[Closed] Is May about to call an election?

@nifan. Who doesn't get the political predictions wrong?

If not reading commentators who get it wrong was the basis for your knowledge accumulation you'd limit your own knowledge base and get it wrong too..makes you think hey.. 😀

Interesting link soma funk, but is that wee story really representative of the UK, or a tale seen through the eyes of a privileged middle class white boy?
Difficult for me to tell (I'm foreign), but growing up in the 60's and 70's we had an awful lot of immigrants from the UK fleeing what they felt was a pretty shit life.

FWIW, I think every generation is going to complain about how good life was for their parents.

"Here they are an enormous horde of ungrateful minging old *, selfishly clinging on to their futile, piteous existences while they gobble up billions of NHS pounds each year in palliative care.. Sitting stubborn and full of venom in their one chair in a house stuffed full of empty rooms, with bank accounts stuffed full of cash, moaning to anyone that will listen because they have to pay for an incontinence pad..
So desperately bound to the irrelevant comforts of the past, so befuddled by the present that they are prepared to steal the futures of their grandchildren..
* 'em"

You're saying *they* are full of venom?

I know a fair few old people, they all seem really nice to me.

FWIW, I think every generation is going to complain about how good life was for their parents.

As for older people try suggesting a 50% drop in house prices and see the reaction.... People worked hard to see an asset grow for no serious investment.

UKIP totalled in the locals and Labour down but not I think as much as the polls might suggest.

Early days wait for the full results and analysis, but this might just be very interesting.

Being as this is the first generation where the young will be worse off than their parents it's a new one is the it.

Pretty specious comment there Mike.
Which generation are you referring to- give me a range of birthdates.
What population- UK, western world,the whole world?
What's worse off really mean?

30 somethings

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/07/revealed-30-year-economic-betrayal-dragging-down-generation-y-income
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/generation-less-why-young-people-are-worse-off-than-their-parent/7320370
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/18/millennials-earn-8000-pounds-less-in-their-20s-than-predecessors
Housing that requires a double income, end of final salary pensions, end of student grants and introduction of fees, higher taxes and vat, higher living costs, less job security etc. It's not a hard equation.

"Pretty specious comment there Mike.
Which generation are you referring to- give me a range of birthdates.
What population- UK, western world,the whole world?
What's worse off really mean?"

This. Even if u limit it to the UK, I doubt the people who had to fight in WW1 thought their parents were worse off. ...and then how do you measure 'better off'. My grandparents didn't have 21st century healthcare, a smart phone, Amazon and free porn.

If you needed older generations don't get what's going on with younger generations it's there. Smart phones make up for no pension and unobtainable housing.

I nicked this from reddit, because.....its hilarious 🙂

[i]Paul Nuttall feebly tries to attach his harness as his once-airworthy plane plummets to earth. He feels a strong yet firm, stable hand on his shoulder cautioning him to stop. He looks up, it's Theresa May.[/i]

[b]May[/b]: [raspily] No! They expect one of us in the wreckage, brother!

[i]Nuttall's expression seems to be conflicted, in the length of a single breath he contemplates the finality of death, the worthiness of his cause and the cruelty of fate. He steels himself, and his gaze meets May's.[/i]

[b]Nuttall[/b]: Have we started the fire?

[b]May[/b]: [muffled] Yes, the fires rises.

[i]May hurriedly attaches a harness around a hysterical Douglas Carswell who is kicking up a fuss about being injected with the Conservative party line direct from a drip attached to the long-dead corpse of John Major.[/i]

[b]May[/b]: [wheezing with great difficulty] Calm down Douglas, now is not the time for fear- that comes later.

[i]Carswell only shrieks louder as May activates the winch and they are both wrenched high into the air. Below them the UKIP plane is seen plummeting to earth, Nuttal still strapped inside.[/i]

[i]The camera switches to a view of Carswell and May swinging precariously mid-air with their winch attached to a large aircraft with a Conservative logo on the side. After several seconds an explosion is heard but not seen....[/i]

[i]Fin...[/i]

"If you needed older generations don't get what's going on with younger generations it's there. Smart phones make up for no pension and unobtainable housing."

Lack of rationing might (ended. in '54) having a Dad who lives at home instead of being away in Africa fight Germans might.

Oh I dunno.. If the right wing arrogance plays out unchecked I can see rationing and the blitz coming back into fashion..

You carry on living in the past measuring yourself against irrelevant historical incidents OOB..

BUT for heaven's sake leave the voting to those more interested in the future

Lack of rationing might.

that started ending in 1948 and was completely ended in 1954.

So how did life turn out? House paid for? Food on the table? Government and employer pension?

The housing one is interesting. There is a school of thought that says things expand to fill the space available - Boyle's law IIRC, or the dustbin theory.
In this case double salary couples became common (remember DINKYs?) and the cost of houses expanded to fill that income. There's no real driver to the housing market growth other than two buyers wanting to live somewhere and being willing to pay what it takes.
Which was fine while 20-30 somethings incomes grew nicely.
Things will change.
The automation horror stories are real on one level, but they're either worse or better on another - because if 20% of the population have no buying power, who is going to buy the stuff automated machines make? So either the automated companies go bust and everyone is in the soup or the 20% still have some buying power.
Third world comparisons don't work in this scenario because the third world sells to external markets allowing a small elite to live in luxury.

outofbreath - Member
"If you needed older generations don't get what's going on with younger generations it's there. Smart phones make up for no pension and unobtainable housing."

Lack of rationing might (ended. in '54) having a Dad who lives at home instead of being away in Africa fight Germans might.

Things to thank the ECHR, EU (and predecessors) and NATO for. Two of which the UK is attacking and the other of which is not as fit for purpose as it was.

You carry on living in the past measuring yourself against irrelevant historical incidents OOB..

The living standards of old people was a point made by you.

that started ending in 1948 and was completely ended in 1954.

Yup. A period of time only currently old people will have lived through.

I'm failing to see the relevance OOB.

As I see it... Things were bad, via things like economic cooperation and binding our social values together (and remembering not to have Anglo-Franco-German wars ever 30 years of course) they got steadily better.

Now the future's not looking so rosy folk would like to turn things back to when they were dire.

Does not compute. Daft. Silly.

I assume he didn't read the articles linked...

Housing that requires a double income, end of final salary pensions, end of student grants and introduction of fees, higher taxes and vat, higher living costs, less job security etc. It's not a hard equation.

+1.

Add to that a worsening climate, a more polluted environment, the £ being worth less, a higher likelyhood of having to work all your life because your pension isn't worth sh1t.

Really makes you wonder how one can avoid the realisation that the millenials are really being dealt a bit of a cr@p hand by the preceding generation..

If the younger generation won't go out and vote, politicians won't care about their problems.

Glad to see Steven Kinnock making a good case for an electable moderate Labour Party. He'd get my vote for Leader.

Glad to see Steven Kinnock making a good case for an electable moderate Labour Party. He'd get my vote for Leader.

I'm a 'millennial' (just about, by most definitions) and my parents didn't live through rationing, so I doubt the parents of hardly any did, so it's pretty much completely irrelevant.

My parents are quite aware/sad about the fact that their generation was in most ways incredibly lucky and that the progress in living standards generation by generation that was expected to continue forever has in fact reversed.

To my mind there is no reason to assume that we in Britain/ the west should always automatically be wealthy but it's a terrible shame that it's the poorest in society bearing the brunt of it.

I'm not bitter about not being part of that generation but it is galling when many of the people who have enjoyed so many of those benefits - literally some of the luckiest people in human history - are such moany, miserable, selfish, entitled, small-minded, ungrateful ****s who are making things much worse than they need to be for future generations.

[quote=codybrennan ]I nicked this from reddit, because.....its hilarious
Paul Nuttall feebly tries to attach his harness as his once-airworthy plane plummets to earth. He feels a strong yet firm, stable hand on his shoulder cautioning him to stop. He looks up, it's Theresa May.
May: [raspily] No! They expect one of us in the wreckage, brother!
Nuttall's expression seems to be conflicted, in the length of a single breath he contemplates the finality of death, the worthiness of his cause and the cruelty of fate. He steels himself, and his gaze meets May's.
Nuttall: Have we started the fire?
May: [muffled] Yes, the fires rises.
May hurriedly attaches a harness around a hysterical Douglas Carswell who is kicking up a fuss about being injected with the Conservative party line direct from a drip attached to the long-dead corpse of John Major.
May: [wheezing with great difficulty] Calm down Douglas, now is not the time for fear- that comes later.
Carswell only shrieks louder as May activates the winch and they are both wrenched high into the air. Below them the UKIP plane is seen plummeting to earth, Nuttal still strapped inside.
The camera switches to a view of Carswell and May swinging precariously mid-air with their winch attached to a large aircraft with a Conservative logo on the side. After several seconds an explosion is heard but not seen....
Fin...

😆

Fantastic

If the younger generation won't go out and vote, politicians won't care about their problems.

Indeed, engagement is an issue - it doesn't, however, make their problems any less relevant.

I'm failing to see the relevance OOB.

Not sure it *was* especially relevant.

The original point was:

this is the first generation where the young will be worse off than their parents

Not so IMHO. You can argue it either way and according to your criteria pick any period of history to support it or disprove it.

Not so IMHO.

I guess that all depends on where your looking from.

I was born in 76. how about you?

If the younger generation won't go out and vote, politicians won't care about their problems.

It's catch 22, isn't it. Younger people stop voting because they feel that politicians don't care about them. Politicians look at voting demographics and care even less about them.

Not so IMHO. You can argue it either way and according to your criteria pick any period of history to support it or disprove it.

Did you read the articles? It had actual evidence.

Evidence schmevidence! OOB has got his opinion, that's worth more than a million facts, [s]FACT![/s] IMHO!

It had actual evidence.

Evidence is so 2015.

OOB has got his opinion, that's worth more than a million facts

You can prove anything with facts.

this is the first generation where the young will be worse off than their parents

Not so IMHO. You can argue it either way and according to your criteria pick any period of history to support it or disprove it.

I guess that all depends on where your looking from.

2017.

I was born in 76. how about you?

You are wrong then as your generation still had student grants etc. unlike now.

However, I'm dubious about the idea that this present generation is worse off than their predecessors. Never before have so many been to Uni, never before have people had access to information, cheap travel etc. Unemployment is pretty low by historical standards. Credit is now easy and cheap. NHS is better than ever before. Annual leave is longer, H&S is vastly improved.

Sure it's still not perfect, but would you really rather have been born post war, at the end of rationing or now?

avoiding the question then. baby boomer at a guess.

achieved your strong and stable lifestyle through pure hard work... 😀

You are wrong then as your generation still had student grants etc. unlike now.

loans came in the year before I went. no tuition fees but no maintenance grant either. That felt like a kick, I doubt I'd go to university now.

Evidence schmevidence! OOB has got his opinion, that's worth more than a million facts,

Is it an opinion? I mean I haven't written an essay citing sources but doesn't the the idea that everyone has got better off year on year through history seem a bit unlikely to you?

There's been plague, warfare, famine.

Was someone born in 1900 better off than their parents? They'd live through two world wars and a great depression.

When the Normans turned up whole sections of the country were worse off.

Given total agreement this is all irrelevant we seem to be spending an awful lot of time talking about!

So your basing it on opinion while many actually have looked and studied it and dispute your opinion.

However, I'm dubious about the idea that this present generation is worse off than their predecessors. Never before have so many been to Uni

and it's almost pointless, i see routinely graduates with significant science degrees (forensic psychology for instance) applying for diagnostic technician roles

never before have people had access to information,

Are you actually referring to google and wikipedia, here? 😆

cheap travel etc.

never mind you won't ever own a home, go to ibiza

Unemployment is pretty low by historical standards

but is almost universally un-secure

Credit is now easy and cheap.

you are a consumer, that is your role in society, do your duty...

NHS is better than ever before.

busy treating baby boomers, young people tend not to need health care

Annual leave is longer, H&S is vastly improved.

but employment rights are fast disappearing.

"year on year" isn't the question, it's 2-3 decades that matters (generation).

Maybe it's possible that some war or plague has caused a 25-year recession but I've not seen the evidence for it.

loans came in the year before I went. no tuition fees but no maintenance grant either. That felt like a kick, I doubt I'd go to university now.

So you were anti allowing more people to go to Uni and bringing facilities up to date then, as that's why fees came in.

Which point in time do you think was better to live in than now?

Which point in time do you think was better to live in than now?

So would i trade being able to post this from a plane or for buying a house that will appreciate in value 4x for very little effort and a final salary pension?

So your basing it on opinion while many actually have looked and studied it and dispute your opinion

You've forgotten....we don't like "experts"....

So you were anti allowing more people to go to Uni

I don't believe that increasing the numbers at university has been a great success.

Maybe it's possible that some war or plague has caused a 25-year recession.

Which is my point in a nutshell, and I've not sure the "so called" evidence disproves it - how do you disprove a negative anyway.

And yes, this is just from my memory but in the Norman Conquest it's reckoned 2/3s of the population were significanty worse off long term, they were taxed to the max & there was the Harrying of the North:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009q7zm

So yes, it's opinion but in my opinion the genration following the Norman conquest were 'worse off'.

outofbreath>> Not so IMHO.

outofbreath>> Is it an opinion?

What do you think the "O" in "IMHO" stands for?