To seriously wonder what it will take for the Left to realise hurling insults at their core voters won't win votes?

[basketoffreshveg]

guardian link

Now, I realise the above is about Trump, but if I didn't have to get ready for work I am sure I could find easily enough any number of articles from the last twelve months stating that core Labour voters are too stupid to know what is good for them, wrong, misguided, naive, foolish and poor judges of political and economical climates.

I keep thinking that at any key moment the light will go on and the penny will drop and the left will realise and identify this is the very problem and why they aren't being elected.

They aren't losing because of stupid voters but largely because these voters dislike being called stupid. I am not necessarily advocating a U turn insofar as policies go but in the way they are presented to the electorate.

Yet after every crushing blow I see articles like the one above and I have to reach the conclusion that there is a serious disconnect here as if I can identify the source of the problem and Labour/left seemingly cannot, and I am no genius, I truly can't see them ever getting back in.

Slippysippysoap

See my problem is that I think that letting people get away with racist/sexist behaviour because you want to win them over is just unacceptable. We cannot tolerate prejudiced narratives

I don't think anyone on this thread has suggested letting people get away with sexist/racist behaviour is acceptable. The point is that some on the left are ascribing racist motivations to people incorrectly. There is huge difference between challenging racism when you see it, and making stereotyped and incorrect assumptions about whether people are racist with no evidence.

"Absolutely, Fishe. Nor do you invite 70 hostiles either, who will refuse your delicious food and pee in your flower pots."

So Wrong we are having a nice discussion and this is said. I take the meaning behind this to imply that immigrants are behaving badly. The immigrants are peeing in our metaphorical flower pots.

Is this racist or merley amusing and I am being oversensitive?

I say again if your having a party you invite the amount of people you can cater for that's it's

What if you've already invited them as part of a trade deal, taken money for it and charged them tax, then when they turn up at your party you only provide enough food for half the guests because you spent half your budget on a new haircut?

That would seem a fairer analogy of what has happened. After all, we didn't suddenly wake up in the EU. Our government are fully aware of how many "party guests" they need to cater for. They've been charging everyone - including the new arrivals - tax to pay for it.

"Absolutely, Fishe. Nor do you invite 70 hostiles either, who will refuse your delicious food and pee in your flower pots."

Well, I was bit taken aback too and I take the meaning in the same way as you.

Perhaps you could clarify what you meant by that comment Shothallgirl ?

Are you implying that immigrants to this country behave badly?

Slarti excellent point. They paid admission to this party.

The question is now we know they paid to get in can they pee in our flower pots?

Wrong really sadly that is why discussions on immigration are dangerous.

Not sure if anyone is saying this but I really don't think the equivalent of 1 extra child in a class of thirty is an insignificant effect on resources.

Most of this is simply projection.

People have a little germ of conscience in the back of their mind saying, "You know, maybe these views you're espousing might be a bit narrow-minded and prejudiced?". They don't like it, it makes them uncomfortable and the only way to deal with the psychological discomfort is to distance themselves from these thoughts and convince themselves that this is not an internal voice but a view being imposed on them externally. This is why Polly Toynbee doesn't actually have to say any of the thing's she's accused of, and still people are sure "that's what she really meant". Polly Toynbee and the concept of "the left" in general are just being used as avatars for an internal sense of guilt.

Erm, it's not name calling to call out bigotry. And it's a fact that not all of Trump's voters were the 'left behind' - you only have to see the stats to know this.

Thus it's perfectly legitimate to state that for some, a vote for Trump, was support for a thinly veiled message of white supremacy.

And I will never regret, nor stop, calling those voters what they are.

Racist cunts

Are you sure there are that many immigrants on the housing list? In my children's school all the EU "immigrant parents" including my family work in well paid jobs. The British families are almost universally one-income households or the mums might have a part time job. I think you would find EU immigrants is a massive contribution tax wise to the UK economy and if they were to leave or not come here anymore, the welfare system would crumble even more and die as so many Brits rather than inmigrants don't pay taxes/ contribute.

"Absolutely, Fishe. Nor do you invite 70 hostiles either, who will refuse your delicious food and pee in your flower pots."

NotDavid genuine question in relation to the above post. Is referring to immigrants as 'hostiles' and, not implying, but stating they will "pee in you flower pots" racist. Or am I projecting?

I think there is a proportion of our society which is racist, some more rabidly so than others

And there are racists among the Left which you will never see. In fact, some of them don't even know they are racist until a big life decision has to be made.

Someone said hurling insults never won an argument. Well Trump did nothing but hurl insults his whole campaign and won an election as President. Maybe people don't care about the argument.

We seem to be in a post rational or reason world, politically.

It's lazy politics. Schools bursting, NHS under pressure, lack of social housing. Let's blame that 3.6% of the population. That 3.6% that we are just assuming all have loads of children, don't pay tax, jump the housing queue, take benefits etc etc etc.

Hate to say it again but the 'facts' don't bear this train of thought out but it's easier to blame them than look into the real problem. Our government are more than happy for us to blame immigration because it completely takes the heat off them to do something about their chronic underfunding and years of austerity.

Bitofacow I read NotDavidTenant's post as broadly agreeing with you. Apologies if I've got that wrong.

Slarti oops

There is a carrying capacity in any population for a given area.

See, I don't understand how anyone makes this as a general argument with a straight face. (Although obviously in the very short-term or a very local area things can be out of kilter until local infrastructure catches up, but that's slightly different)

The UK population is much more than it was 100 years ago. And yet we have more doctors per head of population than 100 years ago. More school places to age 18 than 100 years ago. Less housing overcrowding than 100 years ago.

It's not magic.

We can make policy decisions to increase services to match or even outstrip population. Or we can make policy decisions not to increase services, or to cut them even where the population is stable.

The example given upthread of a local authority planning to build 250 houses but not provide services, is the local authority doing it wrong. They'll even know they are doing it wrong, because planning's really not a new science.

Of course, they may be doing it wrong because of policy decisions further up the chain, like the decision by central government to cut funding to local authorities. Or the recent law preventing local authorities from opening new schools.

Immigration is usually associated with helping the economy grow. The fruits of that can be shared most of the way down the chain. But if we make policy decisions NOT to share economic growth down the chain, or to put ideology before eg education provision, then people nearer the bottom of the chain will suffer. And they'll suffer everywhere from the cuts to services, as well as some people in areas of population growth suffering from increased population without matching services.

This is why, to answer a PP's Q upthread, some of us are MUCH more concerned about cuts and policies distributing wealth and services away from those at the bottom of the economic chain, than about immigration itself.

To repeat, I absolutely agree that there are local issues of sudden population change, where eg housing capacity suddenly exceeds service capacity. Services then need to be put in to catch up.

But that's the point. They can and should be. There isn't often an immutable "carrying capacity" that cannot be amended.

On a side note, Corbyn saying that he wants more immigration has just lost Labour the next election. There is no way he will win with that policy!

Excellent post Pausing

NotDavidTennant I think, if you want to go down that road, which fwiw I think is twadle, then why not expand your net out to the people crying racism with no evidence? If you are really able to see into my head to see these nasty racist thoughts that even I don't recognise but which lead me to be unhappy at being told that because I want to leave the EU I am voting for white supremacy, then perhaps the people hurling these type of slurs are doing so to avoid the nasty voices in their own heads. Seems just as likely.

I really hope this thread is not going to descend into exactly the kind of thing the OP is talking about. I really don't think anyone is going to convince anyone else or widen anyone else's ability to think rationally about these issues by calling them a racist based on no evidence, which, politely it may be, is what you are doing NDT . If I have misunderstood please clarify.

I live in lovely area, it's fab, Lefty liberal, lovely independent shops. Population includes doctoral level EU migrants. It is a Remain area. One would not admit to voting out in any of it's charming artisan cafes. Lots of local what have EU done tweets and fb weeping post referendum.

There are 2 local schools with the same Ofsted results. Both oversubscribed. One less oversubscribed, it has a superior reputation in it's Sen provision, with an intake which currently stands at below 17% white British ( which obviously relates to it's sen provision for children who need support coming in with no English language skills). It is on the periphery of an area with a large migrant population which doesn't have another school. It has a superior reputation for parent school communication.
The other school is mainly white British with a minority of British Black and British Asian.

Strangely those in my lovely suburb choose not to send their children to one of these schools, despite it being in walking distance and often choose other schools out of area if they can't get into the other local one. The school doesn't even come into the conversation of being a choice frankly. Guess which one.
I have black, white, Asian, Sikh,Polish 2nd gen friends who voted out. None are racist. They are educated.
Who is more likely to be xenophobic in our community.

There are more doctors Ect and they flock to certain areas

You my recruit 1000 teaches in London as a whole say but Ealing LB could still be short of teachers so it's a silly argument to say well we have more doctors per head I know for example were I live there are only 2 permant sw on the CP team all the rest are agncey

Also in your area there may only be one child from a immigrant family so not putting any pressure on your local schools but we do know for social and cultural reasons immigrants like to live together so in my area there may be 80 children putting pressure on the local schools.

This is classic Esops fables were the wind try's to convince the sun he can get the man to take of his coat in thi scale the left are the wind they scare , call rascism and try and shame you in to voting your way

I have black, white, Asian, Sikh,Polish 2nd gen friends who voted out. None are racist. They are educated

A large proportion of Sikhs and Hindus plus three Ghanaian families in my area voted Brexit.