albertward.bsky.social

Increasing public attention on this (and increasing public support for debt write-offs) - but, as with all vague policy proposals, it won't survive contact with telling people how much it will cost... for what would be, in effect, a huge tax cut for graduates

A reminder that not all modern Western leaders are doomed to eternal unpopularity (at least when voters believe their country is existentially threatened + you have Trump as your foil) from @angusreidinstitute.bsky.social

He's not stupid - he knows that his popularity is partly (mostly?) just as a foil for starmer/this gov't; so why light it on fire (and lose an election perhaps) by taking the reins now

The bigger question is why did Burnham bother? Maybe he thought it was genuinely worth a punt, but more likely this is just another stone in the wall of his long campaign to annoy Starmer and raise his profile (perhaps for some leadership challenge a long long way off)

Why are people acting like anything else other than this was going to happen with Burham? The No10 political operation may be pretty useless but they're not so useless that they would invite Starmer's biggest rival into parliament because they were worried about a short-term backlash

People need to stop saying psychodrama, that’s not what it means.

Elite vs mass discourse has always been a thing though... it's just now we do it on twitter

But if you say taxes will never go up for any reason you're just going to piss people off!

Although weaker support for general tax increases to fund specific things (even the nhs) (2)

Lots of evidence that there is big support for higher rates of tax at the top end (1)

This kind of dishonesty about the public finances is exactly what drives voters towards fiscal conservatism

And that the UK is much like other European countries in this (although again, among the worst)

Daily reminder that people are generally sceptical of all their political leaders (although Starmer is the worst of the pack)

This is pushing younger voters to the right across the west, where they should be leaning left (and were a few years ago)

Canadians under age 30 are now much more conservative than those over 60... There is huge anger at the unfairness of the intergenerational deal (older voters getting a larger share of the pie than younger voters) and at rising housing costs, especially in Canada

But the gap between these realities is greatest among young men; there is no suggestion that they will accept the new normal

But the overton window, certainly among elites, has arguably left them far behind

Hard to understand the cultural backlash from some young men against women without seeing how they see it: for them, women (and the women's movement) have totally moved away from their perceived normality

Just going back through some of the focus groups we ran during the Conservative leadership contest - Some of the participants surprisingly prescient about Jenrick and where it was all going to end up.

Flipside of perspectives on US imperialism: some / many latin americans really want it (same for 1989 invasion of Panama - 92pc of panamanians were in favour) from @atlasintel.bsky.social