Tories lost the 2019 election among working age adults

[cheesyboy]

Interesting stat that's been knocking around for the last day or two. It feels to compliment, and perhaps provide context to, the "highest ever working household poverty" thread

It seems that the will of the old and economically inactive is what really matters in UK politics now.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1400363770434707458

And drilling down, again excluding retirees, the Tories only won with working age people earning £100k+

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1400377453076439041

I suppose the question is: is it potentially problematic to have a government who are only favoured by groups whose interests are so different to the majority of working people?

 

[cheesyboy]

Are the views of older, economically less active, people somehow less valid than other people?

I think it's problematic if the voting power of the old is so much stronger than the young, that we see it bending policy to disadvantage people at the start of their lives, or at the age we might expect them to have children, to give advantage to those who will only be affected for a relatively short time.

Clearly, society should look after all ages. But does a government appointed by only the elderly have incentive, or even the mandate, to do so?

 

[cheesyboy]

Maybe they're just older and wiser and the younglins should just get with the picture?

You're really missing the point of the thread nd my posts.

I'm not saying old people are wrong.

I'm suggesting that it could be bad that the government only appeals to the old. It's logical such a situation means the government is likely to pursue strategies in line with their grey mandate, and it's hard to see how that's of long term benefit to the country.

Kicking the environmental can down the road, for example, is a short term strategy. Policy to increase house prices (by restricting supply/building) is a short term strategy.

I don't blame old people for having different views and values to the young, but it's surely worrisome that it drives the country's direction.

 

[cheesyboy]

Lib Dems tried the student/woke vote but turned out incompetent. Labour tried the factory workers vote (hurr durr Labour) and turned out incompetent.

Hopefully these old people have kids and aren't just looking at increasing their pension.

Bro, did you see the first post?

We're talking ALL working age-groups who voted against the Tories. Not students or "woke vote"

 

[cheesyboy]

Why have you thrown in the economically inactive

Because they are economically inactive.

 

[cheesyboy]

Why is that relevant?

Stop sealioning bro.

 

[cheesyboy]

The definition of economically inactive excludes the old....

Being retired is one of the main reasons for people being economically inactive, even under your Mr Pernickety definition.

Good to have the sticklers for language polluting the thread, though.

 

[cheesyboy]

OK, so language issues aside, why is it relevant?

People who are “economically inactive” don’t deserve to have as much of a say?

You're asking why it's relevant to demarcate people who've left their working years behind being the only group voting for the government, whilst working age people of all age groups wanted the opposition party?

Come on. I've said it already: you're just sealioning

 

[cheesyboy]

No, I’m asking why it’s relevant that they’re “economically inactive”. I didn’t place and conditions there re: leaving their working years behind, as I’ve pointed out there are others who fit that term and as another poster pointed out they’re not technically included under that term anyway.

Why not just answer? The thread is here for discussion no?

Discuss then. Stop asking crap questions

 

[cheesyboy]

You’ve not actually demonstrated that is the case, unless you’ve missed the word “age” in between working and people. It might be the case but you’ve not shown it here.

Yes I have. It's in the second twitter post quoted. Unless you're insinuating that most working people are earning £100k+.

But, anyway, the topic is whether such a disparity as clearly illustrated in the OP's charts is a problem. Maniacally drilling down into my loose deployment of an economic term is weirdly obsessive behaviour.

Get a grip on yourself.

 

[cheesyboy]

Britain Elects is run by a guy employed by the New Statesman. George Eaton is employed by the New Statesman. All the charts on their front page are anti- Tory. Colour me highly suspicious.

It's data from the British Election Study. It's respected and has been running for over 50 years.

 

[cheesyboy]

But to what degree has that data been massaged?

It's just been put in a graph

 

[cheesyboy]

So it hasn't been carefully selected, curated, and stretched to the nth degree?

The data is pretty clear. Data's data. What are you arguing here?

 

[cheesyboy]

Surely there is a greater chance of elderly people having not only more life experience but also more stake in the future in terms of children and grand children?

I'm not sure old people can vicariously, through their descendents, have more stake in the future than those descendents themselves do, tbh!

As for the rest; I don't believe anyone was suggesting votes should be removed from the elderly. Really, this thread is asking: is this a problem? (that the government has a mandate only from the retired)

Its widely recognised that the young are unlikely to be as wealthy as their parents. They also, it seems, have much less access to democratic means of changing that.

What if the government continues to give pensions the triple-lock treatment, continues to hold up house prices by strangling supply, continues to do less than is needed on climate change....? All of these are grey-vote winners, but they don't do much for the young.

Does a government appointed only by the old, only service the old?

As a general point, can we stop with the "old people are smarter/more experienced /knowledgeable" crap?! There's a lot of it in the thread, and it's nonsense. For every positive about having longer tenure and experience in the world, there's a negative of difficulty adapting to, or understanding, modernity.

 

[cheesyboy]

But they are more experienced in many things, that isn't an opinion, it as by virtue of age. Now my dad has never travelled anywhere near like I have, he doesn't have anywhere near the understanding of tech, modern business, the interests of the younger generation, but he has lots of skills that helped me get there. To simply throw that away and tell him his value is now done, STFU dad you know nothing and are slowing us all down is frankly crazy. My mum, 82, has iPad, iPone, Apple TV, MacBook and use them all.....for playing card games and listening to tunes and watching some YouTube

Lest you forget the old people are the ones that gave you this soap box, the device you type into said soap box, the mechanisms to move it from you to me etc etc etc. The young are the future, they control it and where it goes next but they have done little in reality other than stand on their soapbox to tell the old people how they have ruined it for them.....for generation after generation. So to you point don't lessen their knowledge, experience or smarts because they were EXACTLY (bar generational differences) where you are, you have never been where they are and I can virtually guarantee when you get there it will make more sense because it just does.

So it is up to the young to now make the change as they have the ball. Focus less on what those who went before did wrong or what they can and can't do today. To do anything less is falling into the same box you (as in young people not just you) seek to cast at others perhaps. There comes a time when you have to own the problem and work to fix it. No one ever has of course for its really hard and not as simple as throwing stones without having to own the problem.

I wasn't arguing the old were 'less than', simply that they were not 'more than', as has been suggested throughout the thread.

Now IS the time for the young to make the change. But, as is the thrust of the thread, they do not in fact 'have the ball'. The old are still holding it: they alone elected our government. The young ('not-old' rather than 'young', really, since we're including up to 65) wanted a different direction. That 'change' you speak of.

 

[cheesyboy]

They need to be convinced as most have a stake in the future of their children and want the best for them.

This in itself causes policy against the young. People care about their own kids, less so the young in general.

Inheritance, for example (a very anti-meritocratic mechanism)

We'll likely, with this giant old voting block, see policies to reduce inheritance tax, perhaps caps on social care costs to protect inheritance too. With one in five retired households worth £1m+ in wealth, that's a lot of tax that could have been taken from the dead, instead of working people.

 

[cheesyboy]

Well it's not really the dead person that pays the inheritance tax...

Depends on perspective. Or your interpretation of probate.

But however you see it, not taxing it is subsidising a free, unearned, windfall for someone by taxing working people.

 

[cheesyboy]

It's threads like this that demonstrate the contempt of the Left for the non-Left. No wonder Labour lost.

Well, we can see Labour lost because the Tories dominated the grey vote, despite losing all younger demographics. Which is the topic.

 

[cheesyboy]

Maybe my ancient brain has misinterpreted your post, but it sounds like you’d like legislation introduced that would prevent older people from spending their pension lump sum and/or savings to provide themselves with an income in their old age, where did that come from, Mao’s little red book?
Naturally, if I’ve got that wrong, and I’m way off base, then I’ll apologise right off.

With housing costs being a major problem, and a growing one, the idea of cutting off the knees of the landlord industry shouldn't be off the table.

Ultimately, we're teetering on a birth rate problem, accelerated by Brexit (1st gen immigrants tend to have more kids, younger), and insecure housing situations, or financial pressures of housing, are a major drag on people starting families.

It's a problem that needs tackling, and soon. A forward-looking government would do something. Will a government appointed by the elderly?

 

[cheesyboy]

My point is that there's one person who definitely ends up with nothing however much you tax it, and that's the dead person. At the risk of stating the obvious, the person who pays the tax is the heir. The way you worded it made it sound like it was free money because the person being taxed was dead.

IHT is a tax that creates no losers.

As an inheritee, you're getting a windfall you never worked for. I like the principle of a meritocratic society, and I feel like any reasonable person probably does too, and inheritance is absolutely counter to that.

I acknowledge that a true meritocracy is not possible, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't cut down obviously anti-meritocratic systems where we can do so.

But it's not free as income tax has (ordinarily) already been paid on that money.

And the benefit of the money has already been consumed, all the way to the grave. So put it back into society.

We double pay tax on nearly everything anyway. PAYE/NIC as you earn it, then VAT, or whatever else, as you spend it.