British values

@OldBrit My values come from my grandfather who fought alongside the RAF in WW2 but never quite settled here. I am really sensitive to any talk about immigrants' values because I know how long it took my mum to assimilate and how quickly sentiments can change in this country . . remember how "everyone" thought the nurses deserved a raise during Covid, now the government has actually made a modest pay settlement they are being depicted by the right wing media as grasping parasites. Life is precarious for many of us (my wife is a nurse).

@SunshineGirl "portrayed by the right wing media...." and therein is imho one of the fundamental reasons British Values have eroded. The rich few telling us who we should hate today. Largely in their attempts to avoid everyone saying they're the biggest problem.

@OldBrit Exactly. Values have to be positive. They can't be defined wholly in terms of opposition to other peoples values or who they exclude.

@milkymum1 To my mind Tories are only interested in "values" that define tribal groups and justify discrimination against people who are not like them.

@milkymum1 So the new lot are so much better what about the "Old Age Pensioners" this is just the beginning four years down the line I'll be joining the Rioters.

@hippyjoe1955
Erm, as I recall, because the entire retail banking sector was on the verge of collapse (as evidenced by queues of people outside Northern Rock, the one bank that was allowed to go to the wall, trying to withdraw their own money) and threatened to plunge everyday life into chaos. The phrase "too big to fail" was coined at that time. In the UK there was only one high street bsnk that did not require a bail out by the public sector. There were no winners. Banking was a huge unregulated mess in the late 2000s.

And they didn't "take out shares". Stock in these companies was obtained by the Treasury in (partial) compensation for the vast amount of taxpayers money that was used to keep them solvent.

@ArishMell Rail privatisation was bizarre. Public corporations in England barred from bidding for franchises, while those in Europe were some of the main beneficiaries. Ideologically blinkered.

And yes, I have heard that BR in the 1970s was exceptionally innovativr.

@SunshineGirl Yes, it was blinkered. We seem to suffer from politicians who do not understand anything technical so do not understand its value to the nation.

I don't know for sure but I think because we were in the EU the bidding had to be open EU-wide, though countries like France and Germany had the sense to protect their major services by keeping them State-owned while free to invest in other countries' ones. Just as non-EU Norway had the sense to keep her own oil and gas reserves, using much of the income to invest heavily in the nation's roads and other public services.

I have also read the fragmentation was also to suit EU policy, but I don't know if that claim was correct - or if the fragmenting was by UK politicians not following the policy as it was intended.

BR had its own railway research and development laboratory in Derby, the city once home to one of Britain's largest railway vehicle-builders. I don't know the fate of that laboratory - probably destroyed in cost-cutting.

@senghenydd I thought that but if you don't pay in the latter years up to 67 they reduce the amount you get. That's what I'm told anyway.

@OldBrit Yes your right you'll have to check, there's a government web site which you can access it will help you understand your own case, have your NI number ready you could pay additional contributions if needed or you could simply calculate and discover it's simply not worth bothering with.

Again consider pensioner A & B there's an invisible factor here I just don't know whether you would be better off filling in any gaps or not.

@senghenydd good choice

@MartinII Male Conservative MPs traditionally spend little time in their own trousers, so they are probably less susceptible to wear and tear.

@SunshineGirl
I agree with party member democracy and think politicians should be accountable to the rank and file. Otherwise, its an unaccountable elite that can do what they want. I'd cite Starmer's Labour as an example. Yes, they won an election but the politics are neoliberal and there is nothing a party member can do about it.

However, (where we do agree is that) within the Conservatives, it's going to produce worse outcomes because it's where their party base is increasingly Faragist and Trumpian. They will probably vote for the most rightwing of whoever Tory MPs serve up.

I don't think they have a leader who is as effective a right-wing populist as Donald Trump or even Farage. Whoever they elect might not last very long because of the divisions and identity crisis.

In old political rules, there is no way that the Conservatives could win again. Given, their abysmal defeat and the lack of an obvious next step. Do they go 'liberal Tory,' like Cameron and Osborne? They would win back some Lib Dem supporters but keep losing to Reform and the party membership would not take that. Do they go full Farage? They could but they need someone who looks more convincing doing it than Sunak was. They would need to go anti-free trade and (at least performatively) have pro-working class spending policies. That is a hard sell to their donors and the free-marketeers in their ranks.

My guess is that: they will probably try and fudge the issue, whoever wins. They will go even more anti-immigration and hard on US-style culture-war issues because that costs them nothing and works in America. On economic policy, it will be a lot of hot air.

Under normal circumstances, Labour could not lose to this mess. However, the STarmer government is already unpopular and their is no path to that changing. So - though its unlikely - it is possible for a Farage-lite Conservative Party to win in four years.

My best guess though, is that Starmer will be ousted before the next election and whoever replaces him wins on a low turnout and with less MPs.

@Burnley123 Politics is highly unstable right now. My instinct is that Farage will implode and momentum will flow back to the Tories eventually. The party infrastructure is not at all professional.

Unpopular can be a good sign. What I want to see is a return to higher public standards (not helped by all the gift declarations) and some progressive tax measures in the forthcoming budget. Small steps at first . .

@SunshineGirl I respect your intellect immensely but I can't agree.

I do agree that it is highly unstable and the political crisis stems from the economy (as was ever thus). It's a confluence of things like: Long term decline relative to other countries, overdependence on the service and financial sectors, a private and public debt-led growth model becoming unsustainable, Brexit and Covid.

It's a crisis of British capitalism and the country is getting poorer. Governments are expected by the population to do more with less. Nuances aside: The choice is to tax more and maintain the same spending levels or cut. The government is choosing to cut despite having ruled out austerity.

@JoyfulSilence Happily, there is no danger of this lot getting anywhere near power for the next 5 years!

@ninalanyon She unwisely tried to spice up her sweet but rather dull backstory by intimating that in her youth she had done "naughty" things im the long wheat behind her father's rectory (possibly reading Milton Friedman) . . which no one really believed but was parodied endlessly!

@SunshineGirl She registered with me as being rather like someone from my parents' generation. Which is rather odd, because she is less than six months older than I am.