Paul Lockett

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Last Notes

2026-05-14 17:32:35 UTC

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The charade around Burnham seems to be cracking at last. The fact that Josh Simons is willing to stand aside for him shows that he is just more of the same.
I expect the NEC to allow Burnham to stand, now that Starmer is clearly on borrowed time, because the alternative would be somebody coming forward who doesn't represent the status quo, which is the last thing they would want.

2026-03-31 06:16:38 UTC

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The unspoken reality is that the government itself is the primary perpetrator of coercive control. For them to outlaw organisational coercive control, they would need to either weaken their own control, or exempt themselves from the law, saying the quiet part out loud in the process. I don't see them being willing to do either, but I would still support the idea of forcing the issue.

2026-03-07 10:59:01 UTC

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Taken at face value, it demonstrates a quiet and significant shift in Ofcom's position that blocking UK IPs is sufficient to take a service out of scope.

2026-03-05 13:11:18 UTC

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It doesn't seem to be working well in dentistry, but on the flip side, I've never had a problem getting an appointment with an optician and the service has generally been good, so I'm not convinced it's entirely an issue of privately owned versus state owned.

2026-01-24 18:11:04 UTC

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I'm saying managed decline in the sense of running everything in to the ground, except those things that benefit their target voters, themselves and their cronies, while putting in structures to manage the fallout (e.g. getting rid of juries so it's easier to clamp down on dissent and civil disobedience).

2026-01-24 17:54:40 UTC

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I think they're one and the same thing.

2026-01-24 11:08:19 UTC

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I'm pessimistic on this. I don't really see an answer that isn't just surviving the next couple of electoral cycles and then making the best of what's left.
3/3

2026-01-24 11:03:58 UTC

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Doing anything other than managed decline would mean going against their core strategy. It would mean acknowledging that a society can't be sustainable if it so politically skewed that working age people are leaving the country while retired people are coming into the country, and the working age people left are often living precariously and are less like to have children at a replacement rate.
2/3

2026-01-24 10:51:18 UTC

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PR is a must if we are to have a functional political system.
The mainstream parties have spent decades with their electoral strategy being "win the boomer vote." A bit like Blockbuster at the start of the internet age, they're tied to a strategy that will only be effective for a couple of electoral cycles, but they're too risk averse to move away from.
I view that as the reason why the mainstream political approach is to put the nation in to managed decline.
1/x

2026-01-23 19:26:05 UTC

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A bit of both. And more than a bit of the press - I'd say that the age group we are talking about are the group who have had their views most heavily shaped by print media.
A lot of the issue stems from the fact there is that demographic bulge. The reasons for that stretch back to WWII.

2026-01-23 18:30:26 UTC

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At no point have I said that the 65+ age group is unified. That's a straw man. I specifically said that it is the only age group which *leans towards* opposition.
My point was, and remains, that many of the issues the country faces are due to politicians chasing the boomer vote, which means following the majority boomer position, which in this case, as in many others, seems to be "we should have this nice thing, but young people should not."
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/945/780/643/567/314/original/7536ae12098ef02f.png

2026-01-23 18:12:46 UTC

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And free bus travel is peanuts.
And winter fuel allowance is peanuts.
And the difference of treatment for NI is peanuts.
And the difference in ISA limits is peanuts.
But after a while, the differences starts to add up to a lot of peanuts.

2026-01-23 16:09:38 UTC

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A prime example from this week being the fact that the only age group which currently gets free bus travel (and would doubtless object vocally to it being removed) is the only age group which leans towards opposition to free bus travel for under 22s.
2/2
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/945/250/358/431/298/original/748e754315b27144.jpg

2026-01-23 16:01:22 UTC

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"I'd agree much more strongly on blaming older generations on climate issues than on inequality because here they had persona agency & failed the young"
I tend view it the other way around. Past decisions were often made without the full appreciation of the environmental impacts. The decisions which drove economic inequality were far more transparent and continue to be.
1/2

2026-01-23 14:00:11 UTC

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"but the issue of child poverty is much more linked to issues around the working poor than a minority of rich pensioners."
That implies that the two things are unconnected. I view them as inherently connected.

2026-01-23 13:56:34 UTC

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"there is bound to be some generational skewing of wealth because the longer you live the more likely you are to accrue wealth"
Yes, but not to the degree we're seeing it now. Over the last 20 years, home-ownership has fallen in every age group except one - the over-65s. This isn't the result of some inherent law of nature, it is the result of deliberate policy choices.

2026-01-23 12:56:33 UTC

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That 17% of pensioners can be contrasted with the 31% of children who live in poverty.
Again, you're pointing to the fact that some pensioners live in poverty as if that proves that there is not a generational skewing of wealth. It does not.

2026-01-23 12:54:02 UTC

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There is if they downsize.

2026-01-23 12:33:58 UTC

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That's simply untrue. Wealth has accumulated to baby boomers, at the expense of other generations. 27% of over-65s live in households with a wealth over £1million.
Trying to claim that there hasn't been a complete skewing of wealth by stating that poor pensioners exist isn't credible.

2026-01-23 12:22:49 UTC

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Because the pension is only one part of it. It would be possible to increase benefits, including the state pension, if, for example, we had a system which reasonably taxed the extreme housing wealth which disproportionately sits with that demographic, but they won't vote for it, so that's where we are.
When baby boomers overwhelmingly vote for "crippling student debt for thee, triple-lock and tax breaks for me" my sympathy is limited.

2026-01-23 11:57:37 UTC

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I imagine it's for exactly the reasons I suggested - an approach to tax and spend that isn't entirely skewed to benefit one generation.

2026-01-23 10:11:55 UTC

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It's unaffordable, not in itself, but in the context of tax and spend decisions as a whole.
We don't have a triple-lock on other benefits. We also have a tax system which disproportionately favours the recipients of the state pension.
A system which moves moves money to the demographic which is already the wealthiest isn't sustainable.
We're seeing an element of the spiral in migration numbers, with younger Brits leaving the country and older Brits returning.

2026-01-17 08:32:08 UTC

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I wouldn't qualify it. I think referenda are a bad idea. They are undemocratic and a poor way of making decisions.
It makes no more sense to me than replacing juries with a public vote to determine the results of criminal trials.
The main purpose of referenda is to enable politicians to sidestep difficult decisions and avoid taking responsibility for the results that follow.

2025-12-15 14:18:31 UTC

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I admire the Greens for being the only party which isn't a complete mortal obscenity, but with this descent into MMT crankery, they're starting to look distinctly unserious.
Getting Richard Murphy involved in their economic policy is on par with Reform getting Aseem Malhotra involved in their health policy.

2025-11-30 11:16:48 UTC

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Some coverage here: https://www.thenational.scot/news/25520398.woman-arrested-i-oppose-proscription-palestine-action-sign/

2025-11-30 10:25:34 UTC

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There was one recorded instance of someone being arrested for holding a placard which said "I oppose genocide, I oppose the proscription of Palestine Action."
That was supposedly something which, according to the government, wouldn't be prevented. I'm not sure if charges followed, but given the whole "reckless" element of the law, I wouldn't be confident that it wouldn't result in a conviction.

2025-11-29 09:39:27 UTC

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The other challenge in today's world is that the divide is to a large extent generational. Politicians pander to the interests of baby boomers at the expense of younger generations, to the extent that the UK is functionally a gerontocracy.
The burden of the integrative social experiences of the past overwhelmingly fell on the shoulders of the young, which means today, those experiences would tend towards widening division.

2025-11-29 09:27:53 UTC

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I'm not convinced. They still avoid the worst of the conditions forced on the general population. I would suggest that if you looked at the split of who was in the trenches in WWI versus who was an officer miles away from the horrors, there would be a clear split.
What war can do is make it clearer to people that they are being shafted and make them more combative about it (e.g the Kinder Trespass).

2025-05-16 23:09:04 UTC

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It would probably go some way to help, but I think the stick would be more effective than the carrot, as in a proper progressive property tax.