The Labour Party under Keir Starmer

[WelshBluebird]

such as having a Muslim Mayor of London

And have a look at the amount of abuse he gets. Literally any news article / social media post that even references London is littered with horrifically racist comments. Even going as far as saying he isn't British because he is brown. Those are real people in this country.

 

[nw1]

They do, actually. There’s a lot of racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia around. Britain is a tolerant country in general but these things matter in the aggregate.

@AlterEgo just for the record it wasn't myself that said what you quoted, but someone replying to myself. I would agree with your statement that there is a lot of racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia around and indeed prejudice towards minorities is one of our big problems.

As well as miss that whilst there's a proportion of Reform voters that they might be able to peel off back to the Labour fold it isn't going to be all that many in the grand scheme (if they want Reform policies, why would they vote Labour when they could just vote Reform?) but it absolutely can splinter their electoral base by driving them off to the Lib Dems and Greens as well as keep more of them at home. They're basically doing to themselves what the Tories have done.

I can certainly speak for some of Labour's potential electoral base by being absolutely incensed about their immigration policies announced this week.

What they are perhaps counting on is that the left-liberal base will still vote Labour to keep Reform out. That is something I would certainly do (though due to the nature of my constituency and assuming I do not move, I will vote Lib Dem anyway).

Honestly I can only assume Morgan McSweeney is either a blithering idiot or someone who is utterly high on his own supply. Because from outside of the Westminster bubble looking in their current strategy is deranged and only ever going to lead them to losing the next election.

What in your opinion is the likely outcome of the next election incidentally? Could we still prevent a Reform win? Could the "anyone but Reform" ticket produce the possibility of a Lab-Lib-Green coalition? Could we end up with a Tory majority (mirroring the Tories' fortunes in 2019) with a better Tory leader? Could Boris come back and ironically save the country from Reform, atoning for his Brexit sins? Could we even get something like a Tory-Labour "Anyone But Reform" coalition if the Tories get a more moderate leader?

 

[ainsworth74]

At the moment I reckon it's a hung parliament with Labour and Reform duking it out over largest party. In that scenario the Lib Dems are king (or queen) makers. Unless the Tories have a revival I reckon they'll struggle to win more seats and possibly even lose some more seats (again the local elections were, if anything, even worse for the Tories considering some of the areas they were taking losses in).

 

[simonw]

At the moment I reckon it's a hung parliament with Labour and Reform duking it out over largest party. In that scenario the Lib Dems are king (or queen) makers. Unless the Tories have a revival I reckon they'll struggle to win more seats and possibly even lose some more seats (again the local elections were, if anything, even worse for the Tories considering some of the areas they were taking losses in).

We are several years away from a general election and a week is a long time in politics so anything may change between now and the election. One thing one can be certain of, however, is the Libdems will not enter into any powersharing or confidence agreement with Reform this side of help freezing over.

 

[ainsworth74]

We are several years away from a general election and a week is a long time in politics so anything may change between now and the election. One thing one can be certain of, however, is the Libdems will not enter into any powersharing or confidence agreement with Reform this side of help freezing over.

Oh absolutely hence why I couched it very much as "at the moment", ask me again in a few weeks and my view might be different!

 

[Cowley]

What in your opinion is the likely outcome of the next election incidentally? Could we still prevent a Reform win? Could the "anyone but Reform" ticket produce the possibility of a Lab-Lib-Green coalition? Could we end up with a Tory majority (mirroring the Tories' fortunes in 2019) with a better Tory leader? Could Boris come back and ironically save the country from Reform, atoning for his Brexit sins? Could we even get something like a Tory-Labour "Anyone But Reform" coalition if the Tories get a more moderate leader?

I don’t really think that it’s possible to say at the moment, but if Labour don’t sort out their appalling messaging in the next couple of years then I think it’s quite possible that they’ll be wiped out.

A lot depends on the inevitable replacement of Badenoch by the Tories, as someone taking over with better political instincts ought to be able to take Labour to pieces at the moment.

Personally I wanted Labour to get in, although as I get older I find myself less and less tribal when it comes to politics. I feel fairly dismayed at the way it’s going though and if they’re starting to lose me who’s fairly centrist and is willing to excuse the odd mistake, then I feel like they’ve got problems.

McSweeney is becoming a Dominic Cummings type issue for them (even though he’s not visible in the same way). I think he might have been the right person at the time to help them win, but I don’t think he’s helping Starmer at all now.

A big problem they have though, is that even if they improve, you’ve still got someone fronting the government who comes across as utterly wooden.

 

[AlterEgo]

The Tories’ problem is that they almost can’t replace Badenoch too soon. She’s an appalling candidate for PM, or even head of a residents’ committee for that, but if they jettison her into the sun now and install a new leader, they risk the new leader being stale by the time of the next general election. The Tories have very few ideas.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

This is where the issue is because the white men in places like Mansfield or Bishop Auckland are incredibly disadvantaged. So any efforts to help other communities and people from other backgrounds feels, to them, like a smack in the face. I can see their point.

From there it’s a short hop skip and jump to blaming those other communities for the malaise in places like Bishop Auckland.

Yep, and this is one of the problems with identity politics - by focusing on race, religion, etc they ignore the fact that actually, a poor area of primarily black people and a poor area of primarily white people are likely to have the same issues driving the social problems. Traditional leftism would understand that and aim to address the social problems - lack of work, poor education, etc, without being bothered about largely irrelevant factors such as race. But today's 'new left' don't really focus on class (or whatever term is used to mean that) and are constantly focusing on attributes such as race, religion, etc. The main outcome of this is to stoke social tensions, as you say. This is in some respects handy for governments - the divide and rule tactic: if people can be convinced to unjustly blame each other, that keeps the pressure off the government a bit.

The Tories’ problem is that they almost can’t replace Badenoch too soon. She’s an appalling candidate for PM, or even head of a residents’ committee for that, but if they jettison her into the sun now and install a new leader, they risk the new leader being stale by the time of the next general election. The Tories have very few ideas.

She is disappointing. Leaving aside political allegiances, she did give the impression that she would make a capable leader, but unfortunately hasn't lived up to that.

The other point about leadership is whether Starmer and his cronies will last the full term - if he continues like he is at the moment then his own party might push him out.

 

[nw1]

She is disappointing. Leaving aside political allegiances, she did give the impression that she would make a capable leader, but unfortunately hasn't lived up to that.

The other point about leadership is whether Starmer and his cronies will last the full term - if he continues like he is at the moment then his own party might push him out.

I'm not sure the problem is Starmer himself. He seems to be doing well on the international stage, for example - is it really him or is it just the path that the Labour Party, institutionally, have chosen to follow? Would someone else really be an improvement? David Lammy perhaps?

 

[takno]

She is disappointing. Leaving aside political allegiances, she did give the impression that she would make a capable leader, but unfortunately hasn't lived up to that.

Whether you leave aside political allegiances or not, I never once got the impression she could make a capable leader. She was a desperately incompetent minister, and really only excels at incoherent shouting

The other point about leadership is whether Starmer and his cronies will last the full term - if he continues like he is at the moment then his own party might push him out.

It will be interesting to see if they can find a mechanism to do that. The Labour party lacks mechanisms like the 1922 committee. Personally I think it would be daft to try to replace him this soon anyway - you'd want to do that once the nasty cuts are done and dusted.

 

[nw1]

I don’t really think that it’s possible to say at the moment, but if Labour don’t sort out their appalling messaging in the next couple of years then I think it’s quite possible that they’ll be wiped out.

A lot depends on the inevitable replacement of Badenoch by the Tories, as someone taking over with better political instincts ought to be able to take Labour to pieces at the moment.

Personally I wanted Labour to get in, although as I get older I find myself less and less tribal when it comes to politics. I feel fairly dismayed at the way it’s going though and if they’re starting to lose me who’s fairly centrist and is willing to excuse the odd mistake, then I feel like they’ve got problems.

The interesting thing is, who will those of us who are either centrist or actively left/liberal vote for? I suspect tactical voting against Reform will be a massive thing and that will help Labour in some areas, and could also mean the Lib Dems do spectacularly well next time, perhaps well over 20%. This, I think, is the biggest weapon against Reform. If, two years out, they are leading in the polls there will hopefully be a massive movement to prevent them getting in.

Even in (I suspect) socially-conservative Runcorn, Reform only just got in, and that was in a by-election with no risk of an imminent Reform government, hence making protest votes safer. This leads to hope that they will not make a clean sweep of the Red Wall. Biggest risk will be those Red Wall seats that voted Tory in 2019, which would not be enough for a majority. Reform are not going to take the kind of more liberal seat in the south that voted Tory in 2019 as the - in the eyes of the voters - least worst option. Boris only won in 2019 through a coalition of socially-conservative Red Wall voters and socially-liberal but economically-conservative southern voters. Reform will not take the latter.

As for the Tories, they might get back some of the centrist and socially liberal votes and potentially do well, but they'll have to drop the culture war stuff which won't get them seats like Winchester, Woking or Guildford. Like Labour, they seem to be wanting to ape Reform at the moment but they, like Labour, would be better off going in a different direction. A Tory win isn't out of the question, but they need to reset to something in the Cameron/May mould. Perhaps someone like Cleverly could do that. Even Boris, who seems to be adaptable to just about any ideology as long as it gets him power; I suspect a lot of soft-right people, even on the more liberal/anti-Brexit side, would forgive Boris if he could prevent Farage getting in, and still more doubtless see him as some kind of hero still.

It will be interesting to see if they can find a mechanism to do that. The Labour party lacks mechanisms like the 1922 committee. Personally I think it would be daft to try to replace him this soon anyway - you'd want to do that once the nasty cuts are done and dusted.

As I said I don't think they should replace Starmer at all unless they can find a vastly better candidate; to my mind, the problem is not him, it's institutional. Reeves could be let go easily, though: she does not seem to be popular.

Mid-term replacement would be unusual this soon in but I wonder if Brown could have won a hypothetical election in 2007 on the basis that he was not Blair, and this untainted?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Traditional leftism would understand that and aim to address the social problems - lack of work, poor education, etc, without being bothered about largely irrelevant factors such as race.

The left still do focus on class- “the only war is class war”, and such like.

It’s a constant allegation that the left are obsessed with identity politics but I honestly don’t think it is true. If anything it’s the opposite- be who you want to be, it’s nobody’s business but your own.

What is true in my opinion is that the right, and the media interests which are controlled by the right, are very much focused on identity politics. As you say, it’s a classic divide-and-rule tactic. Bishop Auckland isn’t a dump because of men sailing from Calais in rubber dinghies, but it’s a great distraction tactic.

Same with the issues with trans rights. I do also suspect- and for the avoidance of doubt it is just my opinion- that many of these people do vocally against trans rights are actually against gay rights but don’t feel that they can express this in the current climate. I think that anti-trans gay and lesbian people will come to regret their position.

Where the left go wrong is that they get drawn into these arguments and then it gets spun back on them. The likes of Reform bang on for years and years and years about immigrants and Europe and trans people and whatever else and then when the left defends them then the left gets accused of pandering to identity politics. In my opinion it’s pretty much a classic DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) tactic.

The worst consequence of this is that the left are not setting the agenda, they’re simply reacting to what the right are saying. Which is the best and easiest way of giving it credence.

I feel fairly dismayed at the way it’s going though and if they’re starting to lose me who’s fairly centrist and is willing to excuse the odd mistake, then I feel like they’ve got problems.

I think that’s pretty much my position.

I know some on here think of me as some Dave Spart firebrand but I’m not. I believe in a fair chance and paying your fair share. I’ve no problem with “rich people” and I’m well aware of the fact that, to many, I probably am one of those “rich people”.

I didn’t have high hopes for Starmer, I just wanted the Tories out, but I’m just completely demoralised by what Labour has done- or not done. “Workers not shirkers”, “mental health issues aren’t real”, “immigration leaves us as “strangers”, “growth at all costs”. It’s the sort of claptrap you’d have got from David Cameron.

The changes to PIP are horrific- you won’t be disabled enough to get it if you can wash and dress your torso but can’t wash and dress “below the waist”. Someone who can’t wash their own bum and put their own underpants on isn’t disabled, according to Reeves. I’m disgusted. And I’m even more disgusted when Starmer has the sheer gall to say these people just need to work harder.

At least Farage is offering something else, even if we all know really that “send the buggers back” won’t fix the mess.

 

[brad465]

Sadly Starmer and his key aide Morgan McSweeney are seemingly not able to understand that all their current pub tribute act version of Reform does is legitimise Farage. “Vote for me, I was right all along”.

Morgan McSweeney must have some really interesting dirt on Starmer to be blackmailing him with. He's been appointed above his capability (great campaigner, poor Chief of Staff) and seems to have as much control as Cummings had under Johnson.

 

[takno]

As I said I don't think they should replace Starmer at all unless they can find a vastly better candidate; to my mind, the problem is not him, it's institutional. Reeves could be let go easily, though: she does not seem to be popular.

I imagine Reeves is being teed up to be let go/blamed for the bad times at some point. I tend to agree that Starmer isn't the problem as such, or at least that there isn't some natural performer just waiting in the wings to do a better job.

I think diagnosing institutional problems in the Labour party is really just diagnosing problems with large parties in FPTP systems though. People are determined to dismiss the party as right-wing, but that doesn't mean a whole lot in policy terms. It's more a statement that they like to think of themselves as left-wing, and that they don't much like what the government is up to.

Some, maybe most, of the high profile early interventions aren't what you might call left wing, but it's also not left-wing to let government collapse and the country descend into extremism. At some point somebody is going to have to do nasty things, and they will have to do them in concert with what amounts to a fairly right-wing global economy. It's a little self-defeating to stand around when your house is on fire complaining that you called the red fire brigade and you are angry that some of their hoses are blue.

At the moment the government is trying to cope in a world filled with massive problems, with a truly awful economic legacy, with relatively low levels of trust on the economy, and with some clever poison pills like the OBR which reduce room for manoeuvre. Worse than that, everybody seems to have a hobby horse extreme solution which they firmly believe will solve the problem in one fell swoop, without any shred of evidence they are right.

That applies to people on the left who firmly believe that a 2% wealth tax will raise eleventy two trillion pounds without driving any investment or tax-payers out of the country. It applies to true-believers on the right who think eliminating immigration will somehow bring back the white heat of the 1950s. It applies to people who think just going back into the EU will make it alright again.

We have more non-workers in the population than we have had for many years, a truly massive pipeline for business to import cheap labour from abroad, a high level of debt and government debt payments, a toxic international situation where we have too few friends, a stagnant economy, and no really meaningful plan for coping with the demographic changes we are facing.

Where Labour appears to be at the moment, is grappling with the enormous levels of uncontrolled and unplanned expenditure, and trying to get the workforce back into work. That isn't trivial, but it's probably the lynchpin. You can't do that without some form of stick on the benefits bill. You can't do it if growth industries like care are allowed to just create crap jobs and give them to cheap immigrants who themselves deserve better. You probably can't do it without controlling pensioner income, which will sooner or later involve dealing with the triple lock, but for now is being handled with the fuel allowance.

 

[Sorcerer]

A brief look at the comments section of the Telegraph newspaper’s website whenever Sadiq Khan is mentioned is an enlightening but utterly depressing experience. Bear in mind that the comments are comments that a) people feel comfortable saying in public and b) the Telegraph feels comfortable in not moderating away. So what are these people saying in private?

The Telegraph used to seem like a moderately conservative-leaning news outlet, but what the election of Labour has revealed to me is just how biased and right-leaning they truly are, so I wouldn't take the words of anyone commenting there to be representative of the wider British society. It's condemnable, yes, but these people were never going to vote Labour anyway so there is no worry of needing to appease them. The danger as I'm sure we both know is not the hardcore Reform voters, but the disillusioned centrists who are simply tried of the status quo or feel like the main parties aren't serving their interests and would gladly take a chance on someone new.

And have a look at the amount of abuse he gets. Literally any news article / social media post that even references London is littered with horrifically racist comments. Even going as far as saying he isn't British because he is brown. Those are real people in this country.

I don't deny such people exist, and while I do have my own reservations about Sadiq Khan (for the record, not related to his faith or ethnicity) I do not condone such attitudes. But my original point was that despite the abuse some of these people get online, it is a good reflection of our inclusivity that they were able to rise to positions of power in a country in which they are all ethnic or religious minorities. The fact it was controversial for Keir Starmer to suggest that speaking English is a common sense requirement for living in the UK speaks volumes about some of the attitudes we have in this country towards accepting others from different backgrounds. We're not perfect, but we're pretty good.

Humza Yousaf for example was born to Pakistani immigrants but is still a Scottish/British citizen, was able to work his way up to become First Minister, arguably the highest office in Scotland, and even felt confident enough to be able to take a stand in Holyrood and practically claim Scottish institutions were too white, bearing in mind Scotland is around 95% white and so naturally will be the most represented in positions of power. I can't imagine many other places in the world where you could be accepted as a citizen at birth as a second generation immigrant and later claim there are too many native people in positions of power while holding one of the nation's high offices.

Those are the kind of attitudes I think Labour and the wider left need to start dropping because whether they like it or not, the white working class are a huge voting bloc that Labour used to represent, and when you are living between payments, struggling to save up for a mortgage or have less than £500 in savings, being a multicultural, multifaith society isn't going to be of any consolation. If a house is on fire then no reasonable person is going to think "oh I would call the fire brigade but there's too many toxic white men and the fire engines aren't rainbow coloured". Slight exaggeration but I think it demonstrates the point that most people care more about our quality of life than inclusivity.

 

[Tetchytyke]

think diagnosing institutional problems in the Labour party is really just diagnosing problems with large parties in FPTP systems though

I think that this is the fundamental issue.

Corbyn got more votes than Starmer, but those votes were concentrated in fewer areas, so he was wiped out in the general election.

FPTP means you need to focus on a small number of constituencies and, by their very nature, these marginal constituencies tend to be in a narrow band politically.

The fact it was controversial for Keir Starmer to suggest that speaking English is a common sense requirement for living in the UK speaks volumes about some of the attitudes we have in this country towards accepting others from different backgrounds.

There’s a lot of hypocrisy in all of this. How many of the people on the right moving to Dubai for work, and prattling on in the papers about how ace it is, can speak fluent Arabic?

Of course the devil is also in the detail. “Speaking English” is one thing; expecting fluency another. There’s no effort to help people learn English, it’s just all grandstanding.

I don’t have an issue with expecting people moving to a country for work to be able to functionally speak the language in that country. But this goes way beyond that.

I wouldn't take the words of anyone commenting there to be representative of the wider British society.

I agree with your comments about the Telegraph, but it is still a mainstream right wing newspaper and they are comfortable leaving these types of comments in place. And it’s not as though the Telegraph don’t do moderation: any comments about the Barclays don’t stay up long.

It may only be a minority, but it’s certainly not a negligible minority. I wish it was.

 

[nw1]

a toxic international situation where we have too few friends,

Perhaps we need to make friends then. While there are plenty of rogue actors around, there is no reason why we can't have good relations with liberal democracies around the world. If there are strains in such relations, the government need to be working to ease them, which to be fair Starmer does seem to be doing. This is where he is good, I think.

 

[Tetchytyke]

We have more non-workers in the population than we have had for many years, a truly massive pipeline for business to import cheap labour from abroad

The solution to that problem is to help people have more children.

The birth rate in the UK is below 2, which means that parents aren’t even replacing themselves. Without immigration, without importing young people, things will get a whole lot worse. The simple fact is that we either need to help people have more children or we need to import them.

And when my daughter’s nursery was costing me £1000 a month, you can see why people aren’t having multiple children.

Answers? I don’t have any. But the only real solution to immigration is to financially help more people have more kids.

 

[Sorcerer]

There’s a lot of hypocrisy in all of this. How many of the people on the right moving to Dubai for work, and prattling on in the papers about how ace it is, can speak fluent Arabic?

I don't expect many on the right moving to Dubai do speak fluent Arabic, although it is quite different over there because the majority of Dubai's population are expats (which is different from an immigrant in that they are there on the basis of work without plans for permanent settled status) and therefore English is the lingua franca and de facto second language. Right now it's much easier to get by speaking English than Arabic, although I do think there is a chance that will change in future with Emiratisation. The UAE despite multicultural is still very keen on preserving it's native heritage which is why Sharia Law is still the official legal system and why citizenship is almost impossible to achieve.

Of course the devil is also in the detail. “Speaking English” is one thing; expecting fluency another. There’s no effort to help people learn English, it’s just all grandstanding.

I think you could just as well argue that if you want to emmigrate to a country the onus is on you to learn the language, not to arrive there and expect them to teach you with free language courses funded by the taxpayer. I personally wouldn't dream of moving to Switzerland without making the effort to learn basic Swiss German/French/Italian. Fluency might be a bit much to expect though since part of mastering a language is interacting with native speakers, so I can definitely meet you in the middle on that one. I have European friends who speak great English and it really demonstrates just how big the language barrier can actually be sometimes.

I agree with your comments about the Telegraph, but it is still a mainstream right wing newspaper and they are comfortable leaving these types of comments in place. And it’s not as though the Telegraph don’t do moderation: any comments about the Barclays don’t stay up long.

It may only be a minority, but it’s certainly not a negligible minority. I wish it was.

Quite unfortunately not a negligible minority and certainly not something to get complacent about, I can accept that. I just think in turn we should also accept that have made good strides the other way. Trying to strike a nice balance between facing up to our mistakes while also working to better ourselves and taking pride in the good we've done as a country for both ourselves and the world is key to reclaiming the flag and painting an image of a patriotic left. That is one of several strategies I think Labour could adopt to mitigate the risk of Reform rising to power along with investing in our country and our people instead of another five years of austerity-lite measures.

Perhaps we need to make friends then. While there are plenty of rogue actors around, there is no reason why we can't have good relations with liberal democracies around the world. If there are strains in such relations, the government need to be working to ease them, which to be fair Starmer does seem to be doing. This is where he is good, I think.

This is definitely where I think Keir Starmer is at his strongest. He's very diplomatic and has experience as a human rights lawyer which I think has more transferable skills for a foreign secretary or ambassador compared to his social and economic policies. While some hardcore left-wing Labour may prefer to officially condemn Donald Trump on the world stage, Starmer is definitely more diplomatic about it and recognises that the United States is still one of our key allies, and luckily for us it's quite easy to get on Trump's good side. I thought it was quite glorious when UK and French ambassadors phrased Putin's disregard for a Ukrainian ceasefire as a personal disrespect to the President himself.

 

[JamesT]

The left still do focus on class- “the only war is class war”, and such like.

It’s a constant allegation that the left are obsessed with identity politics but I honestly don’t think it is true. If anything it’s the opposite- be who you want to be, it’s nobody’s business but your own.

What is true in my opinion is that the right, and the media interests which are controlled by the right, are very much focused on identity politics. As you say, it’s a classic divide-and-rule tactic. Bishop Auckland isn’t a dump because of men sailing from Calais in rubber dinghies, but it’s a great distraction tactic.

Same with the issues with trans rights. I do also suspect- and for the avoidance of doubt it is just my opinion- that many of these people do vocally against trans rights are actually against gay rights but don’t feel that they can express this in the current climate. I think that anti-trans gay and lesbian people will come to regret their position.

Where the left go wrong is that they get drawn into these arguments and then it gets spun back on them. The likes of Reform bang on for years and years and years about immigrants and Europe and trans people and whatever else and then when the left defends them then the left gets accused of pandering to identity politics. In my opinion it’s pretty much a classic DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) tactic.

The worst consequence of this is that the left are not setting the agenda, they’re simply reacting to what the right are saying. Which is the best and easiest way of giving it credence.

You don’t think the rise of diversity and inclusion within organisations is the left pushing the agenda on identity?

The perception at least is that it’s not just letting people be who they they want to be, but there is an almost aggressive expectation that people should show support for lgbtq rights and that you’re wrong if you express any other view.

 

[Tetchytyke]

You don’t think the rise of diversity and inclusion within organisations is the left pushing the agenda on identity?

No, actually, I don’t. Much of the “diversity and inclusion” work is to understand why some groups are under-represented in certain areas and certain industries, and to try and rectify this issue.

Perhaps it ought to be focused more on class, as really only the university inclusion programmes are genuinely focused on class (i.e. on students from deprived regions).

I think a lot of it is cynical commercial fluffery too. “Look at us, we think women are equal to men, we think gay people should be allowed to marry, please buy our stuff!” Look how quickly they’ve all dropped it since Trump came in.

there is an almost aggressive expectation that people should show support for lgbtq rights and that you’re wrong if you express any other view.

I don’t think there is. Some companies go overboard with the rainbows but that, in my opinion, is more a cynical marketing attempt than anything else.

Although in my opinion anyone who doesn’t support LGB rights (I’ll leave the T to one side as that is genuinely more complicated) really is wrong. Why wouldn’t someone support gay marriage? I genuinely don’t understand why it is even controversial.

 

[takno]

The solution to that problem is to help people have more children.

The birth rate in the UK is below 2, which means that parents aren’t even replacing themselves. Without immigration, without importing young people, things will get a whole lot worse. The simple fact is that we either need to help people have more children or we need to import them.

And when my daughter’s nursery was costing me £1000 a month, you can see why people aren’t having multiple children.

Answers? I don’t have any. But the only real solution to immigration is to financially help more people have more kids.

I meant non-workers in the working age population right now, and the solution is rather more direct than having children.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I meant non-workers in the working age population right now, and the solution is rather more direct than having children.

That’s also a consequence of the rising average age in the UK, though. Older people tend to have more health problems.

I also think it’s a consequence of the Covid lockdowns. The government stoked up a culture of huge fear to justify keeping people locked up in their houses for months on end, locked away from any social contact. Is it really any surprise that levels of anxiety and depression have skyrocketed as a result?

 

[nw1]

Answers? I don’t have any. But the only real solution to immigration is to financially help more people have more kids.

Or you keep the birth rate as it is, and don't try to crack down on immigration of those willing to work so much - presumably it achieves the same effect, but by a different method.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

No, actually, I don’t. Much of the “diversity and inclusion” work is to understand why some groups are under-represented in certain areas and certain industries, and to try and rectify this issue.

It frequently isn't about that at all. Take the NHS - they have higher proportions of pretty much all minorities among their staff than the proportion in the general population, and yet they are one of the loudest when it comes to EDI. Why? Clearly they don't have a problem of under-representation.

There is also the growing culture of being 'allies' of this that or the other, and passive-aggressive pressure is often applied to get people to be one of these 'allies'. I suspect it's fair to say that most people now regard someone's sexuality as a non-issue. So they are gay? So what? Provided nobody is discriminating against them because of their sexuality then there really isn't any need to comment on it at all in most cases. The corporate virtue-signalling displays of flags and banners and garish train liveries are really not necessary.

As regards under-representation, the EDI mindset normally only sees this as a problem if it involves some sort of minority, or it involves women being under-represented. And if it involves what is seen as a 'good' job.

Some professional-level areas of work are very much female-majority now (e.g. all of the publishing industry, or primary school teaching), and little is said about that. Likewise, I have never heard of attempts to encourage more women to work on the bin lorries, or in road repair gangs, or as building-site labourers - all physically tough jobs which don't pay very well and which are not seen as 'good' jobs despite their importance to society.

An organization with which I am familiar is part of a federation of similar organizations. Every year, they offer some training courses only open to female staff. So women are under represented, you might think? No - women form 60% (and steadily increasing) of the workforce across the group, but little is said, and complaints about these courses (the specific topics would be quite suitable for male staff as well) are simply ignored. There is never any comment made on the steady increase in the percentage of female staff, but if it was the other way round there is no doubt that it would be treated as a major issue.

Equality in employment should be about appointing the best person for the job out of the field of applicants. Anything else should (and technically is in UK law, in most cases) illegal. Trying to get specific outcomes leads to situations like this one:

Mr P Turner-Robson and others v The Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police: 3314825/2022 and others

Employment Tribunal decision.

www.gov.uk

Where a police force promoted someone from a minority and didn't give three suitable white applicants the opportunity to apply. The tribunal upheld their case.

Equality of opportunity is not the same as equity, which is equality of outcome. Equity should never be seen as an aim as it is highly likely to involve discrimination, as it is inevitable that some people will be appointed due to them having some personal characteristic which ticks a particular box, rather than being appointed solely on merit. And some jobs just do primarily appeal to certain groups, so those people will probably form a larger proportion of the workforce in that field whatever attempts are made to try to change this.

 

[AlterEgo]

Equality of opportunity is not the same as equity, which is equality of outcome.

No it isn’t. Equity is not equality of outcome at all. It only means taking account of circumstances or injustices to make sure people are treated fairly according to their circumstances. It doesn’t mean equality of outcome, which is a separate thing entirely.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

No it isn’t. Equity is not equality of outcome at all. It only means taking account of circumstances or injustices to make sure people are treated fairly according to their circumstances. It doesn’t mean equality of outcome, which is a separate thing entirely.

It does as it's applied in the US in this concept (where the E normally stands for equity; in this country it stands for equality).

 

[Mrwerdna1]

It does as it's applied in the US in this concept (where the E normally stands for equity; in this country it stands for equality).

Two things:

1) This statement, whilst partially true, somewhat throws a wrench into your argument, as EDI policies (based on the UK framework) are largely about addressing systemic inequalities, not inequity (though that can be a side effect, if EDI policies are applied right). The clue is very much in the name: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Are there some problems and imbalances? Of course, but these policies are largely misunderstood in their application and in their use, and their impact, whether positive or negative, is vastly oversimplified and overstated by populist politicians. One could also argue that in the US too, federal DEI policies were not aimed at promoting social justice but rather anti-discriminative in their nature. The US, unlike the UK, does not yet have a proper constitutional framework for anti-discrimination. In other words, it was not a question of hiring and firing based on quotas, but rather creating a more inclusive and non-discriminatory work environment and hiring process, where hiring and firing decisions were still performed based on performance or "merit", but a wider field of candidates was considered. Just one example: It included a provision to pay interns, as the (valid) fear was that if government internships were unpaid, that would create an institutional barrier to less affluent (but equally qualified) applicants. If you were inclined to argue that they should not have used the term equity, as it is a misnomer for those policies, I would agree, but that would be a discussion rooted in semantics, not policy substance.

2) The populist right-wing in the UK, particularly Nigel Farage and Reform are amplifying US American political discourse by carelessly and callously throwing around terms such as DEI (which is not the terminology applied in the UK), woke etc. Funny that the pseudo-patriots seem to be the very ones who are not just accelerating but putting into turbo-drive the decline of "correct and proper" British English.

 

[signed]

The birth rate in the UK is below 2, which means that parents aren’t even replacing themselves

You are never changing that short of very blunt reforms that will be massively unpopular.

Decreasing birth rates are the direct result of development and education of a population, the more educated a population, the less births happen.

 

[Yorkshire09876]

Two things:

1) This statement, whilst partially true, somewhat throws a wrench into your argument, as EDI policies (based on the UK framework) are largely about addressing systemic inequalities, not inequity (though that can be a side-effect, if EDI policies are applied right).

There are many cases where EDI is used in ways which in this country are actively against the law - see the case of the police force which I quoted above. That's by far the only example, and many are not quite so blatant that they end up in an employment tribunal so will mostly not come to public notice.

EDI policies are always also very selective, and pretty much never apply to able-bodied white males. If an industry has a majority of male staff and sees a further increase, that will be regarded as a problem. If the increasing majority is female, it will be ignored. Young white working-class men are one of the lowest attaining groups of all. Is anything done about it? No, not usually.

The whole EDI mindset categorises people into groups, and places those groups in a hierarchy, with working class white men right at the bottom. It also assumes that what applies in one context also applies in another, and much EDI training has been based on material from the US, where racial politics (and employment laws) are very, very different to those in the UK.

You are never changing that short of very blunt reforms.

Decreasing birth rates are the result of development and education, the more educated the less births.

It's also due to the cost of accommodation - with the cost of housing and therefore rent / mortgages now, two salaries are now needed to cover it for most people - the days when one working-class salary could reasonably support a family are long gone.