My parents have become insufferable.

Yes, the unions wouldn't even allow women at one point as they didn't want them undermining men in the work place. Dad told me that prior to the equal pay act my aunty did what was traditionally a man's job on the factory floor at 75 per cent of the mens wage. He also said the best toolmaker he ever worked with was a woman and she was never promoted and worked on a much lower wage than the men

I will always condemn a liberal 🤮

I wonder whether some people in later life, don't have enough to do. Sitting promotes negative thoughts.

My parents (late 70s) are still very liberal and open-minded, but I've blocked two of my aunts who just share Reform-type posts and are very anti-immigrant (even though they weren't born in this country). Is it a person thing though? I have a friend I've known since school, he always seemed chill but he was isolated during lockdown and started to seem more radicalised from things he was watching.

Yes this happened to both my parents to varying degrees- although both have the good grace not to admit toi watching GB News, but I can tell they do.My Mother in particular was bad, she moved from Kilburn in London to a wealthy part of Greater Manchester, living in developments with other over 55's. She became more intolerant and right wing every time i spoke to her she was a little worse. My brother, who she adored lives in the US and is an avid Trump supporter- I finished up not speaking to him and have a strict ban on speaking about politics or news with my Mum. My Dad is 93 and since being 80 his political ideas have become increasingly intolerant, but I put it mostly down to his age- again we do not speak of politics.

'Now, everyone who pays their union’s political levy can vote [in a labour leadership election]. We don’t know which unions automatically sent a ballot to all of their political levy-payers. Unite didn’t, for example. But we do know enough of them did for it to have had a demonstrable effect on the electorate. The political levy – a fund members can pay into, which finances union political activities – became opt-in, rather than opt-out, in the 2016 Trade Union Act. This is something the Employment Rights Bill is meant to undo, theoretically further inflating the number of affiliate voters in Labour.

It’s worth noting that Labour also has affiliated groups that aren’t unions – socialist societies like the Fabians, LGBT+ Labour and others are also linked to the party. Members of these organisations also get a vote in internal elections, but given their smaller sizes (without having run the numbers, I’m confident in saying there are fewer Fabians than there are members of Unite), and greater likelihood of their members already being Labour members (some of these organisations, such as the Labour Women’s Network, actually mandate you be one as a condition of joining), they play a far smaller role here than the trade unions do.'

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2026/01/union-members-decide-next-labour-leadership-starmer-streeting-burnham

Older article now but shows us exactly the contortions Labour leadership elections go through to get 'the right' answer. Is this untrue because it's in a news source that isn't Marxist / 6th form student level socialism?

https://radicalteatowel.co.uk/radical-history-blog/the-women-trade-unionists

'Most unions in Britain refused to allow women members during the nineteenth century, and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) only agreed to admit them as members of women-only unions.

In part, this was down to working-class men reproducing the puritanical, sexist social norms of the elite in Victorian Britain. Norms that were hostile to the presence of women in public life, including the labour market, and especially in gender-mixed settings.

But it was also due to the absurd political reasoning by male labour leaders that, by excluding women, they could gain political ‘respectability’ on the terms set by the very class they were fighting against.'

The Labour Party of today, nor the TUs have changed much (as seen by the Guardian article). Astonishing that TU members get extra votes for Labour leaders isn't it, hence they got lumbered with Ed Milliband, hence they always increase train driver wages, hence they are sexist. Etc. This isn't GB news - these are factual events. Things reported on by GB news (or any other news source) doesn't make them untrue. The level of ignorance / illogical thinking on this thread is shocking. But telling.

What? How is this DARVO?

Stop talking arrant nonsense. Do agree that trade unions have historically been pretty sexist, though.

Wonderfully expressed!

I bet. the TUs (and therefore also the Labour Party) are built on sexism and misogyny.

Just an example

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/03/gmb-union-institutionally-sexist-inquiry-finds

😆Ah the DARVO comes out now. Classic. Thanks @Piglet89 for so deftly proving the point.

@CoventryCityyou sound nice.

I’m well off enough my own right (having intelligence and critical thinking skills can lead to one’s becoming a high earner) and am not sitting with my tongue hanging out for an inheritance.

How distasteful.

It's always the same with the left. They claim to stand for empathy, kindness, and open-mindedness (do me a favour), yet they use aggressive, contemptuous language eg. 'disgusting and ignorant', towards those who disagree.

The tolerance paradox in action - a convenient excuse to justify their own intolerance and avoid self-reflection. Self righteousness at it's most painfully obvious. Well - obvious to all but those who can't see.

Running all the way through this thread.

Interesting that the person you replied to condemns the views and you condemn the person.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

@PleasePleasePleaseDontProve

Read your posts, hardly any of the responses, but enough!

This was always at risk of a thread being massively hijacked! 😂

They need hobbies!! Their worlds have shrunk. Common in retirement, but not just an age thing, also influenced by mindset too.

Do you have the relationship with them to sit them down for a serious conversation?

My dad was always a trade unionist and Labour voter but quite a sexist in a mild mannered way. But as he got towards the end of his life and was stuck in bed and had a lot of time to think he became much more pro feminist in his views and pretty angry about the raw deal women used to get particularly where equal pay was concerned.

So, I'd comment as a legal migrant in the UK.
I tend to relate with people like this from the place of understanding and empathy really.

1. They're generally misinformed and they do not know.
2. Some of their "basis" for anger/concern are not unfounded, they're true and as patriots, they are in their rights to feel the need to "protect their country"

1. If you can, sign them up for free screen free activities in their area, they have lots of free time that needs to be effectively used.
2. Validate their feelings when you can, but balance it out with the real happenings out there, validation first, education follows, the 2 must go together.
3. If the 2 above has been tried and not worked, limit how much you meet up with them. But I think if you can get the first to work, they'll have other experiences, so their heads will be filled with more things, hence more things to talk about.

Yes, my dad's like this, but he's 93. Watches GB News at full volume (deaf) has some mad views including telling me that more people have died from the Covid vaccine than were killed in the pandemic, and perhaps I'd caught Covid from the vaccine, ffs.

He has got worse over the years, he's always had misogynistic views on women, which is an issue for me and my 2 sisters. Another gem he came out with was people are using food banks because they "are too lazy to cook". This was especially nasty because my sister was using a food bank at the time. She's not in contact with him now. There are lots of other examples, too depressing to go into.

That’s a generalisation. At 74 I am well aware of how algorithms work and what is AI rubbish.
It’s also not difficult to spot people lurking around forums like MN trying to influence opinion.
Some people of all ages are easily influenced too.
I read lots of different opinions and try to understand where people are coming from.
Life has changed a lot. I was about 55 when I first used a computer and smartphones haven’t been around long really.

Very patronising. In fact ridiculous. I’m of that generation and I’m no more vulnerable than anyone else.

Good for them but the risks are there.

This is not a given. I a post menopausal, in my 60's, and still live the same sort of life that I did 30 years ago. I work in central London, go to the gym, have various hobbies and interests, go to gigs, and live a full and active life. My parents were fully active up until their mid 80's. Stop thinking yourself old!

I'm not sorry for being concerned over how unhappy this is making my parents. I don't see how that means I deserve to be cut out of a will.

I do hope the children on this chat, who have been slagging off / nasty about their own parents, get left nothing in their parents' wills.

Any parents reading this chat who get told what to say / how to think, by their ungrateful brats - cut them out of your will. But don't tell them you've done so - that's the fun part!

Yes isn't it. It's exactly the way many people on this thread have been talking about their parents. The irony.