Will the divisions in the UK ever be healed?

I saw that article too Growstuff
It's just more proof that he us untrustworthy. It interested me also as I love the "wayback machine" and have used it myself to see what sites used to say.

I've also found it useful once to prove to a seller that they advertised a product differently when it was bought by me and once to demonstrate a course deviation at a university!

Some sites unfortunately aren't saved though. Lucky this one was.

I dont know anyone who moved from Labour to Tory I know a lot of people who moved from Labour to SNP .The most left leaning party on these islands .Not UK because I dont think it ever WAS a United Kingdom it was England ruling the rest of us whichever way they think they aquired us they dont believe its a union ...in any union all parties can freely leave when they want,they dont have to get permission from the people /country they want to leave .Just how England dealt with the EU in fact ..they didn't have to go on bended knee and beg to be allowed to have areferendum .A treaty ...any treaty can be nullified just by one of the parties choice to go their own way .Someone needs to explain that to WM ..who seem to think they OWN Scotland and hav ethe right to rule us against our will ..Saor Alba

Interesting article from Nick Cohen:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/30/dominic-cummings-boris-johnson-evil-geniuses-hardly-lazy-incompetent

For those who might be worried that it involves a lot of reading, it's quite short.

It would be interested in listening to any intelligent comments about it - for or against.

I suspect Cummings has promised Johnson some kind of magic wand, based on his own self-proclaimed brilliance, which is why Johnson can't sack him.

The Conservatives have pandered to their core voters, who are mainly "boomer" home owners, who have done well from the post war years.

Unfortunately, for them, the sh*t has hit the fan. The old formulae don't work, so they're going for the populist/nativist vote.

They made promises, so they need to deliver them. I suspect they can't. If they even try, they're going to have to raise taxes, which will upset the traditional shire Tory voters.

I only hope that Labour under Starmer has seen though all this and has a viable counter-argument.

Maizie The flaw in democracy is that minorities are ignored.

Don't forget, pantglass that although a large percentage of pensioners vote toriy, that still leaves some who don't. I know of very few tory voters

I haven't a clue Pantglas. If you look at voting trends, they gradually shift from about the age of 45. The people coming up to middle age will have had different life experiences from the current "boomers", so who knows how they'll react? I know I don't, but I can observe what's happening and has already happened.

How many miners does South Wales still have? The same would once have been said of voters in North East England. The future depends on how much investment there is in Wales and what kind of investment it is.

Party political affiliations are changing. It's already happened in other countries and I very much suspect that there will be a very different political landscape in 10 or 15 years.

Does that just apply in England Growstuff? That all Labour voters change their minds once the become pensioners? I think the miners in South Wales would rather die than be deemed turncoats in their old age!

There are a number of fractures in society, which I can't ever see being healed in my lifetime. Most of them concern values and culture rather than traditional class and/or wealth divisions.

Pantglas I'm a bit of a nerd at following polls and trends over time. There is absolutely no doubt that the Tories' voter base is the elderly - mainly the so-called "baby boomer" generation.

I worry about what future trade deals we are going to get, USA, you can't trust Trump to keep to a deal. Upset him and he will just stick high tariffs on our goods, after all he is hoping to get re-elected under his slogan of American First. Then there is China, other countries around the world are cutting back on their trade links as China really screws them. Take the building of a dam in Burma for electricity, the deal was China was going to have all or most of the ectricity for 15 years and then gradually reducing their amount of usage. Burma pulled out of the deal leaving a half finished dam. The reason the were worried that no maintenance would take place or very little which would leave them with an unstable dam and huge costs. They have done this other countries. As for Europe , well that is anyones guess but it can't be as good as the one we had under the umbrella of the EU.

There will be divisions and name calling for many years and I really fear for this country.

Wales tends to weigh the Labour vote rather than count it - although not so much in north Wales, Growstuff!

My own constituency has gone from back and forth from Labour to Conservative throughout my adult life and we are blue at the moment but that would’ve been down to the Corbyn factor - folks up here couldn’t stand him!

I’m not elite because I can’t spell Pinocchio

Dinahmo There's loads of polling evidence that former Farage supporters transferred their support to Johnson.

Every single poll ever has showed that more pensioners voted Tory than for any other political party. Sorry, I don't know the breakdowns for Scotland, Wales and NI.

I doubt if all the polls are totally wrong.

I’ve just typed Pinocchio in this post and sure enough when I got to the first ‘c’ predictive text did the rest..... can I join the club please??

On a serious note, not all pensioners voted Tory - I know dozens in my own family that wouldn’t!

MaizieD ?

Oh, come come, growstuff. We've been assured by Pinocchio Johnson that austerity is over...

(I must be elite because I could spell Pinocchio correctly straight off without looking it up )

I should have added that, one way or other, I think pensioners will be hit by new austerity measures, which will reduce his fan base.

Yes, I thought (very briefly) that he understood why areas of the country have been so "left behind" and that there was some kind of plan.

However, it didn't take long to realise it was all BS and the promises were all empty. Huge figures have been mentioned, but look under the surface and there's always a catch. Some of the figures are blatant lies - such as the (however many it was) new nurses and police recruitment. The figure for investment in schools is a lie too. Schools are actually due to receive less per pupil, especially in the more deprived areas and for special needs. Local government grants have been cut, especially in poorer areas, which is cunning because the local authorities get the blame. I could go on … I actually think it's worse than Thatcherism.

Look at the contracts which have been handed out to cronies of him or Cummings or the appointments which have been made to senior jobs.

The bumbling clown image is a sham to cover up just how "croniest" and "elitist" he is. I honestly do think he'll come unstuck. Maybe the people who identify as working class believed the BS when they cast their vote. They certainly want Brexit, even though it will harm them more than most. BUT they're not stupid. I think they will realise what's going on. The other side of the coin is that the Conservatives are polling less well than they have in the shires and towns which aren't old industrial towns.

growstuff

Funny that. Perhaps it's the standing around in pubs with a pint (like Farage) and wearing hard hats. Just like the workers. There was a brief moment when he started to talk about the end of austerity that I thought perhaps he'd be OK - give him the benefit of the doubt. But that moment didn't last long. Now I see an ulterior motive in everything, he or the rest of his chronies say.

Strangely, a YouGov poll done 10 days ago (so before the Cummings debacle) showed that Johnson is more popular with people who identify as working class than those who identify as middle or upper class.

I also think it's why Johnson and Cummings will both resign before the nitty gritty of Brexit has to be delivered. The plain truth is they can't deliver what they promised.

I agree with you NotSpaghetti and I sincerely hope those constituencies remember why they voted and hold the man and his party to account.