General Election 2017: The Results and Aftermath

[EM2]

... a not-particularly-bright smug self-righteous schoolteacher type who is not living in the real world.

Sounds like the headmistress to a T.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

You don't win elections by appealing to your core voters. You win elections by appealing to the swing voters in marginal constituencies. And you don't appeal to those people with radical ideas. This has been proven countless times.

This is the traditional view, but I am not sure it actually holds any more.
The only reason the Conservative Party is anywhere close to a majority is because something that would have been unthinkable in 2015 happened.... they hammered Scotland.

And the reason that Labour made gains in England was primarily because it took seats that noone ever imagined it could.
Canterbury is not a marginal constituency by any means, and yet dozens more marginal seats did not change hands on either side.

The old certanties are dead thanks to the collosal realignment in politics.

I'm not so sure. I think you have to remember that this election was odd because neither Labour nor the Conservatives were seeking to appeal to the traditional centre ground. And arguably, neither were the LibDems - they chose to fight the election almost entirely on Brexit, but got sidetracked by questions about gay rights, and had stuff in their manifesto such as votes for 16 year olds which - no matter what the merits of that proposal are - are not really the sort of thing you'd put any energy into if you want centrist votes. (And of course there are other reasons why the LibDems have been unpopular in recent years in any case).

It still seems very plausible to me that if either one of the main two parties appealed to the centre ground and the other one didn't, then the one that is in the centre would be almost guaranteed to win (as long as they don't do something else to put voters off them). However, if no party is appealing to the centre ground, then all bets are off - because people are going to have to vote for someone. Maybe the fact that noone won the election outright was a in part a reflection of the fact that noone was actively pushing for the centre ground this time round?

I will grant you though that the 'centrist' vote amongst the electorate does seem to have got a bit smaller in recent years. I'm not sure to what extent that's the result of the electorate becoming more polarised (perhaps as a result of social media bubbles), and to what extent the lack of centrist support is a direct result of none of the main parties actively promoting the centre - which means that arguments for a centrist position have ended up excluded from most political debate - but both factors seem plausible to me.

 

[Railops]

This is all spot-on IMO, although it is rather disturbing to see the extent Corbyn and his bunch of extremists are appealing to some people.

I can understand people voting Labour because they aren't the Conservatives, but what I really can't understand is anyone having sheer enthusiasm for Corbyn and his bunch. To me he comes over as a not-particularly-bright smug self-righteous schoolteacher type who is not living in the real world.

Corbyn has been at it again today promising a £10 an hour wage for 16 and 17 yr olds which would be a 150% rise for some.
So not only is he a very dangerous and subversive individual and of course not very intelligent he's also a cynical manipulator of the young.

 

[najaB]

Corbyn has been at it again today promising a £10 an hour wage for 16 and 17 yr olds...

Higher than both the minimum and living wages.

 

[Dave1987]

One wonders how May and the extremists in the cabinet plan to punish those that dare to become unemployed by losing their jobs from the repercussions of Brexit and the public money they are pumping into tech that will put people out of job. Thank god we have a hung parliament eh!

 

[sk688]

Corbyn has been at it again today promising a £10 an hour wage for 16 and 17 yr olds which would be a 150% rise for some.
So not only is he a very dangerous and subversive individual and of course not very intelligent he's also a cynical manipulator of the young.

Why are you and other Tories so against our generation getting anything ?

House prices are rising , so we probably won't be able to get a house , and will have to rent

Tuition fees have risen exponentially , which means we'll spend half our lives paying high student loans back , the Tories have made GCSE's worse ,with unnecessary reforms , which make the exams far tougher than they should be ( our school is in the top 5 in England by Results and we found the new 9-1 exams in Maths and English difficult ) and then making errors in setting the exams , so that we will probably get poor grades , which mean we probably won't be able to attend a good university like Oxford or Cambridge

And we're leaving the EU , so our opportunities for the future will be even lower , as prestigious firms like HSBC , Microsoft , JPMorgan UBS , Goldman Sachs , Deutsche Bank and around 40% of the UK Gaming industry plan to relocate at least some jobs to Continental Europe

In short , our generation has been f*cked over ( for want of a better phrase) by this government and the previous one , with it's brutal cuts to services

And THEN , we have to deal with patronizing comments by older people , about " our generation " and how we are all " getting everything for free " because we don't pledge undemanding loyalty to Theresa May and the Tories , but instead prefer Jeremy Corbyn , whose proposals would increase living standards for people in our generation

But we're obviously all "freeloading lefties " so obviously we don't deserve anything

 

[najaB]

...the Tories have made GCSE's worse ,with unnecessary reforms , which make the exams far tougher than they should be...

That is one of the few reforms that I actually agree with - reintroducing some academic rigour to exams. A while back I compared the Physics GCSE to the O-Level exam that I would've done and there's no denying that the old exam was much more comprehensive a test of learning.

 

[HSTEd]

That is one of the few reforms that I actually agree with - reintroducing some academic rigour to exams. A while back I compared the Physics GCSE to the O-Level exam that I would've done and there's no denying that the old exam was much more comprehensive a test of learning.

As someone who has a BSc in Chemistry and soon a MPhys in Physics (paid for without state assistance in the latter case), rote learning of random reactions and such is of little or no value.

Physics A-Levels and (to a lesser extent) GCSEs should consist of forces of motion, followed by endless integration.

Everything is integration.

 

[najaB]

As someone who has a BSc in Chemistry and soon a MPhys in Physics (paid for without state assistance in the latter case), rote learning of random reactions and such is of little or no value.

The older style papers very much focused on 'This is the scenario. Explain it.' type questions. The newer ones I saw were 'List... State... Write the equation for...' with very little in the way of application.

I did A-Level Biology. The hardest exam question I've ever done was eleven words: "The cell is the basic unit of life. Discuss. (30 marks)."

You really needed to know your stuff to get 30 marks worth of discussion from that question.

 

[sk688]

That is one of the few reforms that I actually agree with - reintroducing some academic rigour to exams. A while back I compared the Physics GCSE to the O-Level exam that I would've done and there's no denying that the old exam was much more comprehensive a test of learning.

Making the exams slightly tougher could have been acceptable

Making the entire English course closed book ( thus forcing us to learn An Inspector Calls , Jekyll and Hyde , Romeo and Juliet AND 15 Poems on conflict , and all the associated analysis ) , is a bit much surely ?

Add to this the fact that OCR themselves set the wrong 40 mark question ( on an 80 mark test) on the Romeo and Juliet paper ( asking why Tybalt hated the Capulets instead of the Montagues ) , and it's why I feel the reforms are rather unfair , as the govt said , they want less people to get ht top grades ( to show that the exams are tougher ) so chances of getting into a top university will be lower

For maths , with the board that we did ( Edexcel ) . They got hundreds of complaints over the difficulty of the 9-1 paper , which had questions of an A Level standard , as well as the fact that the formula sheet was removed ( so we had to learn all the formulae )

This might sound slightly like a whinge , and self pity , but I do feel these changes are really unfair , especially when they have been executed so poorly ( partial integration of new grading system , so some results will be 9-1 and others A*-A and the errors )

 

[northwichcat]

That is one of the few reforms that I actually agree with - reintroducing some academic rigour to exams. A while back I compared the Physics GCSE to the O-Level exam that I would've done and there's no denying that the old exam was much more comprehensive a test of learning.

I recall when doing A Level Physics being told by my teacher that he was teaching us Quantum Physics which he never got to learn until after he had done his A Levels.

I imagine I would find the current GCSE IT exam very easy even if it includes questions on things I only learnt about when I was 30.

 

[najaB]

Making the exams slightly tougher could have been acceptable

Making the entire English course closed book ( thus forcing us to learn An Inspector Calls , Jekyll and Hyde , Romeo and Juliet AND 15 Poems on conflict , and all the associated analysis ) , is a bit much surely ?

For my GCSE equivalent exam (which was closed book) we had to study a total of 12 books of differing length, one of three Shakespeare plays and several poems.

So, hard as that seems, it's only going back to how things used to be.

 

[sk688]

For my GCSE equivalent exam (which was closed book) we had to study a total of 12 books of differing length, one of three Shakespeare plays and several poems.

So, hard as that seems, it's only going back to how things used to be.

Of course , but it is the limited warning ( earlier we were told it was open book) and the question error

And the Maths paper had several complaints as a result of it's difficulty

 

[najaB]

Of course , but it is the limited warning ( earlier we were told it was open book) and the question error

If there was limited warning then that wasn't fair.

And the Maths paper had several complaints as a result of it's difficulty

I actually lucked out due to a difficult paper. I failed my preliminary Maths exam badly (28% if memory serves correctly) and was expected to do about the same on the actual exam. However, the paper was extremely difficult and apparently I was one of about 100 out of 15,000 candidates who got the answer to a near-impossible question (don't ask me how). So I ended up getting a Grade One - my maths teacher was speechless when he found out.

 

[HSTEd]

Rote learning books for English seems rather pointless to be honest.

 

[najaB]

Rote learning books for English seems rather pointless to be honest.

You don't rote learn them. You learn the story and the themes. So that you can answer a question like "Compare and contrast Romeo and Juliet's relationship to that of Oliver Barrett and Jennifer Cavilleri (Love Story)". Rote learning wouldn't really help you answer questions like that, you need to have read and understood the book.

 

[HSTEd]

You don't rote learn them. You learn the story and the themes. So that you can answer a question like "Compare and contrast Romeo and Juliet's relationship to Oliver Barrett and Jennifer Cavilleri (Love Story). Rote learning wouldn't really help you answer questions like that, you need to have read and understood the book.

Wouldn't you be expected to be able to quote from the text though?

Learning quotes is not something I enjoyed... but then I only took English Lit because my School made me.

 

[najaB]

Wouldn't you be expected to be able to quote from the text though?

Quotes are useful, but only make the difference between an A and an A* (or whatever the marks are these days).

 

[takno]

You don't rote learn them. You learn the story and the themes. So that you can answer a question like "Compare and contrast Romeo and Juliet's relationship to Oliver Barrett and Jennifer Cavilleri (Love Story). Rote learning wouldn't really help you answer questions like that, you need to have read and understood the book.

So now I'm supposed to have read and remembered Love Story as well? Bloody good job my English GCSEs were 100% coursework

 

[Jonny]

Corbyn has been at it again today promising a £10 an hour wage for 16 and 17 yr olds which would be a 150% rise for some.
So not only is he a very dangerous and subversive individual and of course not very intelligent he's also a cynical manipulator of the young.

Firstly, he doesn't seem to understand that more money chasing the same amount of goods can only have one outcome - more inflation, and back to square one.

Secondly, it would have the side effect of making many young people unemployable at the minimum price for which their labour is available.

 

[HSTEd]

Firstly, he doesn't seem to understand that more money chasing the same amount of goods can only have one outcome - more inflation, and back to square one.

Well not quite, inflation would hurt people with large amounts of fluid cash available more than people without it.

Secondly, it would have the side effect of making many young people unemployable at the minimum price for which their labour is available.

The same argument applies to the minimum wage at all values if you assume the simplistic model that leads to that conclusion.

And even if we accept that that is inevitably true - the oversupply of cheap labour has resulted in serious industrial stagnation which is not sustainable in the long term.
We should not be at the point where it is affordable to pay agency staff to punch out bits of foam from a block of foam with biros, and yet the company was able to pay the agency twice my take home pay for me to do just that.

These are not jobs that are worth having psychologically or in societal terms.

They only exist because of artificial depression of wages by state assistance.

 

[najaB]

And even if we accept that that is inevitably true - the oversupply of cheap labour has resulted in serious industrial stagnation which is not sustainable in the long term.

I don't follow the logic. Cheap labour encourages industrial growth. In almost every industry labour is one of if not the highest cost of business.

 

[HSTEd]

I don't follow the logic. Cheap labour encourages industrial growth. In almost every industry labour is one of if not the highest cost of business.

Steel is the obvious counter-example, less than one man hour is often expended per tonne of finished steel these days thanks to the incredible efficiency of modern continuous casting and hot-strip techniques. That translates to a few dollars per tonne in all likelyhood - which is a small fraction of the several hundred dollar price.

Cheap labour might encourage industrial growth, but the higher taxes necessary to subsidise the current very low wages in manufacturing retard industrial growth.
They distort the labour market by providing artificially cheap labourers.

It is not at all clear this is a net win overall.
Especially considering the deadweight losses of the bureaucracy in the tax credit system.

 

[Domh245]

Higher than both the minimum and living wages.

Worth pointing out though that £10/hour would be the minimum wage under a labour government

 

[najaB]

Worth pointing out though that £10/hour would be the minimum wage under a labour government

And I thought Labour wanted *more* people to have jobs, not fewer.

 

[northwichcat]

And I thought Labour wanted *more* people to have jobs, not fewer.

Corbyn would probably be very happy if everyone worked a 35 hour week and earned £10 an hour (£18,200 a year) even if the people doing the highly skilled jobs get paid the same as though doing remedial jobs.

 

[WelshBluebird]

What exactly is the problem with the minimum wage for young people being the same as that for older people? If they are doing the same job, shouldn't they be paid the same?

 

[Jonny]

What exactly is the problem with the minimum wage for young people being the same as that for older people? If they are doing the same job, shouldn't they be paid the same?

The problem is that they very rarely are doing the same job; they are much less likely to have high-level qualifications and/or oversight responsibility. Also a lack of experience means that there is an increased risk of making mistakes. As a result, like it or not, their labour is less valuable.

 

[WelshBluebird]

The problem is that they very rarely are doing the same job; they are much less likely to have high-level qualifications and/or oversight responsibility. Also a lack of experience means that there is an increased risk of making mistakes. As a result, like it or not, their labour is less valuable.

I am specific talking about jobs like I have done working in a cafe or a supermarket. Jobs you do not need qualifications for. Jobs that are paid minimum wage regardless of experience. Two people start work at the same time, with the same level of experience, will be paid differently if one is older than the other. How is that at all fair?

 

[Dave1987]

Corbyn would probably be very happy if everyone worked a 35 hour week and earned £10 an hour (£18,200 a year) even if the people doing the highly skilled jobs get paid the same as though doing remedial jobs.

In the future those doing the highly skilled jobs will be paying for the unskilled people to sit at home doing bugger all as they will have automated the unskilled people completely out of any work at all. Citizen income is going to have to come in.