The last detailed report in 2014 showed that the membership was: Social Class Professional/middle class 44% Routine/Non Manual (office jobs, sales etc) 28% Working class/other/never worked 28% Education / age Left School 16 or younger 36% 17 or 18 24% 19 or older 40% Gender Male 49% Female 51% Age Under 35 = 24% 35-54 = 32% 55+ = 44% So your statement that the membership is mostly male is completely wrong (51% aren't.) Your statement that they are mostly middle class is wrong (56% aren't.) And your statement that they are living in the 50s is nothing more that conjecture. Most people in any age group are not living in the 50s no matter how people might want to think so. Maybe you think the working class are mostly racist, mostly lazy, mostly stupid? FYI - I am a member and I fit into the Routine/Manual, 35-54 and male category. This is the problem we have today of people wanting to just spiel off opinion with no real knowledge. In terms of gender (pre Labour's mad rush of £3 instant win voters which I have no figures for) the only memberships that were more male than female was UKIP and BNP. All of the others were mostly female.
It is not perception. Idiots do feel their views are now more acceptable, however while there is undoubtedly a rise in the number of these incidents it has to be understood that a lot of these incidents weren't noticed as much before. This has been happening before the referendum was ever announced but now people are much more aware of it happening, see things they didn't notice before and yes there are more incidents. That does not mean that Brexit has caused this. Just that the lid has been taken off now. I have said on here early in this thread and on other platforms for a long time that opinion was simmering and that it needs addressing before it reaches boiling point. If anything by taking the lid off now and being able to deal with that simmering we have avoided an explosion further down the line when things boil over and it becomes very very difficult to deal with. This should all have been dealt with over the course of the last decade instead of being ignored. Ignoring something does not make it go away.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36744736 Just in case people think nothing is being done whilst a new PM is being chosen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36741395 This is another article on the Conservatives members who will be voting for our next PM and the stereotypes which may not be quite right. It seems to be based on a survey of 1200 so not accurate just a view.
1200 is indeed an insight but the following is a house report much more in depth and goes deep into each parties membership including SNP, UKIP and BNP (You will find fuel for any UKIP hate in this one but bear in mind in 2014 a lot of UKIPs current voterbase (and possibly now members) were still on Labour's side.........just. It is a pdf from the Houses of Parliament site (page 18 is the breakdown I used): http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/sn05125.pdf
Invisible spending’ is turning us into a nation of Micawbers http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/invisible-spending-debt/?_ga=1.107172482.1473149130.1465986056
But I find it's conphrehensive Apologies. My opinion (and it is just that) is based on my experiences in Dorset. It leaves you a bit scarred and very bitter tbh.
Bit harsh calling him a leech. He has a mandate from party members, & his opponents are free to challenge him and put it to a vote. I'm not really a fan (I don't see him winning a general election), but the message from the constituency activists to the PLP seems to be "it's you that's out of step with the party, not the leader". Otherwise why has no one triggered a leadership contest? For the record, at a Labour Party meeting in my local ward on tuesday, a motion in support of Jeremy Corbyn was carried by 36 votes to 17 with 4 abstentions. Whether that replicates members' views up and down the country, I don't know. But I suspect it might.
From what I have read (and I am no financial expert) that the BBC are being a little pedantic there in taking the words at face value without thinking about the meaning. I gather....that while they may be right in the actual market's prediction not causing the fall it is those that gambled on those predictions that made the drop bigger that it would have been. Like I say I am not a financial expert so I may be entirely incorrect. One problem we have is that the media (and their favours for info feeds from within the bubble) are still not learning that when they go after a person like they are doing with Leadsom again now they make them stronger. They did it with UKIP and made them stronger, they did it with SNP and made them stronger. They did it with leave and made them stronger. They need to get out of this habit of going after people with the appearance of bias and start to scrutinise both sides of everything equally.
Yes, I think leech a bit harsh also. He repeatedly states his 60-40% majority on obtaining the leadership of his party, so he's entitled to stay where he is. If people suggest that 60-40% from a party membership doesn't count for anything then 52-48% from a fickle general public certainly counts for nothing.
The more I read about Leadsom, the more worried I become for the future, should she be elected leader of the party. Workers rights will already be under threat, once we lose the support of EU rules, but her comments, in 2012, about removing ALL workers rights from companies with fewer than four employees is highly dangerous. If she got away with that, how long before it changed to companies with fewer than 10 employees, or 15, or why not ALL companies, irrespective of size. She really does scare me, yet she also fills me with hope. Hope that the threat of her running the country, or actually running it, will give the opposition and their grassroot supporters, the kick up the arse they deserve, and put together a viable opposition that is worthy of the name. A few years of her in charge could be the catalyst for a Labour Party revival, if they could just act like grown ups and put their personal ambitions to one side for the betterment of the country.
I don't know if this has been noticed, but the UN are far from impressed with "Austerity Britain". http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...s-poor-food-banks-inequality-un-a7110066.html
