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The most important constituency of the UK government is old people, that want their pension to increase and the price of their house to go up and foreigners to

• nbevans 4y ago
  Pensions have not been going up. The triple lock was suspended. Inflation is wrecking the pensions of millions. The UK pension system is one of the worst in Europe. If it was ever to be substantially improved you will definitely hear about it. All countries tend to have polarisation around the topic of "immigration". Statistically the UK is one of the most welcoming and least racially prejudicing countries in the world. There are numerous independent studies and reports that you can find to support this. You do need to pay though; the visas and healthcare surcharges ain't cheap. The same as any top tier country though.
  • ben_w 4y ago
    As mmarq was saying the government doesn’t represent the people, it is entirely possible for the British population at large to be welcoming and friendly to immigrants while at the same time the government is being as hostile as they can get away with. Which countries do you count as “top tier”? I migrated to Germany, I pay the same healthcare costs as anyone else here. I can’t remember exactly what my combined ID card and work permit cost, but it was a 2-digit number. I think naturalisation here is about a tenth the cost of the U.K. also.
  • cameronh90 4y ago
    > The UK pension system is one of the worst in Europe. If it was ever to be substantially improved you will definitely hear about it. I assume you just mean the state pension here. Occupational pensions have long been a significant part of our pension system that tends to get ignored. The auto-enroll workplace pension introduced in 2008 seems to have been very successful too. Overall, if I remember correctly, the UK actually has the second total pension assets in the OECD, and one of the highest per capita.
    • lotsofpulp 4y ago
      It does not really matter what the assets or number representing the assets are. The problem that countries with decreasing proportions of young and working to old and non working populations are that automation is not close to changing bedpans yet, so there is decreasing supply of units of labor and increasing demand. This was mitigated for a few decades with the import of foreign labor and automation, but presumably this is no longer happening at a sufficiently rapid rate to be able to prevent labor prices from rising. Also, who really wants to change bedpans? So the political question is: Who in society is entitled to the decreasing amount of labor and how will it be divvied up?
      • ben_w 4y ago
        > automation is not close to changing bedpans yet I find it remarkable that this is the metaphor of choice, given that bedpans are merely the final remaining situation where chamber pots have not been replaced with mechanism-clearing flush toilets.
  • mmarq 4y ago
    Pensions have increased substantially since 2010 due to the triple lock, which was momentarily suspended in 2022 because this year it would have been unsustainable: wages have increased significantly in 2021 due to temporary changes of the composition of the workforce caused by lockdowns. The current spike in inflation will be accounted for next year, like many worker’s salaries that have been adjusted using last year’s inflation (2-3%). Besides, British pensions are lower because British pensioners paid much less pension contributions than other European pensioners. It is a fact that the current government stance on Brexit is both exacerbating the labour shortage and damaging the country’s supply chains. And it would be totally disingenuous to claim that this doesn’t stem from an idiotic stance on migration from the EU, that has been part of the Conservative manifestos/programmes since at least 2008 and that lead to their last N electoral victories.
    • pydry 4y ago
      Their stance on immigration was always fairly reluctant. They took it because they were losing their base to UKIP. Ironically (given how horrible it was) it was one of the few things they actually did because of democratic pressure. The British business oligarchy are now pretty keen to take Johnson down and replace him with starmer - the wages, inflation and supply chain damage has infuriated them. Hence the british medias obsession with boris's parties.
  • Reason077 4y ago
    > "Pensions have not been going up. The triple lock was suspended. Inflation is wrecking the pensions of millions." The triple lock has been temporarily suspended (with the wages element removed, so becoming a double lock) for 2022-23. The government has repeatedly said, and it was re-stated again by Sunak just the other day, that after this year the triple-lock will be reinstated for the rest of the parliamentary term. Critically, the consumer price index part of the lock is still in place, so pensions will still rise in line with inflation (as measured by CPI) in 2022-23.
  • notahacker 4y ago
    The triple lock itself was an incredibly favourable deal to pensioners - a guarantee that pensions will rise at at least inflation introduced by a government which was furiously cutting everything else. The government decided to remove it with inflation hitting 9%, and promptly reversed course with Sunak's "save the PM's job" budget to give pensions a 10% raise. The fact the UK's pension system has for a long time relied more on private pensions than many countries doesn't mean that the present government hasn't spent the last decade giving pensioners real term rises whilst other services and especially other state handouts and salaries got real term cuts. There are indeed many indications of the UK being welcoming to foreigners relative to other countries For example, the UK government's recently announced plan to export refugees at great expense to Rwanda with seven days notice doesn't have majority support in any group except the pensioners the policy is designed to appeal to...
    • callamdelaney 4y ago
      • notahacker 4y ago
        The UNCHR says otherwise
        • callamdelaney 4y ago
          Anyone can claim asylum anywhere?
• bojangleslover 4y ago
  Everything is financed by labor anyway. Capital gains tax represent less than 10% of tax revenue. Income and national insurance (also income, not sure why it has a different name) has always made the lion's share. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2020-documents/budget-2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2020-docum...
  • pjc50 4y ago
    National Insurance was introduced as a social security scheme, and still has a few links despite going into the general revenue pot. https://www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/state-pension/can-i-top-up-my-state-pension-an0q09p37nsj https://www.which.co.uk/money/pensions-and-retirement/state-... It serves the same role as the US social security scheme with a different accounting treatment.
    • bojangleslover 4y ago
      Call it what you want, it's income tax
      • pjc50 4y ago
        Apart from applying in a different range of circumstances and being capped, yes it's linked to income. (Does raise the question of whether student loan repayments, which are also linked to income unlike other loans, and have been called a "graduate tax" by some of their advocates, are also an income tax that applies only to people born after a particular date ...)
        • hkt 4y ago
          They're only an income tax if you can't pay them off. Call it a tax on the poor and normal, while as ever the wealthier cohorts get a nice break. This is why there should have been an actual graduate tax. That and the fact that a graduate tax would at least have been predictable, unlike, say, the soaring interest rates on student debt at the moment.
• pydry 4y ago
  This isnt driven by old people. This is the government/security services/deep state making a power grab. Obviously from the economists outlook the UK business elites are skeptical, so at least there is some pushback from a group with clout. The elderly voters are likely indifferent maybe even mildly positive but theyre not really pushing either way on this theyre being led by the nose.
• shaftoe444 4y ago
  You are describing the triumph of Janet... https://himbonomics.substack.com/p/-the-triumph-of-janet-?s=r https://himbonomics.substack.com/p/-the-triumph-of-janet-?s=...
  • ikt 4y ago
    Fantastic read thanks!
  • lmc 4y ago
    Could do without the ageism
    • bobkazamakis 4y ago
      could do without people who want to vote for policies of which they'll never see the consequences.
      • inglor_cz 4y ago
        Incentives are never straightforward. People can vote for policies that move others' money into their pocket. People can vote for policies that they don't understand (based on either stupidity or naiveté). People can vote for policies that benefit their town to the detriment of the neighbouring one. People can also vote for people (MPs), who later renege on their promises. Democracy is a mess, but be careful before disenfranchising your compatriots. If you succeed with that, 10 years down the line you may find out that someone managed to turn the same weapon against you. Politics is rotten enough as it is.
      • lmc 4y ago
        how do you propose we achieve that - remove the right to vote at age 50?
  • Arbortheus 4y ago
    Great article! It articulates a lot of the frustrating trends I've noticed, which is an utter contempt for building the infrastructure we need to have a productive society from a dominant voting demographic, with a lot of insights I'd not noticed before.
• mgaunard 4y ago
  who's gonna buy your house at five times the price you bought it at if you kick out all the foreigners?
  • hkt 4y ago
    Only five? I'd like to invite you to read this. Subheading: "The average house price is 65 times higher than in 1970 but average wages are only 36 times higher. " https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/05/how-uk-house-prices-have-soared-ahead-average-wages https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/05/how-uk-house-p...
    • mgaunard 4y ago
      1970 is three generations ago... Compare to people who bought in the 2000s.
      • davidhbolton 4y ago
        My parent's house, bought in 1970 for £4,000 sold for £32,000 in 1986. That was the high inflation of the 1970s to blame. But a house I bought in 2000 for £185,000 sold for £550,000 in 2015. That wasn't inflation to blame but supply and demand; the demand being the vast increase in UK population from 2000 on. If you're happy to accept mass migration, that's one of the effects as is bigger class sizes in schools, more traffic on roads and an overburdened NHS.
        • hkt 4y ago
          Mass migration has little to do with it. The fact is, adding taxpayers to the pool who we haven't had to raise or educate is a net benefit to us (even if it is a loss to their countries of origin). The problem is that we decided to turn housing into a speculative asset rather than a retaining it as a utility. Decades of policy have gone into this, be it the right to buy, the bank of England's mandate, lending ratios expanding over time, and permitting NIMBYism and massive flows of rent seeking capital from abroad. The BoE's mandate is particularly salient as it is for maintaining 2% inflation: the official measure of which excludes house prices and includes wages. It is very much the way it is by design.
• Zenst 4y ago
  > The most important constituency of the UK government is old people, that want their pension to increase and the price of their house to go up and foreigners to go away (or at least to be pestered beyond reason), at all cost and with a 5 weeks planning horizon. This is all the government has been doing since 2008. Now they are somehow upset about the internet and here you have this bill. What a very slanted view of old people to presume they dislike foriegners! As somebody who is close to 60 and with many old friends, I feel qualified to object to that blanket untruth. Honestly you will find most old people dislike the under 30's more than foriegners based upon my observations and experiences being part of this older demographic. That all said, my faith in any goverment to address issues in technology is very much lost when they still can't manage to deal with and handle spam calls and texts, let alone emails. It's a crime of block and deny at best with no bite or drive to chase/track them down to the stage that society is normalised that it's a thing and you just deal with the effects instead of addressing the issues which is the root cause of most online fraud. Most know to spot and ignore such frauds early on, but enough do not and why it prevails. But this isn't about one generation and whilst I find the whole flipped on the head "think of the children" angle amusing, it is not the case here and to distill it down to that ignored the real issues underlying here. Which is once again another poor solution to a poorly defined problem.
  • wtch98 4y ago
    Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but any look at voting demographics shows people of your generation and older are fare more likely to vote tory and brexit than people born after the 1970s. Comparing the how people voted a generation ago, in 1997, or in 1979, and age is a far larger indicator
    • cs02rm0 4y ago
      Most people who voted, voted Tory and Brexit, they're majority positions. Neither of which are to do with being anti-foreigner.
      • pmyteh 4y ago
• dan-robertson 4y ago
  If there’s anything close to a law in sociology, it’s that young people don’t vote. So what you’re saying doesn’t feel particularly specific to the U.K. One thing one might argue for would be a political system where old people’s votes are discounted (because they will die soon or because they are ‘over represented’ due to their bothering to vote). I guess one could also make arguments about the structure of the system which feels a bit more specific to the U.K. eg rural–urban constituency differences or FPTP.
  • dazc 4y ago
    Counter point - older people's votes should be weighted the other way because they have contributed far more in taxes, done more productive work and may have even fought for your right to complain.
    • barrbid8 4y ago
      Contribution in taxes are not a measure of human worth, neither should people who own property get more votes than those who don’t (people who didn’t own property used to not be able to vote in the uk)
      • dazc 4y ago
        Speaking as an 'older person', many of the opinions I held as a 'younger person' turned out to be completely wrong. That's the problem with being 'older' you get the benefit of experience and seeing how certain ideals actually play out. Many of these people you now hold in contempt were once just the same as you are now and changed as they became older and wiser - just like you will.
  • kwhitefoot 4y ago
    Perhaps voting should be compulsory and each person should have as many votes as they have remaining years of life expectancy.
• deleted 4y ago
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• barrbid8 4y ago
  You’ll find people denying that nationalism or Brexit or anti EU politics has anything to do with xenophobia, usually coupled with “your attitude is exactly why we voted leave” as if by noticing the xenophobia, Brexit is your fault. Anyway, many voters quite literally spoke into camera saying directly that they voted leave to “stop Muslims” and things like this. If you point this out, or point out that all racists and extremist nationalists supported Brexit they’ll further deny and claim it’s just an extreme minority that doesn’t matter. Or they’ll say “what about antifa!” Or some other strange comment. Anyway here’s one example of a voter clearly saying why they voted https://youtu.be/SFjfbL1KWNI https://youtu.be/SFjfbL1KWNI Also Tory party voting is a minority in the uk. The uk “democracy” gives a party with 40% vote share absolute power and absolute parliamentary majority.
• deleted 4y ago
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• tyingq 4y ago
  A bit of irony here in calling out a specific demographic for unfairly stereotyping a different demographic.