UK budget hits the poorest hardest, says IFS

[sandinista]

[Warren Dew]

Same here, in the US, and many other places... I don't know whether that's token to the efficiency of the conservative brainwashing system, or simply of the great unwashed's inherent stupidity and lack of fitness to participate in the political process if they can't even act in their own best interest.

So the poor are either stupid enough to be brainwashed, or just generally stupid? I reject that idea.

Perhaps they merely value things other than government benefits. The conservative poor people I've known have generally been the type who don't like handouts, and prefer to earn what they get. They may have less money that way, but they feel they retain more dignity.

Assuming that they are voting foolishly seems needlessly patronizing to me.

[Svartalf]

Reject you can, but that's the only explanation I find likely for the economically disadvantaged classes voting for parties who'll shit on them and pander only to the wealthy, especially since there's nothing to hide that prospect.

I like values as much as the next guy, but conservative parties have more than amply shown that their values are important only when they are to the advantage of the already wealthy. If democracy were some kind of new fad, I'd get your point, but since it's still happening like 2 or 3 centuries after the poor got voting rights, my hypothesis still remains the only one that accounts for the facts.

[mistermack]

Reject you can, but that's the only explanation I find likely for the economically disadvantaged classes voting for parties who'll shit on them and pander only to the wealthy, especially since there's nothing to hide that prospect.

I like values as much as the next guy, but conservative parties have more than amply shown that their values are important only when they are to the advantage of the already wealthy. If democracy were some kind of new fad, I'd get your point, but since it's still happening like 2 or 3 centuries after the poor got voting rights, my hypothesis still remains the only one that accounts for the facts.

If voting was completely one-dimensional, like in your picture, I would have to agree. But there are hundreds of factors affecting how people vote. People tend to be tribal, and often vote the way of their parents. Or how their church leaders persuade them to.

Some people are just born naturally conservative. They will always sympathise with that point of view. But that isn't going to make them weathy, and it doesn't make them stupid.

And poor people often actually have a brain that can have an opinion on foreign affairs. Or nuclear weapons etc etc.
Some just don't like, or don't trust, the leader of the party thay you say they should be voting for.
That happened to me, when Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labout Party in Britain, against Margaret Thatcher.
You may be right as regards a trend, but not as a general rule.
.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I'm a poor person, but what this beautiful failure of an independent study fails to take into account is the various incentives and schemes to benefit the poor and return many back into work.

What work?

[Feck]

I'm a poor person, but what this beautiful failure of an independent study fails to take into account is the various incentives and schemes to benefit the poor and return many back into work.

What work?

What incentives? what schemes ?

[Svartalf]

Likely a scheme by which if you suck the dicks of wealthy men, they can declare it to the treasury and have your prestation deducted straight from their taxes, and they probably get a special philantropy bonus to their pocketbook if they actually get you to blow them off for free.