Yeah, I too can’t believe that anyone would be surprised by this. Perhaps they were expecting the student population to swing it? But Sunderland wasn’t the only place where the timing of the referendum ballsed up the student vote.
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I’d posit that Smith was chosen specifically because he hasn’t been around long enough to show his true colours. The rest had plenty of history of their voting records and views on show, he didn’t.
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Yep, I suspect he was grown in a vat.
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Yep. pretty spot on. My biggest beef with Blairism was its cozyness with the City and the relentless drive to privatise public assets (PFI etc) to the detriment of the Common (good). Selling off property / land at a time when it is the most valuable asset (given the negative interest rate) is neigh criminal IMHO.
@caze is the one who introduced protectionism into the debate.
What Labour under Blair kind of did, but should have done far better, is invest in infrastructure. Well functioning reliable Infrastructure equitably distributed: meaning fair education system, transport system, leisure provision (sports centre) health care system, housing etc is the best way to support the working classes and all disadvantaged groups of society. See New Deal, Marshall Plan–but of course I am a Keynesian.
One of the tell tale signs for me of the lopsidedness such investments: Going past the sports pitches in my central London Neighbourhood and instead of local teenage boys I see City bankers / lawyers playing football.
To people working in the City the £50 fee for the pitch is coffee money to the kids unaffordable. The publicly owned leisure centre is required to charge (because neoliberal bs) while the kids have nothing to do–nowhere to steam off energy.
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Taxation is another issue in this regard. In countries such as Germany / Austria there are considerable local taxes (e.g. on property & also for businesses)–which are locally spent, thus allowing for local infrastructure investment (and local accountability) which in some way reflects the changing economic fortunes of an area. e.g. an area such as Bavaria or Hessen which are economically strong and thus will attract immigrant work force, will also raise additional taxes which in turns can be invited into schools, transport…
The UK taxation system has a lot to answer for when it comes to the anti-immigration sentiments. How can you have 1000s of working, tax paying people arrive in an area and not expect to have to build a single school–GP practice–just stupid.
EDIT: to say that there is also a central (federal) redistribution system of taxes within the German system–similar to the EU structural funds.
Ha. That’s simple shortsightedness, and it’s endemic among the political class. Councillor George Wafflebug happens to serve while births are slightly lower than usual; he promptly extrapolates a prediction curve hitting rock bottom, plans a school closure (usually one in the poorest neighbourhood, or in a district that’s solidly against his party), and receives a big pat on the back for reducing costs. Trebles all round!
A few years later, after Wafflebug has long moved on, that prediction turns out to have been spectacularly wrong, and now you can barely squeeze 30 children in each class, which is simply scandalous by any parameter. Nobody can remember who decided to close the other school, of course; building a new one will cost a lot of money, it’s much easier to pass the buck and blame the “others” du jour (first it was the Irish, then Caribbeans, then Indians, then Pakistani, and now Eastern Europeans).
I’ve seen this play out in three countries and three different sectors (schools, hospitals, dentists); it’s a systemic failure that nobody seems to be able (or willing) to correct. Political incentives all point to the immediate, and long-term thinking is heavily discouraged.
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I think I was referring to a comment by @enkita, though.
It’s interesting that you think that local taxation and investment will solve the problem - I’d suggest that it would compound ‘city bankers playing football instead of local kids’ or similar issues; certainly it will create positive feedback cycles that concentrate opportunity geographically. London has a few examples of perverse outcomes relating to local taxation - compare Wandsworth to Haringey, for example. Part of the problem being that people that need government-provided services are often not tax-payers, so the local governments who have the highest burdens in terms of service delivery also have the lowest tax revenues.
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[quote=“AnonyMouse, post:107, topic:86177, full:true”]It’s interesting that you think that local taxation and investment will solve the problem - I’d suggest that it would compound ‘city bankers playing football instead of local kids’ or similar issues; certainly it will create positive feedback cycles that concentrate opportunity geographically. London has a few examples of perverse outcomes relating to local taxation - compare Wandsworth to Haringey, for example. Part of the problem being that people that need government-provided services are often not tax-payers, so the local governments who have the highest burdens in terms of service delivery also have the lowest tax revenues.
[/quote]
Agreeing, with an anecdote: I grew up in working-class areas in Australia. I didn’t really see a wealthy neighbourhood until my teens [1].
When I did, I remember being shocked by the difference in basic amenities. I could kind of understand that there was some sort of reason why rich people got to live in big houses and drive nicer cars, but why the fuck did they get better street signs and bus stops? Weren’t these sorts of basic government things supposed to be provided equally to everyone?
The areas with a strong tax base are the areas with the least need for publicly financed amenities.
[1] When I was a kid, we called the otherwise unremarkable two-story house at the end of the street “the mansion”, because it was the only one we knew of that had an upstairs.
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And the jobs they do work in provide vast incomes to the people who live in the rich areas, e.g. Sports Direct.
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