So, now its the 'wealthy boomers' who are going to help out the #Tories, thinks Phillip Inman.
Well, I'm one 'comfortable' retired #boomer, who has never voted for those #Toryscum & never will....
The reading off of the advantages flowing to baby boomers (still) & their likely voting patterns feels like rather lazy materialism.
Lets stop blaming the boomers & say what's really the problem: the mendacious, corrosive right wing media's grip on political debate(s)!
It’s hugely lazy
There are two more “Tofu eating, Guardian reading” boomers in Cardiff who have never voted Tory and who never will vote Tory.
Two boomers who were horrified when Blair introduced university tuition fees as he’s from our generation who benefited from free tertiary education!
A generation who are blamed for brexshit when we campaigned and voted for Remain!
It’s so lazy and it makes me furious as it’s a distraction from the real causes of the state of the UK
There is a much more interesting conversation to be had about the “educated” versus the “uneducated” than there is about pitting generations against each other.
Take brexshit…if you must
Every town or city in the UK with large university communities voted Remain and the number of highly educated people is a much better predictor of voter intentions than age, yet the “red tops” prosper by setting generations against each other.
The generational argument is a distraction!
@TCMuffin Maybe if the ‘educated’ took better care of the ‘uneducated’ there would be less of a divide.
@KimSJ @TCMuffin Sure. But how?
I grew up in a single parent family on a Welsh council estate. I've never voted to make people in similar situations worse off. But many of those same people do, not least with Brexit or the "red wall" voting for the Tories. This self-destructive nihilism seems especially strong in the UK, where FPTP justifies a sense that it doesn't matter who you vote for as the Mail-anointed candidate usually wins and nobody's listening to you anyway.
What's your solution?
@hengymrohebwlad A dream solution for 2024:
1. Make ‘deliberately or recklessly misleading the public’ a serious crime. If voters are not told the truth, their votes mean nothing, and democracy dies.
2. Use German/NZ-style PR voting system (additional member system).
3. Introduce UBI
4. Fully tax unearned income.
5. Add new higher tax band
6. Divide England into regions of size comparable with Scotland and Wales, each with a devolved parliament. Leave Westminster as the Federal Government.
HNY
@KimSJ Sounds good to me!
@KimSJ @hengymrohebwlad I believe New Zealand already has legislation preventing politicians from lying to the public
@KimSJ Only thing I'm not sure about is PR. It's very hard to get lots of little parties to agree on anything which leads to a legislative process which is extremely slow and when agreement it reached, it's such a watered down compromise that the resulting law is not always fit for purpose. We'll, that's what seems to happen in Italy. @hengymrohebwlad
@alexproe @KimSJ Despite some problems, PR has generally worked OK for Germany since WW2, although I think a federal system is also an important factor. This is one of the many aspects of post-war Germany's constitution that was deliberately designed to prevent the disproportionate concentration of power in a small number of hands.
Very few democracies use FPTP because of its obvious tendency to generate binary (bipolar?) politics as in the UK or USA (whose electoral college works like FPTP).
@hengymrohebwlad Must look into how the German system works. Didn't know it was a form of PR. Federations are not a bad idea as they divide nations up into more manageable chunks. Small nations seem to work best, so big nations split into smaller ones can too as Germany shows. @KimSJ
@alexproe @hengymrohebwlad I’m a big fan of the German (and very similar New Zealand) system of elections. It retains the concept of directly chosen local MPs, but adds a very fair rebalancing of the final make-up of the parliament by allocating MPs from national party lists.
@KimSJ @hengymrohebwlad Will take a look at NZ system too. Problem will be convincing existing politicos to create a system with ends their grip on power. That will not be easy at all.
@hengymrohebwlad @KimSJ @TCMuffin Have no fear, self-destructive nihilism is much more common than you think! Italians are truly expert at it!