Who will be the next Labour leader?

[Pickman's model]

That scrapbook of yours not just an ornament.

i used a list of databases we have at work, went to the oed, and got it from there. no internet search engine involved.

 

[SpookyFrank]

E2a: nah fuck it

 

[Mr Moose]

Sorry chilango you are not sure about what - that social mobility was higher in the 70s than now? Or that social mobility as at its height in the 70s?
The latter I think there is room for dispute on, the former is IMO pretty much nailed on. I'm not aware of any source that claims otherwise, even the government's own groups agree that social mobility has declined since the 70s.

The only way that you could argue that social mobility is as high or higher now than previously is (as I said above) to remove class from the picture, to go for the sort of post-class waffle that some love. But Mr Moose claims that that is not what he is doing so I don't see how he can square his circle.

I’m not sure why you are talking about it as removing class. Class is the essence of mobility as it is about the movement between classes. You seem to be talking about overall class advancement at times, which is maybe a better thing.

I find it hard to believe that in the 50s, 60s and 70s it was more likely that a working class person would become part of managment, the judiciary, on a board, set up their own business etc than more recently. It was certainly more likely than it was in the 20s, 30s and 40s so if it is just increase in rate, maybe. But I can’t see how it is definitively so. It could not have been for women and seems unlikely for people from BAME background given the well documented barriers to their personal and collective advancement. Over the last decade may be a different story.

 

[Shechemite]

i used a list of databases we have at work, went to the oed, and got it from there. no internet search engine involved.

It’s good to keep busy

 

[steeplejack]

Easter 2046. The coronavirus and lethal supermutations, resistant to all pharmaceutical innovations, have wiped out 99% of the world's population, aided by an astonishing twinned temperature heating and ininudation of much of the East Coast from Whitby south to Canvey island . Rats, cockroaches and vermin have begun to devour the entropic remains of what once was Britain's thriving urban culture. The surviving 1% the elite and super rich, control the governable parts of the planet from virus proof sterile underground bunkers in Utah and Nevada, and are little interested in the islands that used to be known as Britain.

It's remarkable therefore that, even in such end times and in conditions of species extinction, that Rebecca Long-Baily, Lisa Nandy and Keir Starmer are still on the road taking questions from the seventeen members of the Labour Party left in existence. In an abandoned Carphone Warehouse on the outskirts of a town that used to be known as Crewe (subsequently rechristened Corona SuperPlus45NorthWest), and with remarkable cheerfulness, they insist to a ravaged, throat-rattly audience that lessons must be learned from the catastrophic election defeat of 2019, in order to ensure that a healthy grassroots infrastructure is in place to take a genuine message of hope to a post-quarantine electorate, what's left of them.

The three candidates are in great humour and are looking forward with genuine enthusiasm to the next hustings in Submerged Former Conurbation 231East (formerly Kingston upon Hull). In a rare moment of discord, Long-Bailey insisted that the approach of the late Jeremy Corbyn (missing, presumed dead in the ongoing war of all against all in Polenta Fields, North London) still resonated in post-apocalyptic times, whilst both Nandy and Starmer countered that only a realistic policy that could be explained patiently through an industrial facemask to a dying postal voter really offered the hope that everyone was yearning for so much (cont'd 2147AD)

 

[Pickman's model]

Polenta Fields

lives in islington

 

[redsquirrel]

I’m not sure why you are talking about it as removing class. Class is the essence of mobility as it is about the movement between classes. You seem to be talking about overall class advancement at times, which is maybe a better thing.

I talking about you removing class as that is the only way you can claim the social mobility has not dropped (to effectively nothing) from the 70s. You've been supplied with a whole load of sources that show that this is true.

I find it hard to believe that in the 50s, 60s and 70s it was more likely that a working class person would become part of managment, the judiciary, on a board, set up their own business etc than more recently.

Right so in contrast to the large amount of evidence you've been provided with we have your prejudices.
I'll ask again do you still maintain that there was "almost no social mobility" in the 70s?

Inequality is still deeply entrenched in Britain: there is a persistent gap in early literacy;
the attainment gap at the end of secondary school has hardly shifted since 2014 and the better off are nearly 80 per cent more likely to end up in a professional job than those from a working-class background.
Our sixth State of the Nation report, and first since our 12 new commissioners were appointed last year, lays bare the stark fact that social mobility has stagnated over the last four years at virtually all stages from birth to work.

Not some radical socialist group - the government's own body.

 

[Mr Moose]

I talking about you removing class as that is the only way you can claim the social mobility has not dropped (to effectively nothing) from the 70s. You've been supplied with a whole load of sources that show that this is true.
Right so in contrast to the large amount of evidence you've been provided with we have your prejudices.
I'll ask again do you still maintain that there was "almost no social mobility" in the 70s?


Not some radical socialist group - the government's own body.

That’s the last four years, not the last sixty.

Drop your prejudices and actually engage with what I have written, rather than fantasise about what I mean or prefer.

We got into this by talking about people’s nostalgia for the time. Nostalgia is generally pretty false and it’s reasonable to talk about the good and the bad. I wouldn’t argue that many people’s horizons are pretty limited right now by access to education, experience and wealth. But let’s not pretend they were not also limited in those earlier decades by rigid social codes that openly discriminated.

 

[redsquirrel]

That’s the last four years, not the last sixty.

Drop your prejudices and actually engage with what I have written, rather than fantasise about what I mean or prefer.

We got into this by talking about people’s nostalgia for the time. Nostalgia is generally pretty false and it’s reasonable to talk about the good and the bad. I wouldn’t argue that many people’s horizons are pretty limited right now by access to education, experience and wealth. But let’s not pretend they were not also limited in those earlier decades by rigid social codes that openly discriminated.

Have you even read it? It builds on previous studies that show that social mobility has decreased since the 70s/80s.
We got into this via your evidence free dismissal of the real social mobility that occurred during the 70s.
For you to talk about prejudices when you've not supplied a single piece of evidence for any of your claims (and for the third time - are you still claiming that was "almost no social mobility" in the 70s?) when I and others have supplied significant pieces of evidence that make it clear that social mobility has declined is fucking ludicrous.

Like with the far right you don't have a clue what you are talking about - which is fine but then don't pretend that you are talking anything but your own prejudices.

 

[chilango]

One reference (I'm doing some digging)

Goldthorpe and Mills describe how, despite growth in social mobility in the middle of the past century, there has been no change since the early 1970s, with the exception of absolute class mobility for women. Blanden and Machin, focussing on relative income mobility, identify a recent plateauing, following decades of decline.

(Metcalf, 2008)

 

[brogdale]

Friday eve post.
So, do we think Starmer will ask RLB to be Shad. Chancellor (obvious choice?) or....as some bloke down the pub told me the other day (to put £ on ) he'll make Ed Miliband chancellor.

 

[redsquirrel]

There's a debate that can be had about when exactly social mobility peaked, there's a debate that can be had about the level of decrease, there's even a very strong argument about whether social mobility is a useful or progressive (hate that word but can't think of another at the moment) concept.

But there should be no debate that (1) there was social mobility in the 70s and (2) that social mobility has since declined
(At least not unless you go for the class free position)

TUC document

As Blanden et al’s research shows, relative income mobility in the UK has become worse in recent decades, with individuals’ adult incomes increasingly likely to be related to those of their parents. At the same time, inequality has also increased, as the gaps between those on higher and lower incomes have grown. The fact that these trends are running in parallel is a real concern, because as inequality grows the impacts of low social mobility on life changes are exacerbated. It also seems that growing inequality could be reducing relative income mobility, by making it harder for those who are on lower incomes to accrue the advantages that would enable them to secure better jobs and opportunities in the future. The crucial questions are why is it like this, and what can we do to change it?

 

[chilango]

Analyses trends in intergenerational class mobility in Britain between the early 1970s and the early 1990s on the basis of data from the General Household Survey. Over this period there was little change in total mobility rates. Rates of upward mobility, if anything, fell while rates of downward mobility rose–in contrast to the situation in the middle decades of the twentieth century when rising rates of upward mobility were the salient feature. However, there is continuity in that relative rates of mobility, indicating the level of social fluidity, remain little altered

(Goldthorpe, 2004)

 

[chilango]

(Goldthorpe, 2004)

If late twentieth-century Britain was in fact becoming a more mobile society, as some commentators have claimed (e.g. Giddens 1994 : 143–4), then this was only in the sense of downward rather than upward movement within the class structure becoming more frequent.

 

[chilango]

We have been unable to present any compelling evidence of a general increase in social fluidity within the British class structure over the last decades of the twentieth century, yet the whole of the second half of the century saw a steady expansion in educational provision that allowed children of all class backgrounds alike to raise their average levels of educational attainment.

 

[chilango]

As regards absolute mobility rates, we find that the increase in the total mobility rate that was indicated for men by the OMS of 1972, and then apparently confirmed and extended to women by earlier BGES- based findings, has not in fact been sustained. Over the period covered by our analyses, the total mobility rate for men is remarkably flat and for women falls somewhat. Among men, the previously rising trend in upward mobility levelled out, and, if anything, started to decline, while the previously decreasing rate of downward mobility levelled out or, if anything, increased.

 

[chilango]

As regards relative mobility rates, we find overall little compelling evidence of these rates changing in a way indicative of increased—or decreased—fluidity within the British class structure.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Friday eve post.
So, do we think Starmer will ask RLB to be Shad. Chancellor (obvious choice?) or....as some bloke down the pub told me the other day (to put £ on ) he'll make Ed Miliband chancellor.

Not a chance he'll make long bailey the shadow chancellor.

The miliband thing is a decent shout, might see if I can get odds on that

 

[brogdale]

Not a chance he'll make long bailey the shadow chancellor.

The miliband thing is a decent shout, might see if I can get odds on that

If it helps...bloke has been right about a couple of matters political!

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Friday eve post.
So, do we think Starmer will ask RLB to be Shad. Chancellor (obvious choice?) or....as some bloke down the pub told me the other day (to put £ on ) he'll make Ed Miliband chancellor.

The New Statesman has been running this line. On the basis that only 4 labour politicians are serious contenders with the ability to do the job - EM, RLB, Yvette Cooper and McDonnell.

We can rule McDonnell out as he’s off. Yvette Cooper would be a massive provocation.

 

[brogdale]

The New Statesman has been running this line. On the basis that only 4 labour politicians are serious contenders with the ability to do the job - EM, RLB, Yvette Cooper and McDonnell.

We can rule McDonnell out as he’s off. Yvette Cooper would be a massive provocation.

There's Reynolds.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

There's Reynolds.

Emma Reynolds? She lost her seat.

 

[brogdale]

Emma Reynolds? She lost her seat.

Nah, this fella

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Nah, this fella

Never heard of him.

 

[Proper Tidy]

I'd forgotten about james purnell the new labour cunt

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'd forgotten about james purnell the new labour cunt

He's long gone. Jumped ship in a failed coup attempt against Miliband if memory serves.

 

[Shechemite]

What are posters shadow cabinet predictions then?

 

[brogdale]

Never heard of him.

Perfect material, then.

 

[Proper Tidy]

He's long gone. Jumped ship in a failed coup attempt against Miliband if memory serves.

Yeah I know, he went to bbc didn't he, I'd just forgotten he existed. It was unpleasant to be reminded

 

[kebabking]

Nia Griffiths might keep Defence - she was pretty good, had a decent grasp of the big strategic stuff and got the detail spent lots of time in eastern Europe and knows, and shares the concerns of, the government's over there. She's (economically and socially) on the left of the party, but was is a vociferous opponent of Corbyns' Russia First foreign and defence policy.

Fell out with him - actually, I think she couldn't stand him from Day 1 - over Salisbury and anti-Semitism, at which point she was silenced.

Starmer may give defence to Thornberry however - it's a big job, she can do detail, and it keeps her away from anything brexity...