anyone taking a taxi on a regular basis (e.g. more than a couple of times a year) is demonstrating their time is worth more than the taxi driver’s

it is a strange take. having a cleaner? a gardener? I could see the logic but a taxi doesn’t really fall into that camp.

Electric taxis are going to be an essential part of our public transport soon. And probably used more by those on lower incomes than high incomes, in areas away from London and other major conurbations anyway. We’ve spent a century building with car use in mind. Pair that with the deregulation and defunding of integrated public transport, and it’s obvious that distributed vehicle sharing, rather than owning an expensive electric vehicle that needs somewhere to charge, will fill a gap for many without any significant means. Using, hiring, booking… not owning. People often get excited about driverless vehicles when talking about this, but the more prosaic answer is the tech we already have, used on roads we already have, driven by humans.

anyone taking a taxi on a regular basis (e.g. more than a couple of times a year) is demonstrating their time is worth more than the taxi driver’s

I used to get a cab everyday to work as a baker in Birmingham as there simply wasn’t a Bearwood to Kings Heath bus at 3:30AM

I’m pretty confident, by the fact that the driver owned a car and I could barely afford driving lessons, that he was demonstrating that his time was worth more than mine.

If anyone needs more evidence that taxis are an important means of working class transport just look at Liz Truss’s determination to get hid of them:

Liz Truss launches Tory leadership bid by promising to cut taxis

If you can’t afford a chauffeur driven car then walk.

The taxi driver thing is a very strange take, the taxi driver probably uses his Visa card several times a week to pay for fuel.

Does he view petrol stations as being sub-sub-working class?

Does he view the bankers running the Visa network as sub-sub-sub-working class?

Rig workers on a north sea platform getting the oil out the ground?

It’s daft to ascribe that paying for someone else time/skill/equipment is only done if you value it as being less than your own. It’s just far more productive to have a division of labour. The taxi driver(s) can far more efficiently get me (and anyone else) from the railway station to the hotel anywhere in the country I happen to be working than I can keep a car in every town/city. Just as if he had to make his own TV shows it’d take aboutyears worth of manhours to make an evening’s middling-quality TV (maybe an episode of pointless, but no GoT).

It’s daft to ascribe that paying for someone else time/skill/equipment is only done if you value it as being less than your own.

Ridiculous idea. What about lawyers or tax reduction advisers……

thestabiliser

In taxis?

A significant number of working class people use taxis as a) it eliminates the fixed costs of owning a car and b) busses are shite

This is 1/2 the point I’m making.
It’s chicken and egg.

No they are demonstrating they need to hire a service, skill, equipment they do not have access to.

People regularly have to pay for someone who earns more then them or the same. This someone may have expertise, experience and or equipment that they don’t. People don’t just buy things of people who are poorer than themselves. It may be how your world works but not for most.

That’s a completely different thing or at least it used to be when we had a traditional red wall labour voting working class. (The context)

To keep on the “taxi” though .. working class people were born with feet and where distances we longer or we had loads of shopping the were buses and trains.

This someone may have expertise, experience and or equipment that they don’t.

This is the point of Mass transit systems…. except our mass transit systems have now been broken to the point of not working. (Possibly as Ernie Lynch says with exceptions like London)

I’m not saying as northern traditional working class I’d not hire a 20 tonne crane and driver … (which is expertise, experience and or equipment I don’t have) I’m saying I wouldn’t pay someone to drive me (outside of a dire emergency) or make me coffee/sandwiches (outside of a treat) both of which I have expertise, experience and equipment for.

As I say things moved on … I can’t even do half the things to my 2015 van I could with my old Escort Mk2… I can’t buy the parts for the fridge/washing machine/oven if it breaks etc etc.

It may be how your world works but not for most.

This is my point, that is how my world used to work but if I can’t get public transport between 2 sister hospitals 7.5 miles apart then that world no longer exists.

gobuchul

In “working class” areas, it is very common to have a free telephone to ring the local taxi company to pick you up, as it’s not possible to get home with your weekly shop without a car.

Again, I’m talking of TRADITIONAL (post war) labour voting working class… not to make too much of a joke out of this but Billy Connelly and cantaloupe melons and left over venison where Glaswegians bought veg from the van on the estate, we had local shops and pre-out of town hypermarkets.

I’m not saying as northern traditional working class I’d not hire a 20 tonne crane and driver … (which is expertise, experience and or equipment I don’t have) I’m saying I wouldn’t pay someone to drive me

If this is some sort of Monty Python Yorkshire Men vision of a historical working class, then you really wouldn’t be driving anywhere surely.

I take taxis for example because for the short term at least I’ve decided not to spend several thousand pounds on buying, taxing, insuring, fueling and maintaining a car.

Molgrips

I see ‘working class*’ people take taxis all the time, usually at Asda. If you can’t afford a car but still need a weekly shop, and you’re not right on the bus route then it makes sense. Big shop once a week that you can’t carry, £10 for a taxi is a lot cheaper than your own car. And it’s also comparable to all the bus fares you’d need to go several times a week if you were only getting one bag’s worth at a time cos it’s all you can carry the 3/4 mile to the bus stop.

Don’t judge until you know – it’s what Tories do.

* obviously you can’t tell by looking at people if they are working class or not. I really mean people who don’t appear well off.

Do these people vote labour and did they traditionally vote labour?
(i.e. that’s the point I’m making that the traditional labour voter has largely disappeared)

It’s chicken and egg… the bus routes have disappeared and the local shops and markets been decimated by the growth of out of town supermarkets.

I’m not judging them, they are responding to the fact Adsa is miles off a bus route (that has been privatised and no longer runs as a public service) whilst their local shopping has been replaced by “free enterprise capitalism”.

trailmonkey

I used to get a cab everyday to work as a baker in Birmingham as there simply wasn’t a Bearwood to Kings Heath bus at 3:30AM

cookeaa

My MIL

I’m talking in general here… i.e. “The electorate” or more specifically the TRADITIONAL labour voting electorate.

Jam-bo

it is a strange take. having a cleaner? a gardener? I could see the logic but a taxi doesn’t really fall into that camp.

It’s semi random .. could be having your coffee/sandwiches made… but it does link in between the difference between Mick Lynch (and working class) and Keir Starmer (and “working people)

The same generalities apply.. it’s not about cookeaa’s MIL or trailmoney working in the bakery… or for that matter the train/bus/tube drivers it’s about the change in “working class” to “working people” and why despite as Ernie Lynch points out 98% of the population being financially better off under a labour government (which I agree with) a huge percentage of that 98% voting Tory.

98% of the population being financially better off under a labour government (which I agree with) a huge percentage of that 98% voting Tory.

This is the key thing (not whether someone gets a taxi or not). Why does that huge percentage of the 98% continue to vote tory, election after election. Loads of reasons but the Tory party will just keep going until more of that 98% somehow wake up. They woke up to what Blair was offering and almost woke up at Corbyns approach until he blew it so it is possible and with Truss being so far unappealing (in strategy and just being her) it could be that time again.

🤞🏻

kerley

This is the key thing (not whether someone gets a taxi or not). Why does that huge percentage of the 98% continue to vote tory, election after election.

That was how we got into “working class” vs “working people” of Lynch vs Starmer

Fundamentally the ex-working class don’t feel Labour represents their values outside of financial interests and they are willing to take the financial penalty for the non financial values. (and to some extent con themselves on the extent of the financial penalty)

GROSS OVER GENERALISATION (but that’s how elections work)…. it’s the traditional Tory’s who are obsessed with financial values not traditional Labour.

Why does that huge percentage of the 98% continue to vote tory, election after election.

it’s the punching down mentality that the tories so successfully harness.

my BiL is a case in point, would benefit massively from labour policies, but rages about immigrants and benefit cheats, wouldn’t vote labour in a 1000 years.

the place I used to work was the same. Maybe the latest round of tory incompetence has soured it a bit but I doubt it.

Sturgeon’s feeling lonley

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63175102

She’s been avoiding consulting with her own cabinet, so it seems unlikely she’ll talk with the leaders of the Scottish and Welsh Governments about what she’s thinking of doing (today).

Fundamentally the ex-working class don’t feel Labour represents their values

Who are these “ex-working class”?

Apart from the posh gits that travel around in taxis.

@stevextc I’m curious as to how you’d propose that my mum gets her weekly shop?

I don’t think Steve is proposing that your mother shouldn’t use taxis Cougar, as I understand it using a taxi now defines which social class someone represents.

Luckily I never use taxis so I can still proudly declare myself to be a member of the proletariat. I think.

The refusal to promote energy saving seems to be against their own stated aim of reducing government spending, as with the price cap every unit used will cost the government (and in the longer term all of us) the difference between the true cost and the cap price. I can’t see why she is said to be ‘ideologically opposed’, unless….

reducing government spending

Depends who’s receiving that spending… and getting to keep it… (don’t mention windfall taxes).

And… “can’t tell people what to do…” really means… “won’t offer good advice to help people reduce energy use, and spread the load away from peak times to avoid using gas and coal… that’s what those greeno pinkos would do”.

it is a strange take. having a cleaner? a gardener? I could see the logic but a taxi doesn’t really fall into that camp.

So Cleaners and Gardeners can only be ’employed’ by rich folk then?

I’ve had a Cleaner pretty much all my working life – and I was 100% a Labour voter before coming to Scotland (SNP now), my folks too also had Cleaners. Voted Labour and my Dad was even a Labour Mayor.

In fact, I’m just watching two blokes chop the tops off our fruit trees in the garden – does this mean that I really should vote Tory?

@ernielynch

Whilst I wouldn’t underestimate the seriousness of the situation I reckon Monbiot ignores a couple of important points in his attempt to paint a dark picture.

Something put me off him because he did this before in an article of his I read. I wish I could remember the exact details now, but I knew a point he had made was not correct.
I have to admit I’m not fully aware of the backgrounds of the political movements and groups he mentions in the video, but how he describes the current situation seems to fit with some level of plausibility. E.g. today’s pulling of a Government backed energy saving campaign. It really makes no sense. People who don’t want to be lectured to will ignore it, but it might just save people and the Government some money. Unless someone wants more money to go to energy companies and reduce the public pot?

Connor Burns
The Rohipnol MP we can’t mention
Coke n Putin cash David Warburton
Chris Pincher

Definitely a last days of Rome vibe about the Tories

Oh and Braverman losing official secrets

The Informational Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a formal reprimand to the home secretary Suella Braverman after sensitive documents were found at a London venue last year. The ICO said the documents were handed to police by venue staff in September 2021. pic.twitter.com/ion2sOikq7

— TheCatNotJackSeparatist (@mc_c55890972) October 7, 2022

Cougar

@stevextc I’m curious as to how you’d propose that my mum gets her weekly shop?

Whatever works … I don’t know where she lives but I’ll assume close to where you were brought up and I’ll assume further the local shops and bus routes you used as a kid no longer exist.

I care far more she (or her mates and my Mum etc.) vote “not Tory” than whether she uses a taxi…

The point here is the “working class” of your Mum’s generation and her Mum’s generation (post WWII/Bevan) don’t exist anymore because they are through a mixture of choice and being forced living a “middle class” life by post WWII/Bevan standards. As I keep pointing out (or trying) being “working class” in those times was not based on income.

As an example: If you pop into Burnley next to the Town Hall is the mechanics institute, back in its day the mill mechanics were some of Burnley’s best paid people (well men) BUT they were considered and considered themselves working class.

The whole point of this discussion that uses taxi’s as a metaphor is the working class (as referred to by Mick Lynch) don’t really exist in the same way.. hence I take it why Keir Starmer doesn’t say “working class” but “working people”.

Equally it’s why train drivers on £40k are working class in Mick Lynch’s world…??

Back when I was my kids age we had markets (Burnley, Accy, Nelson) and we could get a bus direct and it would stop within 200′ of our house. We shopped more regularly and there were no supermarkets (the closest thing was Taskers in Burnley where we’d go 3 maybe 4 times a year)

Obviously non of that infrastructure exists anymore… so people have to spend money on taxi’s etc.

We also had communities that seem to no longer exist.. I remember one occasion (must have been school hols) coming back from Accy market with my gran and having more shopping than usual… the bus stopped by the local pub so my gran just went in and found some friend of my grandad or my uncle and got them to carry the shopping .. I assume my grandad would have bought the bloke a pint at some point or done the same for his wife?

In the same way we didn’t have a phone for ages… but our neighbours did. Not like we abused it but in an emergency etc. family would ring next door and leave a message… or we could use the phone and give them 10p

ErnieLynch

I don’t think Steve is proposing that your mother shouldn’t use taxis Cougar, as I understand it using a taxi now defines which social class someone represents.

I’m not proposing anyone shouldn’t use taxi’s or Costa or whatever… I’m pointing out the “working class” of traditional Labour red wall voters doesn’t exist anymore.

The traditional red wall labour voting working class was an identity but that identity doesn’t exist anymore as such.
There was a simple symbiotic relationship that Labour could rely upon in one direction and the “working class” could rely upon in the other direction based on that joint identity.

Brian Bilston in top form:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjS8OUXoK96/?

Tories Vs the Spice Girls

Really?? Your shocked about this complaint??? Let me remind you what you said me in lift….. https://t.co/IaFuUrzzqL

— Melanie Brown MBE (@OfficialMelB) October 7, 2022

As I keep pointing out (or trying) being “working class” in those times was not based on income.

I’m not convinced it is now either TBH.

Also, I’m also confused by this idea that “working class” and “working people” are exactly the same thing. Does the rest of you think they mean the same thing?
I don’t, at all, but I’m a bit dim. ( and even more dim nowadays)

Of course working class and working people aren’t the same thing. Working class refers manual workers with basic education whilst working people refers to everyone who works as an employee including professionals with higher educational achievements.

In the United States in particularly the term “blue collar worker” is often used as a substitute for working class. And back in the day when there were substantial manufacturing industries in the UK the term “hourly paid worker” was often used by the media.

Another cracking column from Marina Hyde

My column on Liz Truss’s nutso new conspiracy theory, her nanny state paranoia, and the conference from hell https://t.co/vtGc23iBjL

— Marina Hyde (@MarinaHyde) October 8, 2022

I don’t know if you watch Marina’s Supertankskii stuff, but she’s started referring to Truss as ‘Lynn from HR’
😂

The truss bounce is pretty phenomenal

I’m wondering how low she can take the Tories

I assumed that the 30pt labour leads of last week were just a knee jerk and would fall down a bit this week

With Burns accusations, who knows !

This list looks ever more genuine too

Well he is on that old ‘whips list’!

It never disappoints, in revealing future Tory scandals!

Just look at what that stud @trussliz has been up to! pic.twitter.com/zQGyRoVvPt

— allegra stratton’s ghost (@llegrastratton) October 7, 2022

I assumed that the 30pt labour leads of last week were just a knee jerk and would fall down a bit this week

No far from it, it appears to be consistent and established now.

The interesting point imo is how despite chatterati outrage of Boris Johnson’s personal failures as a human being – lying, partygate, etc, how comparatively little damage it did to the Tories.

However when the cause of the problem for the Tories is policy rather than personality the damage is devastating.

And quite right too. Whilst Johnson eating birthday cake, or whatever, in defiance of the governments own restrictions was annoying it didn’t cause me any outrage, unlike some I barely cared at all, it simply had no effect on the vast majority of people’s lives.

However Truss/Kwarteng policies if implemented will have significant effect on people’s lives. Voters appear to fully appreciate that. They are not quite as stupid as many on here like to believe. And they are not daft enough to think that partygate really mattered that much.

I would rather have the lying Johnson taking the piss than Liz Truss who probably didn’t do anything significant to undermine pandemic restrictions. And judging by what the opinions polls of the last couple of weeks are saying millions agree with me.

And quite right too. Whilst Johnson eating birthday cake, or whatever, in defiance of the governments own restrictions was annoying it didn’t cause me any outrage, unlike some I barely cared at all, it simply had no effect on the vast majority of people’s lives.

However Truss/Kwarteng policies if implemented will have significant effect on people’s lives. Voters appear to fully appreciate that. They are not quite as stupid as many on here like to believe. And they are not daft enough to think that partygate really mattered that much.

Yeah, as a nurse having to prevent relatives from seeing their loved ones as they died, not being able to attend family funerals and knowing folk who had to watch their father die whilst they stood outside the ward window, I’m really stupid to think that what Johnson and his cronies did mattered.

Obviously now the Tories are costing folk money I should be outraged.

I would rather have the lying Johnson taking the piss than Liz Truss who probably didn’t do anything significant to undermine pandemic restrictions. And judging by what the opinions polls of the last couple of weeks are saying millions agree with me.

So what that indicates is the majority of the British public don’t give two flying **** so long as they’re alright – odd reason to start supporting left wing parties.

Hit them in the pocket and they all want to be socialists.

Whilst Johnson eating birthday cake, or whatever

Ahh, still minimising his failings and misdemeanours. Little changes. Carry on…

Yeah, as a nurse having to prevent relatives from seeing their loved ones as they died, not being able to attend family funerals and knowing folk who had to watch their father die whilst they stood outside the ward window

Are you suggesting that none of that should have happened? All those restrictions were considered appropriate responses.

Johnson’s failings to fully observe covid restrictions, which was probably not hugely dissimilar to many on here and indeed the wider population, does not in any way mean that restrictions the NHS implemented were not appropriate.

Although I fully accept that those who felt that pandemic restrictions were not justified would be particularly outraged. Certainly the anti-lockdown conspiracy theorist/Tory right-wingers were.

Carry on…

Thanks Kelvin but I don’t need an invitation from you to express my opinion.

Edit: Btw I actually broke anti-lockdown restrictions on about half a dozen or so occasions when me and a near neighbour, with whom I wasn’t in a “bubble” went on bike rides. I don’t feel responsible for those who couldn’t see their loved ones, I wasn’t even initially aware that it was illegal. I also lost two friends to Covid one who I had known since the age of 7. I couldn’t attend their funerals.

Ahh, still minimising his failings and misdemeanours.

Indeed

Someone in work was commenting that her Tory voting brother in law never made it to see his dad before he died & was still furious with Johnson

Are you suggesting that none of that should have happened? All those restrictions were considered appropriate responses.

Not at all. You are saying it didn’t matter to you (and millions of others) if the elite didn’t adhere to the rules.

So why do you (and those millions) think it’s ok for rich people to ignore the law?

Which other laws do you think rich and important people should be able to ignore?

I barely cared at all, it simply had no effect on the vast majority of people’s lives.

Most law breaking has little or no effect on the vast majority of people’s lives.

Should people care if a man rapes a woman?

If so, why? It has no effect on their lives?

I think Ernie has rather summed up the modern Tory (ex red wall) voters. Don’t really care about standards but if they think they are losing out, be it financially or perceived losses to immigrants, people on benefits etc they suddenly get interested. They are not interested in a fairer society as long as they are ok, these are the ex Labour voters (who they voted for because they thought they would personally be better off, it wasn’t for a more equal society). The Johnson Tories tapped into the percieved inequalities, BREXIT, immigrants, benefit claimants etc quite well. Truss clearly doesnt understand the dog whistle politics playbook and rather than maintaining these peoples standard of living in the crisis was seen to favour the top 1% with the 45% tax cut. She completely misread the room. The reality though was this demographic has been lied to for years about the standard of living they could expect, and they lapped it up, it’s now all falling apart because the Tory lies weren’t sustainable.

You are saying it didn’t matter to you (and millions of others) if the elite didn’t adhere to the rules.

No I am not saying that. I have repeatedly said that imo it was annoying, out of order, and taking the piss. Which obviously suggests that I don’t think “it didn’t matter”.

What I am doing though, apparently like millions of others, is putting some sort of perspective on it. He got a £50 fixed penalty notice which to me seems totally appropriate. What Truss is currently attempting to do is far worse than that which is why it is being reflected in unprecedented opinion polls.

Furthermore I am particularly pleased that Johnson was Prime Minister during the pandemic and not Liz Truss who has publicly criticised Johnson’s lockdown measures:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/should-not-closed-schools-covid-liz-truss/

When asked about comments made by her competitor Rishi Sunak, who said earlier it was “wrong to scare people” with Covid messaging, Ms Truss said “we did go too far” and said she saw first hand how difficult school closures were for children.

And as you can see the other leadership contender has also criticised lockdown measures as going to far. If anything my criticism is that they didn’t go far enough, or certainly not early enough.

Johnson had huge opposition from Tory MPs for his lockdown measures, at one point despite the massive Tory majority he even had to rely on Labour MPs for his measures to go through the House of Commons.

I am very pleased that Johnson was PM during the pandemic and lockdown rather than Liz Truss, I don’t mind saying so. And judging by opinion polls many voters, millions in fact, agree with me that a Liz Truss premiership is even less appealing than a Boris Johnson premiership.