2 EDF faves: Brexit and Waitrose

[miga]

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/10/20/iceland-britains-brexit-iest-supermarket/

[Mick Mac]

All this proves is that, in general, less well off people vote for change. Well off people vote for the status quo.

[Loz]

Kind of ironic that shoppers at Lidl and Aldi voted for Brexit.

[Sue]

:(

[uncleglen]

Just goes to show that the people who benefit most from the EU- cheap builders for their endless extensions etc, cheap cleaners and childcare, rocketing property values, practically guaranteed higher rents and occupancies for landlords, will shop at the more expensive shops for their smoked salmon and caviar.....

[malumbu]

Wow, what stereotyping and some nastiness thrown in too.

There is some nonsense on another thread about Beckenham. Probably similar in social status and education to around here. Yet more rabid when it comes to politics.

I occasionally go to Liddle and always come out with far more than I expected because it is a treasure trpve. Main issue is that it takes so long to get served.

Please all keep your patronising stereotypes to yourselves.

But as I can't help but comment, I spent some time with some professional people on the coast yesterday to a special work project. All blokes, all educated, but the casual xenophobic, sexist and homophobic banter took me back to the 80s and 90s. Bet most of them voted out.

[Loz]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Wow, what stereotyping and some nastiness thrown in too.

>

> There is some nonsense on another thread about Beckenham. Probably similar in social status and

> education to around here. Yet more rabid when it comes to politics.

>

> I occasionally go to Liddle and always come out with far more than I expected because it is a

> treasure trpve. Main issue is that it takes so long to get served.

>

> Please all keep your patronising stereotypes to yourselves.

I think you completely missed the point of my comment. But quite a way, I must add. A looooooooooooooooooog way.

Aldi and Lidl are German companies. *That* was the irony.

But a nice piece of patronising stereotyping. By you.

[Jenny1]

Loz, my assumption was that malumbu was talking about the comment that had directly preceded his, not yours.

[miga]

uncleglen Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Just goes to show that the people who benefit most

> from the EU- cheap builders for their endless

> extensions etc, cheap cleaners and childcare,

> rocketing property values, practically guaranteed

> higher rents and occupancies for landlords, will

> shop at the more expensive shops for their smoked

> salmon and caviar.....

I think there are a lot of Co-ops in very non-caviar neighbourhoods.

[red devil]

Jenny1 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Loz, my assumption was that malumbu was talking

> about the comment that had directly preceded his,

> not yours.

But malumbu brought up Liddle (sic) and then immediately followed that with his 'patronising stereotyping' comment, so I can see why Loz responded. Despite railing against 'patronising stereotyping', malumbu often comes across that way himself...

[Jenny1]

I think we shouldn't lose sight of the central cruel irony of this situation.

Apparently it's those who have least to spend on food who voted for Brexit. But they are the ones who will suffer most in the approaching 'difficult times' the government have warned about.

As Andy Hamilton said: 'Turkeys don't vote for Christmas....unless you tell them they're taking back control'.

[robbin]

With respect, that sounds both patronising and presumptuous in equal measure. It's the sort of privileged, sheltered liberal narrative that caused quite a number of non-Londoners to vote Leave, I think.

[Jenny1]

I'd be interested to know a bit more about why you see it that way robbin. Do expand.

[Jules-and-Boo]

It sort of reeks of 'anyone who's different to me - or thinks differently to me is stupid'

Glad to see intolerance is accepted - if you approve of it.

[Jenny1]

What I meant was that if we're to believe this particular piece of research (and a lot of other studies that have come out since the referendum) then many (though clearly not all) of the people who voted 'Leave' were on low incomes.

They were clearly convinced, by the Leave campaign, that they had something to gain from voting this way. I think the Leave campaign lied. And I don't think those who ran the campaign had the interests of the less well off in society to the front of their minds at all. They simply wanted to win votes - and they employed (in my view) despicable means to do so.

I don't think that makes people who were the victims of their tactics stupid. But it does make them victims. Because if the Leave campaigners had been telling the truth they'd have acknowledged that whatever the ultimate outcome of the UK leaving the EU (which doubtless we'll be able to judge in 30 years time or so) there will be a period of economic uncertainty and upheaval that accompanies this process. Even the current government has acknowledged that. And isn't it always the less well off who tend to suffer most when the economy gets rocky? They don't have savings and property to fall back on.

I am very angry about this. I am not angry with people who don't have many resources and who voted Leave. I'm furious with those leading politicans who have lied to us all and threatened many people's livelihoods.

[Jules-and-Boo]

so, even then, you're saying people were unable to make an intelligent choice but were tricked into the choice they did make - which you disagree with, so was clearly wrong.

[robbin]

You see in my eyes that is more ill placed assumption and also, I'm afraid to say it is again somewhat patronising. I quite accept you are still fuming over the result as many are and that you may not have intended it that way, but it does seem to take a few things for granted.

You say "whatever the ultimate outcome of the UK leaving the EU (which doubtless we'll be able to judge in 30 years time or so) there will be a period of economic uncertainty and upheaval that accompanies this process" as if you presume that the poor weak-minded Leave voting majority didn't appreciate that such a massive step would have adverse short term consequences as the economy was forced in some areas to re-balance and/or take a hit.

Both sides lied. Cameron and Osborne and their supporters came out with absurd hyperbole and lies about dire immediate consequences (which have since been proved beyond doubt to have been way off the mark). Immediate emergency tax rises, emergency budget, housing crash, FTSE crash etc. etc. etc. Yet, you choose only to refer to one side's lies as if the poor simple Leave voters were duped. I believe that some of the lies from the Remain camp were patronising and seen as an insult to voters' intelligence and that turned many off voting to Remain.

Could it possibly be that such Leave voters thought it couldn't be much worse than it is, or that they were prepared to take some short or medium term pain for their long term benefit and for the longer term benefit of their children? Or are they too simple to have engaged such thought processes? What you said above credits them with no intelligence at all, or at least presumes they believed there would be no fall out at all in the short term and I think that is fundamentally wrong and missing the point entirely.

[Jenny1]

Are we not all vulnerable to being 'tricked' by politicians? I'm sure you can think of many examples of that happening over the years. I know I've been 'tricked' by them, you might have been as well. But it usually only happens at a General Election - so we get the chance to vote a different way again pretty quickly. This was a more mammoth decision which will affect generations to come.

[Jenny1]

To be clear the above was written in response to Jules-and-Boo's point.

To address some of what you're saying robbin. We've all learnt, I'm sure, to take what politicians (of any persuasion) say with a pinch of salt. But don't you think there was something disturbingly different about the Leave campaign's tactics? I perceived them as adopting a style of campaigning that we don't usually get in this country? I'm thinking about their insistence, for example, that 'we're not interested in experts anymore'. Don't you think that shifted the debate onto dangerous ground?

[Jeremy]

I'm gonna defend Jenny here. While I'm not convinced there's a clear cut income division (plenty of well-to-do home county types will have voted 'leave', as well as plenty of business-savvy people who stood to benefit), the article specifically highlights a town where it is generally accepted that wages have been kept low due to availability of cheap EU labour. So if these people are worse off in the medium term due to the leave vote, then yes I agree there's a certain irony in that.

I also agree with Robbin that patronising attitudes towards leave voters (blanket accusations of racism and parochial attitude) probably just hardened their resolve.

[robbin]

I don't think some of the Leave tactics were any more (in fact were probably less - although that's hard to judge) dishonest than some of the Remain campaigners. As for 'experts' the dodgiest of the Remain campaigners were surely the architects of the push back against the views of so-called experts. I lost track of the number of 'experts' who were wheeled out to spout doom and gloom and/or to make thinly veiled accusations of racism or stupidity at anybody holding a different view to their own. Events have subsequently shown many of them to have been utterly wrong, so that speaks for itself doesn't it?

Often when you looked to see what the so-called experts' backgrounds were they often had vested interests. They were not independent experts like you might normally expect to rely upon. I remember listening to one person on the radio feverishly making a point about how our legal system would be at risk of collapse and how human rights and workers rights would be abandoned almost overnight if there was a Leave vote. What he was saying seemed to me to be nonsense. He could have made some proper expert points in a valid and measured way (as you would normally expect an expert commentator to do) but instead he chose not to do that in favour of grossly exaggerating various points. At the end of his scare mongering I Googled him to find out he was a professor in European Law at a poly (or university as it is now called). He clearly had his own personal interests to consider when espousing his 'expert' opinion on what was essentially a political issue. A career as an EU lawyer may obviously be at risk of being somewhat curtailed in the event of a Leave vote, I thought. I therefore discounted his opinion rather than blindly accepting it.

I too deprecate any dumbing down of debate. I also do think there is a place for proper expert opinion to be voiced and taken properly into account. The problem was we were terribly let down by Cameron and his cohort's campaigning tactics and their (and their metropolitan elite's) misjudging of the attitude and intelligence of vast swathes of the population. It seems some still harbour the view that the intelligence of the majority just was not up to the task. I'm afraid to me that just suggests those people still just don't 'get it'.

I'm disappointed about the vote result, but it was no massive surprise (unless you live in London, it seems). I think the real people who are responsible are those that chose to underestimate the electorate and as a consequence to insult them. I think they still do.

[Rook]

excellent post Robbin

[DuncanW]

Robbin, you can prefix the word expert with so-called or place into speech marks as many times as you like, but I think it's unnecessary if you're talking about the likes of the Governor of the Bank of England or the MD of the IMF. They are actual experts aren't they?

[robbin]

I believe you have not read my post properly. If you had, you would have noticed that on occasions I used speech marks or the prefix 'so-called' and other times I did not - I simply referred to experts. If you take a bit more time to read it again, more carefully, you will see the distinction I was plainly making between experts and 'experts' or so-called experts. Indeed, that was the entire thrust of my post.

So, your point is inapposite.

[DuncanW]

But the only times you do that are to differentiate between the experts who spoke in favour of remain and what you would expect from a proper expert - you know, the type that agrees with you...

"They were not independent experts like you might normally expect to rely upon"

"He could have made some proper expert points in a valid and measured way (as you would normally expect an expert commentator to do)"