u/mth91

Those two are absolute twats and it's probably the right decision given the government would be accused of picking sides given they banned right wing speakers recently but at some point we surely need a moratorium on stopping controversial figures speaking here. It's always going to be the problem of restricting free speech, you'll always have someone offended who will argue "well you stopped so and so".

It's a very good point. You compare with say when Thatcher came in or the 2010 election where politicians did actually front up to the public and say this is going to be painful, compared with the now slightly laughable "it's okay, the adults are back in charge and it will all be good again" messaging from Labour in 2024. Organisations like the IFS were in disbelief during the campaign that no party was even trying to be honest about the state of public finances.

Sadly true. Most vox pops I see could be summed up as:

"Why doesn't the government do anything for this area?"

"Well we could build some houses and infrastructure?"

"Fuck off"

Yeah it’s really interesting, it does sometimes feel like geography can get a bit forgotten about in contemporary economic analysis with all the focus on government policy etc.  Think the closest I’ve seen is Prisoners of Geography but that’s a bit more international relations based. 

Your original comment said 2010 (can't imagine why), wages fell sharply from 2008 due to the crash and starting recovering again around 2014. You also managed to omit the main reason for the recovery from the 80s which was the Thatcher reforms. The rest is just a gish gallop and if Labour can get planning reform right then much of that will improve anyway.