What would middle-class rebellion look like?
Discussion
We've all seen riots in the streets, be it here or elsewhere... They tend to draw a lot of attention, but at the risk of stereotyping the rioters, I think it's probably safe to say that those burning cars and looting shops probably don't as a rule own the cars in question, nor work in, supply or insure the shops.
So what happens when levels of dissatisfaction amongst those who do own the cars or the shops and work therein reaches a similar boiling point?
It increasingly looks like Boris and co are going to extend Covid restrictions beyond the 21st, and whether or not you personally believe that's a sensible, rational decision or utterly bonkers - and let's not discuss that on this thread, as there are plenty of others for that - I'm sure you wouldn't disagree that a significant and increasing proportion of the population are losing all patience with this, so how do they respond?
There isn't going to be an election for several years, and even if there was, is there really an alternative to vote for? The ballot box doesn't really seem to hold any answers at the moment that I can see.
Rioting isn't an option for the vast majority, as most people's moral compasses would make them think about the owner of the small business before they put a brick through the window.
General strikes are all well and good when you've got a union to help support you, and hopefully it'll have a quick impact, but again, hardly a great option for the middle classes, especially when part of the anger comes from how much harder it has been to keep up the mortgage payments over the last year!
Mass refusals to pay taxes have carried weight in the past, but again, unless you can persuade your employer's finance and HR teams not to make contributions through PAYE before you even get the money, it's not the most practical of options either!
You can start a petition on the No10 website thingy, and who knows, it might even result in a debate in parliament, at which point there's be lots of waffle, and precisely nothing will change.
Short of leaving the country - and even then, how many countries are all that different? - it just increasingly feels like there's no option but to just put up with it all!
Personally, I think Tony Blair is to blame for all of it. By moving Labour to the centre ground, he forced the Tories to do likewise to compete for the middle ground voters, and Cameron et al have been able to do this safe in the knowledge that they really don't have to do much for their core voters, because they're relying on those core voters not being able to see any remotely more attractive options.
I reckon the best way for the middle classes to rebel would be to somehow force through proportional representation in parliament, so that way at least it would be a little easier, when we're in this situation, for new parties who do represent the opinions of some of the ignored masses to gain a foothold. Of course, that still brings us back to the starting point though - how do you force that change in the first place?
So what happens when levels of dissatisfaction amongst those who do own the cars or the shops and work therein reaches a similar boiling point?
It increasingly looks like Boris and co are going to extend Covid restrictions beyond the 21st, and whether or not you personally believe that's a sensible, rational decision or utterly bonkers - and let's not discuss that on this thread, as there are plenty of others for that - I'm sure you wouldn't disagree that a significant and increasing proportion of the population are losing all patience with this, so how do they respond?
There isn't going to be an election for several years, and even if there was, is there really an alternative to vote for? The ballot box doesn't really seem to hold any answers at the moment that I can see.
Rioting isn't an option for the vast majority, as most people's moral compasses would make them think about the owner of the small business before they put a brick through the window.
General strikes are all well and good when you've got a union to help support you, and hopefully it'll have a quick impact, but again, hardly a great option for the middle classes, especially when part of the anger comes from how much harder it has been to keep up the mortgage payments over the last year!
Mass refusals to pay taxes have carried weight in the past, but again, unless you can persuade your employer's finance and HR teams not to make contributions through PAYE before you even get the money, it's not the most practical of options either!
You can start a petition on the No10 website thingy, and who knows, it might even result in a debate in parliament, at which point there's be lots of waffle, and precisely nothing will change.
Short of leaving the country - and even then, how many countries are all that different? - it just increasingly feels like there's no option but to just put up with it all!
Personally, I think Tony Blair is to blame for all of it. By moving Labour to the centre ground, he forced the Tories to do likewise to compete for the middle ground voters, and Cameron et al have been able to do this safe in the knowledge that they really don't have to do much for their core voters, because they're relying on those core voters not being able to see any remotely more attractive options.
I reckon the best way for the middle classes to rebel would be to somehow force through proportional representation in parliament, so that way at least it would be a little easier, when we're in this situation, for new parties who do represent the opinions of some of the ignored masses to gain a foothold. Of course, that still brings us back to the starting point though - how do you force that change in the first place?
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hstewie said:
hstewie said: Handling of a pandemic by a Government that's been in power for 11 years and it's all Tony Blair's fault.
Brilliant
More a case that getting to the point where most of the middle classes have nobody to vote for that really represents them is the part that's Blair's fault.Brilliant
valiant said:
A lot of tutting.
You don’t have to riot to protest about things. A peaceful demonstration can send a message (although it’s still easy to ignore). The anti-Brexit March drew a couple hundred thousand onto the streets in London and I imagine that was well populated by middle class and those who would not normally take to the streets. Was very peaceful with no trouble but was all too easy to ignore. (Don’t turn this into a Brexit thread, merely using it as an example).
Politicians worry about polls. If people actually started saying they were unhappy and would not vote for the incumbent next time around, you may see a different result. Instead people, bizarrely, are happy and Boris is polling quite strongly so that will only embolden his decision making into further or longer restrictions rather than releasing them.
At the end of the day, we are a compliant nation and tend to put up with a lot of st. Nothing will happen except social media going off on one and a few letters to the Times.
Oh, and fk off with your Blair bit. Tories have been in for ages. Take some ownership.
You're missing the point on the Blair bit.You don’t have to riot to protest about things. A peaceful demonstration can send a message (although it’s still easy to ignore). The anti-Brexit March drew a couple hundred thousand onto the streets in London and I imagine that was well populated by middle class and those who would not normally take to the streets. Was very peaceful with no trouble but was all too easy to ignore. (Don’t turn this into a Brexit thread, merely using it as an example).
Politicians worry about polls. If people actually started saying they were unhappy and would not vote for the incumbent next time around, you may see a different result. Instead people, bizarrely, are happy and Boris is polling quite strongly so that will only embolden his decision making into further or longer restrictions rather than releasing them.
At the end of the day, we are a compliant nation and tend to put up with a lot of s
t. Nothing will happen except social media going off on one and a few letters to the Times.Oh, and f
k off with your Blair bit. Tories have been in for ages. Take some ownership.We used to have partisan politics in this country. Labour represented the left and the working classes, the Tories the right and the middle classes.
The Tories could by and large win elections with policies that appealed to those moderate right-wing middle-class voters, and they would dangle the carrot of being able to join those classes to enough of the Labour-leaning floating voters in the middle to get them over the line.
Blair realised that Labour would never retain power - only he, Atlee and Wilson have ever managed to do that as Labour PMs in over a century, and Atlee barely counted - if they carried on appealing to the left, so he moved the party wholesale to the centre ground. As the Telegraph editorial said during one of the Tory party leadership elections at the time, the best candidate to lead the Tory party wasn't standing, as he was rather busy being Labour Prime Minister.
By making that shift to the right, he was banking on the traditional Labour vote carrying on supporting him regardless, because who else did they have to vote for? And that policy worked out well for him, and largely continued to do so right up until the current era and the collapse of the red wall in the North.
Similarly, the Tories responded by moving to the left, equally taking much of their core vote for granted, for precisely the same reason. That hasn't really come back to bite them, but I certainly think it was a major contributor to Brexit, as it allowed UKIP to milk much of the disenchantment.
As a result of this, for most of the past two decades, we've had a political system where only two Centrist parties have any chance of winning, and they've been been largely indistinguishable. If we had PR, then I'm sure by now that new parties on both the left and the right would've started to gain more traction and representation in parliament, and not so many would feel completely disenfranchised.
In short, Blair's actions exposed the weaknesses of our current voting system.
bhstewie said:
hstewie said:Kermit power said:
More a case that getting to the point where most of the middle classes have nobody to vote for that really represents them is the part that's Blair's fault.
Whatever you might think of him the man won three elections with stonking majorities which suggests he has some idea what the middle classes want(ed).It isn't Blair's fault that the choice at the last election was between two candidates who were (and are) unfit for public office.
Want to know why you've got the Government you've got?
Look in the mirror I'm afraid.
As for the last election, for the first time in my life, I didn't vote Conservative. More importantly, I also voted in favour of PR when that was put to a referendum. I can look in the mirror with a clear conscience.
egor110 said:
O/P re general strike being ok if you have a union to support you , you understand if you strike the unions don't pay you , you loose your pay the same as any other person would .
I do fully understand that. The difference is that having union representation means having a centralised representative for government to engage with, so it's more likely that a resolution will be reached before you're forced back to work by economics. I suspect it also provides you with rather better protection should your employer decide to sack you for not showing up.valiant said:
The problem is not PR or FPTP, it’s entrenched voting habits and tribalism (for both sides).
You complain about what’s happening but who are you going to vote for next time around? How many times have I read on these pages that you can’t stand what Boris is doing but will still vote for him come the next election because ‘the other guy is worse’. It’s trite.
We get what we deserve and unless you’re willing to hold your nose and vote for the alternative then you’ve only got yourself to blame and talk of taking some sort of civil disobedience is for the birds.
I’ll caveat that by saying if the party in power were reversed, I’d still think the same.
I voted for PR when the opportunity was offered to me in the hope that it might allow smaller parties that better represent me to come through.You complain about what’s happening but who are you going to vote for next time around? How many times have I read on these pages that you can’t stand what Boris is doing but will still vote for him come the next election because ‘the other guy is worse’. It’s trite.
We get what we deserve and unless you’re willing to hold your nose and vote for the alternative then you’ve only got yourself to blame and talk of taking some sort of civil disobedience is for the birds.
I’ll caveat that by saying if the party in power were reversed, I’d still think the same.
At the last GE, I voted LibDem for the first time in my life, because they were the only people still trying to fight the outrageous con job that was Brexit.
I have simply no idea who to vote for next time. Neither of the two parties with any chance of gaining power represent me, and nobody else stands a chance of winning.
Having said that, who I vote for seems pretty irrelevant anyway! I've never in my entire adult life lived in a constituency where the successful candidate took less than 45% of the vote, so the chances of me influencing the party of government are incredibly remote...
Vanden Saab said:
You were the one, I wondered who voted Lib Dem and you voted for a party that was standing on a platform of overturning Democracy but at the same time voted for PR so there could be more Democracy. Ah no, you are just in a small minority who think you can tell the majority what to do if you have PR 
Don't be absurd. We "overturn democracy" every time we have a vote. The referendum wasn't binding in the first place, and I don't recall anything in the question I was asked saying anything about surrendering all rights to further debate/action on the matter as a result of the vote either.oyster said:
Kermit power said:
We've all seen riots in the streets, be it here or elsewhere... They tend to draw a lot of attention, but at the risk of stereotyping the rioters, I think it's probably safe to say that those burning cars and looting shops probably don't as a rule own the cars in question, nor work in, supply or insure the shops.
So what happens when levels of dissatisfaction amongst those who do own the cars or the shops and work therein reaches a similar boiling point?
It increasingly looks like Boris and co are going to extend Covid restrictions beyond the 21st, and whether or not you personally believe that's a sensible, rational decision or utterly bonkers - and let's not discuss that on this thread, as there are plenty of others for that - I'm sure you wouldn't disagree that a significant and increasing proportion of the population are losing all patience with this, so how do they respond?
I would disagree. Not because I am now losing patience with it, but because I can see no evidence to show that is the case in the general public. Indeed on another thread today someone posted a Yougov poll showing 71% in favour of the 4-week delay. Bear in mind Yougov tends not to ask care home residents and the over 90s for their opinion, I suspect this figure under-represents the support. AND possibly even more so if you were to exclude those who may not or won't vote at a general election.So what happens when levels of dissatisfaction amongst those who do own the cars or the shops and work therein reaches a similar boiling point?
It increasingly looks like Boris and co are going to extend Covid restrictions beyond the 21st, and whether or not you personally believe that's a sensible, rational decision or utterly bonkers - and let's not discuss that on this thread, as there are plenty of others for that - I'm sure you wouldn't disagree that a significant and increasing proportion of the population are losing all patience with this, so how do they respond?
So the whole premise of your thread is undermined by making an assumption based on anecdotal evidence with no supporting collateral.
Having said that, I did check Yougoov's periodic survey on confidence in government handling of the pandemic before posting, which showed that said confidence in the UK had slipped from 62% at the start of May to 49% at the start of June. The mid-June figures should be published this week, so it will be interesting to see how the extension has changed that perspective.
Gecko1978 said:
A middle class rebellion would (to work) to work have to be along the line of market forces. So example, say we wanted motorway speed limit to be 85, if every person in the UK said untill you up the limit we will not buy say a ford, and everyone stuck to that so destroying fords business in the UK costing jobs that would get government attention. Say you wanted NHS funding to be increased but only at the expense of foreign aid. Get everyone to suddenly boycott Tesco or close all their accounts at Lloyds by end of the month. You damage the goverment by damaging the economy it needs to survive. Refuse on mass to use public transport all drive to work. How long coulf TFL last with zero customers (seems at least a year).
This is the only way middle classes can rebel with spending power. A consolidated punishment of a big firm would hurt the government but be perfectly legal I assume.
That's a very interesting point!This is the only way middle classes can rebel with spending power. A consolidated punishment of a big firm would hurt the government but be perfectly legal I assume.
The obvious extrapolation of this being that whilst people couldn't boycott all supermarkets indefinitely, most could certainly boycott one fairly indefinitely at minimal impact to themselves.
Please could we all agree that it won't be Waitrose?
Boringvolvodriver said:
jurbie said:
Rioting was dismissed as option early on in this thread but that's only because your average rioter doesn't have much of a stake in society so can generally be ignored. When people with mortgages and PCP car loans start lobbing bricks at the police then the Government has to take notice.
It doesn't happen very often, the poll tax riots were probably the last time but it worked and hastened the demise of the poll tax.
In the end, it wasn’t the riots per se that caused the demise of the poll tax, it was all the people refusing to pay it and ending up in court and then clogging up the courts that did it.It doesn't happen very often, the poll tax riots were probably the last time but it worked and hastened the demise of the poll tax.
In the current situation, I am not sure what can be done to bring real pressure on government.
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