Makerfield: Reform candidate sexist?

Doodledog - re cognitive disonance. I have a lot of middle classs, soft left friends but they don't seem to bear any resemblance to your group. I guess it proves that it's impossible to generalise. As for your first point, as for me, I don't pay anyone to make sure I don't pay a penny more in tax than I need ( and I never have including during my years of self employment). I always make sure I pay what is due but why on earth would I pay more than I needed to? Why is that cognitive dissonance? Avoiding/evading would be different of course. I've never had a conversation with my friends complaining about what we pay our tradesmen/cleaners - in fact we only ever say how lucky we are to have such a great group of tradesmen that we can draw on.

Zero hours contract. Yes Doodledog.
So wrong.

Fair enough, Dd

MaizieD

Is it the 'orthodoxy', though? Or is it just the influence of an overwhelmingly right leaning media which promotes those beliefs about 'the left'?

I don’t deny that the media are pernicious, but my examples of cognitive dissonance are taken from conversations with friends who would not recognise themselves as being anything other than kindly and socially aware.

Galaxy

I tell you what if I had lived through the 1930 s I would be more than irritated that I am having to go to work today.

🤣

universal benefits all ion which are taxable would be a very efficient system administratively. but again i wonder if any politician would be brave enough to reverse the rolling tide of means testing. i absolutely buy into the universal benefits position for a variety of reasons but its not going happen is it? and look at the last dog's dinner with WFA.

Is it the 'orthodoxy', though? Or is it just the influence of an overwhelmingly right leaning media which promotes those beliefs about 'the left'?

Rosie51

Doodledog your post at 10:00:08 is brilliant! I agree 100% with all the elements of your well thought out post. Yes indeed Labour does need to win its core supporters back, I think many have felt neglected or their concerns ignored.

Yes and your subsequent posts are equally well thought out. 👏👏👏

Yes, Tuliptree there is a backlash, and no, Reform would do the square root of nothing about it, but I was looking at the problem, rather than the solution.

It is madness, Maisie - insanity - but unravelling it all would ned a radical overhaul of everything, including attitudes.

Speaking against the benefits culture on here, for instance, results in people preaching about how 'some people' don't earn enough to live on', as though those who would prefer them to be less dependent don't know that. Similarly, objecting to means-testing is often seen as grasping or mean-spirited. I hope I'm neither, but I do think it underpins a lot of inequality and hampers aspiration, and would like to see it scrapped other than in exceptional circumstances, and replaced with universal benefits that could be taxed.

Maybe that's what you were getting at, Galaxy? The orthodoxy is that left-leaning people should have to support more benefits and 'targeted' payments, and woe betide anyone who feels differently, so we are shouted down.

Of course, I think it all boils down to economics, the policies implemented, in the end and an analysis of which group in society which has the most influence on which policies a government pursues. The policy of paying in work benefits stemmed from the reluctance of the then government to upset the business lobby by implementing a living wage policy.

But the in work benefits drew accusations of spending too much on benefits from the believers in 'small state' economics. Who are usually from the business sector..

It feels like madness...

Doodledog your post at 10:00:08 is brilliant! I agree 100% with all the elements of your well thought out post. Yes indeed Labour does need to win its core supporters back, I think many have felt neglected or their concerns ignored.

Yes, excellent post Doodledog.

Doodledog

Raising the minimum wage would be a start. Or claiming back the allowances from the companies who pay people so badly that even after working a full week they can't afford a decent standard of living.

I can understand a privately owned corner shop being unable to pay more than MW, but when it comes to supermarkets it's a different matter, and that principle applies across various other sectors too.

Making overtime tax free is likely to make rogue employers push people into 16 hour weeks on base rate and call everything else overtime, I think. That would mean that workers would have precarious wages, as it would be easy for employers to treat it like a zero hours contract and cut the overtime hours.

But look at the absolute backlash the Government gets every time it raises the MW. As for suggesting clawing back for low paying employers ........ I don't think at all that Reform could implement tax free overtime but we do need to address the issue of incentives. That's why looking at tapers seems like worth doing.

Raising the minimum wage would be a start. Or claiming back the allowances from the companies who pay people so badly that even after working a full week they can't afford a decent standard of living.

I can understand a privately owned corner shop being unable to pay more than MW, but when it comes to supermarkets it's a different matter, and that principle applies across various other sectors too.

Making overtime tax free is likely to make rogue employers push people into 16 hour weeks on base rate and call everything else overtime, I think. That would mean that workers would have precarious wages, as it would be easy for employers to treat it like a zero hours contract and cut the overtime hours.

Doodledog - I've been thinking about in-work benefits first. The concept of topping up low wages dates back to 1795 and ever since, policy makers have struggled. There's the basic humane principle that in-work benefits are predicated upon of preventing people from starving, being homeless etc, then there's the question of how low wages should be allowed to be (hence eventually the introduction of the minimum wage but that was preceded by the Trades Board Act of 1909). And then of course, if you accept the basic principle of not wanting people to starve and accept the concept of the minimum wage (and not everyone does) policy makers then have to address the issues that you list such as being trapped with scant incentive to work more hours, or try for promotion.
There are no easy solutions to this apart from adjusting the taper rate at which in-work benefits are reduced. (if we accept that people should be helped). It's so easy to criticise all the various attempts at trying to address the issue of in-work benefits but incredibly difficult to come upon with a solution. Reform did come up recently with the idea of overtime pay being tax free and I could absolutely see the logic behind that but I couldn't find any real details on how it would really work.

That's very well thought out, Doodledog, thank you.

As regards the libertarian axis, I think there are examples from both left and right, in different ways. Attempts to pin it to the "opposition" generally can be counter-argued.

I take your point MOnica about time spent in London. the problem is, a conscientious MP spends good amounts of time in committees where there is often, once they sit down, some good cross party work, like for example debating the details of protecting young people on the social media front.

A well funded MP has really good arrangements at the constituency to cover then for people coming needing help, or to get projects off the ground, but it does cost, and some are far better than others at it.

Excellent post at 10.00 Doodledog

Very interesting piece on All in the Mind this morning.
I would link but it’s not available.
It talks about what happens to the body and mind when you feel anger/rage and have nowhere to put those feelings.

Goodness Doodledog - i need to make a cup of tea, sit down and have a long think about your post.

i remember learning about the authoritarian/libertrian axis almost 60 years ago at university. I still think the 4 quadrants produced when that axis is used with the left/right one is quite useful. At leat as a starting point.

There are too many generalisations for me in the ‘progressives/lefties/fascists/whatever’ categorisations of people. I prefer to listen to what people actually say and agree with some of it and not with others.

I do think that some of polities can be well-meaning but lose sight of what the real impact on those most affected by them will be. An obvious example is in-work benefits. Yes, there are those who can’t afford to live on low wages, so topping them up seems a good idea, but then people are trapped in a situation where they can’t improve their lives without losing money, and they have to declare any increase (a gift of money, an inheritance, a scratchcard win) and are told how they can and can’t spend it if they don’t want to lose their regular income. There is no incentive to increase their hours or to try for promotion, so when the youngest child leaves education and the benefits are lost, the parents are back to struggling on low wages.

Similarly, means-testing can sound fair if you have enough money not to be subject to it. But it’s not fair to someone who is above thresholds because they have saved or managed to climb a few rungs on the work ladder you find themselves worse off than neighbours who did neither. That applies to benefits (even child benefit is means-tested), pensions, care homes and more. Calling it ‘targeted’ doesn’t alter that.

There is also what I will charitably call cognitive dissonance. People who call themselves left-leaning and compassionate, but pay someone to make sure they don’t pay a penny more in tax than is strictly necessary. Or who go on about how fewer young people should go to university when all their children have been, but they can’t find a decent plumber willing to work cheaply. And those who live nowhere near deprived areas who sneer at those who do when they complain about asylum seekers being housed nearby, or schemes to ‘integrate’ problem families into estates with predominantly law-abiding residents. It’s the ‘bigoted woman’ thin writ large, really, but it’s very common amongst my largely middle class soft-left friends and acquaintances.

All the same, criticising everyone on the left/progressives doesn’t help. Far better to look for better policies based on talking to those who will be affected by them. It’s the aspirational working class and the precarious lower middle class who make up most of the population (I think - they used to, anyway) and they always lose out. They pay PAYE, don’t have enough money to make accountants worthwhile, but have too much to get benefits. They are happy to work for progression, but see those who don’t being given the money they have worked for, and they resent it. Labour needs to win them back.

twaddle

Not at all! Germany and Germans spent decades coming to terms with the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust. West and East Germans approached in different ways. Post-war Germany is probably one of the most well-documented periods of history because it is so difficult to understand how it happened. Many Germans who lived through the 1930s and the war didn't/don't want to talk about it and find it difficult to accept their own part in the rise of Nazism.

I'm certainly not being dismissive, although I sometimes think that there are those who are. I also dispute your accusation of arrogance. Why am I being arrogant about something nearly every single serious historian agrees about?

For the first time, I have begun to understand the thinking of people in 1930s Germany (and Europe generally) and I truly believe that people who can't see what is unfolding in front of their noses are blinkered. That's not arrogance.

Incidentally, I don't think the English are necessarily the best people to understand their own history nor the French or Americans. Most people's understanding of their own history is partisan and biased.

If you are coming to an understanding, can you please recommend some sources? I agree that many sources about the Nazi era are 'partisan and biased'. For example the Nazi social welfare programmes are given short shrift, but must have helped give them some perceived legitimacy.

GG13
Calling people left or right has become meaningless, both are thrown around so often nowadays.

I wonder how many people actually know what it means outside defining the party that they favour.

Most political analysts agree that a simple left-to-right line is too simplistic to capture the full scope of political beliefs.
Many modern models add a second axis measuring authoritarianism versus libertarianism (the degree to which you believe the government should control personal lives and social behaviours) to create a more comprehensive Political Compass.

I switch off at the insults, but the participants in the last few posts on this thread are very serious people so I’m trying hard to work out just what they are condemning about ‘the left’ and ‘progressives’. Because they really don’t seem to like them.

MaizieD

^ The sad fact is that the Left despises and patronises the people they describe as 'working class' and who theoretically they want to free^

Some examples would be helpful, MOnica. Who is ‘the left’ and how have they despised and patronised ‘the working class’?

There are so many unsubstantiated accusations being thrown around in this conversation. It does seem to be giving the impression that being labelled as ‘left’ is every bit as insulting as the right intend it to be.

Calling people left or right has become meaningless, both are thrown around so often nowadays.

I like many others just switch off at these intentional insults