On Thursday I was one of the speakers at the Oxford Union debate on the motion “This House believes the right cannot represent the interests of the working class”. I was dismayed by the dated, arrogant, condescending and foolish motion. It was as if we were still living in the mid nineteenth century, with Marx telling us all to see things through the prism of class. Then there were three classes of rail carriage and liner cabins, in an age when people with money hired domestic servants and many adults including all women still did not have the vote. Today most of us are workers, and many workers now work with brain and computer. Machines dig ditches, speed the construction of buildings, make things in factories where before hard labour was needed from the hand and arm of man. All adults have the vote, and many adults aspire to what a class campaigner would call a middle class lifestyle. The many want and expect a good home of their own, a family car,Ā tv, washing machine and holiday away that were the prerogatives of the better off seventy years ago.
The proposers of the motion elided “working class” with poor as the left seeks to do. There was no allowance in their backward looking view for the better paid workers , and every assumption that the minority that is temporarily on benefits is the norm and the core of their “working class”. There was no recognition that centre right parties often get elected, represent the workers and go on to get re-elected. There was even less understanding of why that should be. The left in the UK have never forgiven Margaret Thatcher for having great appeal to many of their chosen working class. They ignore the popularity of policies which allow people to keep more of the money they earn, to own their own homes and to gain a stake in the wealth of the nation through their savings, pension plans, ISAs and the rest.
The arrogance of the motion was poignant a few days after Angela Rayner’s important quote that “for too long we (Labour) have given off an air of talking down to people and telling people what they need, or even what they should want or what they should think.” The Oxford union narrowly voted down this archaic foolishness. Many people want a hand up, not to live on hand outs. Politicians should not seek to lecture people on what they should believe, think and want, but should seek to compete to offer people more and better service related to their problems and above all to their aspirations. The aim of debate is persuasion, not stern correction.Ā Most people aspire to live in a better home they own, to own a better car, to have some money in the bank and to have more freedom to choose. Few aspire to live on benefits in a rented flat under the control of the state as paymaster, landlord, policeman and social worker. I pointed out that the students at Oxford, assembled from so many backgrounds and all income levels, are surely united in seeking a better life for themselves through personal effort. By excelling at school and College they aim for well paid jobs and comfortable homes. Why seek to deny this upward mobility to others or pretend that the right does not have policies that can help achieve these aims?
May 15, 2021
I am surprised you were allowed to speak. Others before you have be ācancelled ā. Amber Rudd to name one.
May 15, 2021
Indeed a bit much when they are cancelling left of centre, pro EU, wet dopes like Amber Rudd.
Even Germain Greer or JK Rowling types are cancelled by these lefty loons.
May 15, 2021
You have to laugh at Greer and Rowling being cancelled. The biters bit.
May 15, 2021
Good morning,
I whole-heartedly agree with your analysis, disturbing really from 20 somethings to think this way; and who is ‘the right’, was it defined? If there’s a ‘right party’ in the UK I don’t know who it is!
The parties we have now fall into two categories, the Incompetent and the un-electable.
May 15, 2021
@Peter Wood +1
Democracy failed – we have never achieved Government by the People for the People. Further compounded with a Party System that has degenerated into poorly managed Gangs that have no interest than to retain, defend their Status Quo above Government and interests of the Country.
Their are a handful of MP’s that entered Parliament to serve – the whole point and purpose of the place – but the clamoring look at me rabble are drowning them out
May 15, 2021
Good morning.
Socialism has been, and will be, all about ‘struggle’. It sets itself through its Siren calls as the moral and political champion of whatever cause(s) that will enable it to gain power. One only has to read, George Orwell’s Animal Farm to better understand where Socialism begins and how it ends and to know that those championing such causes only seek to do so for their own selfish ends.
One also has to look at the policies of the Conservative Party, such as female quotas on company boards, or interference into private markets, to realise how far this malign doctrine has spread. Good old common sense and critical thinking has given way to emotions. These emotions are then exploited into carefully crafted propaganda and used to ‘nudge’ people into actions that they would not ordinarily take. We have experienced those that lived in the former East Germany that which was to imprison them. Not with walls, but with psychological tools and coercion through State organs.
We need to recognise how close we are to the Event Horizon of totalinasim, and step back from it.
May 15, 2021
What would really help the working class most would be lower taxes, easy hire and fire, far less government, far fewer regulations, far fewer people in parasitic state sector and other compliance jobs, no renewable net zero carbon lunacy, cheap reliable energy, an NHS that was competent with better health care competition and decent education with freedom of choice (education vouchers for schools, loan to start businesses and to acquire sensible and needed occupational skills). Stop paying them not to work or learn to work too. Unless they are so ill they cannot.
Also if the working class did not have to pay taxes so that nearly 50% of our ( usually richer youth) can go to university with soft loans to study (in the main almost worthless degrees in almost worthless subjects – with their 2Ds at A levels or even less). Many subject like FORENSIC SCIENCE for example train about 200 times more people than there are jobs in this field. Even for lawyers it is 4 times and we have far too many lawyers already (augmented by the absurd legal systems, tax and HR complexity, no win no fee lunacy and endless other mad red tape and littigation).
About 75% of people getting into Ā£50k for university degrees should be learning practical skills on day release or night schools while working. Also stop the BBC dripping then in lefty green crap and other such big state drivel.
May 15, 2021
Certainly do not force the working class or anyone else to buy expensive electric cars (that save no net CO2 anyway), heat pumps, expensive renewable electricity, over insulate their homes or other such net job destroying insanities. Some elderly government infrastructure āexpertā on the other talking about infrastructure needed for charing cars at supermarket car parks. How many people want to spend more than five minutes in a typical supermarket? Hardly worth the effort of plugging it in and paying for five minutes of charge.
Cinema or office car parks perhaps.
May 15, 2021
@LL – you lost me at ‘working class’
We have a Government that demonstrates it is not a Government for the UK. As a result it cant stand up for the People of the UK. Its a Government that knows how to dig deep into your wallet and say the Government will pay for this that and another. That’s the only problem even Government doesn’t under stand were the monies comes from.
May 15, 2021
Well Said.
May 15, 2021
+1
May 15, 2021
Lifelogic, The bible seems to indicate that we are headed for totalitarianism, where we can only buy and sell if we are chipped and have the correct social “score”. Previous generations would not have known what was meant. We do – state surveillance and control enabled by big tech.
May 15, 2021
My apologies – my comment was a reply to Mark B, not Lifelogic.
May 15, 2021
I sympathise with your reaction and agree with the views you expressed. I am neither surprised nor shocked at the wording of the motion, it is indicative of the condescending narrow mindedness that seems to pervade political debate in academic circles today. It is symptomatic of the ideology of victimhood currently being preached by the evangalistic left.
May 15, 2021
@None of the above, It would appear if you deny history it will go away instead of it being a lesson to be learnt.
May 15, 2021
This is precisely why liebour are being rejected.
The left must have a bogey man to justify their cause. Capitalism is that bogey man
The left represents the lazy, uneducated and angry mob. Hence their mission to dumb down education and rewrite history .
We only have to hope these students grow up by the time they’re 30.
Their definition of poverty being a percentage of average income will always portray a large percentage as in poverty.
They should go to India or south America and get a taste of real poverty.
May 15, 2021
And stay there.
May 15, 2021
Sir
Anyone CAN represent the working class.
The question is, who WILL represent the working class.
May 15, 2021
Spot On
May 15, 2021
Who will represent the natives of all classes?
May 15, 2021
The English Question. The great and carefully avoided question to which the answer can only be: those who love must speak. But those who love are uniformly traduced as haters, and those who speak in their stead claim to love everyone equally. To claim to love everyone equally, and thereby be indifferent to the English, is the sole qualification for speaking in the public square today. How can this be? How did we allow the self-contempt of the sociopathic left to drive out the voice of love? And how do we turn the tables?
May 15, 2021
Controlling what you are allowed to say is a debating (and political) tactic. It is a trick perpetrated by the likes of the LGBTQ, BLM, and ER lobbies. It is of course irrational – based on emotional manipulation rather than honest enquiry. Immense courage is required to counteract it. Sometimes the perpetrators get away with it (the “smash heteronormativity” brigade, so far); sometimes they don’t – as in Remain’s failure, or the green’s espousal of diesel cars.
May 15, 2021
Therein lies the problem as important as the students are it is about who is lecturing them that will have a bigger influence on their lives.
Many students stand back in shock horror when they discover what actually full timed served trades people actually can command for their skills. Not your NVQ assessment, multi choice examination questions being taught by those with similar training.
I am waiting on my tiler to commence doing my utility room @Ā£200 a day when not on price work. Electricians and heating engineers on Ā£320 a day and that is not city prices. These people are earning in excess of Ā£64k a year.
The students would if fully made aware, understand why really successful trades people live as they do and vote accordingly.
May 15, 2021
I agree with all you say . The question I have is which political party is more likely to facilitate the aspirations of the so called working class. As you say, a designation that does not stand up today. I would prefer the clumsy phrase the disadvantaged. Only an idiot philosophy would deny it’s intellectual base the opportunity to better itself and the country in the process.
The conservatives have a way to go in terms of opportunity. They deny grammar schools, the proven ladder of opportunity, because they are considered among the liberal elite of London to be akin to racism. They, the conservatives believe in dumbing down by lowering the standards of acceptance for places of higher education or at least they appear to let it happen. They should be ramping up students expectations and aspirations. Current talk from universities is of not returning to face to face education for at least another year. Government should stamp on such thinking and can do, as they control the purse strings. To facilitate aspiration I want the tuition fees of Ā£9,000 per annum dropped for anyone capable of undertaking course in Science, Engineering and Medicine in the widest sense of these disciplines. Technical apprentice education must not be overlooked either.
Tories must learn and accept that the less well off can be loyal to the concept of a sovereign post Brexit/Covid UK, and certainly more so than the lingering establishment. Hartlepool should have told them that. I also want the nonesense of the NI Protocol put to death, too obvious a source of trouble.
The Labour party has to rediscover it’s purpose. After a disasterous flirtation with Marxism, they remain shackled with it in thinking and some of their left over MPs. Presumably they are still hampered with the grass roots support of many of militant tendency. Beyond holding government to account they need to re think their base purpose. From this they need policies that are sellable. I would add that it is not as if there is nothing to turn their attention to. There is in fact an opportunity fest in improving the lives of all. Their first lesson would be to drop their class sectarian stance. Mental health needs and it’s very limited provision is classless, as is the impact of crime, drugs and a whole list of current inadequacies. As a Tory I would be electorally running scared if I thought that Labour had cottoned on to this pot of opportunity.
The SNP will wither on the vine in direct proportion to the success of a post Brexit/Covid UK and the amount that success trickles north of the border. It’s the economy stupid reigns as ever.
The “Working Class”, though dead as a term are, if you mean the disadvantaged, up for grabs by fostering and answering their aspirations.
May 15, 2021
The ‘Working class’ doesn’t exist. It’s a narrative that seeks to replace reality with something other than. It’s a political tool that seeks the sheep herding of humanity for control. Thatcher’s assertion that ‘there is no such thing as society’ destroyed the fascist left’s narrative. Assert the real individual and their ideology falls apart
I want freedom FROM politics not a world in which Oxbridge runts seek control over me. These people leave Oxford-Cambridge and enter into government. Think about that and shiver with fear. They are the enemy within
Moreover, Communism is National Socialism. It was Churchill who described these two evil ideologies and those who propagate such ideas as ‘Brothers in arms’. His assertion has been validated by historical experience.
It seems those who opposed the evil of Communism are unable to demonise it as we have seen in the case of National Socialism. Mass murder. Genocide. Both important components of the Communist creed. From the slaughter of Stalin’s Holodomer right through to China’s oddly named Cultural Revolution. Even psychopaths like Pol Pot spent time with lunatics like Sartre who was a Stalinist sympathiser and then took his Year Zero ideas back to Cambodia with grisly consequences
Today, Marxism is once again being allowed to flourish both in the wider world and within domestic politics. Even this PM has appointed them to SAGE and to his own team of advisers.
I watched BBC’s Pointless last week. They showed images of Stalin, Lenin and Marx as though they were your average political player. The BBC knows what it is doing. Its agenda has once again become decidedly Marxist presenting these fascists as normal political figures.
Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and Marx etc haven’t been demonised. Why? They and their ideas have slaughtered tens of millions and yet they still enjoy popularity. Is it because their governments still exist and doing so would infract upon geo-political sensitivities?
Marxism is death. Marxism is genocide
May 15, 2021
+1
May 15, 2021
@DOM +1
Agreed it is the practise of telling someone they have no hope, no self esteem, they suffer as a result of others. Follow me, do as I say and I will lead you to the promised land.
May 15, 2021
Dom, You are perfectly correct. The bane of our lives are the ideologues who make everything political – from our work to the gender of our children.
May 15, 2021
Again. Brilliant.
Middle class used to be upstairs/downstairs. MPs used to have servants dwelling in their town houses.
Calling people in semis ‘middle class’ is a con and to pretend that there isn’t still an uber elite, a new aristocracy, on the islands of Como or on super yachts at sea is to mislead.
I understand that I live far better than a medieval king buy my boys dwell in cramped rooms in shared housing with doctors approaching their thirties and not much hope of moving on.
Andy will blame old Brexit voters but this was the very thing we were voting against and the situation predates the Brexit vote.
May 16, 2021
And this is the reason why we get Socialist policies no matter who you vote for.
May 15, 2021
What lefty students really hate, deep down, is greedy, rat-race capitalism: malevolent capitalism. What they fail to realise / explore though is that there is also another kind of capitalism that is based on work ethic: benevolent capitalism. This latter capitalism is not about being rats but about being bees whose honey makes individuals, families, neighbourhoods, nations and civilisations strong – bit like at time of Renaissance (although still imperfect). The Quakers in business were like bees. Rats are greedy and selfish. Bees work well with others and are fruitful. Nor are they wimps either. They can sting at the right moment when needed – for the right reason. But so much easier, in a way to be a rat than a bee because being a bee requires work ethic, courage, personality and so on. But being a bee so worth it. Leads to profoundly more happy and successful individuals and nations in the long run.
May 15, 2021
Lastly, I would have challenged Mrs Thatcher. She might not have agreed with everything I say. But women LOVE it when a man stands up to them. Love it. Not just for moral reasons but for human reasons too. So I would have challenged her. And enjoyed doing so!
May 15, 2021
‘a man stands up to them’ – but in the right way. In a gentleman-like manner.
May 15, 2021
Ed M, Greed is not a characteristic of capitalism (an ideology invented by the left), but of humanity. There is just as much greed in socialist regimes, but rather less transparency about it.
May 15, 2021
@NickC
I 100% agree with you. We all agree that Socialism (/ Marxism / Communism) is the pits – for lots of different reasons.
All I am saying is that there are two types of Capitalism. One based on Greed and the other on Work Ethic.
The fact of the matter is that we’re all a mixture of the two (greed and work ethic) because we’re flawed human beings. But good to be aware of and to inspire each other for better.
And this isn’t just a case of being moralistic – but of focusing on a Capitalism that is most efficient in creating happiness and stability now and in the long-term (it’s not rocket science to see why some money-grabbing capitalists spend some of their evenings snorting cocaine or whatever to take away the misery. Clearly, people like this snort cocaine (or whatever their addiction is – could just be showing off to people) type of capitalism, based on greed, is not working for him at a deep level. But then you get the capitalist who focused on work ethic and goes to work, and comes back to a happy home, life of friends, happy holidays, does something patriotic / sense of public duty and so on.
May 16, 2021
Charles Dickens was a capitalist (like me) but even back in his day there was an ugly kind of capitalism which he summed up in the character of Scrooge.
There was so much that was great about the Victorian era, but if people had had even more vision and tried harder (as Scrooge learns – and he doesn’t stop being a capitalist, but instead turns to becoming a benevolent capitalist) then the Victorian era would have been even more beautiful and inspiring etc (clearly, there was a lot about it that wasn’t – in particular because of a rat-like, utilitarian-kind of capitalism that we see in Scrooge as opposed to a bee-like, creative capitalism that we saw far more during the time of The Renaissance – albeit imperfect era too).
May 15, 2021
John’s heading shows either a profound lack of insight or is an attempt to mislead, I think.
Working class people may work in call centres, for delivery firms or for whatever employer.
They may also be self-employed as say, tradesmen or women.
The latter are a large, but generally completely different sort of person, and yes, John’s party may appeal to them for various – in my opinion ignoble – reasons.
They will never genuinely improve the standing of the first however, whatever they claim. They are on the side of the rentier class.
May 15, 2021
I respectfully suggest that the salient point of this debate is not what the ‘Right’ can offer the so-called working class but what the ‘Left’ can offer them. The reason for the left’s drift towards identity politics is the Electorates’s refusal to fit into the ‘box’ that the Labour Party created in the early 20th century.
The problems that Labour was created to tackle were solved years ago and, importantly, maintained by other parties when in Government. Labour no longer has the purpose that once drove it and it’s supporters.
The left of centre has tried to fill the vacuum with imagined grievances against so-called protected minority groups but elevated their importance above that of the majority.
The rights of people within these ‘protected groups’ are no different to the rights of everyone else in society.
May 15, 2021
You have made politics generally all about identity, because you have decided that whichever side people were on back in the brexit issue should be their defining aspect in that regard, and that it should never be forgotten.
However, it will be, despite the vehemence of people such as you and John.
May 15, 2021
Martin, The vehemence was all on your (Remain) side as Leaves were denounced as thick, uneducated, stupid, xenophobic, racist, etc, and Remain politicians tried to overturn our vote by trashing our democracy. It won’t be forgotten.
May 16, 2021
If a Leave-promoting politician had paid the price – at the hands of Remain-backers – that some on the other side had, then you might just have a point.
However, you rely as ever on people having short memories it seems.
This silly game of the Right’s will soon lose its appeal for voters – if it has not already.
May 15, 2021
Quite the opposite MiC. It is the left who are trying to promote ID politics (ID politics has nothing to do with Brexit). Their ultimate goal is to introduce segregation and that would have disastrous consequences for our Country.
May 15, 2021
Totally agree None of the Above
Great post
May 15, 2021
Brush the dust off your red flag and get out there protesting Martin.
Hiding behind initials on this site, barely moderated, with dyed in the wool anarchist views won’t get anything to happen that you would like.
Get out there shout your slogans, find a wall where you can shoot ’em all come the revolution brother.
May 15, 2021
Yet the standard of living for the two groups you mention MiC, have improved hugely in recent decades.
Labour needs to realise that the working class, especially the younger generation, are far less tribally loyal to the Labour Party and are far more ambitious than they realise.
May 16, 2021
The UK needs two parties that stand up for benevolent capitalism (as opposed to rat-like capitalism) – one representing the middle classes and one representing the working classes.
There shouldn’t be anything radically different about the two – more to keep each other on their toes.
And to make a strong and stable country isn’t all about politics. Politics is powerful but politicians shouldn’t over-estimate their power. We also need people taking responsibility for themselves and people will only learn and be inspired to do this through Education, the Media, Arts, C of E and so on – yes, and Politics as well. But it’s not all about Politics. Therefore politicians have to embrace Education, the Media, the Arts and so on far more than they do to offer a comprehensive vision and form of True Conservatism.
May 15, 2021
Malevolent Capitalism based on Greed leads to family breaks-ups, negative mental health, low productivity overall addictions, violence, wars. Etc. Not only is it boring and stressful but eventually just destroys individuals, nations and civilisation – as well as breeding socialism.
Benevolent Capitalism based on Work Ethic leads to things like strong families, strong mental health, high productivity, Shakespeare, Mozart, beautiful cities like Venice, Beautiful buildings like Salisbury Cathedral, Oxford, Cambridge, the Judiciary, the Monarchy – Parliament (all created by the Church in Middle Ages).
May 15, 2021
The Judiciary, the Monarchy and Parliament were all created by the mediaeval Church? On which planet?
May 15, 2021
OK, let’s look at the Monarchy. The Monarchy was only able to justify its existence precisely because of the biblical precedent of King David in the OT. The monarch is annointed in a religious ceremony. The monarch is Christ – The King of Kings – representative here on Earth in terms of temporal power (the bishops, in spiritual power). This is pretty much a non issue if you’re a historian of medieval history.
The monarchy has always been under threat. But the time when it first came under real proper threat was with the French Revolution – rooted in ANTI-RELIGIOUS, QUASI SOCIALISM.
Without the powerful Christian monarchs, bishops, nobility and merchants of The Middle Ages, you wouldn’t have had Parliament, The Judiciary, Oxford, Cambridge, Beautiful Cathedrals, Beautiful cities such as Venice and so forth. Sure, there was an element of corruption involved too. But Traditional Christianity was essential for all of this – including the great Arts of The Renaissance.
But now Traditional Christianity is under threat from aggressive, nasty, destructive Socialism / Communism / Marxism, Feminism, Social Liberalism and Capitalism based on greed as opposed to work ethic, and so on. And look at the rat-race we’ve created. Dysfunctional society. People depending on State instead of Family. Lack of patriotism. Lack of family life. Low productivity (compared to say the Quakers in business). Dumbed-down arts compared to The Renaissance. And so on.
May 15, 2021
Yes, Traditional Christianity has always been inspired by the best of Greco-Roman Civilisation (but ditching the bad stuff and blending with the great virtues of Traditional Christianity: modesty, generosity of spirit, wisdom, courage, and so on).
May 15, 2021
Mrs Thatcher was a Traditional Christian lady. She would have 100% accepted my argument. She might not have always followed her own Traditional Christianity (let God be the judge of that – and have mercy on Mrs Thatcher). I sadly fail every day too (but success too). But she would have certainly listened to what I say, agreed with so much and respected the rest.
May 15, 2021
The fact that the motion was only just voted down, shows how our entire education system has been infected and overtaken by the extreme thoughts of the left during the last 40 decades or more, and is surely a huge signal (if ever one was needed) that it needs to change.
It would seem gone are the days when education was about preparing people for the world of work, with a good background in the key subjects of sensible mathematics, literacy, physics, a factual knowledge of our historical past, with geography also taking its place.
Universities are now for many it would seem, an expensive academic discussion group/shop for theorists with DIY learning, for degrees which are of questionable actual use, and which seems to have bred an attitude in some people to think that because they have been to university, they are or should be, above others that have not.
May 15, 2021
OOp’s for 40 decades, read 40 years or 4 decades
May 15, 2021
Alan, True. Yet, hearteningly, four decades ago the majority of students ignored the extreme left who had taken over the student unions. I went to a student union debate when I first started, heard the marxist tosh, and never went again. Maybe the current generation are less critical, but I hope not.
May 15, 2021
NickC
That’s about the time that the old LSE students of the 60’s and 70’s started getting into positions of influence in the education system, after that they had the ability to brainwash the students at will, and started to re-write our history.
Now their version of everything is taken as the truth, unless students dig deeper, and many it would seem cannot be bothered, so they just accept what they are told.
May 15, 2021
Socialism is political paedophilia. It deceives to gain your confidence with promises of untold riches and then enslaves and abuses you when captured though some would argue this vile form of politics has been in existence now since 1997 and those who adhere to it are evil.
It is not acceptable that Communism and Marxism are still referred as though they are civil, legitimate and aspirational. It is evil. It is dangerous and it must be demonised
You can see for yourself that the people who once propagated and no doubt still secretly hold these ideas now control many areas of life. The number of TV programs about the horrors committed under Hitler, National Socialism and this collectivist ideology are too many to number. Each day we are bombarded with such political deception to create the idea that Marxism (so called left) and National Socialism (so called far right) exist at separate ends of this most deceitful of narratives, the left-right narrative. This deceit is deliberate and sinister
May 15, 2021
+1
May 15, 2021
I am stunned “The Oxford union narrowly voted down this archaic foolishness”, given they would be Generation Z-ers and so primed to ignore reality. You must have been at your very persuasive best.
I accept it would be modern to now clap for those who did the voting down but perhaps a silent prayer for those who did not would be more useful and kind.
May 15, 2021
You say, Sir John, that ‘most people aspire to live in a better home they own’. That may be true, but under 11 years of Conservative government the fact is that for most younger people the chances of buying their own home have continued to fall. This is why even in the 2019 election Labour votes massively outnumbered Conservative ones among the under 40s. Record numbers of people are now having to live with their parents even in their 40s. You can have all the aspirations you like, that’s the reality.
I’m getting this point in perhaps before Andy does.
May 15, 2021
Hat man – this just isnāt true in all areas in the Country. You can buy starter homes in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and other cities (many of those that elect Labour) and if someone is living at home with their parents until theyāre 40 even on the NLW they should have saved up sufficient for a big deposit. If they choose not to then donāt cry to everyone else. They canāt all in Kew or Chiswick but they can live further afield.
May 15, 2021
The Northern cities are much cheaper to buy in anyway. What chance have our young in the south got? Absolutely no chance in London. Unless you are an MP who can put his London living accommodation on his expenses, what chance have say Junior doctors on a starting salary of Ā£30,000 in London got of getting on the property ladder especially when theyāve got their tuition fee debts this Government have inflicted on them to pay off as well. Why on earth should our useless MPs get their accommodation paid for but not those of much more use such as Doctors?
May 16, 2021
I know four young people buying homes in the South, they just canāt live in well established areas, they have to go out to Dartford, south of Croydon, north of Brent, south of Morden and these are people in very well paid jobs that have lived four and five to a house to save up deposits for many years.
May 16, 2021
Jules, donāt London doctors get London weighting like London teachers and nurses? I thought they also got key worker advantages on shared home ownerships from the HAās. If not these new doctors should get their first placements in places their wages would buy them a starter home to get a springboard, people do live and work in the North, Midlands, too much is centralised in London everyone needs NHS treatments and all hospitals do continuous training.
May 15, 2021
The irony of the people that have either clawed their way up to get into Oxford for a perceived advantage or used all their family connections to get in with lower grades or less ability, having had years of private education, extra tuition and being told all the right things to do and say in interviews (even paying for courses in many instances to be tutored on how to pass these tests of class and breeding – you donāt have to be rich to do these things just well connected through Unions, Headmasters preference or the church). Donāt make me laugh. Oxbridge isnāt just an educational establishment for the best in the Country, it is an establishment club whose membership opens doors. It is classism at its peak.
May 15, 2021
Your party does not defend itās members and supporters from attacks of their views. Your membership drops because people donāt want to be associated with the bile spewed on people with right of centre views. The damaging narrative in Scotland of English Tories thrust in your face near elections with people pushing stickers on us telling us get rid of the English Tories is cleverly wiping the Tories out. This allowing the students to double-dip Vote on local elections is I believe causing two problems, large university areas do not represent the actual people who live there and pay the local council taxes (I know local councils that really struggle because so many shared houses in certain wards no longer receive enough local council tax because students donāt pay it) and these students then go on to believe they can double dip in the general election too.
People donāt know where they sit. I know very middle class and some that Iād consider upper class young adults that would call themselves working class and pretend they have no privilege from birth that has got them to where they are. To me they are champagne socialists and donāt want to live amongst people from the working class, they wonāt buy properties in shoddy areas and bemoan that they canāt afford properties in the most elite areas, when I say to them well places like Notting Hill and Camden rise because people like you moved there years ago. I know someone that could easily buy a house in a poorer area but thinks he canāt afford to own his own home because he only wants to live in an exclusive area, his wife wants their child to go to the right school so theyāve rented for 15 years and moans he doesnāt own a property where if heād moved 20 minutes up the road heād be half way through paying down his mortgage.
May 15, 2021
This strange attitude described, is of course very much a part of the politically correct woke culture, of people who cannot see beyond the end of their noses, but is is also a large part of the indoctrination process that we receive at every level, especially from our beloved BBC.
Until we start to get rationality rather than dogma from our brainwashing media, people will continue to believe that they are the effect of a bygone class system.
May 15, 2021
surely the white hetro male working and under class are the most discriminated section of society, being handed the worst education options, constantly talked down to, and discriminated against by the state quite openly in the name of “positive discrimination”
and here we are people want to assign political views to them, refusing to accept that any could possibly be righter wing that they are (whatever that means these days when most real people pick policies they support a la carte from allover the political spectrum)
one of the biggest failings of the political class is that they fail to represent such people, or have a feel for the common sense views most have that are contrary to the accepted wisdoms of the political class
I for one think its the sad little posh boys and girls at Oxbridge that are a large part of the problem, and I sure wouldnt bother turning up at their debating events, there is likely to be better debates in the average inner city comp
so sort of well said john, but raspberries to the political class and the spoilt undergrads and their woke teaching staff
May 15, 2021
‘there is likely to be better debates in the average inner city comp’.
– or even in the average backstreet pub! if they have survived.
May 15, 2021
Marvellous Sir John and an example to them all.
The reality that private enterprise is the dynamo that grows the economy pulling everyone up via minimum govt involvement to provide a safety net for those least fortunate.
The left should seek to make itself relevant an adapt when this happens but wallowing in self pity and hypocrisy has occurred.
As one lady noted to Labour “Who do you represent?” (Apart from themselves).
May 15, 2021
No borders and mass immigration are not in the interests of the working class, it is the quickest way to depress their incomes whilst making it more difficult to access housing and services . The question should have been directed to the left.
In reality both political wings can represent or not the working classes interests and wider societies interests. Currently the alliance between the left’s internationalism and the right’s globalism is unpicking the fabric of the nation state , which represents and protects (or should) our interests on the global stage.
May 15, 2021
+1
May 15, 2021
I see Oxford University now wants to ādecoloniseā the STEM curricula. Presumably the works of those dreadful old whities Newton, Leibniz, Euler, Clerk-Maxwell, Einstein, Schrodinger, Bohr etc must all be set aside. Will the results of their works still be used and included or will decolonisation involve taking STEM at Oxford back to before their pernicious āeurocentricā influence? After all, I bet none of them would meet modern standards of wokery in their utterances and attitudes.
Talented students should seek out courses elsewhere, perhaps using a mix of online and physical courses in order to avoid this nonsense. Thereās no future for U.K. universities if it continues.
May 15, 2021
@Richard1 – to deny history means you don’t have to learn from it
May 16, 2021
+1
May 16, 2021
My eldest was encouraged to apply for Oxford by her school, better sense and guidance prevailed and they went to Imperial College instead.
May 15, 2021
I believe the BNP draws its membership mainly from the working class. I observe they are firmly right wing.
May 15, 2021
BNP policies are almost exclusively left wing (try looking on their website)- the only reason they are referred to as right wing is that the media and the establishment always assumes that the race card is played by the right.
Plaid and the SNP (and the Greens in Scotland) who all advocated nationalism and separatism are very left wing.
May 16, 2021
Correct.
May 15, 2021
but very little membership !
May 15, 2021
Oh, not all police, then?
May 15, 2021
Claiming that class no longer exists or that believing in it is condescending is rather misguided and hopeful I think Sir John.
Did not your own recent institutional racial commission find that outcomes are more likely to be affected by social position rather than race?
The right and free markets can indeed lift aspirational people of all creeds, colours and classes, it is authoritarianism and intervention that keeps them in their place.
May 15, 2021
Marxists have never forgiven the working class for not staging a huge revolution just prior to WW1.
They are scarcely likely to forgive any politician since who attempts to lessen the ramped up feelings of grievance in the poorer classes.
Unfortunately there is not, nor ever has been, a viable alternative to destruction by Marxism.
We have no party/government that really cares about the people it controls.
Vis the present unprecedented hubris, filth and downright cruelty.
Jab, jab, jab…jaw, jaw, jaw and back into your houses and destitution for you all.
May 15, 2021
Classism – have you ever had people look down their nose at you? The class system is far more invasive than racism itās just not as easy to see, class isnāt about how much you earn either itās perceived roots, where were you educated, what sort of degree did you get, what establishment, where did your parents go to university? What job do they do? Where do they live (my children have been asked this) youāre judged off where youāre living. People really do still believe theyāre better than other people and often the most guilty of this donāt see it in themselves.
People look down their nose at Angela Rayner she is role model like it or not. She has clawed her way up to a top position in this country – and yet who is that a takes a fall when otherās around her make mistakes! People underestimate people like Angela and they really shouldnāt.
May 15, 2021
Your points are valid but you fail to mention the reverse points of view, which exist. Politeness, consideration and manners are not class based.
May 15, 2021
@Ignoramus +1
So true.
May 15, 2021
Well said.
May 15, 2021
Ignoramus, I agree to a point. There is a difference to politeness and acceptance, Most often people arenāt rude to your face they just ignore people, exclude people or make sure other āImportantā āconnectedā people do. The most dismissive people often do so with a very polite smile on their face, making niceties, youāre sometimes there without them realising your background and when they find out youāre simply not invited again.
I donāt want to sound like I have chip on my shoulder over this because for me personally Iām not bothered what other people make of me but I must admit seeing any child that can be excluded from cliques, roles, projects, for no other reason than their parents background, education and where they live raises my dander, always has done.
May 15, 2021
I worry about young people today. I fear they have had life too good and have been cossetted from the harsh world we live in. There is a lack of debate and we see people with the perceived wrong opinion lose their jobs or ostracised. Many on the left of politics come across as hateful bullies. They hide behind social media. This Government does not stand up to the Woke brigade, in fact, they pander to them. Turning a blind eye will come back to bite them in the future. I despair at the state of politics.
May 16, 2021
Agree wholeheartedly. So many are wrapped up in their cosy little worlds safe in their notions of entitlement and worrying about ridiculous incidentals but ignoring the storms that are brewing.
May 15, 2021
The so-called Right should have had its hand on the tiller and steered a centrist course but neglected to do so.
Despite desperate warnings from what I thought the tories always called āRightā politicians ( now largely cancelled).
Well, are the liberal tories happy now that even our legal system can be cancelled by a braying mob?
May 15, 2021
The most recent braying mob was egged on by a devolved administration.
Disgusting
May 15, 2021
Yup!
That was the one I meant.
Utterly astounding/disgraceful/terrifying.
May 15, 2021
I wrote about two and a half inches on current Labour this morning. Angela Raynor, who at the centre of it should know, described it as ” Bald men fighting over combs”. Nothing more to be said.
May 15, 2021
The hazard that must be avoided is corruption and monopolisation i.e. the misuse of power. For millennia everybody suffered from the fact that those with the most violent army could win power. Later it was those who could yield power through powerful contacts, through marriages and through riches
I believe that the Representation of the People Act 1918, the Labour movement of the 1920ās and the Liberal reforms managed to roll back the corruption and monopolisation of a few elite and freed up much of the population. It vented the steam out of a situation that was heading for bloody revolution.
However, things went too far when socialism replaced one form of corruption with another.
I believe many on the Left misunderstand what the real danger is: it is not any person from any given āclassā, it is the misuse of power. Socialism is the denial of individual rights in favour of collective rights and ultimately leads to an erosion of democracy and a police-state. This is happening right now with our current socialist government.
May 16, 2021
Exactly !!
May 15, 2021
I think it was a good idea to discuss this matter – surely one of the points of this kind of debate is to examine and confront populist notions.
I wonder if you remember Mrs T’s acute comment: ‘just because there’s a Jaguar outside the front door doesn’t mean there’s a Tory voter behind it.’
May 15, 2021
or even ‘2 jags’.
May 15, 2021
John Prescott a great example of that, he had 2 Jag’s.
Indeed perhaps he was one of those she had in mind.
May 15, 2021
The problem that Labour have is that the UK “working class” is now much reduced in numbers in the 21st century. Agriculture has been mechanised and large farms now operate with minimal levels of staffing, much of which is seasonal crop picking. Where once we had an export-led manufacturing economy, the factories are long gone, turned firstly into brownfield wastelands and laterly into upmarket developments of housing and office space.
The old working class that fought the Korean war and the second world war are now passing, either from industrial disease or the Chinese plague virus. After peaking in the 1960s apprenticeships entered a slow decline, with half as many apprentices in employment in 1995 as there were in 1979 and a quarter in 2015. We have exported skilled jobs to China and Eastern Europe; now, along with their cheap manufactured goods we import skilled labour – particularly in the construction industry.
The one bright sector in engineering (at which we once excelled, along with academic R&D) is the defence industry, which contributed nearly 18% of export income in 2015. How poignant that the rump of our once globally famed reputation for engineering excellence has been reduced to selling weapons of war to some of the world’s most despotic regimes.
The one growth industry we have is in government related civil service non-jobs, now employing roughly 20% of the active workforce. No wonder that the last ten years of Conservative government has seen the size of the national debt double, from Ā£1 trillion to Ā£2 trillion.
May 15, 2021
Sakara, Well said.
May 15, 2021
An impassioned piece, Sir John, nicely done.
The true failure of the Left is that they have forgotten what they are for, choosing instead to build a coalition of the minorities,ignoring the majority in the process, with the inevitable result.
JF
May 15, 2021
Julian, The true failure of the left – particularly the young left – is they rant and riot about slave traders 300 years in the past, and the fascism of WW2 (defeated 75 years ago by those they despise), yet ignore evils they could do something about here and now. Where is the left’s defence of free speech, and their condemnation of modern slavery? Nowhere. Is that because modern youth have been indoctrinated with cultural marxism? Or is it just laziness?
May 15, 2021
Morning John,
That sounds inspirational but once you scratch the surface and dig deeper there are big problems that need to be fixed but are ignored.
It is very clear the right replaced the government with banks. It wasn’t Thatcher that created the myths around tax and spend it was the banking sector. The Right became the party of the banks until they do something about that I could never vote for them. Thatcher was the one who spread their myths and then everyone else copied her because it won votes. Now look at the mess it has created when trying to get tax cuts through for example.
Whilst everyone was worrying that their taxes would go up to pay for things which was a lie the banks got very busy. If a government canāt run a deficit, then it canāt spend money on roads, schools and other infrastructure. Theyāll have to privatise these assets ā and banks can create their own credit to let investors buy these assets and run them as rent-extracting monopolies.
The bank strategy continues: If we can privatise the economy, we can turn the whole public sector into a monopoly. We can treat what used to be the government sector as a financial monopoly. Instead of providing free education, we can make people pay to get an education, We can turn the roads into toll roads. We can charge people for water, and we can charge for what used to be given for free under the old style of Roosevelt capitalism and social democracy.
But if you donāt have a government that can fund itself, then who is going to govern, and on whose terms? The obvious answer is, the class with the money: The city of London and the corporate sector. They scream for a balanced budget, saying, We donāt want the government to fund public infrastructure. We want it to be privatised in a way that will generate profits for the new owners, along with interest for the bondholders and the banks that fund it; and also, management fees. Most of all, the privatised enterprises should generate capital gains for the stockholders as they jack up prices for hitherto public services.
So whilst people were worrying that their taxes would go up. Their disposable income they receive every month was taken by stealth. Created a new class the working poor. Working 2 jobs just to pay the bills. Compared with the past when the man of the household could cover all the costs and the family could still save.
It has made the UK uncompetitive it has increased the cost of doing business in businesses and pushed households into more debt. Debt that stops them buying the goods and services business produces.
The competition and monopoly commission is not fit for purpose. It destroys jobs not create them – See food banks for details.
May 15, 2021
Derek a high % of working class men in the past could only ācover all the costsā because they were working so much overtime, weekends, double jobbing, wives doing part-time in the few hours the husband or her parents werenāt working. The hours of working class men have come right down from over 48 to around 40 and this is thanks in the main to women taking on at least 20 hours work and often 37.5 as their children get older.
May 16, 2021
Hi a – tracy.
I hope you are having a fab weekend.
The evidence is all around us just look at how prices have increased on things that have been privatised. The competition and monopoly commission should be doing their job.
Many studies have been done by the right and left that show cleary roughly a third of disposable income was used in providing these goods and services.
As of 2017 in some areas it has reached 70% of disposable income.
Think about that ? It has increased the cost of doing business and businesses have to keep increasing wages so households can pay their bills.
Governments have to keep running larger and larger deficits. That is run larger and larger private sector surpluses so that households and businesses can save some of their income. The deficit has to meet the private sector savings desires or more households and businesses take on more debt.
Ask yourself ? Why have taxes not been slashed if the public sector has been privatised. Why have We no room to cut taxes ?
Above is why .Banks who now allocate skills and real resources instead of government via bank lending are unaccountable and can’t be voted out democratically. They have gained too much power.
Bank lending can be inflationary. All inflation episodes in the last 30 years was caused by bank lending. Households and businesses spending more than their income. Look how that turned out in 2007.
We need to start looking at the role of the economic rent seeker. Fix this problem. If they have too much power then we are uncompetitive.
May 16, 2021
Iām having a wonderful weekend thank you, I fit in taking my husband for his 2nd jab, bought some plants on the way home, went for a long walk, had a piano lesson, then an hourās duolingo, a quick catch up on my favourite blog then Iāll start dinner.
It is not just privatised costs that have increased, think of the amount on council tax for local service (and a lot of those services we used to get like weekly bin collections and free gardening collections are disappearing. The verges havenāt been cut regularly just once last year, the pavements were so overgrown people were walking in the road dangerously. I could go on. Then social care, the NHS the costs of these have all gone up. National Insurance has been increased itās been renamed NEST but it is an increase of 8% on PAYE workers, so PAYE workers now contribute 33.8% tax for their state pension and healthcare it used to be far lower. The cost of higher education has gone up.
The post-public works that went private in the main were extra charges they werenāt taxes though? What 2007 when the Clintons started the ball rolling lending people too much money that they couldnāt afford and Blair and Brown copied in the UK yet again socialism gone crazy. I know people that were self employed that got easy mortgages 100% on fake incomes that were never checked, huge commissions paid out to advisors with no comeback. Who do you think told the banks to lend crazy like that? I warned two bank Managers I knew that it was going to end in tears and they both laughed at me and said there was nothing as safe as houses.
Whatās a ārent seekerā a buy to let landlord? If so, itās something I personally donāt agree with, buying up the first rung of the housing ladder at the lower property value end and stopping others getting on and inflating prices in areas when they buy in the North from the South and the wages then donāt match up. I didnāt agree with selling off Council houses either, to the tenants or the housing associations/co-ops that no-one holds to account and actually decreased their housing stock. I wouldnāt confiscate homes though or make their life difficult after so long encouraging it. People made these investments because Brown robbed their private pensions without a care whilst protecting his unionised workforce and their public sector pensions.
May 15, 2021
My impression is that it is not just the undergraduates who have such views. Senior figures in academia (not just Oxford) seem imbued with such notions and more broadly the woke agenda. Three of my grandchildren are at other universities; the attitudes of some staff are extraordinary – one of them lost about a term of teaching/tutoring because of a strike by the lecturers. What was he paying his fees for? On top of that their experiences in the past year of shutdown have been truly shocking. For them all and their contemporaries it has been a disastrous lost year of one of the most formative periods of their lives.
May 15, 2021
Indeed. A lost period of their lives. Victims of Tory austerity. Victims of Tory pensioner Brexit. Victims of the Tory Covid catastrophe.
Why would young people ever vote for your party? You are a disaster for them.
May 15, 2021
Andy
“Why would young people ever vote for your party?”
……I won’t be voting for them either, and Im 62 !
May 15, 2021
STEVE – do help me here. I haven’t got a clue as to how to vote in the next GE.
Except that I will probably not for our host as it will be Conservative, and I cannot accept what has gone on under their name for 3 PMs.
The others are probably unelectable, given the sort of issues I feel strongly about.
Now if Sir John would only cut away from the Party and go Independent I might even go canvassing for him.
May 15, 2021
gets my vote – the SirJohnsParty
May 15, 2021
It seems a lot do want to vote for them.
Conservatives are currently 15 points ahead of Labour with Greens and Lib Dems on single figures.
A bigger margin that even the last election.
May 15, 2021
Andy, I agree with a part of what you say, but this ‘lost period’ of young people’s lives would have started even earlier if your party had had its way, and might be lasting even longer.
May 15, 2021
+1
May 15, 2021
I was pleased to hear that, however narrowly, the motion was voted down; I should not have been at all surprised if you had said it had gone the the other way.
There is however, nothing new in the working class favouring the right. I always remember my Grandmother being asked why so many Northern industrial constituencies returned Conservative MPs in Victorian times, and her reply was that the colliery and mill owners all tended to be Liberals, the equivalent of our modern ‘Elite’.
May 15, 2021
Sorry for the number of posts but youāve triggered me. By the way Labour donāt represent or speak for the working class the strivers, the doers, they represent the state dependent class, those sucking on the teat of the state.
May 15, 2021
a-tracy
That is certainly how it appears, they seem to actually despise the self employed, and have done for years, probably because they have a mind of their own, and can think for themselves.
May 15, 2021
Well, there’s two groups really. Those dependent on the state for benefits and handouts, and those dependent on the state for jobs, often non-productive pen-pushers. Labour is really the State party. The Left believe in state control and direction, of everything if possible. Really no connection with the working class, in the old sense.
May 15, 2021
Yes John C. that is precisely what I meant by the state dependent class. I know people from both ends that vote Labour, some that have never worked in a paid job all their adult lives and for their skills have actually lived better off the state and others that have only worked for the State and are millionaires.
May 15, 2021
Sir John you write ‘The aim of debate is persuasion, not stern correction’.
So when your party treats debate as trivia, enforces the Whip, and punishes usually, those who defy ‘stern correction’ how does that sit with you?
I was so pleased you and handful defied this bullying, which is what it is.
To be successful governments should take into account vociferous dissension, whether opposition parties, or among its own.
How many MPs provide and allow such complex subjects to be discussed on a blog, where the host’s opinion is often declared followed by howls of objection?
May 15, 2021
The working classes have always been attracted to the right. Not the sensible right though. The mad far right.
Farage, Robinson, Le Penn, Wilders, Trump, Mosley. Even the 1930s / 40s German bloke.
All thanks to the working class.
May 15, 2021
utter nonsense. You are talking about a handful of political animals and motivation, not remotely those who worked hard manually to keep a roof over their families and very basic food and clothing. Those mass groups of workers felt organised labour was the only way to survive the inequalities of so called democracy. I do wonder where you get these half-baked ideas from.
May 15, 2021
Please carry on insulting these voters andy.
It will keep the Conservatives in power for many more years.
May 15, 2021
Abuse again, rather than rational argument. Do try, Andy, and make an effort to argue politely. It’ll hurt a bit, and feel strange at first.
May 15, 2021
So all those people that we saw at football matches, with the England flag, “BNP” etc. tattooed on their shaven heads were Guardian-reading geography teachers, were they?
I needed a good laugh today -thanks.
May 15, 2021
Out of 70 million people in the UK, how many do you think your made up story about these people add up to MiC?
Your attempt to yet again slur voters your Labour Party need to encourage is a delight to me because it reduces the chances of your lot ever gaining power.
Do carry on.
May 15, 2021
Martin, So all the BLM thugs really are the Guardian-reading geography teachers?
May 15, 2021
Keep pushing Andy.
We’ll end up with someone like that 1940s bloke but it looks like your beloved EU’s France is going to beat us to it.
I voted Brexit to piss the likes of you off. And that is why Trump got in as well.
May 15, 2021
Some who become monied ingratiate themselves with the more monied.
Independent thought is lost. Their need to be part
of an approving circle trumps truth.
May 15, 2021
I was thinking about standards of living early this morning before I read your excellent post John. I do wonder if we all expect too much from our living standards today. I know it’s only right and proper that we all improve our lot but if we look back at life 50 years ago standards were a lot lower even for full time workers. If I compare my life as a school leaver with A and O levels life was not as good as it is today. Expectations are so much higher. It’s a want abd want it now society today. I worked 38 hours a week for the civil service and my weekly wage was Ā£8.00. After paying my parents and getting to work I was left with Ā£2.00. A pair of jeans ( not designer) were Ā£10. Same as shoes. Today, even on minimum wage and paying their parents rent youngsters can be left with around Ā£200 a week. Clothes etc are not that expensive giving thme ample opportunity to save. Everyone’s standard living living is better today and has improved with a variety of government.
May 15, 2021
Understand your points, but try living on Minimum wage almost anywhere in UK. At least ‘on benefits’ qualifies for so much more is available.
May 15, 2021
True, benefits pay more than some who are working and people on them tend to feel they are entitled to as high a standard of living as those who work. Low wages are ok until you have housing costs to fund and then things go sky high. It’s not so much the nice things in life that cost but rents, mortgages, heating etc that takes up the finances. The general cost of living today is high.
May 15, 2021
What has brought it about is technology, and certainly not government. However, we are not as well off as we think. We are living in debt, as individuals and as a nation. Not me, I must add. I was brought up to live carefully and within my means.
May 16, 2021
technology – plus the availability of cheap, aspirational, off-shore work-forces and the willingness of city barrow boys to give away our industries.
I agree about living within our means.
May 15, 2021
The British ‘working class’ are more radically ‘right’ than these jejune students know. These days though to express a rightist view is to be of the ‘far right’. Why does the Guardian or the BBC never speak of the ‘far left ?
May 15, 2021
@Excalibur, every illustration from the MsM of the ‘far right’ goes on to demonstrate extreme ‘Socialist’ ideals – “National Socialist German Workers’ Party” remember them, the BBC and the Guardian call them the right. They confuse the German word ‘reich’ with the English word ‘right’.
May 15, 2021
I would’ve thought that the people best able to judge who represents the interests of the working class are the working class themselves. Whatever working class means nowadays. Maybe it’s the ordinary people who have carried on working, not from home, during lockdowns, also the private sector workers who were furloughed and may not have jobs to go back to, thanks to government lockdown policies. People have endured a lot of misery this last year. If after all that lots of them think the Conservatives are defending their interests, the Oxford Union motion looks to me to have been plain wrong. All the commentators are saying Labour has a mountain to climb before its traditional electorate think it can offer them something better. There’s no sign that’s going to happen any time soon. I think the motion will be wrong again next year and the year after that at least.
May 15, 2021
When the Online Harms Bill is passed ( or whatever the process is called) without a whimper,
Will this blog have to stop?
Gagging Act!
May 15, 2021
The success of the Labour Party in Wales seems to depend on keeping their voters poor and nursing a sense of permanent grievance, presumably if their aspirations were met there might be a danger of them voting Tory but I very much doubt that now given the course and ambitions of our great leader!
I as a lifelong Tory wonāt be voting Tory again, but Johnson succeeded in fooling the electorate in the recent elections and told us that itās down to the public support for his disastrous Climate Change policy and his handling of the plandemic, the Indian variant being the reason for the next lockdown with the MSM dutifully playing their part in project fear!
How much longer will Johnson be able to keep the wool pulled over our eyes and when will our MPs begin to speak up for us?
When I first started volunteering to assist at the elections the candidates were for the most part ex-forces or successful business people who wanted to put something back into society but now theyāre career politicians who see it as nice little earner, I truly despair at the behaviour of some, for the most part… Labour MPs.
Cameron being interviewed about his part in the Greenswill lobbying came across as extremely shifty and untrustworthy.
Margaret Thatcher was the last Conservative Prime Minister… its been rapidly downhill ever since….
May 15, 2021
Universal Basic Income in Wales
Why canāt the UK government over-rule this ???
May 15, 2021
Who is paying for it? – Barnett Formula evidently pays out too much.
May 16, 2021
Glen, have they said how much pa this Universal benefit level will be and is it per household or per person? NLW for 23 years and over for a full time (37.5 hour job) = Ā£17,374.50 for a couple of minimum wage living together both working that would be Ā£34,749 the cost of living in Wales is much lower for many people outside of Cardiff.
Out of this Ā£17374 the paye worker pays tax 20% over Ā£12570, 12% national insurance over Ā£9500, 5% nest over Ā£6240, then all the other costs of getting to work, council tax etc. Whereas the benefit claimant gets the handouts net.
May 16, 2021
Did the UK government approve the devolution of Wales so that they experiment with UK taxpayers funds and give, what is a bung the their own voters – Has the UK government approved this cash giveaway
May 16, 2021
Glen, the Tories are going to push the English one step too far if our taxes are used for a free for all in Wales, we donāt have protected free higher education, Free prescriptions, lower council taxes, scholarships only the Welsh can apply for, competitions only the Welsh can enter, business grants only the Welsh can get, yet they will still come into English hospital in Chester for their treatments and to have their babies. It is best if you live in Wales to work for the public sector thatās why there is so little enterprise, they get these high wages which the same workers in the South East of England would consider poorly paid. Then the Welsh graduates come and take English jobs with a 9% less graduate tax obligation and we just keep turning the other cheek.
Peter Parsons on this blog the other day told us that there is more per head go to Northern Ireland, Wales, the NW and NE. I think itās time we were told more, are companies through the UK with factories in every region all remitting through HQ in London and then classed as businesses creating revenue in just that region.
Spending 2019/2020 source – commons library
UK as a whole the government spent Ā£9895 per person
England Ā£9604 per person
Within England the highest spending area is:
London Ā£10835 per person 10% higher than the average
Within England the lowest spending area is:
The East Midlands Ā£8879 per person 10% BELOW the UK average
Wales Ā£10929 per person 10% above U.K. avg.
Scotland Ā£11566 per person 17% above U.K. avg.
Northern Ireland Ā£11978 per person 21% above UK avg.
May 15, 2021
Angela Raynerās important quote that āfor too long we (Labour) have given off an air of talking down to people and telling people what they need, or even what they should want or what they should think.
Important my backside. This statement is an act of deceit upon working, moral folk from a politician who has spent her entire political life campaigning against freedom expression culminating in her and her vile party and the entire Tory sheep passing despotic laws to target open debate, freedom of expression and even allowing emotion to be used as evidence of criminal guilt as per the travesty of Hate Crime legislation
Why can’t we talk about Labour’s complicity on the verboten issue? Why can’t we talk about Mid Staffs and the NHS abuse of his dominant role?
Why do the Tories play quid pro quo with Labour and their lobbyists when it comes to laws? We know the tactic by now. Labour ask for laws to protect their clients and the Tories oblige if Labour stop playing the race card against them.
I see Tory MP Steve Baker has accused the State of being totalitarian and using fear to assert control over the British people. The State being this Tory PM, his Cabinet, Tory-Labour backbenchers, Johnson’s SAGE allies and Labour’s (unions) client state including the BBC, the NHS and Police.
Mr Baker needs to point the finger at Boris Johnson PM. I always knew Johnson was a fake
Repeal all laws targeting speech. Destroy PC, progressive fascist politics. In fact destroy all that has been created since 1997 Allow all topics to be discussed irrespective of the consequences for political parties.
May 15, 2021
DOM
Youāre posts contain so much common sense!
+ 100+++++++
May 15, 2021
Dom, the tories need to take the fight to her and openly and calmly challenge her. I could do it so why canāt they its because you never see Tory MPs like Sarah Atherton or Andrea Jenkins given the opportunity.
May 15, 2021
I canāt help noticing that my comments are still awaiting moderation despite the fact that there were only 12 or so comments when I left mine?
May 15, 2021
Don’t worry Lester. It is a way of letting you think your post has a chance of getting on. Mine are regularly “awaiting moderation” to the end of the day – then vanish into thin air – like this one probably will. Not all get to be put up for viewing – It is John’s choice.
May 15, 2021
@Lester – A bit disingenuous, a one man blog, made available for free and run for the benefit of all 24/7. Your host also has other commitments and another life so is not hanging around 24 hours a day just in case you feel the need.
To the Great Majority its all pretty amazing.
May 16, 2021
At least try to learn something about the technology before slagging off our host.
You may see your post “in moderation” but will not see other people’s, there could have been a 100 more that you would not be aware of that our host had to trawl through before getting to yours. As nota points out our hosts commitment to providing this blog and platform is quite remarkable.
May 15, 2021
Houses are now beyond the reach of young people. Home ownership is falling. Earnings are still less than before the 2009 crash in real terms, despite GDP improving in the same period.
Post-war, up to the fall of the USSR, capitalism had an incentive to share wealth with the workers. That is no longer true and we can see the effect now. Insane wealth at the top and subsistence conditions at the bottom.
May 16, 2021
Oh they are sharing “wealth”, just not with the “workers” here.
May 15, 2021
Nelson’s Column, symbolic of our glorious past and of the future, whatever that may be
May 15, 2021
“Few aspire to live on benefits in a rented flat…..etc ”
True
However that’s the aspiration of the technocracy overlords for the populace.
You will own nothing and be happy.
If you were a starving person in a sh*thole country your aspriration to live on benefits in a rented flat would be an understandable personal aim.
I really, really can’t understand why uk politicians don’t seem to get what’s going on.
There must be a better way to globally “level up” than the abomination that’s currently going on.
The wrong people are at the top globally running this farce.
May 15, 2021
āFew aspire to live on benefits in a rented flatā¦..etc”
__________________________________________________
Correct Lowly Peasant – I think youāll find that everyone crossing the channel in small boats are !
May 15, 2021
Can you not see that those in the small boats are just pawns in the game !
I think the reply to Newmania below is missing a word !
May 15, 2021
UK Schooling doesn’t create the ability to discover and therefore learn. It teaches that everyone is in a bad place and only Socialism can heel their pain.
The problem then is students are taught they are ‘owed’. Its the contradiction in ‘Politics’ as a subject, without it being paired with ‘Economics’ the out come is always the same you are awarded rights without a clue or care on who or how things are funded.
May 15, 2021
Sir John,
I assume they mean the working class that didn’t know what they were voting for.
May 15, 2021
After Labour’s crushing defeat in Hartlepool, Angela Rayner not only said āfor too long we (Labour) have given off an air of talking down to people and telling people what they need, or even what they should want or what they should think.”
but she also said
“anti-immigrant voters in Hartlepool voted for the tories and ‘we need to deal with that’.”
Until Labour respects the rights of voters to make up their own minds about what they regard as important issues, and responds to them positively, they will never get back into power. Left Wing politicians regard this as “Populism” and do indeed look down on voters with ill-disguised contempt. We have seen this in Europe, the UK and in the USA where the attitude of the Democrats directly led to the election of Donald Trump.
There is no longer a “class struggle” and that has led the Left to refocus its attention on the Woke and the all-pervasive political correctness agenda. Labour’s problem is that the vast majority of voters dislike everything about this stuff and most regard much of it as ludicrous, which, of course, it is.
With the Conservatives under Boris firmly occupying the centre ground, Labour and the LibDims simply have nowhere to go.
May 15, 2021
+1
May 16, 2021
+1
May 15, 2021
Debate is good. But, we no longer get debate. Society gets shouted down when it doesn’t fit with the noisy few entitled ‘millenniums’ needs.
The ‘Left’ demands but doesn’t know or care how funding is provided.
Clearly their is a lesson here, the taxpayer shouldn’t be called on to fund Institutions, Cancel and WOKE Brigades desires, Charities even, when they are engaged in Political Activism. We can all hold a Political view, but it should not call on general taxation to keep it alive. -Were is the balance in that!
But then again as with all subjects nowadays we no longer have a Government for the whole UK. We also have a fairy God Mother from ‘la-la land’ as the MsM and ‘Number Ten’ reminds us it is the Government that funds Society. It would be nice if the did, we could all keep what we pay in taxes.
May 15, 2021
I no longer understand what ‘the working class’ is. Way back it was of course the very large number of workers in factories and mines for example who did roughly the same work much of it largely unskilled on the same pay.
There are still factory workers but not in the numbers and not on tbe same pay rates like that. I dare say there are office workers who have repetetive tasks and are on low wages but they are not in large numbers in one place. These would have been ‘white collar’ workers in the pasr and thought of differently.
Clearly anything can be debated but very old fashioned thinking that this was considered worth having.
May 15, 2021
Furthermore, strictly speaking, the final vote of the Oxford Union said āthis House does not believe that the right cannot represent the interests of the working classā, which I am sorry to say is not the same as what Sir John puts in his title. I would have expected better of him. To coalesce the vote of the few attending the OU meeting with the ability of the Right of doing things is either a sleight of hand or a possible senior moment.
Reply Silly. Of course if you negative a motion you are approving the view of the Opposition.
May 16, 2021
Reply to reply: silly answer. Canāt you see that a double negative can be less inclusive than a positive? Canāt you see their application depend on the size of the samples defining each statement? You really need to brush up on Logics.101.
May 16, 2021
Yes, the Scottish courts would have it as “case not proven”.
May 15, 2021
Are things looking up ?
That is twice within a week that my spirits have been lifted.
“The aim of the debate is persuasion” -with all known facts or issues for which there is some evidence on the table of course and no cancellation of views .To shine a light on the truth .Well done JR.
Then there was Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph on friday writing about learning lessons from lockdowns ,
coming to a point in the reasoning where he says -” This points to a massive flaw:the attempted stifling of debate.Dissenting experts ought to be welcomed.Instead they were hounded–”
Well Fraser ,I see you , shining a light that is, on issues where we can learn and progress -but only with open and honest debate and where scientists with opposing views need have no fear.
May 15, 2021
With an 80-seat majority could this government remove the funding to universities, and sack a few secondary school headmasters that donāt toe the line.
This government is quick enough to social engineer how the working taxpayer will drink, smoke, drive, walk in the country and social distanceā¦ā¦but never intervene with public education?
May 15, 2021
@glen Cullen +1
It does seem wrong that public funded bodies can then use their ‘taxpayer’ funding for Political ends.
We are paying their way in life with no say on the product produced
May 15, 2021
The joke the only values the Conservative Party does respect are working class values . That is why they are falling back in middle-class areas, disliked by University educated people and endlessly creating class hatred in just the way Harold Wilson once did.
Who do they hate ? The well read, teachers, the City . the arts and above all anyone with any professional expertise in anything whatsoever .
Reply No we do hate them.
May 15, 2021
I respect a plumber far more than the majority of university educated people and I certainly pay them more.
Degrees are more abundant than apprenticeships these days.
May 15, 2021
Newmania, You have inverted the truth – Labour hates its own erstwhile supporters so much it parachuted a rabid Remain into a constituency which voted 69% Leave. And where Tories are losing ground it is because they have jumped on the woke, CAGW, open border, state centrist, and BINO, bandwagons.
May 15, 2021
Covid deaths today 7 ā and yet every Tory MPs talking up further lockdown due to an Indian variant
May 15, 2021
It seems to me the vast majority of “ordinary class” (don’t know if “ordinary class” exists I just made it up) find the idea of the traditional class system boring. It’s very difficult to try and define what is meant by so called “Working Class” – we can all have a good go at defining the term. However it means different things to different people.
To me any one who is not in education and below retirement age or suffering a life long illness falls within the category of working people. I just feel this class terminology has had its day in previous centuries, as it assumes “Middle Class” and “Upper Class”. So as an example if a millionaire/billionaire lost all his/her money and had to start again from scratch, has this person gone from being Upper Class to Working Class? OK I know its an example that can be debated, however the basic fact is having a lot of money to no money -what class would this person be?. I had hoped this terminology would die out
May 15, 2021
As well as being an offensive motion, it is basically a silly one. What does anyone gain from being “represented”? Most people are aware that their standard of living, which rises from year to year, is driven more by the emergence of new products, new infrastructure, education, new jobs and new careers. Plenty of people are making secure lives from professions and skills that did not even exist three decades ago.
Compared to that, what value does some talking head on TV really offer? The “representing” that politicians do is pretty much limited these days to offering concrete “positions” that people can adopt in the endless debate about this and that, a debate that has largely been organized by the media into a form of entertainment that happens to focus in political issues.
But we all know that although Sunday morning TV really is pretty entertaining, it’s what happens on Monday morning that really counts for bringing home the bacon, and the emergence of identity politics is way of making politicians less responsible for prosperity and incomes, not more.
May 16, 2021
Jon, +1. As if the OU debate in front of a few hundred people and its reporting here by Sir John were anything other than some āform of entertainmentā.
May 15, 2021
silly silly silly ..what class, where? what political party ? which herd? all blonds are airheads , if you speak with the Queens accent you are posh , if you drive a jag you must be well off , if i rise my eyebrows and look down to you you will understand I am far more important than you , ridiculous perceptions, yet many still want to be in one club or another.
May 15, 2021
@MargaretB. +1
To many looking for something they already had, and blame others for their own insecurity
May 16, 2021
The Right at its best believes in a meritocracy and aspiration and owning one’s own home are part of it. Unfortunately, the crazy monetary policy of the Bank of England – excessive QE – works in precisely the opposite direction. It has lead to inflated asset prices, including house prices, survival of the fattest not the fittest in the world of business, and financing of excessive public expenditure (including vanity projects that won’t ever make a profit), while starving the private sector of much needed capital for innovation. It is the private sector that will make investments leading to greater export opportunities and import substitution. Money has been diverted to the rich retired elderly at the expense of the working population. The State is investing in yesterday. This Bank of England’s QE policy is obviously endorsed by the Government; indeed, if the Governor did a U-turn he would probably be dismissed.
If you won’t accept this from me, read Liam Halligan’s excellent article in the business section of the Sunday Telegraph.
It is high time that this Government’s private enterprise rhetoric was matched by its actions. Intelligent opposition at this time is coming almost exclusively from the Right of the Tory Party and the Reform Party, whilst Labour, Lib Dems, Scottish and Welsh nationalists and the Green Party are calling for even more stupid behaviour.
May 16, 2021
@Lindsay – +1
May 16, 2021
Lindsay, āMoney has been diverted to the rich retired elderly at the expense of the working population.ā
Could you tell me what money has been diverted to the rich retired elderly at the expense of the working population? Granted most of the retired people I know are managing on around Ā£9000 each and some women much less than that if married and rather than blow all their earnings whilst working theyāve got a small savings pot for rainy day, house repairs, a car problem that then stops them getting pension credits. We donāt all live in London and get free bus passes which enables you to sell your car and still get around all day and night. To get to our local hospital on a Sunday it is a 25 minute drive on a Sunday, more in the week, there are no buses so a free bus pass if one is elderly around here is pointless. Theyāve just become entitled to a free tv licence but had that rescinded. They now have to pay for their garden waste to be collected as an extra and get charged over Ā£1500 for their council tax on a low value house. So Iād really appreciate you telling me what all the people I know are missing out on please?
May 16, 2021
Oh and by the way these retired people I know were working from the age 15 to 65 to 70 years of age and the majority paid their full national insurance for their whole working life, a couple of women got caught out with working part-time and providing child-care for 20 years so they were under thresholds. They were told donāt worry weāll look after your pension savings you donāt have to trust private schemes any more the State will care for you from cradle to grave.
May 16, 2021
It is the richer pensioners with SIPPs that have gained the most because their pension funds are a major part of those assets that have appreciated in value. There are many retired professional couples living in the south and south-east of England who are sterling millionaires – a Ā£500,000 house plus a Ā£500,000 SIPP. Even the poorer pensioners are doing better than they used to because of the triple lock and many freebee concessions.
May 17, 2021
Lindsay – thank you, but even a Ā£500,000 SIPP they saved and invested in will only buy them an annual income of around Ā£17,500 if they want spousal transfer and Ā£20,000 without that at 65 years of age? Compare that annual pension with defined benefit pensions from our local Councils and public services and ex-public services.
You specifically said “money has been diverted to the rich retired elderly at the expense of the working population”. If these people have taken investment risks with their income into private invested pensions how is this ‘diverted money’ specifically in what way has it been diverted from ‘the working population’? Would you have preferred they blew all their earnings, left themselves with nothing and just relied on the State to provide their housing benefit and other pension credits?
May 16, 2021
“should seek to compete to offer people more and better service related to their problems and above all to their aspirations”
This is what politics shoud be about. It keeps the parties on the stright and narrow. Labour being so utterly useless are doing the country no favours, especially when the alternative parties of Opposition are even more wild and woolly socialism. Even the Greens in this country are watermelons – green on the outside and rabid, deep red on the inside.
The messgae portrayed in this piece is on the money, but when I hear Conservative politicians takling to voters, I never hear it said – not in any clear manner anyway. And when Thatcher is mentioned and disparaged by the left, the Conservatives sit there with a silly smile on their faces. They actually need to speak up clearly – and be ready to deal with the inevitable torrent of emotive bile that will be emitted by the lefties in hearing range.
Another key point is that socialism is about State control of people’s lives. Ask people if they really want that.
May 16, 2021
We should despair at the quality of these (lefty) Oxford students with an obsolete mentality and wonder how they ever achieved a place there. Maybe they should now read British History and learn from it.