[David9694]

I posted an earlier version of this a while back – inspired to do update following THAT discussion about all things ULEZ. 

The “manifesto”, in terms of transport, only mentions stopping HS2, but there’s plenty on the usual right-wing obsessions: Brexit, immigration, veterans and climate change.  I had another look because I worry about the ongoing decline of the two main political parties. 

If the Cons stay wedded to Brexit, then we will go into the next GE with all the widespread impoverishment Brexit has ushered in – not helped by Covid, Putin, etc. People generally vote according to their pockets.  I don’t get Labour’s current position on Europe either, but let’s see how that evolves, and even the Cons may also evolve, or even pivot, but time is already running out for them.

Several roads now lead to the horrors of a further lurch to the right in this country.  Let’s hope Labour get the GE landslide the polls are predicting – but we’re still at least a year out from the real campaigning beginning. 

A cycling angle? With the Reform Party and its ilk, Facebook Steve and Nextdoor Dave attain real political influence. It’s not spelt out in the manifesto, but you can see where this is probably heading and what it is likely to mean for cycling.  You can bet that this lot are very much “on the side of hard working drivers” etc. 

As you all know, Dave’s going to “sort the traffic” and no doubt show them lazy planners how it’s done: Steve thinks the Council are corrupt, the police blinkered and is, if he can fit it in to his busy schedule he’s going to “teach them Lycra’s a thing or two.” It won’t concern him that his Mondeo is 3 months out of MoT or that Mrs Steve sometimes drives the kids in it uninsured. 

As vulnerable road users, vulnerable people, we rely a great deal on the rule of law for protection. The rule of law means that we understand what the laws are, they are in general fair, and how they are applied and to whom is even-handed and consistent. 

The fascist position is broadly the opposite – it’s all off-the-cuff to support today’s particular agenda – that’s why the Iain Duncan-Smith “happy to see ULEZ infra vandalised” comment is, as an example, so very worrying.  In the Conservatives, here is a party happy to send signals to enable the mob to attack RNLI stations, beat up immigrants, shout at teachers, doctors etc. 

This right-wing stuff works by allowing/enabling significant privileged groups to to think of themselves as the downtrodden underdog and here is a way to fight back.  The pro Brexit campaign played on people’s ignorance, fears and prejudices exactly as this does. 

It’s all about freedom, innit, less regulation, less tax burden, and damn the climate.  There’s more polar bears now, so it’s fine.  Let’s have open-cast coal mining, lithium mining and fracking. The section on climate change stumbles around like a Friday night drunk, trying to explain he wasn’t being racist to the barman – a denier position emerges, unsurprisingly.

In places, the mask really slips: “We must keep divisive woke ideologies such as Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gender ideology out of the classroom.” – to be honest, I don’t even know what those two are.

The standard enemies are put up – the civil service, the BBC.  Amid all the thrust and parry, there’s nothing  about making a better, more inclusive and cohesive world to live in; arts, sports and culture don’t feature in this barstool view of the world: a dullard’s grim vision.

Don’t be a member of the wrong sort of minority would be my advice, should any of this come to pass. 
 

https://www.reformparty.uk/reformisessential

Topic

[john_smith]

quote=Rich_cb]Being unable to

Rich_cb wrote:

Being unable to access public services would seem to be a legitimate grievance. Whether she is right in blaming that on immigration is another matter. I read an analysis in The Telegraph which contained the quote “inexcusable but not inexplicable”. I thought that was a rather apt way to describe a lot of recent episodes of social unrest.

And as was/is the case with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the explanation given by the apologists is rather different from that given by the perpetrators.

[chrisonabike]

David9694 wrote:

David9694 wrote:

That’s one of the things that puzzles me – do these people not go in anywhere like hotels, restaurants, care homes, hospitals, public transport??  Who the heck do they thin runs these things? I include my low immigration locality in this.  And that’s leaving aside music and sport. 

I imagine the rejoinder for “can’t get the staff” is it’s in part the employers’ unwillingness to provide what seem fair conditions, never mind attractive ones. And if as a youngster the jobs don’t look cool you probably don’t bother doing training for them.

Then, if the labour is imported that can depress the going rate for locals.

Not an economist so I’m sure it’s more complicated (particularly as movement of labour tends to encounter barriers between states). And as you note we as locals also want cheaper / better services (who will do that work? ) etc.

[David9694]

Rich_cb wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

Being unable to access public services would seem to be a legitimate grievance. Whether she is right in blaming that on immigration is another matter. I read an analysis in The Telegraph which contained the quote “inexcusable but not inexplicable”. I thought that was a rather apt way to describe a lot of recent episodes of social unrest.

Explicable at least in part by 14 years of conservative rule and Brexit!

[David9694]

chrisonabike wrote:

It’s because of all the immigrants coming in and bringing their families and putting pressure on the NHS, which they’re working for … er … they’re filling the care homes, by working there for minimal wages … er …

See also migrants from the Indian subcontinent, Carribean, Irish immigration the whole time etc.  And large short-term flows aren’t new – note the fairly rapid growth of e.g. Edinburgh’s second language (now Polish).

That’s one of the things that puzzles me – do these people not go in anywhere like hotels, restaurants, care homes, hospitals, public transport??  Who the heck do they thin runs these things? I include my low immigration locality in this.  And that’s leaving aside music and sport. 

Off the top of my head, the post-war recruitment drive by London Transport in the Caribbean –  I guess it was all via The Commonwealth, so citizenships were on offer; London Brick in southern Italy; pre-Brexit, many NHS hospitals were actively recruiting nurses in the EU, it was the Philippines on and off before that.  You don’t do those things if your adverts for staff are being answered by local people.  

 

[chrisonabike]

It’s because of all the

It’s because of all the immigrants coming in and bringing their families and putting pressure on the NHS, which they’re working for … er … they’re filling the care homes, by working there for minimal wages … er …

I think it would be great if the government could be open about numbers and costs / benefits.  But I think that’s unlikely – while I believe it would show that immigration is still a massive net economic benefit there are some figures that none of our recent governments have been keen to emphasise:

 – some of the costs (asylum stuff) are large sums.  In practice small beer compared to all the other stuff we spend on but for “struggling local people” seeing money spent on “those who are not from here” can be a trigger.  (Bit like “they got rid of ten whole parking spaces for the new cycle lane!”)

 – despite the convenient smokescreen trigger issue of “small boats” and “illegal migration” that is a tiny number compared to the legal migration that governments have encouraged for decades both for general economic benefits and simply to cover certain job shortages.

I think that there are some very difficult questions about our growing, ageing population, our increasing consumption, where we get the resources we want to consume (never mind that in the medium term term climate change may drive some massive population movements and other changes) etc.  About how our society is organised and what keeps it together – or how we manage tensions in a multi-ethnic society.

Of course sizeable immigration of people who “look different” / “speak different languages” / “have different religion and culture” is really not new in UK history.  It’s why we speak English here! (Rather than something like Welsh or Gaelic, or who-knows-what before that).

See also migrants from the Indian subcontinent, Carribean, Irish immigration the whole time etc.  And large short-term flows aren’t new – note the fairly rapid growth of e.g. Edinburgh’s second language (now Polish).

[Rich_cb]

Because the NHS is rather
Because the NHS is rather bigger than one village?

If resources are being used elsewhere then they are not available in your village.

If immigration is placing NHS resources under pressure then the ramifications will be felt even in areas without high levels of immigration.

It’s a complex issue but one area with poor NHS service and low immigration isn’t really good evidence, in isolation, for either argument.

[Rich_cb]

Being unable to access public
Being unable to access public services would seem to be a legitimate grievance. Whether she is right in blaming that on immigration is another matter.

I read an analysis in The Telegraph which contained the quote “inexcusable but not inexplicable”. I thought that was a rather apt way to describe a lot of recent episodes of social unrest.

[brooksby]

Tom_77 wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

legitimate grievances

Legitimate grievances is an interesting one. For example Dawn was protesting in Southampton, is “definitely not a racist”, but is upset because she “can’t even get a doctor’s appointment”. Also something about honour and sovereignty.

Is that a legitimate grievance?

Hmm.  I wonder how Dawn from Southampton would explain why it takes weeks to get a non urgent appointment at the GP surgery in my village, where the non white population can be counted on your fingers and the non English-as-a-first-language population is basically nil (AFAICS).

[David9694]

Tom_77 wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

legitimate grievances

Legitimate grievances is an interesting one. For example Dawn was protesting in Southampton, is “definitely not a racist”, but is upset because she “can’t even get a doctor’s appointment”. Also something about honour and sovereignty.

Is that a legitimate grievance?

It’s complicated. I don’t have much wider evidence on this, but my lived experience is that it’s not a serious problem.  Partly that’s because I’m fairly clued-up on health matters and am able to articulate my concerns when I need to. The important thing is to present (specific) things they can actually help you with. 

Not sure how you get from frustration about accessing health care to joining, flag in hand, a potential riot originally brought on by racists, though. 

[brooksby]

Hirsute wrote:

We are many and you are, umm, four

Is it still a ‘counter-protest’ if there are no protestors?

 

In any case, it seems to me that They achieved their intention of creating fear and panic just by anonymously circulating a list of alleged targets.  There was no need to actually turn up to their own (alleged) ‘protests’/riots.

Textbook terrorism – create an atmosphere of fear with the minimum actual skin in the game and consequent risk of arrest.

Besides, it was a weeknight and lot of them probably had to get to work in the morning, leave the rioting for a sunny weekend day instead… 

[Hirsute]

We are many and you are, umm,

We are many and you are, umm, four

[Tom_77]

Rich_cb wrote:

Rich_cb wrote:

legitimate grievances

Legitimate grievances is an interesting one. For example Dawn was protesting in Southampton, is “definitely not a racist”, but is upset because she “can’t even get a doctor’s appointment”. Also something about honour and sovereignty.

Is that a legitimate grievance?

[mattw]

Sniffer wrote:

mattw wrote:

Liz Truss’s support for Trump was a bit of a shocker, even given her fairly loopy history; I don’t think there are many UK politcians who will overlook that Trump is a sex-abuser and a career criminal who has corrupted everything he has touched.

You would think so, but Robert Jenrick described his support on the BBC on Sunday.

Whether he believes that or is saying because he thinks it will go down well with the Tory member I don’t know, but when you think that through both options are terrifying. 

One number to watch for will be how many Tory members are left.

The last published number I saw was 172k in 2022, and reports closer to 100k.

RefUKs claimed 65k came from somewhere, and I don’t see the Tories staying ahead of LDs (90k+ 2023) or GPEW (60k last month).

[chrisonabike]

David9694 wrote:

“Tinderbox Britain” it says on the front of the Daily Mail today;

Sounds like media imitating comics. “In their desperation they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand […] Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

[mdavidford]

David9694 wrote:

“Tinderbox Britain” it says on the front of the Daily Mail today

Their new advertising campaign? After all, kindling seems about as good a use for it as anything.

[Author]

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