It's a rout - is the old order on the way out?

[Stevo 666]

Do you claim the statistics are incorrect?

See my point above. These voters must have voted for different parties in the past, so how do you explain their apparent lowering of IQ?

 

[bobzmyunkle]

See my point above. These voters must have voted for different parties in the past, so how do you explain their apparent lowering of IQ?

Does not compute.

 

[monkers]

Shock horror, I have to agree with you.

We have seen the usual reaction on here of playing down the scale of the success, claiming it is a 'flash in the pan' the usual snooty reaction that 'everyone whom voted for them is thick' (wonder if all these people were not thick when they voted for another party?).

Looking at this dispassionately it is a remarkable achievement and they seem to have some genuine momentum. I am not sure whether any other party can or will do anything to stop it for the time being.

We agree. We might agree further, or might not. I don't say that people who voted for Farage are thick. Intelligence and educational achievement are not the same thing. The reasons that people don't achieve their full potential is multi-faceted. A higher IQ is not sufficient in itself to guarantee it. It has to be combined with a good memory, opportunity, and a willingness to participate in the process.

But what is true is that those people who swallow propaganda do so because they are at some disadvantage to the group that see it for what it is.

I'm older, was born in England to English parents. I recognise that throughout my childhood there was the indoctrination that to be white English was to be born to the most superior. My mother was racist, but never in my father's earshot because he was no kind of bigot at all.

In my extended family there was much racism mixed in with royalism and church - they were ''flag shaggers''. One such family member was twice a parliamentary candidate for the National Front. He was every kind of bigot and his wife had a terrible life with him. His brother was likewise every kind of bigot, and again his wife had a terrible life with him. The two women spent a good deal of time together consoling themselves to their reality.

This caused me to be tighter to my father than my mother, though to be fair in older age she recognised her bigotry of her past and modified her behaviour.

All bigotry is learnt behaviour. We can not say on the one hand that bigots have no capacity to learn, but on the other to say they had sufficient capacity to learn bigotry.

The most common factor for bigotry is fear, with the result that those with it will vote for parties that promote it. The level of fear in the UK is growing, and the voting pattern with it.

To tackle it, the only opposition is to challenge propaganda, and press the case for facts over opinions.

 

[Stevo 666]

Does not compute.

Exactly, you can't explain it. Wonder why...

 

[bobzmyunkle]

Exactly, you can't explain it. Wonder why...

Out of interest, did you vote Reform?

 

[Stevo 666]

Out of interest, did you vote Reform?

No.

Who did you vote for?

 

[classic33]

See my point above. These voters must have voted for different parties in the past, so how do you explain their apparent lowering of IQ?

Not true. Unless you discount new/first time voters. There's been an almost steady 5% rise in new/first time in the ward I'm in, over the 15 years. Which with a voter count rising at less than 1% per year over the same period shows older voters are no longer voting, and that some who voted once, possibly twice never voted again.
Average voter age was lower in 2015 -18 than it is now. The highest increases in younger, first time voters, was seen in 2015 and 2016. Did all those first time voters bother to vote though?

Like the local council elections just gone, ward level is at a smaller, local level. And not reflected in a nationwide picture.

 

[Stevo 666]

Not true. Unless you discount new/first time voters. There's been an almost steady 5% rise in new/first time in the ward I'm in, over the 15 years. Which with a voter count rising at less than 1% per year over the same period shows older voters are no longer voting, and that some who voted once, possibly twice never voted again.
Average voter age was lower in 2015 -18 than it is now. The highest increases in younger, first time voters, was seen in 2015 and 2016. Did all those first time voters bother to vote though?

Like the local council elections just gone, ward level is at a smaller, local level. And not reflected in a nationwide picture.

Given the number of people voting for Reform in the county where I live, it is highly likely that a fair proportion these people voted for other parties in the past.

 

[Rusty Nails]

To tackle it, the only opposition is to challenge propaganda, and press the case for facts over opinions.

Agreed. But politicians need to learn the most effective way of getting those facts (or political views, given that there are few unarguable facts) across, recognising that an increasing number of people, mainly the young but increasingly older people, get their ‘facts’ from social media.

Sadly, dry facts alone are rarely enough, and, as we see on this forum, people are very quick to seize on any crap they see on social media to promote their position.

To mangle the metaphor…’The devil has all the best tunes’

 

[Stevo 666]

We agree. We might agree further, or might not. I don't say that people who voted for Farage are thick. Intelligence and educational achievement are not the same thing. The reasons that people don't achieve their full potential is multi-faceted. A higher IQ is not sufficient in itself to guarantee it. It has to be combined with a good memory, opportunity, and a willingness to participate in the process.

But what is true is that those people who swallow propaganda do so because they are at some disadvantage to the group that see it for what it is.

I'm older, was born in England to English parents. I recognise that throughout my childhood there was the indoctrination that to be white English was to be born to the most superior. My mother was racist, but never in my father's earshot because he was no kind of bigot at all.

In my extended family there was much racism mixed in with royalism and church - they were ''flag shaggers''. One such family member was twice a parliamentary candidate for the National Front. He was every kind of bigot and his wife had a terrible life with him. His brother was likewise every kind of bigot, and again his wife had a terrible life with him. The two women spent a good deal of time together consoling themselves to their reality.

This caused me to be tighter to my father than my mother, though to be fair in older age she recognised her bigotry of her past and modified her behaviour.

All bigotry is learnt behaviour. We can not say on the one hand that bigots have no capacity to learn, but on the other to say they had sufficient capacity to learn bigotry.

The most common factor for bigotry is fear, with the result that those with it will vote for parties that promote it. The level of fear in the UK is growing, and the voting pattern with it.

To tackle it, the only opposition is to challenge propaganda, and press the case for facts over opinions.

You seem to be implying that bigotry is a key driving factor in the Reform vote. Given the numbers of voters this last week involved, I am not convinced.

 

[classic33]

Given the number of people voting for Reform in the county where I live, it is highly likely that a fair proportion these people voted for other parties in the past.

Often known and referred to as a protest vote, whichever party the candidate was standing for.

 

[Stevo 666]

Often known and referred to as a protest vote, whichever party the candidate was standing for.

Whether or not it is just a protest vote remains to be seen - by the next GE we will know. I am sure quite a few people on here are hoping that it is a protest vote, but that is something different.

 

[Stevo 666]

Agreed. But politicians need to learn the most effective way of getting those facts (or political views, given that there are few unarguable facts) across, recognising that an increasing number of people, mainly the young but increasingly older people, get their ‘facts’ from social media.

Sadly, dry facts alone are rarely enough, and, as we see on this forum, people are very quick to seize on any crap they see on social media to promote their position.

To mangle the metaphor…’The devil has all the best tunes’

There is perhaps a tendency to assume that the party someone supports 'just haven't got the message across'. Whereas the reality may be that voters have got the message but don't like it.

 

[classic33]

Whether or not it is just a protest vote remains to be seen - by the next GE we will know. I am sure quite a few people on here are hoping that it is a protest vote, but that is something different.

Remains to be seen how many who voted this time round will even bother in the next GE. Whether it was their first time voting or not.

 

[monkers]

You seem to be implying that bigotry is a key driving factor in the Reform vote. Given the numbers of voters this last week involved, I am not convinced.

If only people will begin to understand the principle of tipping points. It doesn't take a majority to cross a tipping point, it only takes a minority.

Many people said that Brexit was a racist endeavour. It certainly wasn't the case that every Brexit voter was a racist. People like Cummings and Farage well understood two things ...

That electoral success relies on the swing vote required is only half the difference. The percentage difference in a 52:48 difference is not a four percent difference, it's a two percent difference, plus one.

The polling had the difference as 48:52. Cummings only had to create a two per cent swing. He knew he could not create that difference on EU issues - so he made it rely on the thing that the surveys showed that people care the most about. He knew he needed to create a distraction. He made it a referendum on the NHS. He created a tipping point that wasn't actually a Brexit issue, he blurred two issues.

Farage on the other hand, in concert with Banks, made unlawful access to people's social media accounts to dump gish gallop on unsuspecting people.

Brexiters didn't need to be racists en masse, it just needed 2% plus one racists to follow Farages race baiting.

Taken together, the activities of two well organised campaigns to leave were able to trump one poorly run remain one.

Cummings is gone, but Farage has been given the message that his tactics work, and the even when his tactics are unlawful, they become protected as if the right to hate is a protected one.

I could go on a good deal about the unlawfulness of Brexit. You might say what would be the point? The point remains that as a nation we need to learn from mistakes, and learn to see that all of what is happening is at the will of the billionaires.

The culmination of the billionaire dream is what Reform provide, the abolition of human rights, and absolute control of obedient workers and citizens. They have an insatiable greed, and no respect for people outside of their group.

Farage is not a man of the people.