UK General Election 2024

[Yew]

In-person hospitality is still more labour intensive than delivery staff.
If delivery staff conditions improved it would still win due to higher utilisation and other efficiencies.

Don't forget things like paying more tax on beer served in a pub, as opposed to at home.

 

[nw1]

Don't forget things like paying more tax on beer served in a pub, as opposed to at home.

Plus people might not particularly want to spend their lives stuck at home. We had enough of that in lockdown to last a lifetime.

People want to go out, meet people and have a change of scene and that will presumably always keep pubs and cafes open.

 

[Purple Train]

There's no real need to expend any energy, because - hopefully - the last four-and-a-half years will have decided the election. I think all the parties would far prefer it was held tomorrow.

The problem is we now have a housing crisis that has resulted in a housing shortage roughly equivalent to 15% of the entire national housing stock. We have 28 million housing units and we need something like 33 million units (Shelter figures etc).

The distortions from this are one of the major reasons for the current awful economic performance. Every year that this distortion continues knocks many billions of pounds a year off GDP. The cumulative cost in lost wealth is enormous and continuously growing.

It would be nice if we could sit around for ages debating the benefits of such things, but that will result in nothing being done for years or decades. Indeed it is highly likely that the anti-development lobby will weaponise such discussions to ensure nothing is ever built. Meanwhile huge numbers of lives will be blighted by substandard or otherwise inadequate housing and economic growth (essential for maintaining living standards through the demographic transition) will remain awful.

Large numbers of people, including many of my colleagues, are being required to pour away half or more of their salary on accomodation, this is a national outrage and the only thing we can do that will solve this is pump out five million housing units as fast as humanly possible.
If that results in a drab urban and suburban environment made up of copies of a handful of prefabricated house designs, so be it.

Five million prefabricated houses knocked up in half a second will just push the problem of "substandard or otherwise inadequate housing" along another 20 or 30 years, until the shanties start to fall apart at the seams. I quite agree with you about the housing shortage, but I believe this ought to be a case of "less haste, more speed".

 

[skyhigh]

I'm a little surprised at how things are going here.

According to Electoral Calculus the Lib Dems are predicted to win (probability 56%, Conservative win second most likely outcome on 42%) with a majority of just 2.7%. In comparison at the last election the Conservative candidate had a majority of 32%.

In the last 7 days I have had 6 pieces of various Lib Dem literature hand delivered including letters personally addressed to me. On the other hand, I've not heard a peep from the Conservative candidate. Not a single flyer. I was expecting they'd be working hard to try and save a close run seat but it seems they are just keeping quiet and hoping for the best. The Conservative candidate is about the most bland, boring, party yes-man going who has never had an original idea or done much for the constituency so he's probably hoping keeping a low profile will save him.

 

[Horizon22]

I'm a little surprised at how things are going here.

According to Electoral Calculus the Lib Dems are predicted to win (probability 56%, Conservative win second most likely outcome on 42%) with a majority of just 2.7%. In comparison at the last election the Conservative candidate had a majority of 32%.

In the last 7 days I have had 6 pieces of various Lib Dem literature hand delivered including letters personally addressed to me. On the other hand, I've not heard a peep from the Conservative candidate. Not a single flyer. I was expecting they'd be working hard to try and save a close run seat but it seems they are just keeping quiet and hoping for the best. The Conservative candidate is about the most bland, boring, party yes-man going who has never had an original idea or done much for the constituency so he's probably hoping keeping a low profile will save him.

It's probably the Tory base (i.e local councillors and activists) is so demoralised / disintegrated / diminished so they don't have the capacity to deliver and knock on doors. The Lib Dems and other opposition parties on the other hand are absolutely up for the GE and are campaigning hard.

Conservative grassroots campaign in ‘disarray’, say insiders and opponents

Tories struggling in some areas from chronic lack of supporters to canvass and deliver leaflets, say sources

www.theguardian.com

The Conservative on-the-ground election campaign is descending into “disarray” amid a chronic lack of volunteers and strategy and an increasing sense of panic in formerly ultra-safe seats, insiders and opponents have told the Guardian.

Some areas have struggled to muster people to knock on doors and deliver leaflets due to a combination of a shrinking and ageing membership, a calamitous fall in the number of Conservative councillors and disillusionment with the election campaign.


Instead the party has become heavily reliant on using paid-for delivery to send out large numbers of election leaflets that are often nationally focused and less relevant to local issues.

“In our seat, the local MP is a minister, and if he goes out door-knocking during the day he’s lucky to have three people with him,” said one Tory official in a seat the party currently holds. “Sometimes it’s just him and one other person. On weekends there are people who might deliver leaflets, but they don’t want to knock on doors.”

Opposition parties fighting in previously safe Tory seats say they have noticed a stark difference even from the last election. “In 2019 it was definitely different,” one Liberal Democrat candidate said. “I think voters are noticing this time that their Tory communication comes with the pizza leaflets.”

 

[Busaholic]

£50, but that was “worth” a lot more than it is today of course. About £240 per https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

I vaguely remember my parents filling in some form and I think getting my passport stamped before going on a French exchange for two weeks near Paris in summer 1975.

It was £25 when I wanted to go travelling just after my 21st birthday in 1969, which was when I officially became an adult, and it was a huge hindrance, particularly as there was no Interrail or alternative cheap rail tickets then. One really did have to live on one's wits, and do things like sleep under lorries or find arduous, underpaid 'casual' work with Health and Safety totally absent e.g. at the Port of Amsterdam. It was difficult enough as a male, and I never met a British female attempting it then.

 

[deltic]

In the last 7 days I have had 6 pieces of various Lib Dem literature hand delivered including letters personally addressed to me.

Good to see my Saturday wasn't wasted personally addressing envelopes

 

[nw1]

I received a personally addressed Lib Dem letter today, about an hour ago.

Looked like I was the only person inside my block to get one: the guy had a pile of around 20 but was going all round the neighbourhood.

Guess they somehow identified (correctly) that I was a target voter. I do remember saying to the Lib Dem councillor then-candidate last year "good luck" or "hope you win" or somesuch: possible it's something to do with that.

In general, I'd echo others' observations that the Lib Dems are trying quite hard here, while the Tories don't seem to be bothering. And it's a knife-edge seat according to projections; could go either way.

 

[birchesgreen]

Few canvassers and few people putting up election posters. That said, round here one house has gone so far as to fly a Reform UK flag from their roof. (Oddly, the same house had a Slovakia flag flying for the last couple of weeks and has had a Swiss flag in the past, not sure what message that's trying to communicate).

Maybe a bit like someone around the corner, rabid England fan and right-winger, who flew the Georgian flag on a flagpole outside his house for a few years, until someone told him.

 

[nw1]

Maybe a bit like someone around the corner, rabid England fan and right-winger, who flew the Georgian flag on a flagpole outside his house for a few years, until someone told him.

I can understand the Georgian flag but the Slovak flag has little resemblance to that of England.

And the Swiss flag, well it's red and white but there the similarity ends, you'd have to be really silly to mix up the two...

 

[GRALISTAIR]

It's probably the Tory base (i.e local councillors and activists) is so demoralised / disintegrated / diminished so they don't have the capacity to deliver and knock on doors. The Lib Dems and other opposition parties on the other hand are absolutely up for the GE and are campaigning hard.

Conservative grassroots campaign in ‘disarray’, say insiders and opponents

Tories struggling in some areas from chronic lack of supporters to canvass and deliver leaflets, say sources

www.theguardian.com

Yes exactly what I am being told by my family back in the UK.

 

[skyhigh]

Good to see my Saturday wasn't wasted personally addressing envelopes

I certainly noticed the effort.

 

[Busaholic]

One of a whole slew of interesting pieces of information coming from all directions in this election, over the weekend I read a comment from someone high in a polling company suggesting that, almost regardless of how well Labour do in it, they may well get fewer votes overall than they did in 2017 under Corbyn! I have to say I was initially incredulous, but then realised that a predicted much lower turnout, particularly among the youngest cohort, not helped by potential ID refusals, when added to the almost complete collapse of the Tory vote across large sections of GB could make this feasible and, frankly, is an indictment of Starmer's policies, personality and conducting of proceedings.

At this point, I suspect Labour support is at the most it's going to be and will gradually drift down. I think they've got to produce a juicy titbit, but not necessarily a large rabbit, out of the hat without seeming desperate in order to shore things up.

 

[Purple Train]

Starmer knows that he can't be too radical/ideologically pure - as demanded by the Labour rank and file - or he'll completely alienate the swing voters he needs to win the election. Blair appealed to the Conservatives not only because he was much more charismatic than Starmer, but because he, in the words of David Evans, "came across as a good Tory leader". He can't and won't come across as a good Tory leader now, because the party has drifted so far to the right, so he's in a bit of a no man's land. As such, I think he's probably doing as well as can be expected.

 

[zero]

The problem with flats is the awful leasehold system (at least in England, I don't know about the rest of the UK), and the management system which often imposes silly rules and unnecessary costs, for example it was a complete waste of money for my previous complex to hire someone to mop the communal lobby every morning, getting in the way of everyone trying to go to work/school and making it dirty again the minute after the cleaner finished. Even when 100 flat owners can agree to replace a management company, only the people with the most time and able to shout the loudest get their way and impose constraints on everyone else.

I had the impression the Tories were going to meddle with the leasehold system but I don't think anything ever came of that. Tens of thousands of flat owners are still unable to sell (some because they would end up in negative equity) because of the cladding problem too

 

[brad465]

One of a whole slew of interesting pieces of information coming from all directions in this election, over the weekend I read a comment from someone high in a polling company suggesting that, almost regardless of how well Labour do in it, they may well get fewer votes overall than they did in 2017 under Corbyn! I have to say I was initially incredulous, but then realised that a predicted much lower turnout, particularly among the youngest cohort, not helped by potential ID refusals, when added to the almost complete collapse of the Tory vote across large sections of GB could make this feasible and, frankly, is an indictment of Starmer's policies, personality and conducting of proceedings.

At this point, I suspect Labour support is at the most it's going to be and will gradually drift down. I think they've got to produce a juicy titbit, but not necessarily a large rabbit, out of the hat without seeming desperate in order to shore things up.

This would be annoying for no other reason than it allowing all the Corbyn loyalists to continue banging on about that bloody 2017 vote result, conveniently forgetting that it was still a lower vote count than the Tories in the same election (they also ignore the fact Blair got more votes in 1997 than Corbyn ever did). Improvement comes from learning mistakes, not denying them.

 

[HSTEd]

This would be annoying for no other reason than it allowing all the Corbyn loyalists to continue banging on about that bloody 2017 vote result, conveniently forgetting that it was still a lower vote count than the Tories in the same election (they also ignore the fact Blair got more votes in 1997 than Corbyn ever did). Improvement comes from learning mistakes, not denying them.

Well we must also learn from the turmoil in the right-wing at this time.

"Moving ot the centre to get swing votes" is all well and good, but the Conservative Party is about to suffer the greatest defeat in its history because it did exactly that. If you fail to offer the base anything it really wants, or worse yet, do the opposite of what it wants, the base will not follow you to the centre.

There are more factions in the Labour Party than just Blairites and Corbynites, indeed Andy Burnham (the only person to make a credible challenge against Corbyn in 2015) has long been on the record that he was driven out of national politics for being "too lefty". Faith in the idea of the broad tent party is collapsing across the political spectrum, not least in the Labour movement.


Without proportional representation to allow an orderly breakup of the existing parties we can expect several elections like this one until all the existing parties are shattered.
I would not put money on Starmer lasting past 2029.

 

[WelshBluebird]

"Moving ot the centre to get swing votes" is all well and good, but the Conservative Party is about to suffer the greatest defeat in its history because it did exactly that.

Errr.

The Tory vote had collapsed because:
1 - they have moved to the right.
2 - they have severally messed up the country for a large percentage of even their own voters (mortage rates, NHS waiting lists, NHS dentistry in general etc etc).

Certainly not because they have moved to the centre (because they haven't!).

 

[Peterthegreat]

Errr.

The Tory vote had collapsed because:
1 - they have moved to the right.
2 - they have severally messed up the country for a large percentage of even their own voters (mortage rates, NHS waiting lists, NHS dentistry in general etc etc).

Certainly not because they have moved to the centre (because they haven't!).

Absolutely.

 

[takno]

One of a whole slew of interesting pieces of information coming from all directions in this election, over the weekend I read a comment from someone high in a polling company suggesting that, almost regardless of how well Labour do in it, they may well get fewer votes overall than they did in 2017 under Corbyn! I have to say I was initially incredulous, but then realised that a predicted much lower turnout, particularly among the youngest cohort, not helped by potential ID refusals, when added to the almost complete collapse of the Tory vote across large sections of GB could make this feasible and, frankly, is an indictment of Starmer's policies, personality and conducting of proceedings.

At this point, I suspect Labour support is at the most it's going to be and will gradually drift down. I think they've got to produce a juicy titbit, but not necessarily a large rabbit, out of the hat without seeming desperate in order to shore things up.

Starmer has to get people to vote Labour, but he also has to avoid scaring other people into voting Tory. The 2019 result was an outlier on both sides because lots of people were scared into voting, and so many of them were voting against something rather for something.

 

[Bantamzen]

That is what the UK needs to do. We need to switch out of low pay low productivity jobs and into high pay high productivity jobs. In particular we need to stop the delusion that we can all get rich by selling each other beer and cake. The place I would eliminate jobs is the so called hospitality industry, there are lots of people in the hospitality industry who could and should be doing things that are much more productive.

I'm curious about this statement about the "so-called" hospitality industry. Where are you proposing to close businesses, and how are you proposing to create new ones and re-train the staff from businesses you deem low productivity?

 

[birchesgreen]

I'm curious about this statement about the "so-called" hospitality industry. Where are you proposing to close businesses, and how are you proposing to create new ones and re-train the staff from businesses you deem low productivity?

I suspect some jobs will be forbidden. If you are a barister or waiter you'll have to operate a digger instead, and like it.

 

[AlterEgo]

Errr.

The Tory vote had collapsed because:
1 - they have moved to the right.
2 - they have severally messed up the country for a large percentage of even their own voters (mortage rates, NHS waiting lists, NHS dentistry in general etc etc).

Certainly not because they have moved to the centre (because they haven't!).

Where have most “lost” Tory voters gone? Reform, or been converted into non voters. It’s a bit strange to say they’ve gone too far right, because they’re leaking votes to a properly mental populist right party.

The Tories didn’t move to the centre or the right so much as rather lose all steam ideologically and politically.

There is no cohesive “offer” behind the Tories. They’re just “doing the government”, becoming ever more reactive, losing all sight of a worldview, and cannibalising all of their political capital.

They have moaned relentlessly that they can’t get anything done - with an 80 seat majority! They’re just useless and feckless and have adopted the communication style of the opposition for the last two years.

Almost everything has got worse since Brexit, and not just as a direct consequence. Brexit and the fallout has consumed a huge amount of parliamentary time, rendering the government fractured and sclerotic.

The government failed to tackle immigration - arguably they had one job in this Parliament given to them by voters - and are paying very dearly. It wasn’t for the want of ideology or a political manoeuvre either, but I don’t think you can look at this, see a ton of voters going to Farage’s party, and conclude “well the Tories moved too far right”.

 

[The Ham]

The problem with flats is the awful leasehold system (at least in England, I don't know about the rest of the UK), and the management system which often imposes silly rules and unnecessary costs, for example it was a complete waste of money for my previous complex to hire someone to mop the communal lobby every morning, getting in the way of everyone trying to go to work/school and making it dirty again the minute after the cleaner finished. Even when 100 flat owners can agree to replace a management company, only the people with the most time and able to shout the loudest get their way and impose constraints on everyone else.

I had the impression the Tories were going to meddle with the leasehold system but I don't think anything ever came of that. Tens of thousands of flat owners are still unable to sell (some because they would end up in negative equity) because of the cladding problem too

Interestingly I've just had a project at work where the architect had changed the layout from some two storey blocks of flats to terraced housing with some maisonettes and they've kept the same number of dwellings, even though each peppers (including the maisonettes) have their own garden spaces.

Having seen the two layouts, this is because actually the flats were quite wasteful in terms of space as there was a car park with an extra access road, what the houses has a long run of parking directly off the street.

The point being is that, unless you have basement/undercroft parking and/or are higher than 2 storeys, plot density may not be that much higher.

-------------------------------------------------------

Sky have commissioned a poll on the perception of immigration:

Immigration: More people believe it has a negative impact on society than positive, poll suggests

The survey revealed deep political distrust among the public, with 52% saying they think Labour are not telling the truth about what they think on immigration, and 49% saying the same thing about the Conservatives.

news.sky.com

There's various points, however this was interesting (note positive means 50%+1 or more):

Respondents also thought that cutting immigration would have a negative impact on the NHS, hospitality, universities and social care, but a positive effect on housing.

All sorts of things like older men were more likely to be negative than younger women, London and Scotland were generally positive whilst other areas were negative.

However the general impression I get from it is wholly some areas there's a greater than 50% negative factor, it's not as far reaching as some would imply. Also, it's possible to think that it's a negative thing, however it doesn't define how negative that feeling is.

For example, I generally hold a negative view on cheese and onion crisps, but will still eat them occasionally, however my feelings towards prawn cocktail crisps is worse and won't eat them.

In the same way, it's entirely possible to think that whilst immigration is currently too high (or even was too high at 150,000), that there's still a need for some immigration (say 90,000 or 50,000). Especially if you understand that without it (say at net zero) actually the NHS and hospitality could struggle to recruit staff and so make it worse.

 

[dgl]

At the end of the day I bet a lot of people will think that it's better to be looked after in hospital by an immigrant than not being able to go to hospital at all because there is not enough staff and as such their views on immigrants will actually be pretty much that they don't care one way or the other.

Some parties might like to put all our ills on immigrants but most people will simply want the services they use to work and realise that that is where the money/effort needs to be focused, and if course if a load of immigrants are willing to do the jobs that we dont want to do for a wage we wouldn't tolerate that could be seen as helping public services.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

I suspect some jobs will be forbidden. If you are a barister or waiter you'll have to operate a digger instead, and like it.

Hmmm. Did you mean barista or barrister?
I'd like to see some of the latter doing manual work...

 

[birchesgreen]

Hmmm. Did you mean barista or barrister?
I'd like to see some of the latter doing manual work...

I meant coffee makers.

As for the others i have ordered plenty of whips.

 

[jfollows]

At the end of the day I bet a lot of people will think that it's better to be looked after in hospital by an immigrant than not being able to go to hospital at all because there is not enough staff and as such their views on immigrants will actually be pretty much that they don't care one way or the other.

Some parties might like to put all our ills on immigrants but most people will simply want the services they use to work and realise that that is where the money/effort needs to be focused, and if course if a load of immigrants are willing to do the jobs that we dont want to do for a wage we wouldn't tolerate that could be seen as helping public services.

It seems to me that the Conservatives politicised the issues around immigration and the politics has rebounded on them. It started with "tens of thousands" by Cameron, but it's led to Rwanda.

In a sane world there would be a considered discussion and conclusions, which wouldn't get everyone's agreement of course, but then there would be sensible policies implemented by civil servants and the issue would go off the radar. As you say, we need immigration, but we've generated polarisation in which a lot of voters will now think "all immigration is bad" at the time they cast their votes.

But the issue the Conservatives made noise about is now partly their undoing because the likes of Reform - which can say what it likes in the knowledge that it's all theatre to them - have picked it up.

A plague on both their houses is my view - the replacement won't be wonderful but maybe there's a chance of sensible discussion rather than political noise?

 

[Magdalia]

I'm curious about this statement about the "so-called" hospitality industry. Where are you proposing to close businesses, and how are you proposing to create new ones and re-train the staff from businesses you deem low productivity?

I suspect some jobs will be forbidden. If you are a barister or waiter you'll have to operate a digger instead, and like it.

For good or ill the UK is predominantly a market economy. In a market economy businesses open and close all the time. The main way this happens is through the price mechanism, can businesses charge enough for their goods and services to cover their costs and make some profit?

But government policy intervenes all the time to create incentives and disincentives that favour some parts of the economy over others. A lot of this is in response to special pleading from industries that can only make money if the playing field is tilted in their favour. Some of them do this very loudly, in particular the hospitality industry. They were doing it on Radio 4 this morning and what they were pleading for was more migrant labour.

That's because the labour market is one of the most important components of a market economy, and it is a market with lots of government interventions, including the availability of migrant labour. These impact on people's decisions on which jobs to take. People are starting new jobs and leaving old jobs all the time, there is no need for jobs to be forbidden. However, there is nowhere near enough of this, mainly because the housing shortage makes it very difficult to move.

It would be far better for the UK economy if a few baristas and waiters were operating a digger instead. What doesn't make sense is government policy tilting the playing field in favour of hospitality compared to construction. Unfortunately Radio 4 journalists would rather give air time to the hospitality industry in a nice warm restaurant, not the construction industry on a building site!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

At the end of the day I bet a lot of people will think that it's better to be looked after in hospital by an immigrant than not being able to go to hospital at all because there is not enough staff and as such their views on immigrants will actually be pretty much that they don't care one way or the other.

The problem with that logic is that the people coming in also need the same services. Bluntly, if you increase the population by X% then you probably need X% more staff to provide all the services we need, so all other things being equal you haven't actually helped. Now that situation is modified if you're preferentially bringing in people who are qualified to do the specific things we have particular shortages of. So yes, if you're specifically importing doctors and nurses, that will help the health services for example. At least, until those people retire, at which point you may then have an even bigger problem than you started with. It does though raise ethical issues about stealing skills from other (often, poorer) countries who may well have invested scarce resources in training their own doctors and nurses only to lose them to the UK.

Some parties might like to put all our ills on immigrants

I'm not sure that any party does that (barring possibly some of the more extreme elements in Reform). What some parties (notably the Tories) have been doing for years is pointing out that when immigration is too high that causes some fairly serious problems (most obviously, the pressure on infrastructure, and issues about people who may not support democratic values). That invariably gets mischaracterised by people on the left as 'putting all our ills on immigrants'.