«And of course, what really matters is how much you actually have after tax»
That claim works only under the assumption that government spending is worth nothing to "you" so any tax paid is completely wasted. That is indeed somewhat right when "you" is a billionaire.
What really matters to most people is not their earnings before or after tax but the ratio between hours worked and their standard of living and the latter is made of both private and public services and goods
So for example property-owning "Middle England" voters are obsessed with their property gains because they require no hours of work from them (they are entirely redistributed from the work of someone else).
«“Average Weekly Earnings” [...] So, let’s look at some other measures of earnings that actually try to get at the experiences of normal people»
As "Neil Stanworth" commented all governments play silly games with statistics but there is a much bigger point to be made here:
* Wages and unemployment have ceased to matter much as to winning elections since Thatcher and Blair and even benefits and immigration are not that important for general elections.
* For the single largest voter block what matters is property prices and rents because they (used to) make roughly half of their net income and are entirely work-free (being redistributed from the lower classes) and tax-free (for owner-occupiers).
My model of UK electoral politics since Thatcher and Blair looks like this:
* Conservatives, Labour, LibDems have (or used to have) a hard-core that vote them regardless because they are felt to be generically on their side.
* There are large blocks of "transactional" voters that vote for the party that they perceive has the best policy for their "vote-moving issue".
* Once upon a time wages and unemployment were the "vote-moving" issue for the largest block of voters but since Thatcher and Blair it has been property prices and rents.
* Regardless all party leaderships (except Corbyn briefly and that did not work well) ignore voters whose "vote-moving issue" may be wages and unemployment and only target "Middle England" voters who are entirely obsessed with property prices and rents.
* "Middle England" voters have a simple voting logic: if property prices and rents have been booming they vote for whichever party is in government (or do not vote against it) because they do not want any risk of change.
* "Middle England" voters if property prices and rents are falling or flat will vote against any government party and for "protest" parties or abstain.
So UK general elections have been for decades property gains referendums.
The Conservatives were still winning by-elections in 2021 despite being in government because post-COVID-19 property prices and rents were surging and "Middle England" voters were celebrating.
Since 2022 average property prices have been flat in many areas of the UK and "Middle England" voters are outraged and resentful and first voted against Sunak's government for that and now are voting against Starmer's government for that.
Then main quality of Reform UK and Greens is that they have not caused a property prices crisis yet because they are untainted by a record of government.
This is interesting to those (like me) who are fascinated by the use and abuse of abstruse statistics but I doubt it will mean anything to the more than 95% of the population who neither know nor care what the statistics say - and as we know statistics have been manipulated since either Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli (or probably someone else) originated the concept of lies, damned lies and statistics.
What matters to the wo(man) on the Clapham omnibus is whether or not they feel better off - something this government (despite its obsession with "lived experience") just doesn't seem to get.
For those who are interested here's a quick guide to the three most common statistical abuses,, especially as regards public spending and economics:
- If a politician or civil servant compares one series of data with another (as in Neil's example here) check the respective start and end points for cherry picking;
- If they quote an absolute number (e.g. we are spending £Xbn on Y, or we are spending Z% of GDP on Y) check how that absolute spend compares to spend previously - it will almost certainly be lower, sometimes precipitously so (see for example current Defence spending);
- If they quote a percentage increase in spending (we have increased spend by X%), check the base number from which the percentage change is calculated - it is likely to be paltry.
But let's be encouraged that there appears to be at least one MP who has the competence to understand and analyse statistics in this way!
«And of course, what really matters is how much you actually have after tax»
That claim works only under the assumption that government spending is worth nothing to "you" so any tax paid is completely wasted. That is indeed somewhat right when "you" is a billionaire.
What really matters to most people is not their earnings before or after tax but the ratio between hours worked and their standard of living and the latter is made of both private and public services and goods
So for example property-owning "Middle England" voters are obsessed with their property gains because they require no hours of work from them (they are entirely redistributed from the work of someone else).
«“Average Weekly Earnings” [...] So, let’s look at some other measures of earnings that actually try to get at the experiences of normal people»
As "Neil Stanworth" commented all governments play silly games with statistics but there is a much bigger point to be made here:
* Wages and unemployment have ceased to matter much as to winning elections since Thatcher and Blair and even benefits and immigration are not that important for general elections.
* For the single largest voter block what matters is property prices and rents because they (used to) make roughly half of their net income and are entirely work-free (being redistributed from the lower classes) and tax-free (for owner-occupiers).
My model of UK electoral politics since Thatcher and Blair looks like this:
* Conservatives, Labour, LibDems have (or used to have) a hard-core that vote them regardless because they are felt to be generically on their side.
* There are large blocks of "transactional" voters that vote for the party that they perceive has the best policy for their "vote-moving issue".
* Once upon a time wages and unemployment were the "vote-moving" issue for the largest block of voters but since Thatcher and Blair it has been property prices and rents.
* Regardless all party leaderships (except Corbyn briefly and that did not work well) ignore voters whose "vote-moving issue" may be wages and unemployment and only target "Middle England" voters who are entirely obsessed with property prices and rents.
* "Middle England" voters have a simple voting logic: if property prices and rents have been booming they vote for whichever party is in government (or do not vote against it) because they do not want any risk of change.
* "Middle England" voters if property prices and rents are falling or flat will vote against any government party and for "protest" parties or abstain.
So UK general elections have been for decades property gains referendums.
The Conservatives were still winning by-elections in 2021 despite being in government because post-COVID-19 property prices and rents were surging and "Middle England" voters were celebrating.
Since 2022 average property prices have been flat in many areas of the UK and "Middle England" voters are outraged and resentful and first voted against Sunak's government for that and now are voting against Starmer's government for that.
Then main quality of Reform UK and Greens is that they have not caused a property prices crisis yet because they are untainted by a record of government.
This is interesting to those (like me) who are fascinated by the use and abuse of abstruse statistics but I doubt it will mean anything to the more than 95% of the population who neither know nor care what the statistics say - and as we know statistics have been manipulated since either Mark Twain or Benjamin Disraeli (or probably someone else) originated the concept of lies, damned lies and statistics.
What matters to the wo(man) on the Clapham omnibus is whether or not they feel better off - something this government (despite its obsession with "lived experience") just doesn't seem to get.
For those who are interested here's a quick guide to the three most common statistical abuses,, especially as regards public spending and economics:
- If a politician or civil servant compares one series of data with another (as in Neil's example here) check the respective start and end points for cherry picking;
- If they quote an absolute number (e.g. we are spending £Xbn on Y, or we are spending Z% of GDP on Y) check how that absolute spend compares to spend previously - it will almost certainly be lower, sometimes precipitously so (see for example current Defence spending);
- If they quote a percentage increase in spending (we have increased spend by X%), check the base number from which the percentage change is calculated - it is likely to be paltry.
But let's be encouraged that there appears to be at least one MP who has the competence to understand and analyse statistics in this way!