Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[HVC]

My little district is ranked 8,806 but there have been improvements in all the categories since 2019.

I didn't know Tamas was so posh until now 

I didn't, either. 

You're not, I'm the posh one here, apparently. According to the deprivation map, I'm in the top 1% of the least deprived areas in the country, which shocked me. Sure it's not bad here, but upper middle was what I expected.

Now I am envious 

That's how they get ya!

[Sheilbh]

Omg is Sheilbh: part of gentrification?

 

I am...a gentrifier!

This should surprise no-one of course


"Urban homosexual with an artsy side-hustle Sheilbh?"

[mongers]

My little district is ranked 8,806 but there have been improvements in all the categories since 2019.

I didn't know Tamas was so posh until now 

I didn't, either. 

You're not, I'm the posh one here, apparently. According to the deprivation map, I'm in the top 1% of the least deprived areas in the country, which shocked me. Sure it's not bad here, but upper middle was what I expected.

Now I am envious 

Why?

The streets would be just filled with even more oversized luxury SUVs, which when not bringing gridlock, would be taking up all of the available parking you so wish for.   

[mongers]

Interesting opposite for me. I'm in the bottom third (about 9,000). But income, employment and health have all improved while education's got significantly worse. But generally less deprived than in 2019 by a little bit.

Crime is more or less the same and in the 10% most deprived there

Although in nicest possible way, not sure why the Guardian made this as I think the government version is better and maybe a bit more interesting
https://deprivation.communities.gov.uk/

Edit: Most deprived in relation to crime: "Only 9% of neighbourhoods in Lewisham are more deprived in relation to crime than the neighbourhood you selected"...good to know

Yes, the gov. one is far more usable, thanks Shelf.

Looking my area were nothing special, mainly rural with a small slice of the market town and a lot of the rural areas around here seem to be in the 50-65% region, it only goes up when you get to an area on the edge of town that's largely in the New Forest  does one find real affluence and even then it's only at 89%, despite having numerous multi-million pound houses, that were somehow magically allowed to be built in a national park.

Underlying the rural vs sub-urban divide are two areas just over the border in Dorset, that I'd markdown as retirement housing, often quite modest; and yet those are ranked at 81% and 91%.

As an aside I'd agree with Josq, some of the areas seem very gerrymandered and for no obvious reason.

[Sheilbh]

Gerrymandered to what end though?

These are LSOAs - they're purely statistical divisions for census purposes. They were first created with the 2001 census. They're made up of "Output Areas" which have a household count of 40-250 and population of 100-625. Those are then bundled up to form LSOAs (Lower layer Super Output Areas) which are made of between 400-1,200 households or 1-3,000 people. Both get updated every census by the Office of National Statistics to reflect population changes (largely by merging or splitting them) to meet population and household thresholds - but also to try and ensure that you have consistently sized (by population) areas to compare change over time.

I think they have to adhere to local authority borders but aside from that it's just groups of 4-5 OAs so they're within the thresholds. But they don't map onto wards or parishes (and the ONS notes that in rural areas parishes are more likely to be useful for measuring deprivation than LSOAs). So it'd be an incredibly weird thing for someone to be gerrymandering

Edit: Although I do love the idea of Machiavel of Newport in the ONS bamboozling their colleagues to fix statistical boundaries.

[Josquius]

I just mean they look like textbook US electoral maps with wacky shapes galore.
I don't think theres some shadowy statistician who wants to depress my property value by any means.

From my research the mad shapes come from trying to keep every area  equal in population and prioritising this over actual neighbourhoods or physical features on the ground.
I'm not sure of the wisdom of this approach

[Valmy]

To all who celebrate:

[Sheilbh]

On Tamas' question about how Kebatu got realised by accident and if this happens all the time. A couple of other prisoners have since been released by mistake or escaped in the last week.

One, a convicted fraudster (45 counts), has just handed himself back in after three days of accidentally being freed.

The other, a sex offender is still at large. Ironically on the day he was released by mistake, the prison governor was not there because he was investigating Kebatu's accidental release

So still very much in the "I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards" era of news.

Edit: The guy handing himself in - looks like he was told he could have a quick fag first and then come back. On the one hand this is quite funny, on the other I think this is really humiliating for the state and the government:

[Sheilbh]

So the Triple Lock, that Savior Farage is going to kick out together with all them brown people: I get it that it is expensive, but what exactly is being offered here? That state pension (for foreigners: it's an absolute pittance, if you don't have a sizeable private pension to supplement it, I fail to see what it is enough for apart from dreadful subsistence living standards) should be eroded away by inflation? Like, what the hell?

I think this is wrong

When you look at pensions often people compare the UK with countries like France or Germany which is really wrong because these are philosophically entirely different welfare systems. People who study welfare they often divide systems into ones that are more Beveridgean (which is what the UK has in some respects) v Bismarckian. The UK state pension is low compared to Germany or France because it's not trying to do the same thing and is funded differently (which is why occupational pensions are legally mandatory and we have pension assets that are almost 2x GDP while in Germany, for example, pension assets are about 25%).

In Europe the most similar pension systems to the UK (universal, flat rate, unrelated to income with other benefits for the poor) are Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands. The UK state pension is average. It's a little higher than Denmark and a little lower than Ireland. It's a little lower than the Dutch pension for a single pensioner but a little higher for a married couple (because most of the time British welfare and tax systems basically don't really care if you get married, while Europe tends to be more family-focused).

The triple lock is a very expensive policy. Pensions rise every year by the greater of: wage growth, inflation or 2.5&. So this year they increased by over 4% (wage growth). The economy grew by somewhere between 1-1.5%. It basically works provided that inflation is over 2.5% and that earnings outpace inflation and that economic growth outpace earnings. Otherwise the share of national inome going on pensions will just keep increasing.

To put real numbers on it, the increase this year is about £8 billion. That is more than Reeves' proposed cuts to disability benefit and winter fuel allowance combined (and I think their costs were over a multi-year period, so I think significantly higher). With the current briefing suggesting a 2p rise in income tax, that is necessary because basically a 1p increase in inncome tax would only cover the rise in pensions.

There is a really positive and important side to this which is that when I was growing up pensioner poverty was a huge issue and it's been cut in half (child poverty remains at basically the same level). The spending on benefits for children and working age people unrelated to housing or health have declined from 3% of GDP to 2% of GDP in the las 20 years, while spending on pensions has increased from 3.5% to 5% of GDP. I'd add to that that something like 80% of Reeves' increase in discretionary spending went on the NHS (a lot of it on pay settlements) which is, again, particularly important for older voters. Like France, Britain has seen the real incomes of pensioners de-couple from workers:


And one of my concerns with an ageing population is exactly that we end up with a lot of voters, who turn out and will decide policy who are fundamentally post-economic. They don't worry about house prices because they're the group most likely to be owner-occupiers. They don't worry about growth because they don't work any more. They're largely insulated from the economic cycle by guaranteed pensions and asset ownership.

They are likely to punish governments that do things that might be pro-growth (for example alowing building) in ways that could diminish the value of their assets and from which they'd benefit. There's been studies that show that older voters prioritise short-term consumption (pensions and healthcare) over long-term social investment (childcare and education). Also there's evidence they reward and punish different economic outcomes. Older voters basically do not care about growth or employment rates (they don't punish or reward parties on those issues), but they are highly, highly sensitive to inflation and severely punish any party presiding over inflation.

I am increasingly of the view that Reeves is possibly the worst Chancellor I've ever seen - but that's the context why I find her latest idea being kite-flown by the Treasury of cutting the tax deductible allowance for contributions to pensions particularly mad because it's basically sacrificing a system that is relatively sustainable and well-funded in the long-run to help pay for incurring immediate short-term costs now

[Tamas]

The "it's average pension in Europe" statistic, is that relative to cost of living in the country? Because in most countries I think people except to live on state pension alone, which seems basically impossible in the UK.

[Sheilbh]

The "it's average pension in Europe" statistic, is that relative to cost of living in the country? Because in most countries I think people except to live on state pension alone, which seems basically impossible in the UK.

It's not average in Europe - it's average for comparable systems (and societies).

So the state pension is similar to the Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands because we have a similarly structure pension system. All of those countries also have huge private pension assets - either through occupational pensions, private pensions, or (in Denmark) some form of private pension insurance system. So Denmark and the Netherlands have the highest pension asset to GDP ratio in Europe and the UK isn't far behind, Ireland is lagging. By comparison CEE states, Germany and France have some of the lowest.

That's precisely because these are different models - apples and oranges. This is also reflected in the income source for older people. So in the UK about 50% of pensioner income is the state pension, with 40% coming from occupational pensions and 10% from private pensions. That's basically the same as the Netherlands. In Denmark it's a little different with around 55% from state pension, 10% from occupational pensions and 35% from private pensions (those pension insurance schemes).

By contrast in Germany over 80% of pensioner income is the state pension - and that's the norm in countries with Bismarckian, social insurance systems - so I think it's 90% across most of CEE. Over 80% in Belgium and Austria. As I say this runs all the way through welfare comparisons between the UK and especially countries with Bismarckian systems - is they're doing different things.

The state pension is enough to live on, I have elderly relatives who do. But it is a fairly constrained lifestyle. That's because there is an assumption that you'll have occupational pensions to (which is why they're mandatory for employers - including in relation to agency workers). It is similar in those other countries I compared the UK to and was wider social impacts - all of them also (like the UK) have very high home ownership ratios especially among older people. Old people who don't own their own home are likely to be able to get housing benefit which would cover a private rent or be right at the top of the list for council housing.

It's also why a tax change that would discourage people saving into their pensions in order to help pay for the cost of current pensions is a really, really bad idea.

[Tamas]

Fine, but my problem is when we say "oh no the triple lock ended up raising the state pension by 4%" is that what's the alternative? that does who struggle (relying on state pension) have 4% less real income to buy absolute necessities?

I appreciate the budgetary problems but I can't see how not following inflation is a workable societal solution when otherwise the whole economic system works on inflating away debt.

[Sheilbh]

We've just had a decade of incredibly low inflation - and low wage growth - when pensioners were getting a 2.5% increase every year.

But that hasn't always been the case and I think it was a mistake to break the wages link way back when and we should keep that. I could see the argument for a double lock of inflation or wage growth - but maybe just linking it to wages could build some pensioner-working age population solidarity.

It's also maybe worth remembering that as in those other countries there are other benefits available. Again I think this tends to be a big difference with the Bismarckian social insurance/income replacement model. So for example if you are a pensioner at state pension age and you don't own your own home, you'll be eligible for housing benefit which will cover a lot if not all of your rent. The benefit cap does not apply to pensioners so all the different non-work related benefits can come into play.

Although I don't think our entire system works on inflating away debt - though it might have helped individuals in the last few years. But I think that is actually an important part of the story and I think an underappreciated one in relation to New Labour and the nostalgia for that era. We had solidly growing productivity etc until about 2002 at that point productivity growth starts to slow down and what takes its place is an explosion of household debt - and households have been reducing their debt since the crash. It goes from about 100% of GDP in 2000 to above 150% in 2008 - and we're now back down to about 120%.

I think that is part of our problem economically that we don't manufacture or export goods, households are still reducing their debt which means consumption is still lower than it was in the 2000s. Add into that that we didn't really take advantage of the very low rates on government debt in the 2010s to invest in infrastructure or other investments that could help long-term growth and we're faced with borrowing costs back at pre-crash norms and needing to borrow just to pay for normal current spending. It's not great

[Josquius]

I don't subscribe so haven't read the whole article but on the prisoners being released thing....

https://www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-great-noticing-era

The 'Great Noticing' Era
Ever since Labour came to power, the British media has started to notice a whole series of problems they spent the previous 14 years completely ignoring

Over the past year British media organisations have started noticing things that they spent 14 years ignoring, and ignoring things that they spent 14 years noticing.

Never has this been clearer than over the past week, which has been dominated by a series of stories about prisoners being mistakenly released from British prisons.

In reality, these releases are nothing new. In the last year of the Conservative Government alone, 115 prisoners were released in error, including a series of serious offenders.

At no point did this fact ever make the front pages of British newspapers, or lead news bulletins on the BBC.

Yet the second the problem can be blamed on a Labour, rather than a Conservative Government, the combined ranks of the British media suddenly starts to notice it.

This isn't the only example of the 'great noticing' currently taking place in British politics.

This is a journalist who has otherwise been only too keen to kick starmer incidentally.

And it's a fair point. The way things are being reported, the vibes going about, you'd think prisoners being released and asylum hotels are some new labour problem, not something they're actively fixing.

[Razgovory]

Doing a search on The 'Great Noticing' Era provides some odd results.