Soundbite politics for simple minds that don't want, or can't be bothered to, understand what they are voting for. Modern society has emboldened and encouraged instant gratification. The promise Reform make to provide that instant "hit", that gratification, will soon unravel as the reality of the tasks they have been voted in to perform, crystalises and exposes their insufficient ability to deliver.
I think you are so right. Having done 8 years in Australia, three and a half back in the UK before and during Covid, then two and a half back in Australia you’ve made me realise. People here look forward, and have expectations things will improve. In the UK people have become ground down, used, cowed and Sony on your point. With no real future there’s only the glorious all white past. Two world wars and one World Cup. Also, as a boomer growing up in Scotland we had nothing (I’m Generation Jones, the poor end of boomerdom).
Boomers were American or from the southeast of England. My home town won most improved town in Scotland eight years ago. Thirty to forty years ago it had shops, bars, hotels, jewellers, 5 department stores. Banks and building societies, cinemas and industry. All gone. Mostly just boarded up. And that’s the whole UK. We had a nostalgic trip through everywhere we lived. It was all the same. Salisbury, Carlisle, Kilmarnock, Dundee even Inverness with drunken homeless shouting outside our city centre hotel all night. Britain has fallen, hence the need to invent a glorious past.
Absolutely spot-on Bear. With Farage and Jenkyns whooping it up, the Ego has definitely landed. The Narcissus Club (GB News) will feed the Reform Posse with ultra-processed opinions which they will then crap out as policies to fertilise the nihilistic aggression they are carefully nurturing.
Voters have had 14 years of Tory austerity & blatant corruption. They have witness the Tories & their chums being awarded lucrative contracts to bank public money/ taxes into off shore accounts. People can often vote using their emotional rather than being pragmatic. A good public oratory offering to sooth their rage and anger and pretending to listen to voters concerns even if some of those concerns were magnified by said salesman opens the door to let the wolf into the hen house. Labour need to get a grip, people are really shocked that Starmers government really went for pensioners and disabled people, they are confused are Labour supposed to protect the less well off? In voters minds a void has been created, they threw the Tories out, voted Labour in but Labour seem to be acting like Tories? Along comes friendly farage with soothing syrup and its like an Oasis in the Austerity desert. People want to feel better off now, they need to feel some hope now not in 3/4 years time. Labour need to get out there and counter Reforms empty promises
Reform banks on its voters being rather ignorant concerning the deeply unpleasant policies hidden in the Reform agenda. Things such as ending public health care and introducing an American style health insurance. Things like an end to equal pay for equal work. An end to LGBTQ rights. A truly retrogressive step back into a darker place.
At the root of it all is that ordinary people have been slowly squeezed over decades by Thatcherite doom-loop economic nonsense. Unless you're already wealthy, or manage to get an ultra high paying job, then your financial well-being is just getting steadily worse. People are getting ground down and desperate for anything that offers some improvement, and are hence highly susceptible to charlatans offering simplistic solutions built on blaming others.
It is of course others, just not the ones that get blamed; not the minorities or immigrants but the morbidly rich, obsessed with funnelling more and more of the nation's wealth into their offshore money bins. These people of course fund the promotion of the economic nonsense: "there is no alternative to austerity", "there is no govt money, only taxpayers' money", "the nation has maxed out its credit card", "we're borrowing so much the country will go bankrupt". Not one of those statements is true, it's not how govt finance functions at all, but its promotion has been so well funded it's now the conventional view of economics that's taught at universities. Result - Rachel Reeves.
The govt can, and should, fund public services, welfare, and infrastructure with decent wages to reach full employment. Doing so is not inflationary, and doesn't require tax receipts or so-called "borrowing" (which isn't what most people think it is) because all money is actually created by govt spending. Unfortunately, the chances of any of today's toxic politicians understanding and doing it seems as far away as ever. Are we doomed?
You’re right of course. Aside from a coup, this recidivism is the very worst kind of hijacking of power.
However, and please don’t set the dogs upon me, Reform’s ability to read the room and to respond in an appropriate manner sets them 10,000 leagues above the rest of the imbeciles we refer to as politicians. Like it or not, Deform are actually listening to the disenfranchised, listening to a worried swathe of the British public and responding ‘sympathetically’.
The unfortunate truth though is that the vocal bunch being listened to are, generally, either the selfish, the greedy or the Daily Fail readers et al who voraciously gobble up the bile poured forth by them and most other MSM.
All this means that those in power have utterly failed to communicate any level of detail about what they are doing and why in a way that engages people. The natural human reaction to a void of detail is to assume the worst as a form of protection and this is why we see what we do. Frankly it also demonstrates just how stupid most of us have become. We now seem incapable of sorting the bullshit from the chaff and consume it all with an ever-increasing propensity for the bullshit.
To me, if this recidivism is to fail it will take the Govt of the day (anyone any idea who they are?) to start to box clever. To use the plethora of communication tools available to them to tell their story, to push their narrative, to paint a picture of a state being prepared to improve, to provide a small light at the end of the current impossibly long and dark tunnel… The failure to do that simple thing will see the idiots in power decimated at the next election and the fully certified lunatics finally running our asylum. Deep deep joy.
PS I’ve already told my 21 yo to leave the UK for good. It’s submarine days (sliding below the surface of civility) arrive very shortly.
Spot on Yorkshire Dave. What is needed is MUCH clearer communication of the ideas / concepts and explanation of policy that counteracts/counterargues the Deform nonsense. In addition, there must be a complete recognition that the stagnation of this nation is due ENTIRELY to the greed of the already abundantly wealthy. Sadly, our current crop of politicians have been thoroughly corrupted by those wealthy entities and dare not push back towards those they perceive as their paymasters.
I will say it again, voices like yours need to be louder … but it is so frustrating to see the media pandering to fools that only generate “stories “ rather than exposing basic truths…You are right to be worried… I’m very sad for after Brexit , despite 40 years of calling this country my own, I have had people I thought I knew calling me “a little foreigner “ . I’m not an economic migrant- not that it really matters- but just a young girl who loved the Beatles and wanted to improve her English…ended up marrying and English man and having a bilingual daughter who now works for a Dutch company …Yes, this country is going to the dogs but not for the reasons demagogues such as Farage , Hendricks, Braverman and such are claiming but for a yearning for past glories glossed over and heavily edited by , again, the mainstream media … I blame Poirot … The little foreigner! 😆
None of us can go back. All politicians need to concentrate on a moderately acceptable future: as a minimum, decent schools for every child and no one having to choose between food and heating in winter (yes I know the actual list is a lot longer).
The constant harping back to a time when we enriched ourselves through slavery and exploitation.. And treated our own poor appallingly too. These people are psychopaths.
Britain was only ‘glorious’ for a tiny minority that benefited from its actions. If we learn anything from the past it is those that control the media and publishing in all its forms who present history in ways to suit themselves. Jenkins seems to be either a fool, a liar or both. You decide how far this political nonsense goes when you next cast your ballot.
Where in the world is the model for their approach? Which country is delivering prosperity for all their citizens through running a country like a business?
When they can't name anywhere, ask them, why do they think that might be?
She’s an idiot. Reform, if given the chance, will ruin the country and then most people who voted for them will be moaning and whinging and the rest of us will have to endure it.
Soundbite politics for simple minds that don't want, or can't be bothered to, understand what they are voting for. Modern society has emboldened and encouraged instant gratification. The promise Reform make to provide that instant "hit", that gratification, will soon unravel as the reality of the tasks they have been voted in to perform, crystalises and exposes their insufficient ability to deliver.
I think you are so right. Having done 8 years in Australia, three and a half back in the UK before and during Covid, then two and a half back in Australia you’ve made me realise. People here look forward, and have expectations things will improve. In the UK people have become ground down, used, cowed and Sony on your point. With no real future there’s only the glorious all white past. Two world wars and one World Cup. Also, as a boomer growing up in Scotland we had nothing (I’m Generation Jones, the poor end of boomerdom).
Boomers were American or from the southeast of England. My home town won most improved town in Scotland eight years ago. Thirty to forty years ago it had shops, bars, hotels, jewellers, 5 department stores. Banks and building societies, cinemas and industry. All gone. Mostly just boarded up. And that’s the whole UK. We had a nostalgic trip through everywhere we lived. It was all the same. Salisbury, Carlisle, Kilmarnock, Dundee even Inverness with drunken homeless shouting outside our city centre hotel all night. Britain has fallen, hence the need to invent a glorious past.
Absolutely spot-on Bear. With Farage and Jenkyns whooping it up, the Ego has definitely landed. The Narcissus Club (GB News) will feed the Reform Posse with ultra-processed opinions which they will then crap out as policies to fertilise the nihilistic aggression they are carefully nurturing.
Voters have had 14 years of Tory austerity & blatant corruption. They have witness the Tories & their chums being awarded lucrative contracts to bank public money/ taxes into off shore accounts. People can often vote using their emotional rather than being pragmatic. A good public oratory offering to sooth their rage and anger and pretending to listen to voters concerns even if some of those concerns were magnified by said salesman opens the door to let the wolf into the hen house. Labour need to get a grip, people are really shocked that Starmers government really went for pensioners and disabled people, they are confused are Labour supposed to protect the less well off? In voters minds a void has been created, they threw the Tories out, voted Labour in but Labour seem to be acting like Tories? Along comes friendly farage with soothing syrup and its like an Oasis in the Austerity desert. People want to feel better off now, they need to feel some hope now not in 3/4 years time. Labour need to get out there and counter Reforms empty promises
You are so entirely correct Lyn
Reform banks on its voters being rather ignorant concerning the deeply unpleasant policies hidden in the Reform agenda. Things such as ending public health care and introducing an American style health insurance. Things like an end to equal pay for equal work. An end to LGBTQ rights. A truly retrogressive step back into a darker place.
At the root of it all is that ordinary people have been slowly squeezed over decades by Thatcherite doom-loop economic nonsense. Unless you're already wealthy, or manage to get an ultra high paying job, then your financial well-being is just getting steadily worse. People are getting ground down and desperate for anything that offers some improvement, and are hence highly susceptible to charlatans offering simplistic solutions built on blaming others.
It is of course others, just not the ones that get blamed; not the minorities or immigrants but the morbidly rich, obsessed with funnelling more and more of the nation's wealth into their offshore money bins. These people of course fund the promotion of the economic nonsense: "there is no alternative to austerity", "there is no govt money, only taxpayers' money", "the nation has maxed out its credit card", "we're borrowing so much the country will go bankrupt". Not one of those statements is true, it's not how govt finance functions at all, but its promotion has been so well funded it's now the conventional view of economics that's taught at universities. Result - Rachel Reeves.
The govt can, and should, fund public services, welfare, and infrastructure with decent wages to reach full employment. Doing so is not inflationary, and doesn't require tax receipts or so-called "borrowing" (which isn't what most people think it is) because all money is actually created by govt spending. Unfortunately, the chances of any of today's toxic politicians understanding and doing it seems as far away as ever. Are we doomed?
Where oh where does one start Bear?
You’re right of course. Aside from a coup, this recidivism is the very worst kind of hijacking of power.
However, and please don’t set the dogs upon me, Reform’s ability to read the room and to respond in an appropriate manner sets them 10,000 leagues above the rest of the imbeciles we refer to as politicians. Like it or not, Deform are actually listening to the disenfranchised, listening to a worried swathe of the British public and responding ‘sympathetically’.
The unfortunate truth though is that the vocal bunch being listened to are, generally, either the selfish, the greedy or the Daily Fail readers et al who voraciously gobble up the bile poured forth by them and most other MSM.
All this means that those in power have utterly failed to communicate any level of detail about what they are doing and why in a way that engages people. The natural human reaction to a void of detail is to assume the worst as a form of protection and this is why we see what we do. Frankly it also demonstrates just how stupid most of us have become. We now seem incapable of sorting the bullshit from the chaff and consume it all with an ever-increasing propensity for the bullshit.
To me, if this recidivism is to fail it will take the Govt of the day (anyone any idea who they are?) to start to box clever. To use the plethora of communication tools available to them to tell their story, to push their narrative, to paint a picture of a state being prepared to improve, to provide a small light at the end of the current impossibly long and dark tunnel… The failure to do that simple thing will see the idiots in power decimated at the next election and the fully certified lunatics finally running our asylum. Deep deep joy.
PS I’ve already told my 21 yo to leave the UK for good. It’s submarine days (sliding below the surface of civility) arrive very shortly.
Spot on Yorkshire Dave. What is needed is MUCH clearer communication of the ideas / concepts and explanation of policy that counteracts/counterargues the Deform nonsense. In addition, there must be a complete recognition that the stagnation of this nation is due ENTIRELY to the greed of the already abundantly wealthy. Sadly, our current crop of politicians have been thoroughly corrupted by those wealthy entities and dare not push back towards those they perceive as their paymasters.
Brilliant analysis. Thank you.
I will say it again, voices like yours need to be louder … but it is so frustrating to see the media pandering to fools that only generate “stories “ rather than exposing basic truths…You are right to be worried… I’m very sad for after Brexit , despite 40 years of calling this country my own, I have had people I thought I knew calling me “a little foreigner “ . I’m not an economic migrant- not that it really matters- but just a young girl who loved the Beatles and wanted to improve her English…ended up marrying and English man and having a bilingual daughter who now works for a Dutch company …Yes, this country is going to the dogs but not for the reasons demagogues such as Farage , Hendricks, Braverman and such are claiming but for a yearning for past glories glossed over and heavily edited by , again, the mainstream media … I blame Poirot … The little foreigner! 😆
I too read heard what Andrea Jenkyns said, and my thoughts were the same. Luckily, Bear, you have put it into words far better than I could have.
As some witty person said - Andrea Jenkyns (AJA Lady Middle Finger) is what you get when you order a Liz Truss on Temu !!
Glorious my eye.
Next she’ll be wanting another Empire.
None of us can go back. All politicians need to concentrate on a moderately acceptable future: as a minimum, decent schools for every child and no one having to choose between food and heating in winter (yes I know the actual list is a lot longer).
Just now that’s the Impossible Dream.
The constant harping back to a time when we enriched ourselves through slavery and exploitation.. And treated our own poor appallingly too. These people are psychopaths.
Utter bo**ocks, just as you might expect from vacuous, populist idiots!
Britain was only ‘glorious’ for a tiny minority that benefited from its actions. If we learn anything from the past it is those that control the media and publishing in all its forms who present history in ways to suit themselves. Jenkins seems to be either a fool, a liar or both. You decide how far this political nonsense goes when you next cast your ballot.
Would someone please ask Reform these questions?
Where in the world is the model for their approach? Which country is delivering prosperity for all their citizens through running a country like a business?
When they can't name anywhere, ask them, why do they think that might be?
She’s an idiot. Reform, if given the chance, will ruin the country and then most people who voted for them will be moaning and whinging and the rest of us will have to endure it.