And (nearly?) all the current Tory MPs were elected with Johnson as leader; many of them voted for him to become leader even though his character flaws were hardly well-concealed.
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
Ah, thanks.
Mind you, seniors and geriatric assholes is how Mad King BoJo regarded us. He will not easily or quickly be forgiven for his evil callousness, and one day (soon) he himself may be a geriatric asshole, rather than the middle-aged asshole he is at present.
But he's not even a MP these days ???
He is still a public figure. There are still those in the Cons who want him back.
Other than that the man who served as chancellor in his government is now PM.
and he did a fine job IMO
One: that's still not nothing to do with the current government.
Two: eat out to help the virus out was not a fine job.
Three: Sunak was one of the voices pushing against early lockdowns. Early lockdowns would have been shorter and saved lives.
He wasn't much of an MP even before he gave up his very well paid position to do very little.
Nothing to do with the current government then.
Everything to do with the current government, as they were all elected with him as the leader. This is his party.
But I think there is little chance that Sunak can win back the SAGA vote, because so many in that age bracket have lost people to pandemic mismanagement, friends or family.
And however incompetent he thinks we are (yes, I am just in this category now), we are not all forgetful enough or senile enough to vote Tory.
The fact that Conservatives feel they need to specifically appeal to the "SAGA vote" says a lot about their troubles, traditionally this is a demographic that they could rely on to both come out to vote and put their cross next to the Conservative candidate name. The Conservative Party managed to produce messaging that they would look after people in their old age - eg: to protect pensions, including managing the economy well so pension investments grow and there's money for the health and social care that older people rely on more.
The pandemic response, where elderly people were thrown under the bus in the attempt to allow younger people to party, eroded a lot of that "the Conservatives are on our side" trust. Fuel costs have hit the elderly harder, those who feel the cold more struggling to pay for heating. At the lower end of that age group, where I am, there's a lot of people who 20y ago may have thought they could manage early retirement have found that now we're in mid to late 50s or early 60s that retirement isn't going to be an option for another decade.
Added to which, what I've found on the doorsteps is that many of the older generations are very concerned about the future for their children and grandchildren. Though that is, of course, biased to the subset of people who don't immediately shut the door on political canvassers (or, may wait a few seconds to find we're Greens before shutting the door). And, that means that the environment is a bigger issue in this age group than the Tories might expect (sometimes it seems that Tories expect that people are only concerned for themselves, and won't support policies to help people after they're dead and buried - my experience is very much that most people really do care for others, their family in particular). But, I've seen no real evidence of the anti-environmentalism that the Tories think will win them votes, and certainly in Rutherglen last year the message "we're not going to win this election, but every Green vote says you disagree with the assessment of the Tories that people don't want effective policies to protect the environment" was something people could get behind (our vote share in areas we did get out in was significantly better than in the areas we couldn't get to).
@Alan Cresswell
Excellent post. We seniors have so many reasons to despise the Tories and deplore what they have done to this country.
Of course we worry about our children and grandchildren. And about our own futures with the care system in the state it is.
But as much as that, I deplore the sharp decline in truthfulness in in Johnson/Cummings political campaigns where they were prepared to promise anything, no matter how preposterous and plaster it on the side of a bus to gain power.
I would feel morally tainted if I voted for them.
@Alan Cresswell
Excellent post. We seniors have so many reasons to despise the Tories and deplore what they have done to this country.
Of course we worry about our children and grandchildren. And about our own futures with the care system in the state it is.
But as much as that, I deplore the sharp decline in truthfulness in in Johnson/Cummings political campaigns where they were prepared to promise anything, no matter how preposterous and plaster it on the side of a bus to gain power.
I would feel morally tainted if I voted for them.
This, the 'sharp decline in truthfulness', is what so many in the UK and beyond will remember from these years. I've just finished reading an interview with Dr Rachel Clarke in the Guardian, building to her denunciation at the end: "the sheer “amount of misinformation and spin and downright lies from the government; ‘the NHS is coping’, when we weren’t; ‘there’s no rationing’, when there was; ‘everybody who needs a ventilator was getting one’, when they weren’t. All of that was completely dishonest.”"
According to the BBC, Sunak is now seeking the support of us senior citizens . The so called, 'Saga vote'. Hmmm ... Mrs RR's comment was pithy and witty, "Saga vote? With all the mess they've made they'd be better going for those with very short term memories ... the 'gaga' vote."
Why are they called "the Saga vote"? Do they live primarily in historically Nordic-influenced parts of the UK? Or is it the Brit equivalent of "Greatest Generation", ie. their lives have been like heroic sagas?
Or "seniors and geriatric assholes"?
Saga is a company with services (insurance, travel etc) tailored to the over 50s.
Ah, thanks.
Mind you, seniors and geriatric assholes is how Mad King BoJo regarded us. He will not easily or quickly be forgiven for his evil callousness, and one day (soon) he himself may be a geriatric asshole, rather than the middle-aged asshole he is at present.
But he's not even a MP these days ???
Very true, and something for which all gods should be praised - but he's still an asshole.
@Alan Cresswell
Excellent post. We seniors have so many reasons to despise the Tories and deplore what they have done to this country.
Of course we worry about our children and grandchildren. And about our own futures with the care system in the state it is.
But as much as that, I deplore the sharp decline in truthfulness in in Johnson/Cummings political campaigns where they were prepared to promise anything, no matter how preposterous and plaster it on the side of a bus to gain power.
I would feel morally tainted if I voted for them.
This, the 'sharp decline in truthfulness', is what so many in the UK and beyond will remember from these years. I've just finished reading an interview with Dr Rachel Clarke in the Guardian, building to her denunciation at the end: "the sheer “amount of misinformation and spin and downright lies from the government; ‘the NHS is coping’, when we weren’t; ‘there’s no rationing’, when there was; ‘everybody who needs a ventilator was getting one’, when they weren’t. All of that was completely dishonest.”"
Yes, I've read that article, too. Dr Clarke is, sadly, only too right in what she says - and, given her job, she should know...
I wouldn't put it past the Tories to catapult Johnson back into a safe Tory seat (assuming that such a thing exists) so that when Sunak (inevitably) has to resign they can get him back as leader. I suspect there are enough of the silly old fossils who still think that his myriad faults can be overlooked ("it's just Boris being Boris" ) and his "charisma"* would be enough to get them back into power.
* and lies
Having said that, I do hope that Alan's right - that those of us at the lower end of the wrinkly spectrum will have the wit to realise that the Toerags don't give a stuff for anyone but themselves.
I wouldn't put it past the Tories to catapult Johnson back into a safe Tory seat (assuming that such a thing exists) so that when Sunak (inevitably) has to resign they can get him back as leader.
I don't think he has much natural support. The ERG/NZSG/NatCons etc that backed him have mostly moved on to Badenoch and Braverman.
The Conservatives chase the Grey vote. After they win the next election Labour will be chasing the School vote
But it is so unlikely that they will win as to make it practically impossible. From what I can tell the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren’s future. In the latest polling Labour are leading on most fronts. Even with those who polling companies that give the Cons a larger share of the don’t know vote, Labour lead on things like the economy which normally Con territory. There are no guarantees but even with changed borders to suit the Cons they are on to a disaster.
The Conservatives chase the Grey vote. After they win the next election Labour will be chasing the School vote
But it is so unlikely that they will win as to make it practically impossible. From what I can tell the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren’s future. In the latest polling Labour are leading on most fronts. Even with those who polling companies that give the Cons a larger share of the don’t know vote, Labour lead on things like the economy which normally Con territory. There are no guarantees but even with changed borders to suit the Cons they are on to a disaster.
Sorry read the original postas the Cons winning not Labour. Dyslexia strikes again
The Conservatives chase the Grey vote. After they win the next election Labour will be chasing the School vote
But it is so unlikely that they will win as to make it practically impossible. From what I can tell the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren’s future. In the latest polling Labour are leading on most fronts. Even with those who polling companies that give the Cons a larger share of the don’t know vote, Labour lead on things like the economy which normally Con territory. There are no guarantees but even with changed borders to suit the Cons they are on to a disaster.
Having reread Telford's post, I think he is predicting a Labour win. If you take this sentence in isolation:
"After they win the next election, Labour will be chasing the School vote."
Which means two things: 1. Labour to win and 2. In power, Labour to franchise under 18s and pursue policies designed to appeal to them.
Forgive me if I have misunderstood you. I did read it the other way initially.
FWIW, I thought @Telford meant that after Labour win the next election, they (Labour) will then need to do as @alienfromzog suggests with regard to under-18s.
No, because many of them (a) still hated Germansforeigners in general (b) had absurdly inflated ideas of what this country could achieve outside the EU.
P.S. Perhaps 'distrusted' would be more accurate than 'hated'. Many thought the EU was a 'plot' to oust the UK from its rightful leading role, and subvert its independence. Many were Telegraph'Mail/Express readers and blieved every word.
No, because many of them (a) still hated Germansforeigners in general (b) had absurdly inflated ideas of what this country could achieve outside the EU.
Yes. Very few people would consciously vote for something they believe could hurt their children or grand-kids. More likely, they thought they'd be HELPING their offspring, because brexit would free up more money for future health-care expansion, keep out continentals who take jobs from young people, etc.
If the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren why did they vote for Brexit?
Because they'd forgotten that the 1950s mostly felt so good because they weren't the 1930s or 1940s?
I think the 1950s felt good to the demographic in question because they were young then and had little in the way of responsibilities. Moreover, when you're young, you're developing your ideas of what's normal, and once that process is over further change appears as an aberration. Survivor bias removes the really bad stuff. And the focus tends to be on the positives because the negatives were just part of the normal, while the negatives of now are aberrations that are noticed. So "It was safe to leave your doors unlocked" (whether true or not) doesn't carry the corollary "because most people didn't have anything worth nicking".
The 1950s of course was also the period when the slums had been cleared with the help of the Luftwaffe and the replacements hadn't yet become the new slums.
Add in some casual racism because there weren't as many brown people around then and Bob's your Uncle.
If the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren why did they vote for Brexit?
Because they'd forgotten that the 1950s mostly felt so good because they weren't the 1930s or 1940s?
This is very on point. The data isn't as robust as I would like but the oldest demographic supported Remain.
It's well recorded that over 60's voted to leave. Remember that a 60 year old in '16 was born in 1956. So had no memory of the war and very little of the 1950s. The 80 year olds who could just remember the war and it's aftermath voted remain. Even more so for the 90+
Those that had real experience of the war, rather than growing up in the national myth and afterglow, had a very different attitude to Europe.
If the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren why did they vote for Brexit?
There needs to be a name for this fallacy. It runs:
1. I believe that X will have outcome Y
2. You support X
3. Therefore you must support outcome Y
It doesn't allow for believing that X will have outcome Not-Y
I suspect there probably is. I don't know what though but it's vital to our body politic.
Here's my favourite example:
If you ask the question "should we reduce immigration in the UK?"
A slim majority say yes.
Some are racists, some are little Englanders but most are pragmatists. If you drill down properly, it's because of a belief in the effect of immigration on public services.
"Do you want to reduce immigration?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because our schools and hospitals cannot cope as it is."
The thing is, as a demographic, economic migrants are young and healthy and employed. The data show their contribution in taxation and in working in the healthcare and social sectors is greater than their consumption of services. Therefore reducing immigration, increases the strain on public services.
Now, it can be clearly shown that certain actors deliberately misinform and create the narrative that immigration increases the strain on public services. Hence, it's easy to see where the fallacy comes from but fallacy it is.
If the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren why did they vote for Brexit?
Because they'd forgotten that the 1950s mostly felt so good because they weren't the 1930s or 1940s?
I think the 1950s felt good to the demographic in question because they were young then and had little in the way of responsibilities. Moreover, when you're young, you're developing your ideas of what's normal, and once that process is over further change appears as an aberration. Survivor bias removes the really bad stuff. And the focus tends to be on the positives because the negatives were just part of the normal, while the negatives of now are aberrations that are noticed. So "It was safe to leave your doors unlocked" (whether true or not) doesn't carry the corollary "because most people didn't have anything worth nicking".
The 1950s of course was also the period when the slums had been cleared with the help of the Luftwaffe and the replacements hadn't yet become the new slums.
Add in some casual racism because there weren't as many brown people around then and Bob's your Uncle.
A masterful summary, Karl. An elderly relation who'd had the rare fortune of living in the countryside and prospering in the 1930s (this was bloody hard to do until around the time of the Munich crisis) said that the post-WW2 "land fit for heroes" was one of the greatest disappointments. On demob he had to scrimp and save, and took decades to get back to where he'd been in 1939.
If the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren why did they vote for Brexit?
But we have had some time between the Brexit vote and now. They have seen what had happened since and has happened under this government. They are apparently concerned about the future.
The thing is, as a demographic, economic migrants are young and healthy and employed. The data show their contribution in taxation and in working in the healthcare and social sectors is greater than their consumption of services. Therefore reducing immigration, increases the strain on public services.
This is true in the steady state, but doesn't account for transient effects like "a whole bunch of new kids just showed up in my local school, and there's no classroom space to put them in". And people notice transients in a way that they don't notice slow changes in the steady state (cf. boiling the frog).
Personally, I think the UK is plenty full enough of people. I don't really think it needs extra urbanization, and I wouldn't be unhappy if the population fell a bit.
And it strikes me that using immigration to skew your population's age distribution so that you have "enough" working-age people to support everyone else is fundamentally a short-term solution, and what you need to do in the long term is to adapt the structure of your society to the age distribution that modern medicine gives you.
Which means people working longer, but it also means that expectations and work patterns for older people have to adapt to the physical reality of older people. You slow down, you're not as strong or flexible as you used to be, but that's a long way from saying that you're not useful.
The thing is, as a demographic, economic migrants are young and healthy and employed. The data show their contribution in taxation and in working in the healthcare and social sectors is greater than their consumption of services. Therefore reducing immigration, increases the strain on public services.
And it strikes me that using immigration to skew your population's age distribution so that you have "enough" working-age people to support everyone else is fundamentally a short-term solution, and what you need to do in the long term is to adapt the structure of your society to the age distribution that modern medicine gives you.
I think that rather depends on what your population pyramid looks like. If you've got a population bump hitting retirement like we have now then it does make sense to increase the working age population to similar proportions to support it. Not a good idea, on the other hand, to keep increasing the working age population such that future cohorts of retirees will be even larger.
As to the schools issue, a lot of that has to do with academisation, gutting councils of their ability to provide new schools when and where they're needed. Right now, though, schools are actually experiencing a drop in numbers compared with the last few years.
The thing is, as a demographic, economic migrants are young and healthy and employed. The data show their contribution in taxation and in working in the healthcare and social sectors is greater than their consumption of services. Therefore reducing immigration, increases the strain on public services.
This is true in the steady state, but doesn't account for transient effects like "a whole bunch of new kids just showed up in my local school, and there's no classroom space to put them in". And people notice transients in a way that they don't notice slow changes in the steady state (cf. boiling the frog).
Personally, I think the UK is plenty full enough of people. I don't really think it needs extra urbanization, and I wouldn't be unhappy if the population fell a bit.
And it strikes me that using immigration to skew your population's age distribution so that you have "enough" working-age people to support everyone else is fundamentally a short-term solution, and what you need to do in the long term is to adapt the structure of your society to the age distribution that modern medicine gives you.
Which means people working longer, but it also means that expectations and work patterns for older people have to adapt to the physical reality of older people. You slow down, you're not as strong or flexible as you used to be, but that's a long way from saying that you're not useful.
The thing is, as a demographic, economic migrants are young and healthy and employed. The data show their contribution in taxation and in working in the healthcare and social sectors is greater than their consumption of services. Therefore reducing immigration, increases the strain on public services.
This is true in the steady state, but doesn't account for transient effects like "a whole bunch of new kids just showed up in my local school, and there's no classroom space to put them in". And people notice transients in a way that they don't notice slow changes in the steady state (cf. boiling the frog).
Personally, I think the UK is plenty full enough of people. I don't really think it needs extra urbanization, and I wouldn't be unhappy if the population fell a bit.
And it strikes me that using immigration to skew your population's age distribution so that you have "enough" working-age people to support everyone else is fundamentally a short-term solution, and what you need to do in the long term is to adapt the structure of your society to the age distribution that modern medicine gives you.
Which means people working longer, but it also means that expectations and work patterns for older people have to adapt to the physical reality of older people. You slow down, you're not as strong or flexible as you used to be, but that's a long way from saying that you're not useful.
That's fair as far as it goes.
But
1) Many immigrants move back in later life.
2) The local perspective is totally valid, of course, but to some extent fictional. What I mean is, in all the surveys there is an inverse relationship between the experience of immigration and the fear of it.
Either way, to come back to the point; there are many people who oppose immigration because they believe it has an effect that is opposite to the effect it actually has. Which fits the fallacy as described. Moreover, it clearly plays a part in our body politic.
This is pure reverse King Canute. He stook in the tide to show that he was not invincible - we are trying to do the opposite - oppose movements as inevitable as the tides, which happen when inequality of resources and misery is as stark as it is now. If you don't want migration, do something about the conditions which create it, but stop with the persecution of people caught up in processes which currently benefit you.
And it strikes me that using immigration to skew your population's age distribution so that you have "enough" working-age people to support everyone else is fundamentally a short-term solution, and what you need to do in the long term is to adapt the structure of your society to the age distribution that modern medicine gives you.
Which means people working longer, but it also means that expectations and work patterns for older people have to adapt to the physical reality of older people. You slow down, you're not as strong or flexible as you used to be, but that's a long way from saying that you're not useful.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but ISTM you are underestimating the level of change this may involve (including a larger percentage of the population living in urban like densities).
I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but ISTM you are underestimating the level of change this may involve (including a larger percentage of the population living in urban like densities).
Not sure I follow your point about urban density.
I'm not underestimating the level of change involved - my case is rather that this is a large change, and so should be undertaken in a careful and measured manner.
My expectation (well, hope, I suppose) is that the standard of living across the world will rise, and so the pressures driving economic migration will diminish. Which means that our ready supply of immigrant labour will dry up. What we need to do is work out how to live in that future, rather than just assuming that we'll always have a ready supply of extra people.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but ISTM you are underestimating the level of change this may involve (including a larger percentage of the population living in urban like densities).
Not sure I follow your point about urban density.
If you are talking about 10s of millions of elderly people who are near-infirm or infirm, then the best way to house them is in sheltered housing with medium levels of density, making it easier and cheaper to deliver services to them, and to arrange transport [there will be significant numbers who are still mobile but are unsafe to drive].
The other impetus for efficiencies of this sort will be the lower productivity of the aging population.
My expectation (well, hope, I suppose) is that the standard of living across the world will rise, and so the pressures driving economic migration will diminish.
The climate crisis is going to increase pressure on some of the poorest parts of the world, and will create its own wave of refugees.
What we need to do is work out how to live in that future, rather than just assuming that we'll always have a ready supply of extra people.
The way to do that is to train your own workforce, which involves investments in education and improvements in pay and conditions so that these jobs can support a family at a reasonable standard of living.
I don't think the grey vote is any less susceptible to the Brexit Hustle than other parts of the population - many, many people fell for the Brexit line, just as lots of people have fallen for the "I'm a Nigerian Prince needing help moving lots of money from the country" line. People, of all ages and backgrounds, are suckers for a get-rich-quick pitch. Or, enough of them to keep scammers in business, including those who sold us Brexit.
Cue choruses of "they wouldn't be allowed to say it if it weren't true". Cretinous bullshit. Due diligence is a constant requirement of political decisions, unless one is content to be a dupe of charlatans. Which is the same as being their supporter really.
Scroll down (if necessary) to Sushi Rinak's bet with that equally horrible fuckwit Piers Morgan about transporting vulnerable human beings to a concentration camp in Africa...
Comments
Nothing to do with the current government then.
Other than that the man who served as chancellor in his government is now PM.
He is still a public figure. There are still those in the Cons who want him back.
Two: eat out to help the virus out was not a fine job.
Three: Sunak was one of the voices pushing against early lockdowns. Early lockdowns would have been shorter and saved lives.
Everything to do with the current government, as they were all elected with him as the leader. This is his party.
But I think there is little chance that Sunak can win back the SAGA vote, because so many in that age bracket have lost people to pandemic mismanagement, friends or family.
And however incompetent he thinks we are (yes, I am just in this category now), we are not all forgetful enough or senile enough to vote Tory.
The pandemic response, where elderly people were thrown under the bus in the attempt to allow younger people to party, eroded a lot of that "the Conservatives are on our side" trust. Fuel costs have hit the elderly harder, those who feel the cold more struggling to pay for heating. At the lower end of that age group, where I am, there's a lot of people who 20y ago may have thought they could manage early retirement have found that now we're in mid to late 50s or early 60s that retirement isn't going to be an option for another decade.
Added to which, what I've found on the doorsteps is that many of the older generations are very concerned about the future for their children and grandchildren. Though that is, of course, biased to the subset of people who don't immediately shut the door on political canvassers (or, may wait a few seconds to find we're Greens before shutting the door). And, that means that the environment is a bigger issue in this age group than the Tories might expect (sometimes it seems that Tories expect that people are only concerned for themselves, and won't support policies to help people after they're dead and buried - my experience is very much that most people really do care for others, their family in particular). But, I've seen no real evidence of the anti-environmentalism that the Tories think will win them votes, and certainly in Rutherglen last year the message "we're not going to win this election, but every Green vote says you disagree with the assessment of the Tories that people don't want effective policies to protect the environment" was something people could get behind (our vote share in areas we did get out in was significantly better than in the areas we couldn't get to).
Excellent post. We seniors have so many reasons to despise the Tories and deplore what they have done to this country.
Of course we worry about our children and grandchildren. And about our own futures with the care system in the state it is.
But as much as that, I deplore the sharp decline in truthfulness in in Johnson/Cummings political campaigns where they were prepared to promise anything, no matter how preposterous and plaster it on the side of a bus to gain power.
I would feel morally tainted if I voted for them.
This, the 'sharp decline in truthfulness', is what so many in the UK and beyond will remember from these years. I've just finished reading an interview with Dr Rachel Clarke in the Guardian, building to her denunciation at the end: "the sheer “amount of misinformation and spin and downright lies from the government; ‘the NHS is coping’, when we weren’t; ‘there’s no rationing’, when there was; ‘everybody who needs a ventilator was getting one’, when they weren’t. All of that was completely dishonest.”"
Very true, and something for which all gods should be praised - but he's still an asshole.
Yes, I've read that article, too. Dr Clarke is, sadly, only too right in what she says - and, given her job, she should know...
* and lies
Having said that, I do hope that Alan's right - that those of us at the lower end of the wrinkly spectrum will have the wit to realise that the Toerags don't give a stuff for anyone but themselves.
I don't think he has much natural support. The ERG/NZSG/NatCons etc that backed him have mostly moved on to Badenoch and Braverman.
But it is so unlikely that they will win as to make it practically impossible. From what I can tell the grey vote is concerned for their children and grandchildren’s future. In the latest polling Labour are leading on most fronts. Even with those who polling companies that give the Cons a larger share of the don’t know vote, Labour lead on things like the economy which normally Con territory. There are no guarantees but even with changed borders to suit the Cons they are on to a disaster.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/30/uk-perceived-as-more-corrupt-lowest-score-global-index-transparency-international
Sorry read the original postas the Cons winning not Labour. Dyslexia strikes again
I think the fraction of voters in school (even with the voting age lowered to 16) is going to be small.
Having reread Telford's post, I think he is predicting a Labour win. If you take this sentence in isolation:
"After they win the next election, Labour will be chasing the School vote."
Which means two things: 1. Labour to win and 2. In power, Labour to franchise under 18s and pursue policies designed to appeal to them.
Forgive me if I have misunderstood you. I did read it the other way initially.
AFZ
World-beating Global Britain strikes again!
Because they'd forgotten that the 1950s mostly felt so good because they weren't the 1930s or 1940s?
I suspect you are correct in what you say, though.
Yes. Very few people would consciously vote for something they believe could hurt their children or grand-kids. More likely, they thought they'd be HELPING their offspring, because brexit would free up more money for future health-care expansion, keep out continentals who take jobs from young people, etc.
There needs to be a name for this fallacy. It runs:
1. I believe that X will have outcome Y
2. You support X
3. Therefore you must support outcome Y
It doesn't allow for believing that X will have outcome Not-Y
I think the 1950s felt good to the demographic in question because they were young then and had little in the way of responsibilities. Moreover, when you're young, you're developing your ideas of what's normal, and once that process is over further change appears as an aberration. Survivor bias removes the really bad stuff. And the focus tends to be on the positives because the negatives were just part of the normal, while the negatives of now are aberrations that are noticed. So "It was safe to leave your doors unlocked" (whether true or not) doesn't carry the corollary "because most people didn't have anything worth nicking".
The 1950s of course was also the period when the slums had been cleared with the help of the Luftwaffe and the replacements hadn't yet become the new slums.
Add in some casual racism because there weren't as many brown people around then and Bob's your Uncle.
Unlike the young folk who didn't bother to get out of bed on the day of the vote.
This is very on point. The data isn't as robust as I would like but the oldest demographic supported Remain.
It's well recorded that over 60's voted to leave. Remember that a 60 year old in '16 was born in 1956. So had no memory of the war and very little of the 1950s. The 80 year olds who could just remember the war and it's aftermath voted remain. Even more so for the 90+
Those that had real experience of the war, rather than growing up in the national myth and afterglow, had a very different attitude to Europe.
I suspect there probably is. I don't know what though but it's vital to our body politic.
Here's my favourite example:
If you ask the question "should we reduce immigration in the UK?"
A slim majority say yes.
Some are racists, some are little Englanders but most are pragmatists. If you drill down properly, it's because of a belief in the effect of immigration on public services.
"Do you want to reduce immigration?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because our schools and hospitals cannot cope as it is."
The thing is, as a demographic, economic migrants are young and healthy and employed. The data show their contribution in taxation and in working in the healthcare and social sectors is greater than their consumption of services. Therefore reducing immigration, increases the strain on public services.
Now, it can be clearly shown that certain actors deliberately misinform and create the narrative that immigration increases the strain on public services. Hence, it's easy to see where the fallacy comes from but fallacy it is.
AFZ
That is by no means conclusive; unless you mean you are thinking of a scenario where young people showed up at a greater rate than older people:
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/what-if-everyone-had-voted-in-the-eu-referendum/
A masterful summary, Karl. An elderly relation who'd had the rare fortune of living in the countryside and prospering in the 1930s (this was bloody hard to do until around the time of the Munich crisis) said that the post-WW2 "land fit for heroes" was one of the greatest disappointments. On demob he had to scrimp and save, and took decades to get back to where he'd been in 1939.
But we have had some time between the Brexit vote and now. They have seen what had happened since and has happened under this government. They are apparently concerned about the future.
This is true in the steady state, but doesn't account for transient effects like "a whole bunch of new kids just showed up in my local school, and there's no classroom space to put them in". And people notice transients in a way that they don't notice slow changes in the steady state (cf. boiling the frog).
Personally, I think the UK is plenty full enough of people. I don't really think it needs extra urbanization, and I wouldn't be unhappy if the population fell a bit.
And it strikes me that using immigration to skew your population's age distribution so that you have "enough" working-age people to support everyone else is fundamentally a short-term solution, and what you need to do in the long term is to adapt the structure of your society to the age distribution that modern medicine gives you.
Which means people working longer, but it also means that expectations and work patterns for older people have to adapt to the physical reality of older people. You slow down, you're not as strong or flexible as you used to be, but that's a long way from saying that you're not useful.
I think that rather depends on what your population pyramid looks like. If you've got a population bump hitting retirement like we have now then it does make sense to increase the working age population to similar proportions to support it. Not a good idea, on the other hand, to keep increasing the working age population such that future cohorts of retirees will be even larger.
As to the schools issue, a lot of that has to do with academisation, gutting councils of their ability to provide new schools when and where they're needed. Right now, though, schools are actually experiencing a drop in numbers compared with the last few years.
That's fair as far as it goes.
But
1) Many immigrants move back in later life.
2) The local perspective is totally valid, of course, but to some extent fictional. What I mean is, in all the surveys there is an inverse relationship between the experience of immigration and the fear of it.
Either way, to come back to the point; there are many people who oppose immigration because they believe it has an effect that is opposite to the effect it actually has. Which fits the fallacy as described. Moreover, it clearly plays a part in our body politic.
AFZ
I wouldn't necessarily disagree, but ISTM you are underestimating the level of change this may involve (including a larger percentage of the population living in urban like densities).
Not sure I follow your point about urban density.
I'm not underestimating the level of change involved - my case is rather that this is a large change, and so should be undertaken in a careful and measured manner.
My expectation (well, hope, I suppose) is that the standard of living across the world will rise, and so the pressures driving economic migration will diminish. Which means that our ready supply of immigrant labour will dry up. What we need to do is work out how to live in that future, rather than just assuming that we'll always have a ready supply of extra people.
If you are talking about 10s of millions of elderly people who are near-infirm or infirm, then the best way to house them is in sheltered housing with medium levels of density, making it easier and cheaper to deliver services to them, and to arrange transport [there will be significant numbers who are still mobile but are unsafe to drive].
The other impetus for efficiencies of this sort will be the lower productivity of the aging population.
The climate crisis is going to increase pressure on some of the poorest parts of the world, and will create its own wave of refugees.
The way to do that is to train your own workforce, which involves investments in education and improvements in pay and conditions so that these jobs can support a family at a reasonable standard of living.
Because they believed the lies of the leavers.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/02/bibby-stockholm-residents-mental-health-at-risk-from-overcrowding-mps-say
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/feb/05/rishi-sunak-nhs-northern-ireland-dup-stormont-uk-politics-live
Scroll down (if necessary) to Sushi Rinak's bet with that equally horrible fuckwit Piers Morgan about transporting vulnerable human beings to a concentration camp in Africa...