Off Topic Politics Thread

[Le Tissier's Laces]

I’d take Rayner as more about not being ashamed to be working class.

I heard an interesting comment the other day with regards to the US election - it was effectively “if you are middle class and can only really afford a $30 political donation…” - that’s not middle class. That’s Americans calling everyone middle class because the idea of being working class is considered shameful to some. If you can only spare €30 as a political donation then you are closer to the breadline than “middle class”. Note I’m saying “afford that donation”. Not whether they want to of consider it worthwhile / a priority

I can’t really get into the second paragraph now because I’m supposed to be paying attention elsewhere. Suffice to say we are unlikely to agree here and probably are not in alignment on the definition of “wealthy”. And like “working their tits off” (which many do and don’t end up anything close to wealthy - something that always comes up in the private school tuition discussion)

Of course lots of people work their tits off and don't become wealthy, but I'd suggest that people who become CEOs of companies and are wealthy as a result, have worked bloody hard to get there. I can barely think of any off the top of my head that haven't (and many of whom have been from a working class upbringing).

I don't think there's any shame attached to being working class in the UK now, as I say there's almost a pride to it, and it's seen as being more 'real' as being middle class, which is a bit weird.

 

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Of course lots of people work their tits off and don't become wealthy, but I'd suggest that people who become CEOs of companies and are wealthy as a result, have worked bloody hard to get there. I can barely think of any off the top of my head that haven't (and many of whom have been from a working class upbringing).

I don't think there's any shame attached to being working class in the UK now, as I say there's almost a pride to it, and it's seen as being more 'real' as being middle class, which is a bit weird.

The statistics would disagree with your ‘many’ and replace it with a notable minority. Notable for being exceptional, that is.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2023/01/22/social-class-in-the-c-suite/#

 

[Le Tissier's Laces]

The statistics would disagree with your ‘many’ and replace it with a notable minority. Notable for being exceptional, that is.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2023/01/22/social-class-in-the-c-suite/#

Fair enough, I'm probably guilty of taking too much by personal experience on this, and should have qualified it by saying that in all the companies I've worked in, the leaders of those companies (who have become very wealthy, particularly at places like the construction firm Mace, where I worked a while), have worked incredibly hard to get to that point (and who were all, without exception, from a working class background).

 

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Fair enough, I'm probably guilty of taking too much by personal experience on this, and should have qualified it by saying that in all the companies I've worked in, the leaders of those companies (who have become very wealthy, particularly at places like the construction firm Mace, where I worked a while), have worked incredibly hard to get to that point (and who were all, without exception, from a working class background).

Again, personal experience is the world viewed through a letter box.


Your experience reflects the 12% of CEOs from working class roots.

 

[Le Tissier's Laces]

Again, personal experience is the world viewed through a letter box.


Your experience reflects the 12% of CEOs from working class roots.

Of course. But it's influential on personal opinion. I take your point.

 

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I have joined in the conversation and my views are well known. I don’t hate the rich, but I hate a society that doesn’t recognise the system of exchange created before mass production has not adapted to the modern age.

There are by-and-large three ways you get rich.

1. You do something exceptionally well and are lucky enough to have this exceptional skill noticed and valued.
2. You are born wealthy. Wealth makes wealth and you will benefit from education, ambitious parents and contacts. You should have a good career.
3. You are born wealthy and are able to exploit that wealth to mass produce something.

1. Sports stars are a good example. This is the second most damaging form of ‘hope’ for poor people. After lotteries. The illusion of sport as an avenue for escaping poverty is the oldest form of revolution control. Bread and circuses. Entertainment and food. Escape can happen - look at that girl on Love Island.

2. The truth of most management types is they came from ‘a good family’. I have never met anyone in the upper parts of business who share my background - of oddjobbing father and carer mother. Lots of teachers, doctors and skilled trade types for parents. This is not a criticism- but an observation that people don’t move very dar generationally in terms of wealth.

Good dependable work for the working classes provides enough to keep them in the same financial situation. Which is depressing and often leads to gambling, credit card overspends and buying on credit. Through these avenues the system’ manipulates and controls the wealth of the poor.
Why are there so many pawn shops on the high street?

3. The few abusing the labour of the many incarnate. Just 200 years ago most things you bought would have been created by a person with a face. That person got the value of their time for the product. Now someone in an office detached from the means of production makes millions or billions while the people making the product earn minimum wage. And the opportunity to create your own revenue stream is crushed at the same time.

And then we blame benefit cheats for the state of the country. The money never lies - and 99% of it is controlled by 1% of people.

 

[SR get out of my club]

Why are there so many pawn shops on the high street?

I'd imagine so that the working class/those on benefits have an easier place to sell stuff they 'acquired'.

I think people are driven by many things in life - having money, or not having a lack of money was certainly a driver for me having come from the background I came from.

It made me more ambitious to want more than a sandwich for my dinner, to have to pick the mould off of it as a 5 yo child.

It also made me do my 9-5 job, and then research like a bastard how I can get better, get to the next position, get a bigger salary.

When I did this consistently, I got so much better at my job, I networked, I strived to earn more. When I left one job for another, it was usually for a £25k pay rise.

All my decisions were deliberate.

I never sat there whining like a bitch that I didnt have enough money and that the world wasnt fair - i got the **** on with stuff to make sure I improved my value. All through my 20's I had this view, thought everything was unfair and unbalanced. It was at this point I knew I ****ed up, and took responsibility individually.

 

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Why are there so many pawn shops on the high street?

I'd imagine so that the working class/those on benefits have an easier place to sell stuff they 'acquired'.

I think people are driven by many things in life - having money, or not having a lack of money was certainly a driver for me having come from the background I came from.

It made me more ambitious to want more than a sandwich for my dinner, to have to pick the mould off of it as a 5 yo child.

It also made me do my 9-5 job, and then research like a bastard how I can get better, get to the next position, get a bigger salary.

When I did this consistently, I got so much better at my job, I networked, I strived to earn more. When I left one job for another, it was usually for a £25k pay rise.

All my decisions were deliberate.

I never sat there whining like a bitch that I didnt have enough money and that the world wasnt fair - i got the **** on with stuff to make sure I improved my value. All through my 20's I had this view, thought everything was unfair and unbalanced. It was at this point I knew I ****ed up, and took responsibility individually.

Well done. You are either better than everyone else or lucky. Your call.

Statistically you are an aberration and not the norm. Nothing you have said does anything to disprove what I said - and the world being unfair is something I think is noble to want to even out.

 

[StJabbo1]

Why are there so many pawn shops on the high street?

I'd imagine so that the working class/those on benefits have an easier place to sell stuff they 'acquired'.

I think people are driven by many things in life - having money, or not having a lack of money was certainly a driver for me having come from the background I came from.

It made me more ambitious to want more than a sandwich for my dinner, to have to pick the mould off of it as a 5 yo child.

It also made me do my 9-5 job, and then research like a bastard how I can get better, get to the next position, get a bigger salary.

When I did this consistently, I got so much better at my job, I networked, I strived to earn more. When I left one job for another, it was usually for a £25k pay rise.

All my decisions were deliberate.

I never sat there whining like a bitch that I didnt have enough money and that the world wasnt fair - i got the **** on with stuff to make sure I improved my value. All through my 20's I had this view, thought everything was unfair and unbalanced. It was at this point I knew I ****ed up, and took responsibility individually.

Well done. You are either better than everyone else or lucky. Your call.

Statistically you are an aberration and not the norm. Nothing you have said does anything to disprove what I said - and the world being unfair is something I think is noble to want to even out.

So with such a success story you'll have no problem with paying the average of 8% increase in school fees plus the VAT from 1 January 2025. Strange that it may be, given claims to the contrary by the Independent Schools Council, the Department for Education (DfE) data published last week shows that as of this January, the number of pupils in independent schools in England was 593,486, up from 591,954 the year before and an increase of 24,150 on 2020-21.
The ISC has also partly blamed two recent private school closures on Labour’s policy. However, the official school census data shows that 12 new independent schools opened in the last year, with the total rising from 2,409 to 2,421.

 

[Le Tissier's Laces]

I have joined in the conversation and my views are well known. I don’t hate the rich, but I hate a society that doesn’t recognise the system of exchange created before mass production has not adapted to the modern age.

There are by-and-large three ways you get rich.

1. You do something exceptionally well and are lucky enough to have this exceptional skill noticed and valued.
2. You are born wealthy. Wealth makes wealth and you will benefit from education, ambitious parents and contacts. You should have a good career.
3. You are born wealthy and are able to exploit that wealth to mass produce something.

1. Sports stars are a good example. This is the second most damaging form of ‘hope’ for poor people. After lotteries. The illusion of sport as an avenue for escaping poverty is the oldest form of revolution control. Bread and circuses. Entertainment and food. Escape can happen - look at that girl on Love Island.

2. The truth of most management types is they came from ‘a good family’. I have never met anyone in the upper parts of business who share my background - of oddjobbing father and carer mother. Lots of teachers, doctors and skilled trade types for parents. This is not a criticism- but an observation that people don’t move very dar generationally in terms of wealth.

Good dependable work for the working classes provides enough to keep them in the same financial situation. Which is depressing and often leads to gambling, credit card overspends and buying on credit. Through these avenues the system’ manipulates and controls the wealth of the poor.
Why are there so many pawn shops on the high street?

3. The few abusing the labour of the many incarnate. Just 200 years ago most things you bought would have been created by a person with a face. That person got the value of their time for the product. Now someone in an office detached from the means of production makes millions or billions while the people making the product earn minimum wage. And the opportunity to create your own revenue stream is crushed at the same time.

And then we blame benefit cheats for the state of the country. The money never lies - and 99% of it is controlled by 1% of people.

"I have never met anyone in the upper parts of business who share my background - of oddjobbing father and carer mother. Lots of teachers, doctors and skilled trade types for parents. This is not a criticism- but an observation that people don’t move very dar generationally in terms of wealth."

But personal experience is the world viewed through a letterbox. That works both ways...

 

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"I have never met anyone in the upper parts of business who share my background - of oddjobbing father and carer mother. Lots of teachers, doctors and skilled trade types for parents. This is not a criticism- but an observation that people don’t move very dar generationally in terms of wealth."

But personal experience is the world viewed through a letterbox. That works both ways...

That is why I supported everything else I said with statistics. It is evidentially true that the family you are born into is the biggest marker of your future success. And the economic success of that family is the biggest marker within that.

We live in a society of declining social mobility. That is truly shameful.

 

[StJabbo1]

"I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth"

 

[SR get out of my club]

Well done. You are either better than everyone else or lucky. Your call.

Statistically you are an aberration and not the norm. Nothing you have said does anything to disprove what I said - and the world being unfair is something I think is noble to want to even out.

Wasn’t about being better than everyone else. That wasn’t my point.

Not sure if you were starting to become personal, kind of comes across that way.

I don’t agree the world should be fair, in that I don’t believe there should be an equal share of wealth.

Isn’t this view of everything be equal if that is what you meant, more like the Quaker movement?

As it is unclear if your point is as Greg mentioned, in that people may (including me mainly!) not talking about million or billionaires but also those earning >100, 200k etc. It seems as though you don’t appreciate anyone doing well for themselves, whereas I may have that wrong and you merely dislike those millionaires types etc. - but that isn’t how it comes across.

 

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Wasn’t about being better than everyone else. That wasn’t my point.

Not sure if you were starting to become personal, kind of comes across that way.

I don’t agree the world should be fair, in that I don’t believe there should be an equal share of wealth.

Isn’t this view of everything be equal if that is what you meant, more like the Quaker movement?

As it is unclear if your point is as Greg mentioned, in that people may (including me mainly!) not talking about million or billionaires but also those earning >100, 200k etc. It seems as though you don’t appreciate anyone doing well for themselves, whereas I may have that wrong and you merely dislike those millionaires types etc. - but that isn’t how it comes across.

I dislike all wealth disparity. Are we supposed to like it? I have no problem with people working hard and earning more- but they should expect a decent chunk of taxation. I dislike this I worked hard and I made it so everyone else can nonsense.

If you work hard in many professions you will not earn anywhere near as much as in others. And most of those professions are things that keep our society working, like mental health workers, carers, childcare workers. All absolutely bottom paying careers but needed.

But most of all I dislike that the poor people of this country have no hope. Not because if immigration or benefit cheats. No it is because we don’t want them to do well. If we did, we would not be the nation with the third lowest social mobility in the developed world.

15 years of selifsh toryism, tax avoidance, cuts to welfare… all the while the richest got richer and richer and richer.

And you talk as if having money makes people worthy of respect. It does not.

 

[SR get out of my club]

I think the “so many on here seem to hate the wealthy” is the mischaracterisation

Want the wealthy to pay would usually be more accurate. And the logic (which you are welcome to disagree with) is that the vast majority of the wealthy become so off of the work of the less wealthy. So “bailing out” is arguably necessary in this instance. In the extreme abstract where those less fortunate could refuse to work for the wealthy without starving to death and being thrown out on the street then those people don’t become wealthy (or as wealthy). It’s sort of a covenant. And that covenant is being broken - nowhere more so than in America

A term about billionaires is that you can’t become one without benefiting off of the suffering of others. And so expecting paying back in some way is not really “hatred” of the people who got there. Most people are accepting of it

I think most of the discussions about the “wealthy” on here that could potentially be characterised as “hatred” if you were being uncharitable is focused on super rich billionaires and energy companies making enormous profits raising energy bills. Profits that could still be kept massive if the prices were reduced for people. I don’t think the sentiment is generally aimed most at people who earn 100k or 200k a year or have a £1m house that they happened to get for well less than half of that 20+ years ago

And it’s often muddied by people lobbing out claims of “envy”. It’s not envy when people who can afford to can manoeuvre round the tax system in ways most people cannot to pay a lower tax percentage than people who just work a normal job. That’s just people wanting fairness. I remember this in the 2012 US election where it was reported that Romney paid a lower percentage tax than what his cleaner would. That’s what people don’t like

And then we can also bring up these super rich people paying the last government to become richer through PPE they didn’t deliver. Again I’m not sure that’s hatred of the wealthy. It’s severe unhappiness with bias in the system that favours them

I don’t think a “wealth tax” would be designed to remove the wealth gap (I’m aware you said reduce / remove but given they are together I assume you mean drastically reduce). So that is sort of a straw man. Although I’m not really that clued up on wealth taxes , proposals and prior implementation. But I don’t think anyone is really suggesting some sort of sudden shift to extreme communism where all wealth is taken and redistributed evenly so that everyone was always equal. Which kind of eliminates most of the rest of the musings in my view at least

Thanks for the reply.

I’m not sure I agree with all your points, but understand your position.

I believe the main point is about what people particularly portray as wealthy on here and I have my view generally due to the transactions I have in this thread. I’ve said previously around private education which is something I chose to do for my children. others have a dimmer view on this, so perhaps I conflated wealth at that level, in that I do well for a living, but not a millionaire.

I do think some on here do feel strongly that those earning 6-figures are wealthy and that it appears to them to be unfair, but perhaps I misinterpreted that.
I agree on the tax piece, but not in totality. There are people who consult who are able to reduce their tax liability - they are not regular employees as the masses are, so don’t always get the other perks that those employees get - like pension contributions, annual leave, bank holidays etc. You may have been referring again to the super rich, but my point in general still stands.

And I think everyone agrees with the PPE fiasco from the last government, a total disgrace. What is strange on here though, and I think someone pointed this out recently, was the last few years have been a constant, and I mean constant barrage of attacks own everything the tortes did. I questioned many times would the same people do the same when Labour are in power. Whilst it is early days, some things labour have done seem to make sense, others maybe questionable, but i bet my bottom dollar they wont be on there calling things out.

It sometimes does appear that people on here do think wealth should be shared out, maybe I read that wrong ?

 

[Gregm1988]

Well done. You are either better than everyone else or lucky. Your call.

Statistically you are an aberration and not the norm. Nothing you have said does anything to disprove what I said - and the world being unfair is something I think is noble to want to even out.

Also as to “bitching about the world being unfair” - this is a politics forum. People on the left view the role of government to try and make things a little bit more fair. And that’s the crux of the comments on here. It isn’t people personally bitching. It’s people providing examples of the sort of things that it would be nice if a government addressed. Because without a government then you get the most extreme form of unfair society. Only those who can afford it get protection, care etc.

Arguably all government is at least slightly left wing in the grand scheme of things and it’s all scales. But it’s why some of the American politics (and ours in recent years) have been so destructive. “Small government” folks who are basically ideologically opposed to the idea that the state should support people who need it. Usually using tax revenue. Likely because they consider themselves having to pay more than they think is fair (oh look a different form of bitching about unfairness that these types are fine with). And thus we loop back round to the tax point

 

[Gregm1988]

Thanks for the reply.

I’m not sure I agree with all your points, but understand your position.

I believe the main point is about what people particularly portray as wealthy on here and I have my view generally due to the transactions I have in this thread. I’ve said previously around private education which is something I chose to do for my children. others have a dimmer view on this, so perhaps I conflated wealth at that level, in that I do well for a living, but not a millionaire.

I do think some on here do feel strongly that those earning 6-figures are wealthy and that it appears to them to be unfair, but perhaps I misinterpreted that.
I agree on the tax piece, but not in totality. There are people who consult who are able to reduce their tax liability - they are not regular employees as the masses are, so don’t always get the other perks that those employees get - like pension contributions, annual leave, bank holidays etc. You may have been referring again to the super rich, but my point in general still stands.

And I think everyone agrees with the PPE fiasco from the last government, a total disgrace. What is strange on here though, and I think someone pointed this out recently, was the last few years have been a constant, and I mean constant barrage of attacks own everything the tortes did. I questioned many times would the same people do the same when Labour are in power. Whilst it is early days, some things labour have done seem to make sense, others maybe questionable, but i bet my bottom dollar they wont be on there calling things out.

It sometimes does appear that people on here do think wealth should be shared out, maybe I read that wrong ?

Some “wealth” should be shared. But not to the extent of levelling things out. And in the form of tax that goes back into services. Not direct handout or things like that

But I am well aware there is a disagreement in terms of wealthy. Even the term “six figures” as well. Big difference between 100k and 400k and 900k. One of my colleagues was talking recently about where all her money goes. Or rather exclaiming that it just seems to go. She’s on 100k I think (near enough) and has a husband who also has an income (a smaller one and I don’t know what it is). 2 or 3 kids is part of it I think

It’s like with many debates - if the terms aren’t clear they will always get messy.

Focus should probably start on the energy companies with their insane profits and then probably empty homes - or people who have them. I mean properly empty, almost never used ones. And trying to get back the PPE fraud money if that’s even possible

I don’t know “wealthy” to me means far more than having a well paid job that you’ve built up to. It’s usually that plus several other things not limited to likely having family that also had such jobs and all that comes with that.

 

[SR get out of my club]

Deleted, can’t be arsed.

 

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I really think you take too much to heart and get some messages wrong with things written on an internet forum.

I don’t think anyone should expect a decent chunk of taxation.

The dislike the “I worked hard and I made it so everyone else can nonsense” - this is a little dumb to me and with someone of your clear intellect is strange to see this. I haven’t said that everyone else can, I was just making the point that I had to make a choice whether to stay as a was with a middling job earning middling money. I personally chose not to. I changed my career slightly, and really focused and put in lots of productive hours as I developed the plan i wanted to enact. I wouldn’t have stayed in a job/industry that wouldn’t have met my objectives, so i chose not to stay in it a whine about it.

Who is this ‘we don’t want poor people to do well” - serious you come across like you have a real chip on your shoulder with this. I’m pretty sure a normal chat in the office or pub about this stuff and we would get one another more. I do wonder if we are a nation of high taxes and unbelievable waste in what that is spent on. Now this isn’t just Tory boys greasing their mates paws, it is also the shocking amount of waste in the public sector. You may not agree with this, but I have seen some of it with my own eyes, and that has to shoulder some of the blame also.

And you really are wrong with your final statement - where have I talked of having money = respect?? This is something you are just making up in your head…

I don’t understand what your own personal success has to do with this unless you are trying to assert anyone can redefine themselves and make it. Maybe with luck and backing anyone can. Most people won’t get it.

And we did choose to screw over the poor. When the financial crisis hit, who ended up losing their disability money, their benefits, their child benefits? Who ended up needing food banks? It wasn’t the rich. It wasn’t the middle class. It wasn’t bankers.

We have been making the poor the focus of our hate for years. Incorrectly.

 

[SR get out of my club]

You know what Loading, I’m now starting to wonder if we wouldn’t get on if we met for a pint.

I’d be worried you wouldn’t be able to share the load and get your round in

There was a reason I had you on ignore, we just don’t see eye to eye, I don’t think you like who this persona is you created in your head of me, and I just don’t care enough for your point of view.

It’d only distract from the rest of the reasoned debates on here. Have a value-for-money, wealth-distributed evening