Westminster Politics

Mr Pigeon

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Quite telling that the post about 300 overworked NHS nurses commiting suicide gets feck all acknowledgment but an argument ensues over how old folk might vote in 30 years time.
 

Smores

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It's just belief that extremism in anything is not really good.

Being in the middle does not mean centrist are undecided or fail to take a stance. I don't think you'll meet a true centrist who doesn't have a opinion.
Doesn't that depend on whether your opinions happen to fall in the centre of whatever political environment you find yourself or whether you believe in the principle of centrism itself?

The centre of UK and US politics are quite far apart and it's not clear to me what position proud UK centrists would take if they were in fact American. Would they suddenly not believe in free healthcare for all?

The idea that no good has come from extreme politics or policy seems a very ill thought statement to me, only extreme policies have really changed much for the better. It also pitched centrism as restricting change which is probably a better slogan for Change UK
 

Paul the Wolf

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Perhaps people did become better off under the Tories which would be a reason they voted for them later in life and that less younger people now vote for the Tories.
However, many people did own houses either before the 60s 70s and 80s when more people started owning their homes.
But prices were skyrocketing in the late seventies when I first bought a house which doubled in price in four years and continued to do so progressively. Plus paying between 10 and 17% interest pa.

Depends what the definition of luxury is. A TV which most people rented or a VCR later also rented.
Different generations face different problems but the suggestion that life was easy for people of my generation when they were young is a bit galling.
 

Sweet Square

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Quite telling that the post about 300 overworked NHS nurses commiting suicide gets feck all acknowledgment but an argument ensues over how old folk might vote in 30 years time.
The story was in some of the papers but nothing on the BBC.

Different generations face different problems but the suggestion that life was easy for people of my generation when they were young is a bit galling.

No one is saying this and also you've said one of the reasons why young people can't afford to buy a home is because of ''luxury items''
 
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Paul the Wolf

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No one is saying this and also you've said one of the reasons why young people can't afford to buy a home is because of ''luxury items''
Luxury items as in what would have been classed as luxury items years ago but aren't classed as luxury items now. Mobile phones, computers etc which people take for granted now which didn't exist, there weren't additional costs apart from the basics so all young peoples wages were to pay for mortgage/rent, services ie gas/electricity etc, food and an old banger as car. That's it.
 

Silva

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a chicken would cost almost £60 if it had inflated in line with house prices, but I'm sure it's because we have smart phones that most of my generation can't afford to buy homes
 

Paul the Wolf

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a chicken would cost almost £60 if it had inflated in line with house prices, but I'm sure it's because we have smart phones that most of my generation can't afford to buy homes
My father bought a VCR in 1970 when they first came out and paid £900 for it. Insane. If you're paying 4% interest instead of 17% your mortage will be considerably less.
 
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Silva

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My father bought a VCR in 1970 when they first came out and paid £900 for it. Insane. If you're paying 4% interest instead of 17% you're mortage will be considerably less.
that doesn't mean shit when wages that inflated so far below house prices that the only way you can buy a home is if your parents have tens of thousands of pounds lying around to gift you a deposit
 

Paul the Wolf

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yeah you really did, you could afford to buy houses with ordinary jobs and watch their value double again and again
Because we didn't have other outgoings - the earlier argument was about current house prices going through the roof, now it's the old house prices going through the roof. If you sold a house and the value doubled, if you bought another house its price would have doubled as well so it's meaningless unless you get off the property ladder.
 

Silva

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which part of inflation don't you understand paul, if everything had inflated at the same price as houses, we'd be paying 60 quid for a fecking chicken, does that not seem even a little bit insane to you? do you honestly think paying for a phone is the difference between a deposit or not? you are unbelievably out of touch, like holy shit dude

most of us would give a left testicle if our phone bill made even a small dent in building a deposit, but it doesn't come close
 
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Sweet Square

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Luxury items as in what would have been classed as luxury items years ago but aren't classed as luxury items now. Mobile phones, computers etc which people take for granted now which didn't exist, there weren't additional costs apart from the basics so all young peoples wages were to pay for mortgage/rent, services ie gas/electricity etc, food and an old banger as car. That's it.
Come you don't really believe this right ?

But also tech such as mobile phones and computers are dirt cheap today. Getting rid of all these items would barely save a person a £1000 let alone come close to paying for a house(Not to mentioned people need these items for work).
 

Paul the Wolf

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which part of inflation don't you understand paul, if everything had inflated at the same price as houses, we'd be paying 60 quid for a fecking chicken, does that not seem even a little bit insane to you? do you honestly think paying for a phone is the difference between a deposit or not? you are unbelievably out of touch, like holy shit dude

most of us would give a left testicle if our phone bill made even a small dent in building a deposit, but it doesn't come close
I've no idea how much a chicken cost 40 years ago, the cost of everything didn't inflate in the same way. I gave a phone as one example.
It would be interesting though to see relative figures, average wage vs average house price etc vs deposit required vs interest payments.
 

Paul the Wolf

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Come you don't really believe this right ?

But also tech such as mobile phones and computers are dirt cheap today. Getting rid of all these items would barely save a person a £1000 let alone come close to paying for a house(Not to mentioned people need these items for work).
Honestly I get the impression that getting on the ladder seems more difficult now but staying on it back then was a lot more difficult. A budget income/expenditure for an average young person 40 years ago against one now would be interesting though.
 

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budget expenditure is the single most meaningless stat when house prices have outpaced waged by magnitudes

it's like worrying that a football is taking 10% less shots when they're letting in 400% more goals
 

Silva

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an average house in 1971 would set you back 2.8 average wages, it's 9.5 now

it's honestly preposterous to even try to blame cellphones and avocado toast, it's bewildering that anyone can look at house prices and think oh, just sell your 500,000 phones and live in that converted garage
 

Paul the Wolf

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it's adjusted for inflation, the point is to show to the relative growth of house prices to wages ffs
So our wages in the 70s and 80s were outpacing the cost of houses, yeah right.

As an exercise I have had a look at the prices of the house I grew up in.
My father bought it in 1958 (his second house and he was the only person in my family who owned a house) before me - it's value had increased by 350% when he sold it 12 years later.
The same house was sold 30 years later 28 times more expensive than he sold it for. 19 years later it is now worth 4 times more than in 2000.
 

Paul the Wolf

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yes paul, just look at those numbers and think about how mind bogglingly stupid it is to blame phones and laptops for young people not being able to afford homes
The point I'm making is that house prices have not just suddenly increased rapidly, and a percentage of salary against mortage repayments then and now is relevant - I'm starting to wish I never mentioned mobile phones :lol:, it was an example of many payments we would not have had in the olden days, days of yore, ancient history or whatever. I don't begrudge them by the way.
 

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I'm not saying this at all, I'm arguing that - for the most part - people who did well economically in decades gone past could generally point to social and material improvement as the years went on. Living in a capitalist society, they could benefit from their own economic success by acquiring capital, i.e., say, a home, with far greater ease than you can now. If the Tories are fundamentally above all else a party who for generations have been promoting capitalism, then they're inevitably going to struggle when younger generations feel like they're seeing the benefits of that economic system less and less. Which is what's happening now.
 

Cheesy

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The point I'm making is that house prices have not just suddenly increased rapidly, and a percentage of salary against mortage repayments then and now is relevant - I'm starting to wish I never mentioned mobile phones :lol:, it was an example of many payments we would not have had in the olden days, days of yore, ancient history or whatever. I don't begrudge them by the way.
House prices in recent years have gone up massively though when compared to what people are earning, why else is it much more difficult for people to buy property now?

The argument that people aren't saving falls down because our economic system encourages people to spend and indeed relies on people spending more and more for growth. The moment people stop spending and stop acquiring commodities businesses suffer and when businesses don't do well people lose jobs.
 

Dave89

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Interesting. She IS able to sack him, so we can only conclude that she didn't give a damn when he attempted to influence and prejudice the Bloody Sunday prosecutions.
 

Smores

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Surely criminal charges will be considered? They prosecute others for leaks so it would be double standards i think, although no one's put at risk as a result so minor ones.
 

Paul the Wolf

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I'm not saying this at all, I'm arguing that - for the most part - people who did well economically in decades gone past could generally point to social and material improvement as the years went on. Living in a capitalist society, they could benefit from their own economic success by acquiring capital, i.e., say, a home, with far greater ease than you can now. If the Tories are fundamentally above all else a party who for generations have been promoting capitalism, then they're inevitably going to struggle when younger generations feel like they're seeing the benefits of that economic system less and less. Which is what's happening now.
House prices in recent years have gone up massively though when compared to what people are earning, why else is it much more difficult for people to buy property now?

The argument that people aren't saving falls down because our economic system encourages people to spend and indeed relies on people spending more and more for growth. The moment people stop spending and stop acquiring commodities businesses suffer and when businesses don't do well people lose jobs.
When as the last time the UK wasn't a capitalist society?
I think there are a multitude of reasons why it appears more difficult to get on the housing ladder nowadays

Looking at the history of house prices, great leaps were more common in the past than now as per this link
https://www.nationwide.co.uk/-/medi...index/downloads/uk-house-price-since-1952.xls

Deposits may seem more difficult to save up for. But interest rates are far lower.
Relation between salaries and house prices now seem to be far more apart than in the past , this is true.
However, a couple buying a house 40 or 50 years ago would be relying on just one salary whereas now more likely to be two salaries.
Taxes were higher before, when I bought my first house there were no personal allowances the NI worked out as more and the lowest tax rate was 34% so disposable income was less.

Doing a calculation on average house prices then and now using same age group and similar house type - with one salary buying such a house in 1977 the mortgage would consume 60% of disposable income, now it would be 57%. However if there were two salaries now of course it would be much less.

Yes the economic system has always encouraged people to spend but the same applies now as in the past , if people stop spending then businesses suffer and job losses follow.
In the past there was less of a choice to spend money on if people had money to spare.

 

Don't Kill Bill

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an average house in 1971 would set you back 2.8 average wages, it's 9.5 now

it's honestly preposterous to even try to blame cellphones and avocado toast, it's bewildering that anyone can look at house prices and think oh, just sell your 500,000 phones and live in that converted garage
The position young people are in with housing is terrible and we just don't seem to be able to build enough for whatever reason to meet demand.

It is not unfixable but you have to move more job opportunities to areas with affordable homes we seem to just centre the whole economy in the south east and then complain about property prices.

I can still get you a house for 2.8 times the average wage but you have to live in Rotherham or Scunthorpe.