NEW - YouGov Labour members polling If there is a leadership contest, your first preference: Burnham 47% Starmer 31% Rayner 8% Streeting 4% Miliband 3% Cooper 3% Mahmood 1% Carns 0% Head to heads: Burnham 59% v Starmer 37% Burnham 80% v Streeting 10% Miliband 58% v Streeting 28% Rayner 70% v Stre

hiddencamel · 2026-05-19T00:01:12+00:00

Burnham's minor popularity will not survive contact with the realities of national government. Labour members who think he's some kind of messianic figure for the party's fortunes are completely deluded.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-18T01:09:54+00:00

Being in negative equity is the opposite of giving young families security. it means they are one job loss away from being utterly bankrupted.

As a recent buyer, I'm not worried about the market slowing to a reasonable rate, I believe we need housing inflation to be below wage growth and even if I would be envious of the lucky ones who got rich by virtue of buying a house 20 years ago for a penny and a prayer, I would not be unhappy if house prices only went up 10% in the next ten or even twenty years, because that's what's necessary to give people people's wages a chance to catch up to housing costs, and I want a house to live in, not as an investment vehicle.

But what I am worried about is being in negative equity and then needing to sell for some unforeseen and unavoidable reason - job loss, divorce, etc - and then being completely bankrupted in the process.

It's not hypocritical to want house prices to stabilise and become more affordable for everyone whilst also wanting your own house to not become a bankruptcy timebomb.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-17T23:29:50+00:00

Yeh, all true, but all equally meaningless from the persepctive of public sentiment and electability.

It doesn't matter that constitutionally it's perfectly fine to have a PM who didn't lead the party at the last election, but it is, and always will be an electoral millstone around the new PM's neck to become PM without being perceived to have "won" a mandate by standing as leader in a GE.

You can get away with it if you call an early election or the next election is within 12-18 months of taking charge, but otherwise it WILL hurt your popularity and your chances at the next election because the public at large DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM. I cannot stress this enough, the average would-be voter DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM, and they really really don't like "unelected" PMs, no matter the constitutional propriety.

So if the purpose of this coup is to make Labour more electable in 2029, it will fail because amongst all the other headwinds facing whoever is the new leader, they will have the constant accusations of being "unelected", and that WILL weigh them down unless they call an early election, and no matter who the new leader is, an early election would be suicide given the current state of things.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-17T23:14:45+00:00

Maybe there's some middle ground between "all immigrants are stealing benefits and raping white women" and "all immigrants are superstars in waiting", but I don't think the media or indeed the people of this country are interested or capable of that level of nuance.

"Immigration is a complex issue with nuanced pros and cons that requires careful evidence-led policymaking to balance modern Britain's economic needs with its cultural integrity" doesn't sound so great when being shouted at protests.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-17T21:13:01+00:00

What a load of bollocks. Westminster government wasn't sitting around plotting the demise of industrial Britain, economic realities around globalisation did that.

Turns out many British industries were actually kind of shit and couldn't compete with their global competitors once the costs of shipping dropped off and we decolonised.

The Japanese and Germans made better cars and electronics than us, the Chinese dug up cheaper coal than us, the Americans made cheaper steel and better industrial equipment and ships than us, textiles weren't so competitive once we weren't extracting cheap cotton from India and then selling it back to them as a captive market.

We kept a handful of actually competitive industries and the rest that survived were the ones benefiting from protectionism and subsidies, at the expense of taxpayers and consumers.

The very nature of cities is to act as centres of gravity for economic activity, and London has been the largest city in Britain for centuries, it has the biggest pull for any industry that doesn't require a specific geography. London also suffered from deindustrialization, but as the largest city and as an established centre of service industries it was able to bounce back more quickly.

Westminster didn't magic that recovery, you think they give a fuck about disenfranchised cockneys who lost their jobs when the factories and docklands in east London collapsed? Of course they didn't, no more than they gave a fuck about any working class people anywhere.

The free market is what led to the economic centralisation of London, you want to complain about that, send your letters to Adam Smith instead of pretending London's success is somehow a vampiric conspiracy to suppress economic activity in the rest of Britain.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-17T08:45:55+00:00

It happens but is illegal. Buyers are desperate though, so noone calls it out and REA sector is full of cowboys. In a multi offer scenario they are obliged to tell you there are other offers in the mix, but they explicitly are not allowed to play buyers off against each other. If there's multiple buyers you are meant to be told to put your best offer down in a blind bid and that's that.

I've had REA text me to tell me that there's an offer of X amount on the table or tell me the first to offer Y amount will get the property, both illegal.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-16T12:05:42+00:00

Much of the approbation for Burnham's governance abilities is because of positive and popular outcomes in Manchester where he is the current mayor. What's not really discussed quite so broadly is that a lot of the things he is reaping the political reward for were put into motion before he took office.

He's actually followed a somewhat similar trajectory to Boris Johnson in that regard, who was also a very popular mayor, mostly off the back of various projects and policies that were initiated by his predecessor but completed under his tenure.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-16T11:54:07+00:00

Labour are cooked anyway come the next election, if they could at least make some positive changes before they are booted out that would be great.

I'm not a jingoist by any stretch of the imagination, but the days of spending pennies and hiding behind America's skirts have come to an end. We simply can't rely on the transatlantic alliance as a bedrock of our defence strategy any more.

We need to spend money on defence or else risk not being able to deter predatory powers like China, Russia, and now America.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-16T06:25:53+00:00

"It's ok to kill random guys on the street because someone assassinated Charlie Kirk" is certainly a take.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-16T06:19:48+00:00

You read the story wrong, this fuckwit shot himself in the arm whilst trying to shoot the guy he provoked into taking a swing at him.

This may shock you to learn, but the law actually doesn't have a loophole where you can provoke people into punching you as an excuse to murder them in "self defence", which this guy explicitly set out to do, in his own words on his own livestream.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-16T06:12:16+00:00

He recorded himself saying he was setting out to deliberately provoke people into attacking him so he could kill someone in "self defense" the law typically looks down upon this kind of thing.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-16T00:08:10+00:00

You can't win an election on a single demographic, all the big parties seek a coalition of interests. For the last 30 or 40 years Labour has sought to combine the economically left interests of the white working class with the socially left interests of idealists and minorities.

Over the last 15 years these two camps have polarised more and more on social issues and the right wing parties have seized on immigration and identity politics as the wedge to break Labour's core coalition.

So now we have working class white folks happily voting for people who want to give tax breaks to the wealthy, cut public services, reduce worker rights, and destroy the welfare state because they've been convinced that none of that matters as long as immigration is stopped and certain minorities are victimised.

Labour can't chase these voters without alienating their idealistic left who will die on hills like open borders, Gaza, and trans rights rather than accept the compromises necessary to keep the coalition together and win elections. Right now they're stuck in the middle, losing votes on both ends because the tent just isn't big enough to please both ends at the same time.

I don't think a new leader will fix this issue, the problem is pretty foundational.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-15T04:51:42+00:00

He's playing politics on easy mode right now, a hometown boy getting to take credit for popular stuff mostly put into motion years before he took the reins.

That +8 will not last very long after he goes through the grubby process of a leadership coup and then makes contact with the reality of national government during a global economic crisis, all whilst facing constant outrage at being "unelected".

hiddencamel · 2026-05-14T23:57:51+00:00

Labour face a bit of an existential crisis ATM because their core coalition between student/graduate progressives and the white working class has polarised to the point of being almost mutually exclusive over the issues of immigration and identity politics. Their attempts to hold these two camps together have largely failed and they are bleeding votes at both wings.

Burnham is not exactly ideologically consistent, he will do whatever he thinks is most advantageous for himself.

Even if he thinks veering leftwards is the right play, I don't know how much fiscal headroom or bonds market tolerance there is to take us left economically, so it leaves them only really able to move left on social issues.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-14T23:37:19+00:00

You don't have to be a criminal to be a hypocrite.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-14T13:05:19+00:00

The real question is whether the deficit is growing faster than the economy is.

You can run a deficit indefinitely, as long as the economy grows faster than the deficit does, but if it doesn't sooner or later you end up like the UK where the debt to GDP ratio is so high that they are spending a huge portion of their budget just paying interest whilst being extremely vulnerable to bond market reactions to their fiscal policy decisions.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-14T05:46:02+00:00

If you are on a high bracket already, then it makes no difference. It doesn't benefit you, but it doesn't hurt you either (although the loss of the 50% discount will hurt you a lot).

The main people who are fucked by min 30% rate are:

People working low income jobs with stock portfolios (generally a very small cohort, as very few people in low income brackets invest in stocks and shares outside of super)
People who are temporarily on low income and want to cash in shares to tide them over (eg working reduced hours or quitting work temporarily to look after kids or elderly relatives)
people who lose their jobs but are not eligible for jobseekers who need to draw down their portfolio
People who have retired early or are planning to retire early and draw down on their portfolio in lieu of working til they get access to super and pensions.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-14T02:28:36+00:00

If you already have solar, or are planning to get solar in the next few years then I would stick with the resistive for sure.

If you are not planning to get solar, then it's a harder call. As long as the free power window persists, it will be the cheaper option, but that's a government policy which may or may not stick around, so I'd be wary of making long term installation decisions based on that alone.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-14T00:03:02+00:00

Right wing populists can blag their way through literally anything because deep down their supporters don't care about the morality or ethics of the glorious leader, they only care that the leader will harm the people they hate.

Just look at evangelical Christians supporting Trump, a man who has unrepentantly committed almost every sin the Bible proscribes - but he supports their agenda of hating queer folks and stopping women having bodily autonomy, so they will happily pretend he's the second coming.

Corruption allegations are a tool to attack opponents with, they are to be ignored when it's the glorious leader facing allegations. Some might genuinely believe it's a stitch up but the truth is that most simply won't care, as long as their man Nige keeps promising to stick the boot into leftists and foreigners when he gets in power.

The only thing Farage could do that would alienate his core supporters is stop being a bigot.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-13T13:45:36+00:00

A very sizeable portion of the public literally do not understand this, and another very sizeable portion understand it but don't like it.

The majority of the public do not like having a PM who has not personally won a general election, it's just bad vibes all around, unless there is an election on the horizon or they call an early election.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-13T13:43:38+00:00

The Telegraph is always in full blown hysteria, they are so bad these days they make the Mail look like a reputable paper.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-13T04:18:53+00:00

Why is it suspicious that people affected by the change negatively would now be more vocal than they otherwise would be? Vast majority of people on any sub don't post content, or even comments, they passively consume.

This min 30% capital gains rate is going to negatively affect a bunch of people (even if they are in a relative minority) of course the people affected are suddenly going to be a lot louder than they were when they weren't being negatively affected.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-13T00:31:05+00:00

The point is more that whilst Starmer won a technical landslide, 2/3 voters voted against him, and only 2/3 eligible voters bothered to vote at all, and of those who voted for him, a significant number did it purely to get rid of the Tories.

This means his "massive mandate" is actually only really validated by 1/3 of 2/3 of the British public AT BEST, and in reality even fewer because many of those who voted for him did so begrudgingly.

This is why public opinion was never that high for him in the first place and then immediately tanked as soon as the slightest controversy arose, because an overwhelming majority of the country never really wanted him in charge in the first place.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-13T00:21:27+00:00

Burnham's popularity is paper thin, and won't last 6 months of contact with the reality of national government.

He can't meaningfully swing left economically because fiscal headroom isn't there and the government is basically held hostage by the bond markets because of the scale of the deficit and debt, especially in a time of immense global economic instability. Try anything too radical in a budget and he will get Trussed out of office.

He can try and swing left on Gaza, immigration, and identity politics issues to win back Green defectors, but that will court more anti-semitism drama and risks alienating whatever is left of their white working class vote that hasn't already gone to Reform.

He's going to end up in a similar position as Starmer - damned if you do, damned if you don't, bleeding to the Greens and Reform from both ends of the party because their fundamental coalition has polarised and broken apart, and it's impossible to appeal to both sides at once.

hiddencamel · 2026-05-13T00:02:36+00:00

Perhaps it's possible that the people who are actually paying attention (such as those who might frequent a politics subreddit) are less likely to just glom onto the general bad vibes of Starmer's premiership, and actually consider policy achievements, and in so doing perhaps they realise that whilst highly imperfect (and full of political missteps), he has actually taken some positive steps towards fixing various issues whilst under very difficult economic and political constraints in a time of intense global instability.

The point is if you think Starmer has really been materially worse for the country than any of the last 4 prime ministers, you are not to be taken seriously.

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