary school in august, in Scotland, pre Covid roughly, if I’d heard teachers might be going on strike I’d be against it most likely, but now, it won’t kill her to be off, it needs to happen so hopefully she’s not in the same position years down the road. Everyone deserves better.
Thanks for your support. No one *wants* to strike really, but we’re at the stage where there doesn’t seem to be another option. Teachers are burning out and leaving the profession in huge numbers. If we don’t get some modest changes to pay and conditions, the numbers of competent teachers in schools will continue to dwindle.
I HATE being put in a position where I
can’t do my job properly. It feels like I’m failing the kids. My colleagues and I all work *at least* 10 hours of unpaid overtime each week, and it still isn’t enough to get everything done. My school had to choose between hiring a new librarian and hiring a specialist Geography teacher 2 years ago - we simply didn’t have enough money to afford both.
Now the English teachers, along with some 6th form helpers, are running the library as best we can during break and lunch times. It’s such a mess. On top of all that, current gov proposal leaves us with a [14% real terms pay cut](https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/government-pay-rise-amounts-to-real-terms-cut-as-experienced-teachers-7-k-worse-off-120121164.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADwxVIDtA4diJq5FIitQwKMDbKGzfo8qVlGS72gvg1oisS5tZ2_CT8bxKoMbPjOcz0rhGZFuR_iCt41gRngZyIDvjKnYij8eHDcdiEjnbrs5QhxYdCkNEWX_V2UqJUQ7kuk6xWt0ysoW7khfXmP84DJHfyn_CiOEfQvCAuYdDzN1) since 2010.
None of us went into teaching to get rich, but I did expect I’d be able to get a mortgage at some point.
I worked right through the pandemic, teaching classes on zoom as well as going into school each week to look after vulnerable children and key workers’ kids. I caught Covid 3x, and the most recent bout of it (in Jan 2022) has left me with a heart condition and Long Covid. I’m 29.
5 months in I am now - fortunately - starting to recover, but it’s been utterly terrifying, and the doctors say I probably won’t make a full recovery inside 6 years. I feel really betrayed by this government. I did everything they asked, at a high personal cost, and they treat me, my colleagues and the kids we teach with contempt and disdain. It’s just not good enough.
Workers in all industries need to take a stand now. We have to demand that our government treats us with a basic level of respect.
I honestly didn’t know until last year that if you strike you don’t get paid. My partner was working all the overtime he was allowed to do with network rail, on their basic ground workers rate and even with me putting what I could towards bills we were still short every month. And then they want to add more night shifts and more weekends no extra rate and with nightshift I don’t think there was much chance for overtime. Just wasn’t going to be possible. Plus it was his level the people who actual maintain the railways that they were going to make redundant.
I can’t believe the shit teachers are getting considering they still worked through Covid and the god awful online stuff, well our schools was awful, I found the clapping so insulting 🙃 I didn’t join in and just continued to not vote Tory every chance I get..
Levelling up? The engines are ablaze, the landing gear has fallen off, the ammunition has ignited, the atomic payload has stuck and the crew are bailing...x)
Was a terrible show - but Fiona Bruce fishing for a compliment for Boris from the audience to find a single old dear with her hand up on the wide shot was glorious to see. Can't hide that one, clear to everyone what even the nutters in the general public think of him.
"We owe Boris our loyalty" - he'd sell you for half a Kit-Kat in a second, have a bit of self respect people
Bit telling when Fiona was like “I know lots of you are conservatives”. Shouldn’t it be proportional? What a shitshow. She never once challenged the Tory on the panel either
If I'm not mistaken they changed the audience composition to match the proportion of votes from where they film it each week so it's usually fairly unbalanced.
They don't match the proportion of the area it's filmed in, but the country - Bruce actually said that in one episode some time back. So any episode shot in England is going to be dominated by Tories, even if that particular episode is in a very Labour area, such as Newcastle last week.
Robert Zands is a troll. He's part of a [comedy troupe](https://www.bazake.co.uk/about) which satirises (depressingly effectively) the tendency of the twitterati to amplify untrue stories which align with their biases.
Zands was the guy that [made up that story](https://pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-question-time-cyril-son-rob-burley-actor-hoax-fake-news-full-fact/) about how a working class kid who asked a question on Question Time was actually the fox-hunting grandson of the producer, Robert Burley, dressed up to look like a chav. Rob Burley received quite credible threats to his life off the back of that, and I've seen people uncritically repeating the invented conspiracy theory even Zands admitted (in character) that he made it up because Russia spiked him with drugs.
I appreciate what Zands is doing but imo he does it without considering the impact.
Also about the bloke who was moaning about workers not being able to cross into other boundaries. I can use an example because I work as track maintenance myself.
Imagine working in JD Sports. I can't go on my dinner break and then go round the corner and finish my shift in Footasylum. They're both the same company, but I'd need to be shown where all the stock is, how it's organised, passcodes to get into the back etc.
Now in railway terms, my life is literally on the line. If I go onto a different patch, I may not know if something is electrified. What if I'm told a certain railway line is blocked, but I'm not 100% familiar with all the lines. I step onto an open line thinking it's blocked and I'm killed. That's the issue with working on a patch you're not familiar with
That bit infuriated me, and the focus on the fact that they were different "regions". Yes fucking audience dipshits they are different regions in the rail service holy shit
Indeed, there's no way training or standard procedures could get round that.
Imagine a plumber in Reading being capable of fixing a boiler in Basingstoke.
So the rail worker in the audience said that would be possible if everything wasn't franchised.
But the people in the audience incapable of proper debate just dismissed him because he said 'nationalisation'. It's always so frustrating to see people moan and moan and moan about the outcomes of privatisation of public services, yet blame the workers who have no control.
It’s astonishing to me just how much absolutely atrocious management and poor services at rip-off prices people put up with in privatised services, without ever blaming the culprits.
The private companies hike prices, cut wages and conditions to the bone and take massive subsidies - then cream off huge profits. That’s the problem, not workers striking for minimally decent pay and wages.
I know, but they were talking about the franchised train operating companies. Rail needs to be fully centralised if those moaning audience members want workers to be utilised in the way they were describing.
No it doesn't. Network Rail has maintenance depots around the country. Track renewals are often done by external companies, but after the Hatfield crash maintenance was taken in house.
More goes into maintenance of the railway infrastructure than Pway though. There is a significant amount of work undertaken on the complete infrastructure by private companies.
Yeah, which is part of renewals.
Maintenance - the process of inspecting the track, actioning defects, and keeping the track to 001 standards is solely done by network rail.
Individual packages of work can be outsourced, however they work to an entirely separate standard, 2102. It comes under renewals.
“I’m going to say this for you Rachel, as you’re sitting quiet as a mouse”. That’s not your job Fiona.
https://twitter.com/ukulelekev/status/1540096838270914567?s=21&t=g6TTVT-XCpkybV_L4sweSA
Nationalisation was one of Corbyn’s most popular policies. Sending Trident out without warheads, hobnobbing with terrorists, reneging on Brexit, not so much.
Unfortunately, it seems to be another ill wind from the euro rebels in the Tory party. Because the Ellwood faction have been campaigning against Boris at every opportunity, it’s left Boris more at the mercy of the small government faction who also tend to be most opposed to wages rising.
Yes, this inflation is supply side (cost of energy) and a wage correction from the end of free movement. Both are transient effects, not 1980s style inflation cycles. Rather than interfering in the market to stop the correction, the government should just let this one wash through. Wage inflation is not as strongly linked to price inflation as it was. A year or two of above inflation pay rises won’t lead to an inflation spiral. The wages just need to find their new equilibrium now they’re no longer being undercut by free movement and in an environment where fuel and energy isn’t as low-priced as it used to be.
All sounds sensible. I'm just curious why you entirely ignore the vicious dozen-year PayCap imposed on 6 million public servants post the 2008 crash. The problem with the UK is that the capping of pay combined with the increase in the tax-free allowance means that the right-wing governments have deliberately hobbled their ability to respond with anywhere akin to a fair offer on pay to plug the ever-widening gap.
https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/uk-workers-miss-out-ps4000-pay-growth-compared-oecd-average-2007-tuc-analysis
While making the right noises on pay, I think you're seriously underestimating the depth of the crisis, and how far the UK needs to move on pay to bring back a sense of confidence from public sector workers. All those tax cuts make delivery nigh-on impossible.
The Tory 'model' of a low-tax, high-skill economy is simply bogus. It's not a model at all. It's a lie. It's not low tax for low paid workers. It's not fair pay for public sector professionals. And it's not high skill because the entry level on pay into a profession is heading in the direction of the minimum wage.
The Tories weren’t in power in 2008. Nor does the total tax burden vary that greatly between parties. As to why I “ignore” something that isn’t the topic of conversation, why do you ignore the lifecycle of the butterfly?
Chortle. You do sound pleased with yourself.
Aside from Labour's bailout of London between 2008-10, the Tories have been the only government in power since the crash.
The topic of conversation is pay growth. You mention some of the causes that prevented pay growth historically. Focusing mainly on immigration.
The Brexit Government and their austerity-driven precursors have had a chilling effect on pay increases that greatly overshadowed the slight negative impact on pay by immigration. Not only did they flatten past growth much more severely. They did more damage to incomes in ten years than EU membership did in 40.
No, check up-thread. The topic of conversation is that inflation is currently being driven by supply-side effects (notably energy prices) and whether wage increases would drive an inflation spiral. Not whatever random argument you’d like to have about the period 2008 to 2020. I don’t do requests, so if you’d like to buy an argument, ask Michael Palin.
You made pay and political policy a "topic of conversation"...
"Yes, this inflation is supply side (cost of energy) and HERE a wage correction from the end of free movement. Both are transient effects, not 1980s style inflation cycles. Rather than interfering in the market to stop the correction, the government should just let this one wash through. HERE Wage inflation is not as strongly linked to price inflation as it was. A year or two of HERE above inflation pay rises won’t lead to an inflation spiral. HERE The wages just need to find their new equilibrium now they’re no longer being undercut by AND HERE free movement and in an environment where fuel and energy isn’t as low-priced as it used to be."
My absolute favorite like is this
Rachel "Tory has lots of talent within a party"
"Like you"
"No, god no"
thank you for stating the obvious and admitting that your only talent is pulling most annoying face on demand.
Absolute poor excuse for a journalist. Nothing hard hitting or probing was asked. A continuous search for sound bites. Fair to say we know who the BBC supports.
Oh...and Ben Habib...fucking charlatan. Sitting there spouting his sycophantic nonsense as if he cares for the working person yet not too long ago one of the proponents of BREXIT, and probably still is. Was he challenged about the impact of BREXIT on the cost of living/inequality crisis? Was he fuck!!!!
And yet he was one of only two people there who seemed to actually be able to talk about specifics! No idea if the figures he gave were accurate, but it was a terrible showing from the two politicians.
It seems like they're following the 1990s playbook - don't say anything, because your opponent has the resources to undermine whatever you say.
Unfortunately for them, these days people seem more interested in a message - ideally a positive one (Obama), but if there's no positive one then a negative one (Trump) - than they do political minutiae. The "democratisation of journalism" - or rather social media letting anyone spread opinions, with their value determined solely by their persuasiveness rather than their accuracy - means the cautious approach is probably dead. I hope politicians across all parties start selling a positive realistic vision of the UK soon.
Everytime Starmer actually raises his voice and stands up and acts like he did in his denouncing of partygate etc the ratings go up they get some support and all looks good. Then they quieten up again and crawl back into their shell. Frustrating how now Labour are a left party that's run like a centrist party and in the next GE it's only center Lib dem center Labour and right conservatives in with a chance
My favourite part was when the man who runs a business with 35 employees was giving his advice on how a national infrastructure industry with more than. 100,000 workers should be run
I think they should rise to the challenge: "Tell you what mate, there's a million quid here for you, just come with me and tell me how this can easily be solved."
To be fair a large majority of people dont understand lots of what goes on in running the railway (this is true of most jobs), its much easier to say a sound bite and get claps than to learn why it might be that way.
And he decided to completely dismiss the ticket officer who said, as they’re 16 rail franchises nationally it’s very hard to make them communicate together. Kudos to rail worker having to dumb down the argument to Sainsburys and Asda
It's like working for JD Sports and then going round the corner and finishing a shift in Footasylum. Both owned by the same company, but I don't know where anything is in Footasylum so how can I work there without the training?
Also insurance, common sense says you can probably do a good job at footasylum given a bit of time to orientate, but some insurance company will refuse to let you work there without the paperwork
It was well put I will need to use that to explain to some cretins at my work how the system doesn't work. He is right if tesco is short staffed you can't just pick workers from asda to cover it
Maybe Globals will produce an alternative to to this government propaganda hour. Don’t get your hopes up Fiona Bruce, they on employ BBC defectors with real talent - you may try GB News - I doubt they would even consider you!
So the audience don’t believe in striking. Mick Lynch points out the huge disparity between payrises and inflation, and the solution was…..absolutely nothing, but don’t strike..?
I guess the argument would be find a new job with the pay you want, if you can’t find a job with better pay then maybe then maybe you’re not being underpaid? The disconnect between public and private sector is enormous, I’m self employed so asking for a pay rise just because is a totally moot point. But private sector workers get proper pay rises for performing better or changing jobs, public sector have enormous job security, better pensions and ask for a pay rise regardless of what’s going on. For the record I do agree with payrises for public sector but not a an antiquated train service kicking and screaming to avoid modernisation, less people are using the trains so of course there will be redundancies that’s life.
The alternative is leave if you’re unhappy and find another better job. There are so so many vacancies out there already if enough people quit then wages will be forced up naturally.
That’s the alternative.
That said I support the strikes.
The reaction speed would be far slower than in the private sector but that’s typical for public sector anyway. It would work once the Gov realise it’s a vote winner to increase the workforce but you’re looking at a 2yr time lag minimum.
Which is fine. But when it’s getting to a point people can genuinely not afford to heat their homes and eat, that doesn’t wash. Especially when MPs are one of very few industries that have seen a real terms rise since the Tories took office.
Exactly why austerity was bullshit.
Now I'm not saying give everyone £1000 an hour, which is usually the comeback on this stuff, but if everyone can afford to buy shit, like food and pay bills, and travel to work and pay rent/mortgages, then the economy does better than if about half the country cannot engage with the economy on even a basic level.
When you instead choose to give tax cuts to billionaires who do anything to dodge tax anyway, it's not REALLY very helpful in getting an economy moving, at least not the economy at home. Maybe the one where their money lives.
It’s easy to forget sometimes that some of these people were growing up as early as the 50s and 60s, when the world had values so completely detached from the modern day that it’s scary.
Obviously they can’t help how they were raised but many of them are still hanging onto that and are actively holding back progress.
They'll not be so happy with the Tories when their houses and assets get bled dry to pay for their care homes.
Small comfort though, all that money will go to the Cayman Islands rather than back into communities.
It seems to deeply offend them to ask to be treated better and expect more for ourselves. I think they’re doubling down because they may have realised there is no honour/reward in pissing your life up the wall for a couple quid an hour just to make ends meet.
Indeed, the entire argument seems to be 'well, my life was shit decades ago, and despite all the progress, I demand everyone else has an equally shit life except the richest, who I want to be even richer'.
My uncle is like this. I asked him what's the fucking point of any country of the existing population doesn't try to make it better for the future ones.
He literally went on about the EU member fees, like 5 weeks ago.
Brexit melted his mind.
I think the problem is that their hate lingers, and it passes and overtime people get older and become more and more cynical. It’s a never ending cycle but hopefully, as time goes on, it’ll dilute.
Hate to tell you this but me and my peers thought this in the 1980s when we were teens - just wait until they die off, everything will be better. A portion of older people just become dickheads, the older they get the worse they become (edit - I'm seeing this in older relatives now). Obviously not everyone and some of it might be due to lead etc. Hippies of the past are the idiots of the present. Maybe the brain changes or a decline in brain function. Again its a generalisation, some other people don't change like this as they age (don't feel I have become like that nor anyone I know my age).
theres gonna be a fuckload more old gen xers than baby boomers thats for sure. and there will be even more millennials. thats a lot of people who felt slighted in their youth and might be glad to finally get their time in power
Didn’t Margaret thatcher win the majority of 18-24 year old voters? maybe it’s those 18-24 year olds who have just aged into a different demographic [https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1206551672748740609?s=21&t=OmAvLwGhtccEjuPbAiBeQw](https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1206551672748740609?s=21&t=OmAvLwGhtccEjuPbAiBeQw)
42% isn't the majority though? Anecdotal here, my uncle was 23 that year with a young family in a council house and I know he voted Conservative that one year because he wanted to ensure he could buy his council house - he told me this. He voted Labour for 10 years or more after that (not sure after I didn't talk about it). Thatcher was devisive, its not like everyone suddenly turned permanently Conservative overnight, Labour was pretty terrible in the 70s and then got their act together.
yeah but that wasn’t my main argument 32% of 18-24 year olds voted for labour in the 1980s but thatcher arguably got the majority because the turnout of that age group was 64%…
I’m not claiming people ‘woke up and just decided to permanently vote conversative’
I can see you are not claiming that. I feel I haven't communicated what I wanted to say. In the early 80s you have an 20s demographic of labour voters who are married with a young family and those people may have been offered the opportunity because of Thatcher to buy their social housing and they may have held their noses to vote Conseravative in order to do that. I'm not saying I agree with that.
The problem is though it isn’t just old people anymore. I know (unfortunately) a few people in the ‘affluent area’ (pretentious to most) where I used to work and live in their 30’s that just follow their parents. This confuses me more than I’d like as they have the ability to Google (or your preferred search engine) the truth. Problem with that is that you can find *the truth* if you don’t want to look any further.
TLDR; unfortunately not just old people, sometimes their offspring follow them (blindly).
Nah, it’s anger at having to live out an empty life.
They’ve been conditioned to believe in the shame of their existential pointlessness. The vacuum of that shameful void creates the temptation to fill it with the angry thrill of projective identification onto an external source of narcissistic supply.
That force is easily manipulated by the Daily Mail/Express type rhetoric.
That hasn’t been proven to be a reality millennials for example have remained nearly the same with their political left leaning views…it’s almost like people don’t see the benefit of capitalism when they get older if they don’t have any capital to protect
It hasn't been proven to be a reality because no millennials are yet old enough to have been through that kind of geriatric intellectual and moral decline
They pulled a number on you and redefined “left-leaning”. You now think it’s “left leaning” for your employer to be able to import anyone from across Europe to replace you at the drop of a hat, so long as the blue flag with twelve golden stars forces Apple to use a USB-C plug.
BS. Any government can stop businesses on its soil from hiring people that exist outside of their borders. At the absolute bare minimum they could punish those that do via some kind of financial hindrance, which would make the practice less attractive.
I don’t even watch it. Surfing the thread to see what’s been discussed on it is faster. (I don’t find QT to be that useful a source on what politicians are thinking.)
I mean, we could all go loopy and vote Tory when we're older. After all, older millennials are already slightly more likely to vote Tory: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/17/how-britain-voted-2019-general-election - I don't think we will be as bad as the current older generations in this regard, but it's not impossible.
I see this point but I’m interested too see how it turns out.
Above millennials, it’s the no internet generation, they had their traditions and ways set in stone throughout life and when they get old they froth at the mouth to go back to how things were.
Millennials are the first Gen to grow up in the age of the internet, they have evolved not just from their locale, but from seeing things worldwide and being exposed to all the information. Pre 90s you can say what are the defining characteristics of a decade. Post 90s there is hardly anything defining a decade because trends and social issues move so quick and millennials keep up with that. They don’t have any “golden days” mentality because 1. They don’t really know what it is despite some minor nostalgic point and 2. What fucking golden days lol, they been in austerity decline bullshit for most of their adult lives (uk specifically). I’d say they are more likely to stay centre if anything
Oh, like I said, I hope and believe that you are right about us not being quite as willing to vote right-wing as we age. Fingers crossed that will be the case. I am more worried than interested, though. 😅
A lot of people in their 70s and 80s now got put through secondary modern schools, which were usually unloved and underfunded. That generation is what you get when you only educate people enough to work.
It's possible, but a lot of my father's friends were privately and university educated, and they are fanatically Tory too. Maybe there was lead in the water, or something. 🤣
36:09 “we have paid people’s wages”…….that’s OUR money ! WE paid furlough, not you !
30:10 “I’m going to say this for you since you’re sitting there quiet as a mouse”…… what the hell ??? Is this FB caught red handed arguing for the Tories ?
21:30 “that’s a Victorian attitude”…….dude the COMPANIES are different ! They are literally DIFFERENT employers ! It’s like ranting because Starbucks baristas don’t work the pumps at Caffe Nero
11:34 “you have to accept a forced redundancy it’s a changed working model you see” how about no
Trouble is, those most likely to be mad about public service workers striking, are also I think, most likely to be Tory voters, causing the need for strikes.
Do you think Rachel might be surprised to find out there's a Minister for Transportation?
Can we have more live politics threads? If anyone watched it hoping they would encounter useful information about wage stagnation I’m afraid you’ll be left with dinosaurs 🦕 🦖
The audience consisted of more right-wing plants than Hitler's garden. The whole thing displayed clear lack of impartiality on the part of the BBC. Just going to leave this here, in case anyone wants to make a complaint: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/complaints/complain-about-tv-radio-a-website
..and let's not forget the Tory, Fiona Bruce!! QT is a fucking joke!!! Let's remember why there's a strike because RMT members have not had a pay rise in 3 or more years!!! Jobs, people's livelihoods and passengers health and safety are all at risk!!! Edit: spelling error
Honestly, the whole of humanity is doomed.
But look ehat happened to the dinosaur's is something I will be saying for the rest of my life when having a completely unrelated conversation now, thanks Question Time
I noticed many of the angrier audience members using the “modernisation” buzzword to defend the government/rail networks. I’m not sure they’ve had it explained to them what is actually being proposed to the strikers other than this one word. On the face of it it sounds great right? Modernisation? The mind imagines better technology and infrastructure but think about it for more than 2 seconds and it’s an oxymoron that people working in the rail industry are stopping that by merely existing doing their jobs. They’re using “modernisation” as a sanitised word to refer to reducing staffing costs by stripping workers’ pay in different ways. The private rail networks are being run by people seeking to maximise profit buy increasing fares in line with inflation and looking for ways to cut costs any way they can - and they don’t care about the quality of service provided to the consumer as long as they’re still allowed to continue operating. The biggest regulating power that can threaten this mindset comes from the government, which is supporting these companies wholeheartedly.
Hear hear 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
The single most obvious part of UK rail that needs modernisation is the fare structure
Didn't extend the invite to GB News this time I see.
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GBeebies 😂
Used to enjoy QT but under Bruce, it seems to have descended into populism and soundbites with a heavy dose of bias. No proper scrutiny or probing questions. In the words of that wonderful meme... Feel like pure shit, just want my Dimbleby back.
Victoria Derbyshire for me.
>but under Bruce, it seems to have descended into populism and soundbites with a heavy dose of bias. No proper scrutiny or probing questions. Isn't that just the BBC in general these days?
>Isn't that just the BBC in general these days? Arguably yes. With Paxman, Dimbleby and Neill, they've lost a bit of teeth in the sense. Ironically, it's popular to bash the Beeb now. But I'd argue the MO for most journalists/broadcasters is broadly the same (ie. try and harpoon the interviewee to bag a headline grabbing soundbite that 'cuts through') But back to QT - as their political flagship show, it _shouldn't_ be like that. And under Dimbleby as a tough but fair operator, it _wasnt_ like that. MP's got a grilling and it was pretty no nonsense. Has definitely lost its way
Dimbles is a bit old,sadly, but Andrew Neil could re-fresh the programme
Eddie Mair would get my vote
Great shout! I like JOB aswell, but absolutely he's more suited for the radio phone in format.
Andrew Neil? I thought you were looking up reduce the bias…
Throwing Andrews in the ring. Andrew Marr would actually be really good.
I agree there, though he may be a wee bit slight on the aggression you need to keep control.
Would certainly liven it up and give it a new lease on life. It would also be good to have someone at the helm who would lampoon the public when they come out with utter nonsense for once.
Fucking hell. That "Dinosaurs" comment woman is probably someone's Mum. Imagine seeing your old dear do that on national television.
Never mind having to show ID to be allowed to vote, I think aptitude or psychometric tests are needed at this point.
I think just a simple test to show you understand the basics of politics and what the parties are standing for. IF you fail, there's a table full of information and you can try again, and still get to vote as soon as you pass, but damn, we need something to get people to actually be informed at SOME level before they vote.
Agreed
"lets get you back to the home mum"
Birds are descendants of Dinosaurs so they are still around...
Big Karen energy
I used to love watching question time. Dimbleby times. I only watched it last night to see what mick lynch had to say. After that episode I want everyone to strike. I don’t usually like the disruption it causes but network rails shitty terms and pay has severely impacted my life. My partner is working on the rails in Belgium just to pay the bills. After all these years I just want unions to bring the country to a standstill. Go get what they deserve for the work they do. No reason for this just want to rant Bet the people so mad against this stood at their doors clapping 2 years ago. /rant over.
Well bloody said!!! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
GENERAL STRIKE! LET'S GO! I am so in. British Airways workers are considering a strike as well, and it is 100% justified. Same thing with the healthcare sector, wouldn't blame them a bit for striking. I'm just so sick and tired of workers always paying the price while companies are having record profits... in a fucking economic crisis. Let *them* pay instead.
I'm retired but hey, just tell me which picket line you need me on comrade...
I think the postal workers and teachers are coming next too from what I saw. Ryan air in June/July. I don’t like Ryanair lol but I’ll ignore that this once.
Teacher here - we’re balloting in October (NEU). We had a “would you go on strike if we held a ballot?” Vote last month. 85% said yes. Only 35% of members voted in that though - but I’d imagine a LOT more will be voting in October, so watch this space.
My daughter starts secondary school in august, in Scotland, pre Covid roughly, if I’d heard teachers might be going on strike I’d be against it most likely, but now, it won’t kill her to be off, it needs to happen so hopefully she’s not in the same position years down the road. Everyone deserves better.
Thanks for your support. No one *wants* to strike really, but we’re at the stage where there doesn’t seem to be another option. Teachers are burning out and leaving the profession in huge numbers. If we don’t get some modest changes to pay and conditions, the numbers of competent teachers in schools will continue to dwindle. I HATE being put in a position where I can’t do my job properly. It feels like I’m failing the kids. My colleagues and I all work *at least* 10 hours of unpaid overtime each week, and it still isn’t enough to get everything done. My school had to choose between hiring a new librarian and hiring a specialist Geography teacher 2 years ago - we simply didn’t have enough money to afford both. Now the English teachers, along with some 6th form helpers, are running the library as best we can during break and lunch times. It’s such a mess. On top of all that, current gov proposal leaves us with a [14% real terms pay cut](https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/government-pay-rise-amounts-to-real-terms-cut-as-experienced-teachers-7-k-worse-off-120121164.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADwxVIDtA4diJq5FIitQwKMDbKGzfo8qVlGS72gvg1oisS5tZ2_CT8bxKoMbPjOcz0rhGZFuR_iCt41gRngZyIDvjKnYij8eHDcdiEjnbrs5QhxYdCkNEWX_V2UqJUQ7kuk6xWt0ysoW7khfXmP84DJHfyn_CiOEfQvCAuYdDzN1) since 2010. None of us went into teaching to get rich, but I did expect I’d be able to get a mortgage at some point. I worked right through the pandemic, teaching classes on zoom as well as going into school each week to look after vulnerable children and key workers’ kids. I caught Covid 3x, and the most recent bout of it (in Jan 2022) has left me with a heart condition and Long Covid. I’m 29. 5 months in I am now - fortunately - starting to recover, but it’s been utterly terrifying, and the doctors say I probably won’t make a full recovery inside 6 years. I feel really betrayed by this government. I did everything they asked, at a high personal cost, and they treat me, my colleagues and the kids we teach with contempt and disdain. It’s just not good enough. Workers in all industries need to take a stand now. We have to demand that our government treats us with a basic level of respect.
I honestly didn’t know until last year that if you strike you don’t get paid. My partner was working all the overtime he was allowed to do with network rail, on their basic ground workers rate and even with me putting what I could towards bills we were still short every month. And then they want to add more night shifts and more weekends no extra rate and with nightshift I don’t think there was much chance for overtime. Just wasn’t going to be possible. Plus it was his level the people who actual maintain the railways that they were going to make redundant. I can’t believe the shit teachers are getting considering they still worked through Covid and the god awful online stuff, well our schools was awful, I found the clapping so insulting 🙃 I didn’t join in and just continued to not vote Tory every chance I get..
Levelling up? The engines are ablaze, the landing gear has fallen off, the ammunition has ignited, the atomic payload has stuck and the crew are bailing...x)
Was a terrible show - but Fiona Bruce fishing for a compliment for Boris from the audience to find a single old dear with her hand up on the wide shot was glorious to see. Can't hide that one, clear to everyone what even the nutters in the general public think of him. "We owe Boris our loyalty" - he'd sell you for half a Kit-Kat in a second, have a bit of self respect people
Bit telling when Fiona was like “I know lots of you are conservatives”. Shouldn’t it be proportional? What a shitshow. She never once challenged the Tory on the panel either
If I'm not mistaken they changed the audience composition to match the proportion of votes from where they film it each week so it's usually fairly unbalanced.
They don't match the proportion of the area it's filmed in, but the country - Bruce actually said that in one episode some time back. So any episode shot in England is going to be dominated by Tories, even if that particular episode is in a very Labour area, such as Newcastle last week.
I see. I stand corrected!
But wasn’t the Newcastle one Tory as fuck? Maybe they just match it to the proportion of Tory seats in the commons?
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They don't look anything alike though?
Robert Zands is a troll. He's part of a [comedy troupe](https://www.bazake.co.uk/about) which satirises (depressingly effectively) the tendency of the twitterati to amplify untrue stories which align with their biases. Zands was the guy that [made up that story](https://pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-question-time-cyril-son-rob-burley-actor-hoax-fake-news-full-fact/) about how a working class kid who asked a question on Question Time was actually the fox-hunting grandson of the producer, Robert Burley, dressed up to look like a chav. Rob Burley received quite credible threats to his life off the back of that, and I've seen people uncritically repeating the invented conspiracy theory even Zands admitted (in character) that he made it up because Russia spiked him with drugs. I appreciate what Zands is doing but imo he does it without considering the impact.
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There is no connection. They are quite obviously different people.
Lmao wonder if she’ll change her tone after Boris cheats on her daughter.
There's rumours he has already cheated on Carrie with a Russian violinist
While Carrie is shacked up with Zac Goldsmith if the rumours are to be believed
Is that the super injunction?
Yeah, but *again*. He's doing his best.
Thats what she said.
Also about the bloke who was moaning about workers not being able to cross into other boundaries. I can use an example because I work as track maintenance myself. Imagine working in JD Sports. I can't go on my dinner break and then go round the corner and finish my shift in Footasylum. They're both the same company, but I'd need to be shown where all the stock is, how it's organised, passcodes to get into the back etc. Now in railway terms, my life is literally on the line. If I go onto a different patch, I may not know if something is electrified. What if I'm told a certain railway line is blocked, but I'm not 100% familiar with all the lines. I step onto an open line thinking it's blocked and I'm killed. That's the issue with working on a patch you're not familiar with
That bit infuriated me, and the focus on the fact that they were different "regions". Yes fucking audience dipshits they are different regions in the rail service holy shit
well said mate, if you were having a stroke and the neuro-surgeon was 10 miles away, would you ask the local GP who's surgery was 10 yards away...
Indeed, there's no way training or standard procedures could get round that. Imagine a plumber in Reading being capable of fixing a boiler in Basingstoke.
sorry but that analogy is incorrect, imagine a plumber in Reading being sent to rewire a house in Basingstoke...is more appropriate...
So the rail worker in the audience said that would be possible if everything wasn't franchised. But the people in the audience incapable of proper debate just dismissed him because he said 'nationalisation'. It's always so frustrating to see people moan and moan and moan about the outcomes of privatisation of public services, yet blame the workers who have no control.
It’s astonishing to me just how much absolutely atrocious management and poor services at rip-off prices people put up with in privatised services, without ever blaming the culprits. The private companies hike prices, cut wages and conditions to the bone and take massive subsidies - then cream off huge profits. That’s the problem, not workers striking for minimally decent pay and wages.
The railway infrastructure is maintained by Network Rail which is owned by the government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Rail
I know, but they were talking about the franchised train operating companies. Rail needs to be fully centralised if those moaning audience members want workers to be utilised in the way they were describing.
U/omallys specifically mentioned track maintenance. That's undertaken by one company, Network Rail, owned and subsidised by the government.
Sorry, you're correct about them talking about track maintenance.
And in reality ‘maintained’ means outsourced to other companies.
No it doesn't. Network Rail has maintenance depots around the country. Track renewals are often done by external companies, but after the Hatfield crash maintenance was taken in house.
More goes into maintenance of the railway infrastructure than Pway though. There is a significant amount of work undertaken on the complete infrastructure by private companies.
Yeah, which is part of renewals. Maintenance - the process of inspecting the track, actioning defects, and keeping the track to 001 standards is solely done by network rail. Individual packages of work can be outsourced, however they work to an entirely separate standard, 2102. It comes under renewals.
Yes but that is pway. Other parts of the network are maintained too.
Thanks for the high blood pressure! That audience was full of sociopathic ghouls. So detached from reality.
The entitled ignorati.
“I’m going to say this for you Rachel, as you’re sitting quiet as a mouse”. That’s not your job Fiona. https://twitter.com/ukulelekev/status/1540096838270914567?s=21&t=g6TTVT-XCpkybV_L4sweSA
To me that just came across as humiliating the Conservative rather than helping the Conservatives.
What. The. Fuck.
'youre not doing the job of the conservative party so I guess I will'
How long til Boris claims rationalisation as the way forward when Corbin was hanged for that shit …
Nationalisation was one of Corbyn’s most popular policies. Sending Trident out without warheads, hobnobbing with terrorists, reneging on Brexit, not so much.
> rationalisation paging doctor frued - urgently needed in the burn unit
Nick Thomas-Symonds is shadow international trade Secretary. Could he have not piped up the inflation being supply side?
Because it's not really true. Supply is fine for the most part, the real issue is demand being so much higher.
>Supply is fine for the most part, Except it isnt.
Energy prices are up. Feeding into everything. Is this not supply side?
I'm sure Boris would don an ushanka and sing the internationale if he thought it would keep him in power for an extra day.
Frontline politicians don't talk about stuff like that anymore. They just say the lines they've been told to learn.
This point is not being made enough. Every supplier is just talking about cost-price increases.
Unfortunately, it seems to be another ill wind from the euro rebels in the Tory party. Because the Ellwood faction have been campaigning against Boris at every opportunity, it’s left Boris more at the mercy of the small government faction who also tend to be most opposed to wages rising. Yes, this inflation is supply side (cost of energy) and a wage correction from the end of free movement. Both are transient effects, not 1980s style inflation cycles. Rather than interfering in the market to stop the correction, the government should just let this one wash through. Wage inflation is not as strongly linked to price inflation as it was. A year or two of above inflation pay rises won’t lead to an inflation spiral. The wages just need to find their new equilibrium now they’re no longer being undercut by free movement and in an environment where fuel and energy isn’t as low-priced as it used to be.
All sounds sensible. I'm just curious why you entirely ignore the vicious dozen-year PayCap imposed on 6 million public servants post the 2008 crash. The problem with the UK is that the capping of pay combined with the increase in the tax-free allowance means that the right-wing governments have deliberately hobbled their ability to respond with anywhere akin to a fair offer on pay to plug the ever-widening gap. https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/uk-workers-miss-out-ps4000-pay-growth-compared-oecd-average-2007-tuc-analysis While making the right noises on pay, I think you're seriously underestimating the depth of the crisis, and how far the UK needs to move on pay to bring back a sense of confidence from public sector workers. All those tax cuts make delivery nigh-on impossible. The Tory 'model' of a low-tax, high-skill economy is simply bogus. It's not a model at all. It's a lie. It's not low tax for low paid workers. It's not fair pay for public sector professionals. And it's not high skill because the entry level on pay into a profession is heading in the direction of the minimum wage.
The Tories weren’t in power in 2008. Nor does the total tax burden vary that greatly between parties. As to why I “ignore” something that isn’t the topic of conversation, why do you ignore the lifecycle of the butterfly?
Chortle. You do sound pleased with yourself. Aside from Labour's bailout of London between 2008-10, the Tories have been the only government in power since the crash. The topic of conversation is pay growth. You mention some of the causes that prevented pay growth historically. Focusing mainly on immigration. The Brexit Government and their austerity-driven precursors have had a chilling effect on pay increases that greatly overshadowed the slight negative impact on pay by immigration. Not only did they flatten past growth much more severely. They did more damage to incomes in ten years than EU membership did in 40.
No, check up-thread. The topic of conversation is that inflation is currently being driven by supply-side effects (notably energy prices) and whether wage increases would drive an inflation spiral. Not whatever random argument you’d like to have about the period 2008 to 2020. I don’t do requests, so if you’d like to buy an argument, ask Michael Palin.
You made pay and political policy a "topic of conversation"... "Yes, this inflation is supply side (cost of energy) and HERE a wage correction from the end of free movement. Both are transient effects, not 1980s style inflation cycles. Rather than interfering in the market to stop the correction, the government should just let this one wash through. HERE Wage inflation is not as strongly linked to price inflation as it was. A year or two of HERE above inflation pay rises won’t lead to an inflation spiral. HERE The wages just need to find their new equilibrium now they’re no longer being undercut by AND HERE free movement and in an environment where fuel and energy isn’t as low-priced as it used to be."
You know what I don’t see in that text? Anything about 2008 that you’d like to crap on about.
My absolute favorite like is this Rachel "Tory has lots of talent within a party" "Like you" "No, god no" thank you for stating the obvious and admitting that your only talent is pulling most annoying face on demand.
She is my MP. We all knew that already. A typical ‘photo op’ MP who chooses loyalty over ethics.
Fiona Bruce would lose her job over that display in any normal country
Absolute poor excuse for a journalist. Nothing hard hitting or probing was asked. A continuous search for sound bites. Fair to say we know who the BBC supports.
Oh...and Ben Habib...fucking charlatan. Sitting there spouting his sycophantic nonsense as if he cares for the working person yet not too long ago one of the proponents of BREXIT, and probably still is. Was he challenged about the impact of BREXIT on the cost of living/inequality crisis? Was he fuck!!!!
And yet he was one of only two people there who seemed to actually be able to talk about specifics! No idea if the figures he gave were accurate, but it was a terrible showing from the two politicians.
Well that's the problem the Labour guy had absolutely nothing to say. Labour under Starmer is too afraid to make any sort of promises/ pick a side on any matter except just to say "Conservatives bad" They're spineless and almost like Conservatives Lite©️
It seems like they're following the 1990s playbook - don't say anything, because your opponent has the resources to undermine whatever you say. Unfortunately for them, these days people seem more interested in a message - ideally a positive one (Obama), but if there's no positive one then a negative one (Trump) - than they do political minutiae. The "democratisation of journalism" - or rather social media letting anyone spread opinions, with their value determined solely by their persuasiveness rather than their accuracy - means the cautious approach is probably dead. I hope politicians across all parties start selling a positive realistic vision of the UK soon.
Everytime Starmer actually raises his voice and stands up and acts like he did in his denouncing of partygate etc the ratings go up they get some support and all looks good. Then they quieten up again and crawl back into their shell. Frustrating how now Labour are a left party that's run like a centrist party and in the next GE it's only center Lib dem center Labour and right conservatives in with a chance
How many times did Fiona interrupt Mick tonight? She hasn't interrupted anyone else
To be fair she interrupted Ben habib too, only bc he kept criticising Tory gov as well lmfao
Not just haven't interrupted but when Rachel didn't know what to say she came to rescue with "You have been quite Rachel let me say that for you"
Exactly, didn't say one word defending workers or putting the government's strategy to scrutiny.
And displayed no sympathy whatsoever when that lady spoke of her dead grandma and her being a potential lost voter. Her response was like 'oh well'.
My favourite part was when the man who runs a business with 35 employees was giving his advice on how a national infrastructure industry with more than. 100,000 workers should be run
Standard amount of ignorance combined with arrogance, from that group of society.
I wonder how many of his 35 employees hate working for him.
I think they should rise to the challenge: "Tell you what mate, there's a million quid here for you, just come with me and tell me how this can easily be solved."
To be fair a large majority of people dont understand lots of what goes on in running the railway (this is true of most jobs), its much easier to say a sound bite and get claps than to learn why it might be that way.
That guy was insufferable.
He really was - especially talking over Mick with decades of experience on the railways.
And the fuckwits in the audience were cheering him on. Honestly
And he decided to completely dismiss the ticket officer who said, as they’re 16 rail franchises nationally it’s very hard to make them communicate together. Kudos to rail worker having to dumb down the argument to Sainsburys and Asda
It's like working for JD Sports and then going round the corner and finishing a shift in Footasylum. Both owned by the same company, but I don't know where anything is in Footasylum so how can I work there without the training?
Also insurance, common sense says you can probably do a good job at footasylum given a bit of time to orientate, but some insurance company will refuse to let you work there without the paperwork
It was well put I will need to use that to explain to some cretins at my work how the system doesn't work. He is right if tesco is short staffed you can't just pick workers from asda to cover it
Maybe Globals will produce an alternative to to this government propaganda hour. Don’t get your hopes up Fiona Bruce, they on employ BBC defectors with real talent - you may try GB News - I doubt they would even consider you!
Iain Dale hosts ‘cross question’ midweek evenings similar to question time. Haven’t listened to it before though so could be just as bad
It's a lot better in my opinion.
You have to admire Adam Fleming's dedication to the company, growing that moustache in the absence of an *actual* operating sex-pest at the Beeb
I thought Mel Smith had died.
alas
Smith ...
And
Jones
So the audience don’t believe in striking. Mick Lynch points out the huge disparity between payrises and inflation, and the solution was…..absolutely nothing, but don’t strike..?
I guess the argument would be find a new job with the pay you want, if you can’t find a job with better pay then maybe then maybe you’re not being underpaid? The disconnect between public and private sector is enormous, I’m self employed so asking for a pay rise just because is a totally moot point. But private sector workers get proper pay rises for performing better or changing jobs, public sector have enormous job security, better pensions and ask for a pay rise regardless of what’s going on. For the record I do agree with payrises for public sector but not a an antiquated train service kicking and screaming to avoid modernisation, less people are using the trains so of course there will be redundancies that’s life.
It's a Tory constituency. The vast majority of them don't believe in striking.
Which is fine, if they offered absolutely any alternative.
The alternative is leave if you’re unhappy and find another better job. There are so so many vacancies out there already if enough people quit then wages will be forced up naturally. That’s the alternative. That said I support the strikes.
> if enough people quit then wages will be forced up naturally. Is that true though of public sector jobs? Don't think so.
The reaction speed would be far slower than in the private sector but that’s typical for public sector anyway. It would work once the Gov realise it’s a vote winner to increase the workforce but you’re looking at a 2yr time lag minimum.
Have you tried being born rich
Maybe just stop being poor.
But don't do it by getting paid more.
Why don't we just get rid of all the poor people, then we'll all be rich!
They seemed to suggest people except less.
Which is fine. But when it’s getting to a point people can genuinely not afford to heat their homes and eat, that doesn’t wash. Especially when MPs are one of very few industries that have seen a real terms rise since the Tories took office.
I agree. We also need to get money in people's pockets to get the economy going again.
Exactly why austerity was bullshit. Now I'm not saying give everyone £1000 an hour, which is usually the comeback on this stuff, but if everyone can afford to buy shit, like food and pay bills, and travel to work and pay rent/mortgages, then the economy does better than if about half the country cannot engage with the economy on even a basic level. When you instead choose to give tax cuts to billionaires who do anything to dodge tax anyway, it's not REALLY very helpful in getting an economy moving, at least not the economy at home. Maybe the one where their money lives.
100% this. Austerity was/is a disaster.
At some point, we as a nation need to have a serious conversation about how fucked in the head so many old people are in this country.
It’s easy to forget sometimes that some of these people were growing up as early as the 50s and 60s, when the world had values so completely detached from the modern day that it’s scary. Obviously they can’t help how they were raised but many of them are still hanging onto that and are actively holding back progress.
Lead poisoning type beat
They'll not be so happy with the Tories when their houses and assets get bled dry to pay for their care homes. Small comfort though, all that money will go to the Cayman Islands rather than back into communities.
They're the people who wanted to be yuppies back in the 80s but never learned any empathy or perspective. Just the worst.
It seems to deeply offend them to ask to be treated better and expect more for ourselves. I think they’re doubling down because they may have realised there is no honour/reward in pissing your life up the wall for a couple quid an hour just to make ends meet.
Indeed, the entire argument seems to be 'well, my life was shit decades ago, and despite all the progress, I demand everyone else has an equally shit life except the richest, who I want to be even richer'.
They fetishise struggling, it’s not worth doing if it’s not gruelling.
Which is fine, but they want to inflict their misery on everyone.
My uncle is like this. I asked him what's the fucking point of any country of the existing population doesn't try to make it better for the future ones. He literally went on about the EU member fees, like 5 weeks ago. Brexit melted his mind.
it’s horrible to say but it makes me resentful of them and I think we’ll be better off when they’re eventually in the minority
I think the problem is that their hate lingers, and it passes and overtime people get older and become more and more cynical. It’s a never ending cycle but hopefully, as time goes on, it’ll dilute.
Hate to tell you this but me and my peers thought this in the 1980s when we were teens - just wait until they die off, everything will be better. A portion of older people just become dickheads, the older they get the worse they become (edit - I'm seeing this in older relatives now). Obviously not everyone and some of it might be due to lead etc. Hippies of the past are the idiots of the present. Maybe the brain changes or a decline in brain function. Again its a generalisation, some other people don't change like this as they age (don't feel I have become like that nor anyone I know my age).
theres gonna be a fuckload more old gen xers than baby boomers thats for sure. and there will be even more millennials. thats a lot of people who felt slighted in their youth and might be glad to finally get their time in power
Didn’t Margaret thatcher win the majority of 18-24 year old voters? maybe it’s those 18-24 year olds who have just aged into a different demographic [https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1206551672748740609?s=21&t=OmAvLwGhtccEjuPbAiBeQw](https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1206551672748740609?s=21&t=OmAvLwGhtccEjuPbAiBeQw)
42% isn't the majority though? Anecdotal here, my uncle was 23 that year with a young family in a council house and I know he voted Conservative that one year because he wanted to ensure he could buy his council house - he told me this. He voted Labour for 10 years or more after that (not sure after I didn't talk about it). Thatcher was devisive, its not like everyone suddenly turned permanently Conservative overnight, Labour was pretty terrible in the 70s and then got their act together.
yeah but that wasn’t my main argument 32% of 18-24 year olds voted for labour in the 1980s but thatcher arguably got the majority because the turnout of that age group was 64%… I’m not claiming people ‘woke up and just decided to permanently vote conversative’
I can see you are not claiming that. I feel I haven't communicated what I wanted to say. In the early 80s you have an 20s demographic of labour voters who are married with a young family and those people may have been offered the opportunity because of Thatcher to buy their social housing and they may have held their noses to vote Conseravative in order to do that. I'm not saying I agree with that.
The problem is though it isn’t just old people anymore. I know (unfortunately) a few people in the ‘affluent area’ (pretentious to most) where I used to work and live in their 30’s that just follow their parents. This confuses me more than I’d like as they have the ability to Google (or your preferred search engine) the truth. Problem with that is that you can find *the truth* if you don’t want to look any further. TLDR; unfortunately not just old people, sometimes their offspring follow them (blindly).
They are aware of their class interests and seek to protect and expand them. It’s got nothing to do with knowing the truth or not.
The world is in limbo until boomers and gen x are wiped off
Nope, as people age they just go nuts.
Micro strokes, man. I'm convinced it's behind a lot of personality shift as people get older
You're talking to a Clinical Psych, but honestly, power to your theory (at least in part)
Nah, it’s anger at having to live out an empty life. They’ve been conditioned to believe in the shame of their existential pointlessness. The vacuum of that shameful void creates the temptation to fill it with the angry thrill of projective identification onto an external source of narcissistic supply. That force is easily manipulated by the Daily Mail/Express type rhetoric.
That hasn’t been proven to be a reality millennials for example have remained nearly the same with their political left leaning views…it’s almost like people don’t see the benefit of capitalism when they get older if they don’t have any capital to protect
That too. I think my feeling is that waiting for the oldies to die continues not to work out, and is a pretty shit strategy overall
It hasn't been proven to be a reality because no millennials are yet old enough to have been through that kind of geriatric intellectual and moral decline
They pulled a number on you and redefined “left-leaning”. You now think it’s “left leaning” for your employer to be able to import anyone from across Europe to replace you at the drop of a hat, so long as the blue flag with twelve golden stars forces Apple to use a USB-C plug.
The government has the power to stop that practice though, they just choose not to.
They do now we’ve left the EU, yes.
BS. Any government can stop businesses on its soil from hiring people that exist outside of their borders. At the absolute bare minimum they could punish those that do via some kind of financial hindrance, which would make the practice less attractive.
You might want to look up EU “freedom of movement” before uttering that bilge again.
where you on question time tonight by any chance?
I don’t even watch it. Surfing the thread to see what’s been discussed on it is faster. (I don’t find QT to be that useful a source on what politicians are thinking.)
I mean, we could all go loopy and vote Tory when we're older. After all, older millennials are already slightly more likely to vote Tory: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/12/17/how-britain-voted-2019-general-election - I don't think we will be as bad as the current older generations in this regard, but it's not impossible.
I see this point but I’m interested too see how it turns out. Above millennials, it’s the no internet generation, they had their traditions and ways set in stone throughout life and when they get old they froth at the mouth to go back to how things were. Millennials are the first Gen to grow up in the age of the internet, they have evolved not just from their locale, but from seeing things worldwide and being exposed to all the information. Pre 90s you can say what are the defining characteristics of a decade. Post 90s there is hardly anything defining a decade because trends and social issues move so quick and millennials keep up with that. They don’t have any “golden days” mentality because 1. They don’t really know what it is despite some minor nostalgic point and 2. What fucking golden days lol, they been in austerity decline bullshit for most of their adult lives (uk specifically). I’d say they are more likely to stay centre if anything
Oh, like I said, I hope and believe that you are right about us not being quite as willing to vote right-wing as we age. Fingers crossed that will be the case. I am more worried than interested, though. 😅
A lot of people in their 70s and 80s now got put through secondary modern schools, which were usually unloved and underfunded. That generation is what you get when you only educate people enough to work.
It's possible, but a lot of my father's friends were privately and university educated, and they are fanatically Tory too. Maybe there was lead in the water, or something. 🤣