[HN Gopher] The strange case of Britain's demise
___________________________________________________________________
The strange case of Britain's demise
Author : sph
Score : 107 points
Date : 2022-12-17 14:17 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| revertmean wrote:
| There was a previous comment about the "native population" that
| is now marked dead that I wanted to respond to. The commentator
| really needs to read Defoe's "True Born Englishman". I offer a
| quote that is a little longer than the usual given:
|
| The silent nations undistinguished fall,
|
| And Englishman's the common name for all.
|
| Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;
|
| Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now.
|
| The wonder which remains is at our pride,
|
| To value that which all wise men deride.
|
| For Englishmen to boast of generation,
|
| Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation.
|
| A true-born Englishman's a contradiction,
|
| In speech an irony, in fact a fiction.
| rthalr wrote:
| This poem from 1701 defends a foreign born king:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True-Born_Englishman
|
| It has nothing to do with multiple large ethnic groups that
| tend to cause tension in the long run, see Israel and Donbas
| for example.
| DiscoDays wrote:
| > It has nothing to do with multiple large ethnic groups that
| tend to cause tension in the long run, see Israel and Donbas
| for example.
|
| Please elaborate. As somebody from the East of Ukraine (and,
| incidentally, as someone who lived in Israel for some years
| too), I am curious what I am supposed to learn about ethnic
| tensions from these two examples.
| revertmean wrote:
| The entirety of the poem is literally _about_ the influx of
| multiple large ethnic groups into England! Read it!
| https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/true-born-englishman
|
| Another quote:
|
| Your Roman-Saxon-Danish-Norman English.
|
| The great invading Norman let us know
|
| What conquerors in after-times might do.
|
| To ev'ry musketeer he brought to town,
|
| He gave the lands which never were his own.
|
| When first the English crown he did obtain,
|
| He did not send his Dutchmen home again.
| eduction wrote:
| There is a really interesting and seemingly important
| conversation going on about how globalization will evolve. This
| touches everything from trade agreements and financial unions
| like the one Britain exited to restrictions on technology export
| (e.g. to China) and data harvesting (e.g. EU server requirements)
| to new thinking about immigration (usually restricted) and labor
| (expanding benefits and improving wages, more often promised than
| delivered).
|
| There are credible arguments for clear answers on aspects of this
| debate, for example that fear of immigrants is almost all
| xenophobia, as opposed to genuine protection for labor and the
| poor. (I'm not saying this, but in corners of the broader
| conversation, you can credibly make these sort of arguments.)
|
| But I don't think there's a credible argument that this whole
| global conversation has some pat clear answer and this article
| seems to just be simplistically saying we need to go back to a
| wholesale embrace of globalization. It's pretty polarizing, for
| example calling Jeremy Corbyn (a heroic figure to some in the
| left) an example of Labour losing its mind. It treats Brexit as
| unalloyed bad. No acknowledgement I can see of why so many people
| felt compelled to support it.
|
| It feels to me a hard conservative opinion presented as The
| Truth. Compelling I guess if you agree but given how under siege
| globalization is right now feels odd to read something so
| unabashedly one sided. Even in The Economist.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Britain's been decaying since at least 1940. Basically everyone
| left alive here knows only failure. The idea of any success is as
| alien and revolutionary as suggesting we all convert to a new
| religion or give up private property. So any time things look
| like they might be succeeding, people, from voters to PMs self
| sabotage.
|
| The press helps by giving people plausible deniability. Letting
| them pretend they didn't know. Politicians help by enacting
| terrible policies they know will fail just to stay in power for 6
| more months. And other groups help by blaming each other (the
| hard left blames the centre left, right wing nationalists blame
| right wing free traders).
|
| That's why people looked at the expert advice (that we would be
| prosperous and successful and might end up part of a world super
| power of we kept this EU business up) and immediately quit.
| That's why people were so willing to accept the bullshit and
| pretend it was real (like that we could leave the EU and stay in
| the EU).
|
| Brexit is but a symptom of this, a big one but just one. It
| infects every aspect of our national identity. From the housing
| market to jobs to education.
|
| Until things get a lot worse people won't be ready to try
| succeeding. So here we are, 5 years into a(nother) lost
| generation.
| recuter wrote:
| Ben Page, the boss of Ipsos, a global research firm, points to
| what he terms the "loss of the future", common across the West
| but acute in Britain. In 2008, as the financial crisis struck,
| only 12% of Britons thought youngsters would have a worse quality
| of life than their parents, Mr Page notes. Now that figure is
| 41%. As elsewhere, people worry about immigration and feel
| threatened by globalisation. All this makes Britain's predicament
| seem less an inside job than part of a wider takedown of
| democracy.
|
| It is remarkable, such a wordy article, could really begin and
| end with the above paragraph. We are in uncharted territory, new
| problems require new ideas but even now _public discourse is
| entirely retrograde_ and focused on squabbling between two
| incompetent parties, personalities, scandals and self
| flagellation.
|
| Like lemmings off a cliff.
|
| I think I've never heard anybody in recent years even attempt to
| discuss the future of UK without simply falling back on whinging
| about Thatcher or Corbin or the sins of empire or god knows what.
| None of it relevant.
|
| Imagine instead you are playing Civilization or Factorio, and
| this is day 0. Only looking forwards, how do you thrive
| economically in the 21st century under these current conditions
| with the cards you have to play?
| xhevahir wrote:
| This isn't a new phenomenon, and, as the author mentions, is
| not peculiar to the UK. When I was a 13-year-old in 1992 an
| eccentric science teacher would remind my class nearly every
| week that ours was the first American generation that was
| expected to enjoy a worse standard of living than our parents
| had. (Going back even farther you could point to popular
| expressions like the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen;" people
| have been talking like this for a _long_ time.)
|
| I remember reading for the first time about the loss of the
| future as a frame of reference in this article, which I thought
| was very interesting but it now unfortunately seems to be only
| available behind a paywall:
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/110330889900700102 .
|
| Anyway, I think this sort of thing happens independently of the
| specific vagaries of politics and economics in any country:
| change is taking place quickly, on a grand scale, in societies
| where ordinary people are enjoined to think about the course of
| events over which they, individually, have little control.
| [deleted]
| BMc2020 wrote:
| Thank you for reading that meandering near stream-of-
| consciousness bit of fluff so the rest of us don't have to.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| I got dumber after reading the article.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The end of the fossil fuel era is going to hit everybody.
| Making sure you are ready for that seems like a good start.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| It will only hit those nations in the West that succumb to
| it.
|
| Eurasia is doing fine with stable and reliable power,
| continuing to both increase fossil fuel usage and build out
| nuclear power at the same time. Africa is ramping up. Latin
| America is the wild card. Most of the world is going to keep
| on using fossil fuels, looking at what happened to Europe as
| an object lesson of becoming so rich that you forget what is
| foundational, indulge in religious fantasies -- and commit
| economic suicide.
|
| In this sense the energy sanctions, while destroying the
| British and German economies, are a blessing to the rest of
| the world, because it provides a very clear picture of what
| happens when you go down this road. This is why China, India,
| and Japan are rushing to secure long term oil and gas
| contracts, and many nations in Africa and Asia are joining
| them in prioritizing secure fossil fuel providers _even as_
| they seek to build out more nuclear in order to reduce
| dependence on foreign inputs. See
| https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/ for detailed projections
| out to 2050 of different regions.
|
| Britain and Germany are the main object lessons in this
| regard, but it's certainly not "the world".
| namdnay wrote:
| I don't see what religion has got to do with it? Europe is
| hardly the most religious part of the world
|
| Maybe Europe is just rich enough to be willing to sacrifice
| some of that to help others by reducing their emissions (or
| at least not harm them as much). Maybe Europe feels a
| certain responsibility, having started emitting carbon in
| the first place
| grog454 wrote:
| > this is day 0. Only looking forwards, how do you thrive
| economically in the 21st century under these current conditions
| with the cards you have to play
|
| Counterpoint: how do you avoid repeating the mistakes of the
| past and learning from them by pretending they never happened?
| mistermann wrote:
| Not pretending/perceiving that the
| memetic/reductive/imprecise/misinformative/ _incorrect_ way
| we describe them is accurate would be a good start.
|
| Human communication in 2022 is a train wreck, and there are
| plentiful artifacts of that in this very thread, _in this
| much more intelligent than average community_.
| xwdv wrote:
| It seems to me that Human communication declines the more
| it becomes divorced from the threat of physical violence.
|
| The peak decline will be when the possibility of
| consequences (social, physical, legal, financial...) for
| communicating anything reaches absolute zero.
|
| Human communication is a great tool but must be kept in
| check, the goal of communication is to produce useful
| outcomes, not merely deliver messages and opinions.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > Like lemmings off a cliff.
|
| I just want to mention that actual lemmings are not doing this.
| This was faked by Disney employees throwing lemmings out off a
| cliff.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemming#Misconceptions
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Wilderness_(film)#Contro...
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| For both to do so at once--as happened when, amid recent Tory
| convulsions, Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn, a hard-left
| throwback--is a calamity.
|
| haha yes somehow the problem is (the unelected!) Jeremy Corbyn.
| Good grief.
|
| No Corbyn was in fact the light out of the tunnel, and it's in
| particular because he was backstabbed and dragged down by his
| supposed allies that the country continued to double down on the
| Conservatives' bad policies that things have continued to slide
| into worse and worse places.
| jmyeet wrote:
| The neoliberal publication fails to mention "neoliberalism" as a
| cause. Shocking. Probably the worst thing it says is this:
|
| > For both to do so at once--as happened when, amid recent Tory
| convulsions, Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn, a hard-left
| throwback--is a calamity.
|
| Corbyn was only "hard-left" in the sense that he wasn't anti-
| labor. Lots of people like give lots of different reasons why
| Labor was eviscerated in the last election. The truth is, it was
| Brexit. Specifically, Corbyn refused to take any position on
| Brexit nor back a second referendum or otherwise espouse any kind
| of Remain position or policy.
|
| So the 48% of voters who voted to Remain really had no one to
| vote for in that election and the Conservatives won in a
| landslide. What followed was a revolving door of PMs because the
| Tory vision was based on lies and unworkable. Northern Ireland
| seems like it will inevitably reunify with the Republic of
| Ireland (which I personally support in any case).
|
| I've been skeptical that Scottish people would want a hard border
| with England if they vote for independence and to rejoin the EU
| but now I'm not so sure, particularly with a worsening economy
| and rising inflation. If in the next election the gap narrows and
| whichever party forming government needs the SNP to form a
| majority, a second referendum seems inevitable. Currently the
| Tories have a huge majority but that seems unlikely to survive.
|
| London's position as the financial capital of Europe now seems
| under threat given Brexit. Lies about "saving the NHS" and
| protest votes about Polish immigration may well have killed the
| golden goose. Finance really was and is the beating heart of the
| UK economy.
|
| The financialization of housing is a particularly big problem in
| the UK too.
| sealeck wrote:
| Well Corbyn is also a completely hopeless politician. They
| really should have kept him safely tucked away in Islington
| north. It's not his political ideology which was the problem,
| it's that he (not to put too fine a point on it) lacked any
| modicum of political ability).
|
| One of the problems is that the UK democracy is not very
| strictly encoded (which Tory politicians will happily tell you
| is one of the wonders of the British consitution and then a
| whole bunch of drivel about freedom vs tyranny) - whereas e.g.
| Germany and France have things encoded that politicians
| shouldn't be allowed to do (bribery, corruption, etc.) the UK
| has this very weird theory that politicians should be allowed
| to self-police and have this ludicrous "no rules were broken"
| based on investigations carried out by civil servants (e.g. Sue
| Gray report) which in reality should be carried out by the
| courts (although I guess Dominic Raab has managed to blow such
| a big hole in the justice system that we should just be
| thankful that we at least still nominally posess one).
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| > So the 48% of voters who voted to Remain really had no one to
| vote for in that election and the Conservatives won in a
| landslide.
|
| The Liberal Democrats were unabashedly pro-remain. They did
| terribly.
|
| If the reason why so many remain folks didn't vote lib-dem was
| out of a fear of splitting the vote or that they were deemed
| "unelectable" due to historic reasons, well then the problem
| here is clearly FPTP, which induces all sorts of nonsense
| "strategic" voting and yields inflated false majorities.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| For Boris Johnson truth was there when convenient, otherwise just
| lie. He lied to the british people. That's not the problem. The
| problem was too many people wanted to hear nice things so
| swallowed what he told them uncritically.
|
| Liz Truss... say no more. But she was chosen (by a small subset
| of the population I agree) but she was chosen. Some people still
| think her damn-the-torpedoes policies were a good idea, even
| _after_ the (rapid!) economic effect was evident.
|
| Problem is the electorate, too many of whom who duck their
| responsibility of thinking for themselves.
|
| Just my take anyway.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| To the downvoters: please complement your downvotes by
| explaining where I'm wrong in my analysis. In a democracy
| people get the leaders they deserve
| (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_de_Maistre slightly
| misquoted but still valid). If true, how can I not take aim at
| the electorate for their failure?
| dazc wrote:
| Didn't down vote but, on the point of the electorate being
| responsible, you are correct.
|
| What many observers fail to realise however is that, in our
| two-party system, we are usually voting for the least worst
| candidate rather than the ideal.
|
| Next time around we have a rather unique situation where the
| 'least worst' is going to be hard to pick and many voters
| will, instead, simply abstain.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Thanks. I'd rebut by saying the two party condition
| actually isn't - there are several inc. middle-ground lib-
| dems for example. That they are a small party is - I think
| - because of the tribalism of the electorate who self-
| polarise. So that's still a problem with the electorate I'd
| say.
|
| About 'ideal' there's no such thing for everyone. To some
| Truss was ideal, to others, Corbyn. They're not my ideal.
|
| BTW I'd say Truss was clearly going to blow things badly
| cos she was plain stupid, but she got picked anyway. There
| were less-worse candidates available.
| dazc wrote:
| Yes, there are other parties, but, aside from tactical
| voting, most people accept you're going to get a labour
| or conservative government no matter what.
|
| A recent exception may have have been the Con/Lib
| coalition but it was a union of unequal partners at the
| best of times.
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| Where you see some inevitability "...you're going to get
| a labour or conservative government no matter what", I
| see choices not taken. It's if you're implying political
| free will doesn't exist. It's very hard for me to
| understand where you're coming from (no offence!).
| rr808 wrote:
| I think its just a return to normal service after a spectacular
| period in the 90s and early 2000s. Back then everything was close
| to perfect, economy, music, politics UK became the best at
| everything. Now its kinda back to how it was in post war era
| which is fine but not great.
| JJMcJ wrote:
| North Sea oil money didn't hurt.
| bsnnkv wrote:
| I recently posted some of my feelings related to watching the UK
| post-2019 from the US as a Brit that left as part of the ongoing
| brain drain.[1]
|
| I received my Green Card since that post and I've booked my
| flights for a visit to the UK for early next year.
|
| Mostly I just want to share how sad reading this article made me
| feel this morning.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682030
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Post 2016 the messaging from most commonwealth countries (UK,
| Canada, Australia) seemed to be that they were going to be the
| ones bennefiting from a brain drain of americans leaving the
| country. Canada was supposed to become an "AI Superpower" and
| Universities in the UK were supposed to be where innovation was
| going to happen next due to the perceived hostility of the
| United States to foreing talent. I recall someone pitching the
| "Silicon Roundabout" and that Cambridge and Oxford were going
| to be the new Stanford and MIT.
|
| It's interesting, in retrospective, to see how wrong these
| predictions were. Here in the Valley, I actually noticed an
| increase in number of international hires coming from
| commonwealth countries in the last few years.
| RachelF wrote:
| Yes, the UK has supplied competent people to the world via
| emmigration for a long time.
|
| One wonders if the average intelligence of the place is going
| down?
| [deleted]
| calewis wrote:
| It's also the heavy manipulation of the free and social press by
| Murdoch, Paul Darce and state actors.
| brangex wrote:
| Do you mean Brexit? Otherwise I don't recall the last time that
| the Murdoch press has had any influence on any policy in either
| the EU or the United States.
|
| The Murdoch press was for Sweden-style COVID-19 policies and
| deescalation in Ukraine. If it had been listened to, we'd have
| low gas prices and economic prosperity now.
|
| Instead, Biden pumped up the stock market with COVID-19 relief
| funds handed out to his interest groups and sent Kamala Harris
| (who did not know what Ukraine was) to the Munich "peace"
| conference, where liberals Stoltenberg et. al. escalated
| further.
|
| So, apart from Brexit, which Murdoch opinion has been
| implemented in the past decade?
| hermitcrab wrote:
| > Otherwise I don't recall the last time that the Murdoch
| press has had any influence on any policy in either the EU or
| the United States.
|
| Apart from choosing pretty much every British PM in my
| lifetime?
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > I don't recall the last time that the Murdoch press has had
| any influence on any policy in either the EU or the United
| States.
|
| Are you discounting Fox News as being part of the Murdoch
| Press? Because they definitely have an outsized influence on
| US policy, at least on the GOP side.
| Scarblac wrote:
| Deescalation in Ukraine? How did it propose to achieve that,
| just yield to an invading country?
| justin66 wrote:
| You created an account to post _this_ comment?
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Yes, Murdoch is probably the single person with the greatest
| responsibility for the current mess. The sooner he shuffles off
| his mortal coil, the better.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| That'll be Lord Dacre; he was in bojos honours list...
| ugpolt wrote:
| The economist engages in the usual Brexit bashing, drowns the
| reader in irrelevant historical references and artfully omits
| multiple elephants in the room.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| What are the elephants in the room?
| shaftoe444 wrote:
| Housing. Immigration.
| mynameishere wrote:
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Remarkable article.
|
| 2000-odd words, goes into great detail talking about politics,
| psycho-analyzing the Tories...it is all because they went to
| Eton...of course...the Brexit, the bankers...it is all so simple.
|
| A brief sentence is expended on planning, no mention about
| supply-side problems, the productivity crisis in govt (which is
| now 50% of the economy)...nothing.
|
| I will say this another way, you can measure the intelligence by
| looking at the gap between how often they talk about Brexit and
| how often they talk about economic reform. People who talk
| endlessly about Brexit have nothing to say about any economic
| reform...beyond reversing Brexit (and then say, without self-
| awareness, something sniping about the "religion" of Brexit).
| There is no content.
|
| The UK has many problems but the worst is an elite that is almost
| totally preoccupied with arguing and rutting with other members
| of that same elite. Recursive, insular, almost no connection with
| reality.
|
| That was the problem from the 20s until Thatcher (with
| exceptions, there were a few good men on both sides...Labour just
| totally imploded first). That crept back into the Tories in the
| early 90s, and crept back into Labour with Brown (I will ask you
| this: Brown oversaw one of the most catastrophic bailout programs
| that actually brought down healthy institutions...he is still
| advising Labour, how...he devised not one but two constitutional
| programs that imploded...he is STILL advising Labour on a third
| one, how...the article talks about people leaving politics, if
| people leave how is this unflushable turd still there).
|
| All of the Tories who left after Brexit were some of the worst,
| most incompetent people in politics. All they did by the end of
| 2019 was argue with other politicians, they had no connection
| with reality. The current Cabinet are fine, there are lots of
| very obviously competent people attempting to deal with massive
| structural issues (Home Office has gone feral, Justice has gone
| feral, Health is beyond repair...again, the article mentions not
| one word about this...why might that be?). Look at Labour...they
| have Starmer (not wholly competent) and Reeves (who is risking a
| coup by meeting the Tories on policy)...again, the biggest issue
| is the profound lack of progress made on massive structural
| issues and this comes down to a failure of political leadership,
| not a failure of voters.
| shaftoe444 wrote:
| > A brief sentence is expended on planning
|
| This has become my gauge of how serious someone is. Planning
| reform is both incredibly necessary and incredibly unpopular
| and if you won't talk about it you are just dancing around the
| edges of the problem.
| epistasis wrote:
| This planning problem, or probably more accurately rent-
| seeking by those profiting by scarcity, seems endemic to
| English language countries for the past 50 years. At least
| with housing, which is the root of many problems,
| economically.
|
| Edit: and I think that the inability to talk about this is
| highly connected to the lack of other honesty in politics, as
| well as the perpetual outrage machine that results in things
| like Brexit.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Because those countries have planning systems which put
| planning authority in the hands of local govt. It is
| nothing to do with the language they speak but fairly
| obvious consequences of how the system is designed.
|
| All the UK needs to do is un-delegate authority for
| planning to local govt. I think it is accepted, amongst
| those advocate for this heresy, that local areas need to
| retain control over the design of houses (this is something
| that doesn't work today btw). But the structure of the
| system needs to change: if you buy land, you can build
| whatever you want on it.
|
| Wherever local govt has had a say on this kind of thing, it
| has created massive societal costs. The solution is
| obvious.
| epistasis wrote:
| I don't mean that the literal English language is the
| problem, but rather the entire legal system, cultural
| norms, and evolving attitudes about housing that spread
| through English language countries with cross pollination
| of media.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| They don't share legal system, cultural norms, or
| attitudes towards housing...what they share is delegated
| authority on planning and high levels of population
| growth. There are countries in Europe with identical
| systems but do not have the same issue because population
| growth isn't high enough.
|
| There is nothing to generalize from. You don't need to
| construct a weird theory about the media (you will notice
| the other replies, for some reason, have this very odd
| theory that all English-language countries are the
| same...the UK doesn't even have one legal system in the
| country).
| rwmj wrote:
| The Economist has covered the disfunctional planning system
| several times recently, so I suppose that's why they only
| devoted a little to it this week.
| https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/11/07/the-real-
| reason... (There was another article about planning in
| Manchester but I can't find it right now)
| askew wrote:
| > The current Cabinet are fine, there are lots of very
| obviously competent people
|
| Hah!
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >not a failure of voters
|
| I disagree. That Brexit was a massive con was obvious to anyone
| paying the slightest bit of attention. But the electorate voted
| for it anyway.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| ...failure of a sad bunch that deserve everything they voted
| for and didnt vote against. They DIDN'T pay attention, and
| they still don't. The only winners here are the politicians,
| but given the recent and not so recent turnovers, i fear even
| they've given up. Bye, Britain- you were great when i was
| young and the only, only thing i wish for is your Armed
| Forces keep their shit together, and far away from the cunts
| in power.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| I disagree. I voted against it, but to properly have an
| _informed enough_ opinion on it really required a good
| understanding of our economy and how it interacted with that
| of the EUs.
|
| I believe Brexit was such a complex issue that most normal
| voters could not be expected to be able to be informed enough
| to actually weigh up the decision by any useful means other
| than relying on superficial emotional decision making or
| their historical political leanings.
|
| I think there were possibly advantages of leaving had we made
| the most of them. (Not enough to persuade me, but the
| outcomes didn't have to be all bad). Clearly we didn't make
| the most of these potential upsides though and we were never
| going to because the gvnt was clearly not competent enough to
| see such a complex transition through successfully.
|
| Having said that, after some cursory reading on the topic,
| outside of the normal media spin, I believed that we were
| better in then out. But I disagree that it was trivially
| obvious for the average voter to determine this. Especially
| with the ridiculous campaign promises and misdirection of the
| leave campaign (and I think the remain campaign didn't do
| great either).
|
| And even with my background reading, my vote to remain was
| based largely on a gut instinct rather than a deep conviction
| or understanding that I was taking the correct side. I think
| a lot of voters would say the same.
|
| And I know many leave voters who almost immediately regretted
| voting that way. Such was the "coin toss" decision making for
| so many people.
|
| Saying that Brexit was obviously a massive con (and the
| associated implication that leave voters did not sufficient
| inform themselves) is to risk drastically oversimplifying it.
|
| I _will_ agree that it is _very_ obvious in retrospect that
| it was a terrible idea.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| > Having said that, after some cursory reading on the
| topic, outside of the normal media spin, I believed that we
| were better in then out. But I disagree that it was
| trivially obvious for the average voter to determine this.
|
| That might be true, but
|
| > Clearly we didn't make the most of these potential
| upsides though and we were never going to because the gvnt
| was clearly not competent enough to see such a complex
| transition through successfully.
|
| Would have been a lot easier to determine, and was all that
| was needed to work out which way to vote.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| Fair enough, but it's a lot easier to confidently take
| that position in retrospect, but not so obvious (IMHO)
| ahead of time.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >I believe Brexit was such a complex issue that most normal
| voters could not be expected to be able to be informed
| enough to actually weigh up the decision.
|
| I agree with that and a lot else you say. But the crazy
| promises being made by 'leave' (PS350 million per week for
| the NHS, being only one of many) were just obvious lies (a
| con) from day 1.
| Havoc wrote:
| "Economic reform" is just the latest soundbite. Half hearted
| acknowledgement that current tory policies have failed so by
| necessity the next thing being pushed must be branded as a
| change. Hence "reform".
|
| I have yet to see anything of substance fly under that banner.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| It isn't (the indicator for this is that Reeves is saying
| exactly the same thing).
|
| It is hard to be brief but:
|
| * Financial services - totally fucked, most of the VC funding
| in the UK comes from overseas investors because pension and
| insurance rules (that were largely adopted from Europe) mean
| that they have to own large amounts of govt bonds...the
| recent problems indicate how wise that was. Everything isn't
| working: retail, savings, banks, it is all not working.
|
| * Planning - obviously...lots of countries have versions of
| this problem but it is becoming very problematic. Iirc, there
| was a recent infrastructure project that had to do a new
| environmental assessment (costing tens of millions) for every
| km of work they did...it isn't just housing, it is
| everything, it is all fucked.
|
| * Healthcare - obviously...not going to say anything more but
| it is at the point where it is impacting the economy.
|
| * Labour - again...do I need to say more? Look at what is
| happening right now.
|
| * Education - again...do I need to say more? We have massive
| issues producing people with skills that employers require.
| There are other issues around this that relate to poor
| management and immigration, but schools are just bad (this is
| mentioned in the article to be fair but only from the
| perspective of too many politicians being from Eton...why
| can't they just...find people from journalism, who work
| at...the Economist say?).
|
| * Housing - separate from just planning, there are specific
| rules within the housing market that cause distortions above
| the planning system failing to produce enough supply. For
| example, rent controls in Scotland...that caused a 40% drop
| in rental supply in two weeks, this is economic mismanagement
| on a grand scale.
|
| * Local govt - needs fundamental reforms in multiple areas.
| Social care, planning, a lot of the new environmental rules
| are very dangerous (if people from outside the UK can believe
| it, some local councils are introducing rules which mean you
| will be fined if you exit your neighbourhood in a car to go
| to another part of the same city).
|
| * Transport - almost everything isn't working properly. Road,
| rail, it is all gone. Almost all due to problems in other
| areas above but which will now require structural changes.
|
| Btw, I don't know what planet you have to live on not to
| notice this stuff. I am in my mid-30s, every single job I
| have had things that impacted my ability to produce more
| output because of govt intervention. Every one. Once you see
| this stuff, you realise how bad it has become, every level of
| govt, every institution, it is everywhere.
| Havoc wrote:
| That is a perfect example of what I mean by reform chatter
| being thin on substance. Impressive listing of problems.
| Incredibly hand-wavy on what to do about it:
|
| >which will now require structural changes.
|
| >needs fundamental reforms in multiple areas.
|
| Everyone can see the problems. Everyone agrees there is
| need to reform. Actual viable game plans on how to fix it
| seem to be in short supply though. Current political elites
| (of all shades) are all about "we promise to make it
| better" rally slogans like increase trade, reduce redtape,
| boost growth etc. Those are aspirations not plans.
|
| Reform UK (the party) in fairness has more precise language
| (and numbers) in their policies than labour/con, but even
| there it goes fuzzy on key aspects that determine
| viability. Funding for the very specific spending promises
| comes from very nebulous sources like "reduce wasteful
| spending". Not that it matters - small opposition parties
| can promise unicorns for all. By the time they reach enough
| votes to get to implementation the unicorn has morphed to a
| donkey with a superglued on horn.
|
| Perhaps I'm just jaded & expect too much from
| politicians...
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| None of this stuff is hand-wavy. There is just no mandate
| to do structural change because voters vote for things
| that are directly opposed to each other, and there is no
| political leadership to actually push this through
| without voters. For example, healthcare...Javid did an
| interview the other day where he said explicitly...it is
| not possible to reform this, the public don't want it but
| the system is collapsing (and, ofc, this plays into
| Labour's hands...this is the only area they are strong on
| despite Streeting seeming to advocate for every position
| simultaneously).
|
| You have quoted transport and local govt. Both relatively
| complex areas.
|
| The main structural change in transport is linked to the
| planning system. All environmental assessments need to be
| removed, appeals processes need to be time-limited,
| lawyers removed totally, and (very likely) you need to
| remove all planning authority from local govt. This is
| probably the toughest area because central govt will fuck
| it up, but you could un-delegate it and then re-delegate
| to a new local body (but not like education pre-
| academies, it would be something like local
| infrastructure bodies that raised money from local
| taxes).
|
| Local govt...where to begin. Social care needs to be
| moved out, likely some degree of tax devolution, planning
| needs to be moved out, massive levels of waste...I have
| not actually seen how this gets solved because unions and
| nepotism is so embedded (the Tories introduced new
| disclosure requirements, the media just don't seem to
| report this stuff...you can see massive levels of not
| only waste but what looks like graft...nothing), more
| powers for councils to create economic growth locally
| (the lobby group against this goes to the heart of govt,
| some councils like Warrington have created massive growth
| locally with so few powers...the Civil Service is
| violently opposed to this)...big picture is: remove
| powers that have externalities (healthcare, planning) and
| hand over economic powers (one idea would be local
| corporation tax).
|
| Reform and SDP are specific. But what people don't
| understand is that "reduce wasteful spending" is
| specific...everyone knows the area in which money is
| wasted. But what they don't say is quite simple: you try
| to reduce spending, the civil service unions will stop
| all work across all departments immediately, they are
| militant. If you look at what is happening at Home Office
| or Justice, no-one is explicit about that because,
| frankly, voters don't want to hear it. That is what
| "structural change" means...the Home Office needs to be
| burned to the ground (and btw, the Tories have been
| trying this, the Border Force is still failing...the
| public doesn't realise that their senior management has
| been put on measures multiple times, they have brought
| people in from the MoD, the army...nothing works, they
| literally restructured the whole thing to get it away
| from the Home Office MULTIPLE times...it still doesn't
| work).
|
| But there is masses of very specific policies in every
| area that can change things. The problem isn't
| politicians but that there is no mandate (largely due to
| Labour successfully selling the public repeatedly on bags
| of magic beans).
| mmarq wrote:
| > * Housing - separate from just planning, there are
| specific rules within the housing market that cause
| distortions above the planning system failing to produce
| enough supply. For example, rent controls in
| Scotland...that caused a 40% drop in rental supply in two
| weeks, this is economic mismanagement on a grand scale.
|
| Umpteenth reminder that England is the only place on planet
| Earth where people earning a top 10% salary, that is 70KPS
| pa, are at constant risk of eviction and live in houses and
| flats with mice and bed bugs and where children die of
| mould. Incidentally it is also the country with the least
| regulated private rental market.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide.
|
| The problem with unsuitable housing is a side-effect of
| lack of supply. If you make it harder to evict, you make
| it harder to foreclose, make it harder to buy houses
| (because landlords can only sell to other landlords)...it
| is very bad news.
|
| This happened almost immediately after Scotland brought
| in their rules...because politicians there have been
| blocking new builds for decades (and favouring social
| housing so people are more dependent on the state).
|
| What is amazing is that this stuff happens, you see the
| complete failure of a set of economic ideas, and then the
| next day you have people suggesting the exact same
| thing...and people wonder why Britain is in the state it
| is in? The country's elite have vigorous support for
| ideas that are economically damaging, the voters love it,
| the journos love it, the lobbyists love it...not
| surprising.
| mmarq wrote:
| > Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide.
|
| No, it isn't. The current state of affairs in England
| (even Scotland and Wales have different regulations) only
| causes misery and an immense waste of resources on
| housing. Or do you think Germans or Frenchmen spend 3
| months a year doing house viewings? Nowhere in the
| civilised world you can evict a family that doesn't have
| rent arrears and nowhere in the civilised world you have
| a homelessness problem comparable to the English (maybe
| San Francisco being the exception).
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| No-one evicts a good, rent paying tenant in England.
|
| Issue #1 is that the supply does not keep up with demand
| so rents keep going up. Issue #2 is that tenants don't
| know the law.
| mmarq wrote:
| If somebody can be evicted with a 2 month notice, are
| they going to complain about the lack of repairs? The
| answer is in the abysmal quality of the English housing
| stock. I mean, would you risk making your child homeless
| when the law says you are right but there's nothing you
| can do to enforce it?
|
| I've rented in London for 12 years and I wouldn't wish
| that experience on a serial killer. In Italy or Germany,
| not even people on the dole live as bad as a private
| tenant in the UK, regardless of their income. (Thankfully
| the company I used to work for completed its IPO 3 years
| ago and now I can live like a normal person).
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| The reason you spend that time is because of the rules.
|
| Actually, the homeless rate in Edinburgh (which actually
| has an eviction ban and, even, rent controls now) is 3x
| the rate of SF...the reason why is that most of the
| rental market disappeared because eviction control meant
| that landlords could only sell properties at the end of
| rental periods (and when these came up in September, they
| all just removed properties from the market because house
| prices are going to be lower next September).
|
| The law of unintended consequences. The govt tried to
| take control, and it has made the problem significantly
| worse. This is the economic problem that the UK faces in
| a nutshell: voters want things that are economically
| damaging (the situation with housing is probably 10x
| Brexit), they don't understand why they are damaging, and
| when the damage comes they blame someone else (and btw,
| the most amazing thing is that if you look at a city like
| Edinburgh...the people are VOTING for the people who are
| promising not to build any housing WHILST they are
| complaining about a lack of housing...it is the kind of
| thing that makes you realise that people are getting what
| they are asked for).
| mmarq wrote:
| In continental Europe it is practically impossible to
| evict a tenant without arrears, yet the rental market is
| larger and there is less homelessness (and, yes, there is
| plenty of public data on homelessness).
|
| Real world outcomes aside, that is less homelessness and
| a better functioning private rental market, evicting
| families with children is just uncivilised and should be
| allowed just because of that.
| sega_sai wrote:
| "is 3x the rate of SF" -- citation needed. I live in
| Edinburgh and have been in SF and very much struggle to
| believe it.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| You need to find the data yourself. There is no public
| source that makes this comparison.
|
| I have lived in Edinburgh for two decades btw. Most
| people who work here have absolutely no idea how many
| homeless people live there (it has been in the thousands
| for years) because almost none of these people live on
| the street or have substance abuse problems (and
| Edinburgh has very effective segregation so the wealthy
| don't have to see the poor or their problems). They are
| just normal people who have been evicted for whatever
| reason, and have nowhere to live because the city doesn't
| have enough housing. So they get put into hotels or B&Bs
| (but, because of the refugee situation, these have
| largely been exhausted now too...I remember a few years
| ago when they were trying to house Syrians, the council
| said...literally no room, we are overloaded beyond
| belief...since then refugees worth about 2-4% of the
| population came...the council has been telling poor
| people they have to leave now, go to England, go to the
| Highlands, they don't care, just leave...people who have
| been paying rates for decades).
|
| Last year (i.e. before the latest crisis got very severe)
| there were 20 thousand people on the council's waiting
| list...this is in a city of 400k people (and, obviously,
| significantly less households).
|
| The numbers are absolutely staggering and, again, people
| who live in Edinburgh have no idea because most people
| who work there have no contact whatsoever with "locals".
| They vote for brownfield-only building, they love the
| Cockburn Association intervening on every planning
| decision, they vote for the green belt, etc.
| sega_sai wrote:
| I'm sorry but I call BS on this. You claimed a specific
| figure 3x. I'm not claiming things are particularly great
| in Edinburgh, but people on the council's waiting list
| are not necessarily homeless.
| siquick wrote:
| > Umpteenth reminder that England is the only place on
| planet Earth where people earning a top 10% salary, that
| is 70KPS pa, are at constant risk of eviction
|
| Reminder that London is not England. Top 10% earners in
| most other parts of the country live very comfortably.
| namdnay wrote:
| I assume you're talking about London? I doubt that 70kPS
| is top 10% in London
| paganel wrote:
| I'm not from the UK, but from a distance (the other side of
| Europe) it looks like UK's ongoing economic implosion seems
| to also have been caused by the people over there going all
| in on "the service industry!" sometime in the late '80s -
| the '90s, and leaving aside almost anything that involved
| making physical things, from roads to steel to stuff like
| that.
|
| Imo that might work for a very small country or for a city-
| state (like Hong Kong or Singapore, even though these also
| used to make actual stuff), but I don't think you can base
| the economy of a country as big and developed as the UK is
| entirely on services. At most you get a pseudo-city-state,
| which is what London looks like, surrounded by economic
| "blob". It's not London that built modern UK, but the likes
| of Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and, yes, Newcastle and
| the North-East of England. All those cities might as well
| not exist now, from an economic pov.
|
| Of course, I might be totally wrong on this as I don't live
| in the UK, but I've got most of that by reading David
| Edgerton's _The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A
| Twentieth-Century History_ [1] recently. (a Economist
| editorial from a couple of weeks ago was also quoting David
| Edgerton, if it matters)
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-British-Nation-
| Twentieth-Ce...
| Scarblac wrote:
| I think it was kind of possible to go so hard on
| services, _as part of the EU Single Market_. It was a
| place where the EU concentrated lots of its finance
| industry, for instance.
|
| We know how that went...
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Yes, I think this is true.
|
| But it wasn't an active choice. By the early 1980s, most
| forms of manufacturing had become uneconomic because of
| union activity. And, amazingly, this is still the case
| (there is a refinery near me, was bought by Ineos, they
| had a multi-decade package of investment based on an
| agreement with the union not to strike, deal
| closed...union went on strike almost immediately, Ineos
| never put another pound in, invested heavily in Europe
| where unions are more co-operative, they are now
| beginning to shut down the refinery...it is that simple).
|
| The only exception to the places you have listed is
| Manchester: towards the south of the city, they have
| built up a really competitive ecomm hub (with the
| airport, with the port, and with the support of local
| govt to build warehouses)...inflation has totally
| destroyed this industry (China subsidizes international
| shipping, most of these companies fulfilled orders for
| Europe/US out of the UK...the rise in air freight
| finished them). Glasgow is largely retail/govt-based, the
| North-East is seeing very promising investment in the
| free port but is very troubled, Birmingham muddles
| through.
|
| The problem with things like manufacturing is that it
| overlays several areas that are problematic for the UK:
| planning, infrastructure, labour, labour mobility,
| energy...none of this stuff works anymore. For example,
| not many people know that one of the first modern CPU was
| made in Scotland (this was when Intel were making a
| similar chip for the first calculator in the early
| 70s)...but the industry just died in the 80s.
|
| Again, people will talk a lot about deindustrialization
| but far less about why this happened. In the 60/70s, the
| govt invested heavily in local production, almost all of
| these companies failed or were sold to foreign buyers who
| could manage them properly (Rolls-Royce is the only
| exception I believe). There was no active choice, all
| other options were just removed by repeated failure.
| taffronaut wrote:
| > because pension and insurance rules (that were largely
| adopted from Europe) mean that they have to own large
| amounts of govt bonds
|
| Let me help you with the brevity - you mean Solvency II. So
| you're fine with governments bailing out the financial
| system with our money, but not happy if they put
| (admittedly heavy-handed) measures in place to stop the
| casino mentality.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| No, I mean Solvency II amongst other rules. There are
| many others (pension regulations are even worse). Let me
| help you with complexity (financial regulation doesn't
| happen to be particularly simple, it won't yield before
| your mighty intellect because you had a thought, you have
| to do the work).
|
| Er no, the reason Solvency II exists is to bailout govts
| (and insurance companies, it is a tacit way of decreasing
| competition). That is the beauty of these regulations:
| you have poor people in Europe who are getting absolutely
| rinsed by this stuff AND they will actually fight for it
| (the "casino mentality"...is that something that European
| Commissioner tells you to say?).
|
| It does nothing to increase systemic safety: look at
| Europe, almost every large bank is functionally
| insolvent, requires massive zero-interest loans from the
| govt, almost all new loans in some of the large economies
| are now govt-guaranteed...is this what a safe system
| looks like.
|
| If you take a country like Germany, which has gone the
| farthest down this route, savers have net financial
| wealth equal to Greece. Look at Allianz's market share,
| they own everything. It is tragic. Removing these
| regulations will be massively beneficial for consumers,
| the reason they exist at all is to limit competition and
| choice.
|
| Btw, this isn't hard. The US made these changes in the
| early 70s, that is why they fund most VC activity in
| London. Consumers need choice, they don't need to have
| their money trapped in govt bonds subsidizing govts that
| can't repay their debts in a free market, the only result
| of this is lower returns for consumers.
| taffronaut wrote:
| > ...is that something that European Commissioner tells
| you to say?
|
| I guess we are diametrically opposed. I can equally ask
| you if Jacob Rees-Mogg writes your posts.
| klelatti wrote:
| Actually key parts of Solvency II (Matching Adjustment -
| drafted by the U.K.) specifically favours corporate debt
| over government bonds which is in part why actually U.K.
| insurers don't hold much government debt at all. Really
| odd that you should get this so wrong.
| jtrip wrote:
| > (if people from outside the UK can believe it, some local
| councils are introducing rules which mean you will be fined
| if you exit your neighbourhood in a car to go to another
| part of the same city).
|
| Can you give an article or city name for this?
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Oxford. Another town announced they were looking at this.
| I would also point out, this is one measure in a long
| string of similar measures: LEZs, that wasn't enough so
| now they are doing ULEZs, banning cars from some cities
| (York)...near me the council put a traffic calming
| measure near a school, this was so effective that the
| school was unable to receive food deliveries...all this
| stuff came in during Covid (my local council went into an
| "emergency session" during Covid, passed all these
| measures without votes or public enquiries...funnily
| enough, these were all measures that they had proposed
| before Covid but which failed public consultations).
| udp wrote:
| https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-
| news/everyth...
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Because of our first past the post system, the choice at the next
| election is effectively just:
|
| Conservative. Mostly talentless crooks who are looting the
| country as fast as they can. But are able to present a fairly
| united front, no matter how much they hate each other.
|
| Labour. A party that should probably be 2 parties. A left party
| and a centre party, who are unable to conceal their hatred for
| each other. Currently led by Starmer, an apparently decent man,
| but of questionable vision and political instincts.
|
| It's not a great choice. The Conservatives deserve to lose in a
| landslide. But a victorious Labour party will probably spend most
| of it's energy fighting amongst themselves. Time for proportional
| representation?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| When you have the left getting 35% of the vote, the centrists
| getting 19%, and the right getting 30%, the right isn't
| working, by all means, compromise and try the centrists for a
| change. Why the left/Labour is unable to understand this,
| (throwing their weight to the centrists closer to their aims)
| and instead getting the right elected is astonishing.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| The left of the Labour party seem to hate the centrists in
| the Labour party far more than they hate the Conservatives.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| As an outsider, but generally appreciative of British culture's
| influence on me, I was (and continue to be) flabbergasted with
| Britain's inward outlook.
|
| For the vast majority of British history, Brits were only wealthy
| when they traded outside. The trade took various forms such as
| East India company, trading outposts, industrial trade outside
| the island, colonization, financial capitalization etc. Britain
| ruled the seas (and still does behind America), and established
| English as the lingua franca of world business.
|
| Yet, people keep voting for inwardness. Brexit, tax cuts for the
| rich, stopping skilled/semi-skilled immigration. This is
| completely and astonishingly backwards.
|
| The only way Britain survives the competitive world is by trading
| more and making itself a hub of education, engineering, finance
| and global businesses. Constantly voting for restrictive trade,
| restrictive borders and disconnect from the rest of the world
| takes Britain closer to North Korea than to USA, China,
| Singapore, Australia, Canada - who are all trying to forge more
| relationships with the world.
| krona wrote:
| > _..in office but barely in power_
|
| To me this sums it up. The political kayfabe is in part
| constructed to make it appear like the government is in control
| of state affairs, but Blair's legacy was to remove power from
| government and spread it thinly through an increasingly
| overweight bureaucracy that answers to itself and only sings the
| governments tune when it empowers itself.
| dignick wrote:
| Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our
| first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain
| power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them.
| Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it
| doesn't, because they would have been leading a coalition
| government in the last several elections under Proportional
| Representation. Instead it requires Labour to be a very broad
| house, meaning Starmer struggles to take strong positions on
| anything because he doesn't want to lose votes from different
| groups (mainly from the centre right based on his recent
| statements). In a proportional voting system each party can be
| more focussed on having a distinct set of policies and beliefs,
| which can be debated openly with other parties without fear of
| alienating a large proportion of their base. It is clear that
| this is the core problem in the UK, Brexit was a symptom of this
| issue because people felt their vote actually counted and they
| wanted to protest against the neoliberal establishment. Now that
| the implications are becoming clear, a majority want to return to
| the EU. If Labour win the next election their position will be
| very fragile, and I'm unsure they will get more than one term.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| >Now that the implications are becoming clear, a majority want
| to return to the EU
|
| Why not simply have regional votes to separate from the UK and
| join the EU?
|
| Scotland tried not that long ago.
| euix wrote:
| I believe this is a common trend through the west. Here in
| Canada the current Federal Liberals won the last two election
| with about 30% of the vote which when you take into account how
| many people even vote amounts to something like ~5 million
| people in a country close to 40 million. The kind of
| overarching policies and rhetoric coming out of government is
| widely disproportionate to that level of mandate.
| mymythisisthis wrote:
| The Liberals are in a coalition with the NDP, combined the
| two parties received a majority of the popular vote.
|
| A better example would be Doug Ford in Ontario. Ford's
| Conservatives received only 41% of the popular vote but took
| 67% of the seats.
|
| The First Past The Post System needs to be retired, it is
| anti-democratic. Either run-offs or a ranked ballot voting
| system would be better.
| wazoox wrote:
| Yup. In France Macron hold total power with less than 30% of
| voters and less than 30% of good opinion in polls. His
| "pension reform" has everyone against it, the unions, all
| political parties but his own, even the employers
| association, but it will be enforced anyway. Democracy is
| dead, and it even began to smell.
| narag wrote:
| Electoral systems are very difficult to change. The party with
| enough votes to lead the change isn't going to be interested,
| because it's the system that put them in that position.
|
| Edit: So we're talking electoral systems, referenda have a big
| caveat. Usually you vote a goal, but you don't vote _how_ it 's
| going to be implemented. The brexit was sold as a measure
| against Brussels' regulation and taxes...
| aidos wrote:
| The Uk had a referendum in 2011 to change the system and
| voted fairly conclusively to stick with first past the post.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternat.
| ..
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Worth remembering that the Tories only allowed the vote as
| part of the coalition deal, and then actively campaigned
| against it. The whole thing was a damp squib, and was
| designed to be
| akiselev wrote:
| That referendum was poison pilled with the "alternative
| vote" and sold to voters as a easy path to the BNP getting
| elected.
|
| It was just as much party politics as the Brexit vote, not
| a genuine attempt at direct democracy.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| Two points of note to add:
|
| 1. regulations around referendums (compared to general
| elections) are very poor and the "no to AV" campaign
| exploited this by running an extremely dishonest campaign
| [1]
|
| 2. turnout was < 50% of the electorate so one can somewhat
| facetiously imply from the result that the majority of the
| electorate don't care what the system is.
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/feb/25/no-
| to-...
| webmobdev wrote:
| > _Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is
| faltering._
|
| This is unfortunately not unique. India too has seen the rise
| of the right, and its democracy threatened and at a perilous
| stage. Many other countries have seen the rise of the right
| too. However, I feel this is a political pattern that can be
| observed historically and generationally, where the political
| spectrum switch between extremes of left and right, with brief
| periods of centrism. This can be observed in the last century
| too. The hard question is how long will this political effect
| last before we see it wane. Another question is how much the
| internet contributed to this and if we can do anything about it
| without trampling our rights.
| JPKab wrote:
| When my side wins, democracy is healthy and vibrant. When the
| other side wins, it's faltering and corrupt.
| mjfl wrote:
| "democracy is under threat when people I don't like are
| democratically elected."
| mjfl wrote:
| Isn't a parliamentary system effectively proportional
| representation? It's just prime minister that's first past the
| post, but from a proportional vote in parliament?
|
| Labour is not going to save Britain. They are just going to
| redistribute money that is more and more and more "not there"
| anymore. The EU is not going to save Britain, they are having a
| crisis too. Nothing will save Britain, it is doomed for the
| next couple hundred years or so.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Because the Tories will make things better? I mean they've had
| enough time at bat that it is obvious they can't.
| klelatti wrote:
| I'm going to name the English language as one of the suspects.
|
| A common language with the US makes many of the political and
| business elite focus on the U.S. It also makes them less inclined
| to put the effort in to engage with Europe politically and
| culturally.
|
| That in turn helped to fan the flames of Euroscepticism that in
| turn led to Brexit.
|
| It's no accident that the focus of trade deals post Brexit has
| been with English speaking countries of the former Empire.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| English is the lingua franca within Europe as well. And last I
| checked Europe displays a similar obsession with US politics as
| the UK does. How many Germans bother to learn Polish or Greek
| or whatever, who do not have family ties there?
|
| The reason british people don't learn languages is that it is
| not economically beneficial for them to do so. But otherwise, I
| don't think it is the case that in Europe everybody is
| enlightened and aware of each other's national politics and
| culture and Britain uniquely is somehow ignorant of other
| countries.
| klelatti wrote:
| This isn't the point I was trying to make. Rather some UK
| politicians feel (uniquely) comfortable in the US vs Europe.
| Part of that is the language.
|
| I've worked in Brussels and whilst English is spoken an awful
| lot communication is still not as straightforward as working
| in the US.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Most people in the UK have at least some familiarity with
| European languages. Many civil servants, a point mentioned in
| the article, studied Classics so are quite familiar with
| speaking multiple languages (and our diplomatic service doesn't
| work the same way as the US, so some civil servants come from
| the diplomatic service knowing 5-10 languages fluently). And in
| Europe, many people speak English. Proceedings at Brussels are
| largely conducted in English, almost everyone will understand
| English (they often do not speak it publicly, but are able to
| understand and speak it).
|
| People who talked about Brexit were talking about East Asia and
| the Commonwealth countries, not the US only. I can't really
| think immediately of anyone with strong links to the US in the
| current govt (the only minister in recent memory was Liam Fox,
| and he hasn't been in govt for close to a decade iirc).
| klelatti wrote:
| That's a fair challenge but I politely disagree.
|
| - Brits are famously monolingual compared to the rest of
| Europe.
|
| - How many senior British politicians speak a European
| foreign language fluently - Johnson perhaps - I can think of
| perhaps one or two others.
|
| - Lots of key members of the Eurosceptic movement have deep
| links to the US. Hannan, Farage, Fox (he was the Brexit Trade
| Minister in 2019 btw so not close to decade).
|
| - The 'Britannia Unchained' group of Kwarteng, Truss etc all
| looked strongly to the US.
|
| I speak from experience in UK business and in Brussels.
|
| It's not the only factor certainly but it's contributed.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the
| population we are concerned with learned a foreign language
| until the age of 16. Brits are "famously monolingual"
| because the country only speaks one language (unlike almost
| every other European country).
|
| I don't know, I haven't tried to talk to any of them in a
| language that isn't English. Again, your supposition that
| this must be true is based on what? It must be...you heard
| this thing about Brits...
|
| Right and two of the people you mention have never served
| in British parliament. Hannan has links to the US...and is
| the same person advocating heavily for a Swiss deal with
| EU...that couldn't be right though? You said he had
| "links". He wasn't the Brexit Trade Minister (that is a
| fictional position).
|
| Truss and Kwarteng didn't look "strongly" to the US...I
| have no idea where this is coming from. Do you just not
| like the US so you think this other group of people you
| don't like must be allied to them? Truss was Trade Minister
| and did deals with the Commonwealth, there was no real
| focus on the US at all (because of Biden). Britannia
| Unchained is famous in the UK for being particularly
| adulatory towards East Asia, not the US.
| klelatti wrote:
| Language skills: UK bottom of the pack in Europe.
|
| https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
| explained/index.php...
|
| Just because you're not an MP doesn't mean you can't have
| huge influence - Farage obviously being the most
| prominent example.
|
| Brexit Trade Minister - my typo should have been Post
| Brexit Trade Minister - but he was clearly in Govt in
| 2019 contrary to your claim.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the
| population we are concerned with learned a foreign
| language until the age of 16.
|
| I live in the UK and I am struggling to think of more
| than 1 or 2 British born people I know personally that
| speak anything other than English with any fluency.
| notahacker wrote:
| There are quite a few, it's just that none of them
| learned it from two hours a week between the ages of 11
| and 16. (Mostly they learned it because their parents and
| many members of their local community speak Welsh or
| Punjabi or Urdu...)
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Two hours a week between 11 and 16? I love this place.
| People speak with total authority about stuff they
| clearly do not understand.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Two hours a week between 11 and 16?
|
| That pretty much describes my foreign language education
| (learning French in England, 1970s/1980s).
| notahacker wrote:
| > I love this place. People speak with total authority
| about stuff they clearly do not understand.
|
| Well if I lack the authority to comment on my own
| education, please feel free to share your greater
| understanding of the years and hours my classmates and I
| devoted to learning a second language. Perhaps you can
| even convince me my A* GCSE made me fluent and not
| utterly incompetent in it!
| revertmean wrote:
| Rishi Sunak - the current Prime Minister - held a US green
| card until October last year (when he gave it up).
|
| Boris Johnson was born in New York.
| blipvert wrote:
| Umm, Rishi Sunak (PM, this month) moved to California to
| start a hedge fund, had a Green Card, and still has a mansion
| there ...
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| He didn't move to California to start a hedge fund, he had
| a Green Card because he went to Stanford, and his wife's
| family has a house there.
| klelatti wrote:
| > I can't really think immediately of anyone with strong
| links to the US in the current govt
|
| > he went to Stanford, and his wife's family has a house
| there
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| Again, what is connection? So if I go to Bocconi then I
| am Italian? And if someone in my family has a holiday
| house in France then I am French?
|
| The craziest part is that I believe this actually makes
| sense to you. How sad.
| klelatti wrote:
| Did I say Rishi Sunak was American? No, rather that he
| has strong connections with the US.
|
| If I have a house in France and went to a French
| University does that mean I have strong connections with
| France. Of course. Likewise with the US.
| blipvert wrote:
| Apologies for under-representing how close his ties to
| the USA are.
| Certhas wrote:
| Any analysis that does not cover the role of Rupert Murdoch in
| all this seems woefully incomplete.
| black_13 wrote:
| richliss wrote:
| It's planned destruction by bought and paid for politicians from
| both Labour and Conservative working on behalf of agents of
| foreign governments. Hell, two of our most recent Prime Ministers
| have citizenship of a foreign power and no one sees that as
| something that should stop them from being Prime Minister.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| It is quite surprising how cheaply Conservative MPs can be
| bought by business and foreign powers. I'm thinking of buying
| my own Conservative MP.
|
| The Labour party isn't immune from this sort of corruption
| either. A lot of them have taken money from that old scourge of
| the working classes, the gambling industry.
| sph wrote:
| https://archive.vn/fI8Zp
| petesergeant wrote:
| I feel like the article lays it out pretty well?
|
| It's a government who's been in power too long, whose talent base
| was massively thinned by a Brexit Purity witch hunt and the
| impossibility of delivering the Brexit fairy-tale, and who
| weren't simply ejected at the last election because of Corbyn's
| overwhelming unpopularity.
| krona wrote:
| If Anna Soubry was still an MP then the entire country would be
| on a different trajectory. Even though Brexit happened only 3
| years ago. Definitely.
| jrsj wrote:
| Hadn't Starmer already replaced Corbyn by the last election? I
| don't think you can blame this on him. I don't think he's
| really the most unpopular element of Labour either. Even after
| most media was slandering him as an "antisemite" and all that
| other garbage because neoliberals have captured all of the
| institutions in the UK.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Hadn't Starmer already replaced Corbyn by the last
| election?
|
| No.
| jrsj wrote:
| Yep, you're right. I guess all that felt longer ago than it
| actually was
| ogogmad wrote:
| The accusations were partly based on him cosying up with
| terrorists, from Hamas, Iran, etc. Is it too much to ask that
| a candidate for Prime Minister should respect the Rule of
| Law?
|
| There's also his support for Chavez/Maduro, his suicidally
| naive pacifism which helps the enemy, etc.
|
| Oh, and the episode with the mural, where he was too stupid
| to understand why a picture of fat people with hooked noses
| oppressing "the workers" would be offensive to a certain
| group. And what kind of adult sees the world in that way
| anyway?
|
| [edit] Whatever. Downvote me. You people will never win in
| the real world.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Boris Johnson met ex-KGB oligarch and made his son a member
| of the House of Lords[1]
|
| He said "let the bodies pile high" about his plan for
| COVID, a plan which ended up killing ~100,000
| people.[2][2.5]
|
| > " _Oh, and the episode with the mural, where he was too
| stupid to understand why a picture of fat people with
| hooked noses oppressing "the workers" would be offensive to
| a certain group._"
|
| Is the certain group Jews? Were they offended by Boris
| Johnson's book with rude Jewish stereotypes?[3] Or his
| other racist public writings?[4]
|
| > " _Is it too much to ask that a candidate for Prime
| Minister should respect the Rule of Law?_ "
|
| Is it too much to ask that the actual Prime Minster respect
| the law? Partygate, for example[5]
|
| What's that saying "with Conservatives, every accusation is
| a confession".
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62068421
|
| [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-pms-former-adviser-
| confi...
|
| [2.5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/26/ons-
| figures-sh...
|
| [3] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-
| johnson...
|
| [4] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jan/23/london
| .race
|
| [5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-60124162
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Is the goal here to make Corbyn look good by comparison
| to Johnson? The median voter seems to think they are both
| unfit to lead, so it's probably not an effective
| argument.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| The goal is to refuse to let Conservatives leave that
| kind of spin uncontested.
|
| Everything the comment accused Corbyn of doing leading to
| "you people will never win in the real world" was done by
| BoJo, and it didn't stop him winning in the real world.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| you should always ask the question. what was it that made
| it so difficult to elect someone like Corbyn, yet so easy
| to elect someone like Johnson?
|
| That's the actual interesting question here.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Some of the stuff you listed happened after Johnson won
| (or came to light after his victory), and before he
| resigned in disgrace, so doesn't particularly serve the
| point you are making.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| he wrote Seventy Two Virgins (the book having a character
| who loved money, had a hocked nose and jewish name) in
| 2004. he continuously wrote racist, sexist and homophobic
| comments in his articles since.
|
| His relationship with Jennifer Arcuri and public spending
| implications was out before 2019.
|
| It was all out in the public domain.
|
| It was the media's jobs to ignore this and pretend the
| main issue was one case where Corbyn liked a photo on
| facebook that he later claimed he hadn't paid enough
| attention to and apologised for (Johnson has never
| apologised or been called on to apologise)
| mattlondon wrote:
| The way we elect a prime minister (i.e. we don't) plays a large
| part here I think. Parties themselves select the leader.
|
| Johnson, Corbyn, Truss, Sunak - all voted in by relatively
| small numbers of people (e.g. 80k in the case of Truss IIRC),
| yet they are somehow the leader of the party and potentially
| even PM.
|
| This is where labour shat the bed I think with Corbyn - totally
| obvious that he would be terrible as a PM yet the favourite of
| the popular vote of _self-selected_ labour party, who of course
| are too extreme to represent the common person on the street.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| It would have been better for everyone if Corbyn had stayed a
| back bencher.
| petesergeant wrote:
| We might have even averted Brexit
| midasuni wrote:
| Just imagine the chaos we'd have had with Ed Miliband.
| It's been strong and stable ever since then.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| That bacon sandwich has a lot to answer for.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| No, Labour isn't a popular vote. It is a popular vote AND a
| union vote (and the PLP, although they have never mattered in
| practice, they tried to oust Corbyn three times iirc...didn't
| work).
|
| Corbyn had popular support but, like Miliband, relied
| relatively heavily on unions...and one union at that: Unite
| (and btw, his popular support was always overstated
| hugely...in late 2019, you had a sizeable minority who
| thought he would walk it, he was massively popular in the
| Westminster bubble...this is despite him being regarded as a
| totally odious figure under Blair when he was a backbencher).
|
| The Tories have never had this issue because their electorate
| is relatively diffuse, and MPs have been quite willing to
| stab their leader in the back at the first sign of trouble.
|
| Blair (like Thatcher) was an accident. I agree with your
| point but the Tories have been generally able to produce more
| effective leaders with their constitution.
| notahacker wrote:
| The Labour vote was a popular vote, it just happened to
| include union members and 'registered supporters' who
| weren't party members (but would have had the same outcome
| in 2015 without them). The electoral college system was
| abandoned by Miliband, and Starmer has given up trying to
| bring it back in some form.
|
| The Tories haven't got to worry about having self-styled
| radical socialists on the ballot but have had exactly the
| same problems: candidates that appeal most to the Tory
| selectorate like Iain Duncan Smith and Liz Truss are
| neither in touch with the public mood nor competent.
|
| Not sure that a presidential system with a public vote
| would necessarily do better though. The public loved
| Johnson and liked May at first.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Corbyn and McDonnell were essentially communists and
| therefore unelectable.
|
| Blair took the realistic route: Socialism does not work,
| let's have a market economy create wealth that can then be
| used to finance social programs. A flavour a social
| democracy.
|
| I think a reason Corbyn was so popular among the young is
| that enough time has passed so that this generation has no
| idea what socialist countries in Europe were actually like.
| jemmyw wrote:
| They weren't essentially communists, that is taking the
| Tory press talking point. They were further left than any
| other recent popular politicians. Left in the form of
| worker rights, unionism that sort of thing, not
| communism.
|
| Given how far we've gone into a low wage and poor rights
| economy I don't think a hard left leadership would have
| been that bad, especially as it would have been tempered
| by the rest anyway. However, I don't like Corbyn's
| extreme passivism.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Not at all. They even wrote it in their manifesto.
|
| What do you call nationalising companies and handing
| control to the workers? (It's in the 2019 manifesto)
|
| That's my point: people, especially the young, don't even
| recognise it when described under a microscopically thin
| veneer. That's very worrying.
|
| They didn't hide it, either. McDonnell did say clearly
| that he was a Marxist [1] and Corbyn is a socialist in
| the very Soviet sense.
|
| [1] https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2018/05/how-
| john-mcdon...
| notahacker wrote:
| I'm the first person to criticise McDonnell and Corbyn's
| radical postures, but the idea that Labour's manifesto
| proposal to renationalise the railways, Royal Mail and
| some utilities is communism is utterly laughable.
|
| Somehow we managed state owned railways and utilities for
| basically the entire Cold War without ever once feeling
| tempted to join the Warsaw Pact, and the Royal Mail was a
| government agency for nearly 400 years...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Nationalisation _with control handed to the workers_.
|
| And of course there's also the little thing about
| McDonnell and Corbyn being Marxist and socialist.
|
| Again, too many people still seem not to be willing to
| see what's not even hidden. History should really be
| compulsory over the whole of secondary school.
|
| Edit: they had hinted it very strongly but did not
| mention it in the 2017 manifesto apart from calling to
| promote coops. But in the 2019 manifesto it is explicitly
| written that nationalised utilities would be " _run by
| service-users and workers_ ".
|
| McDonnell is a Marxist and so, obviously, he wanted a
| Marxist economic policy in which nationalisation does not
| mean state capitalism but really indeed workers in charge
| of the means of production.
| notahacker wrote:
| I'm not sure the italicised bit conveys quite the
| sinister undertones you intended.
|
| Consider the following: if you consider communism to be a
| _bad_ thing which people should be _vigilant_ against,
| arguments to the effect that the defining feature of
| communism is having rail decisions made by employees of a
| state railway company rather than the boards of Abellio
| and Arriva[1] probably aren 't going to help. Firstly
| because there's a wee bit more to communism than that,
| and secondly because the consensus of British rail users
| is that decision making concerning our railways is
| currently crap.
|
| [1]incidentally entities which are wholly owned by
| governments, just not the British one
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| > What do you call nationalising companies and handing
| control to the workers? (It's in the manifesto)
|
| There is a confusion here between the situation we have
| and how we address it.
|
| My water supply - water being that thing that falls from
| the sky and humans die if we don't have any within 3 days
| - is owned by a Hong Kong investment fund that is
| incorporated in the Cayman Islands.
|
| If you asked the person on the street then they would say
| that this ownership model is radical, and public
| ownership of water is conservative.
|
| However, if you instead ask them to comment on taking
| water ownership from a private company into the public
| domain , they'd say that was radical.
|
| The issue is that we've moved so far in terms of
| financialisation of nearly every aspect of our lives,
| that any attempt to address that will be seen as radical.
| jemmyw wrote:
| I guess I'm communist then. I want the railways to be
| nationalised.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on
| EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else.
|
| Brownites sound good but say nothing specific...often the
| specific stuff is bad too. I agree with you in that there
| is a route in the centre, but Labour aren't. The party is
| fundamentally broken. Starmer isn't it, Reeves isn't a
| leader, Streeting is a joke. Obviously, they have moved
| to the centre on immigration and crime but...the party
| are just mad, and it doesn't seem authentic at all
| (Starmer was a human rights lawyer, getting rid of ECHR
| is the only course...you would have to be an idiot to
| believe he would do that, it just isn't credible).
|
| The ambiguity of Labour is causing part of these
| problems. For example, their position of ambiguity on
| healthcare...clearly, it is broken...but they decide to
| be ambiguous (again, classic Brown) so their polling
| numbers stay up. There needs to be some kind of cross-
| party move towards reform but it is impossible when one
| side just wants to score points as the "protector of the
| NHS" (and it will end up with Labour winning, then
| finding out they are neck deep in trouble trying to do
| reforms that don't work...it will never be fixed).
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Blair ... lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the
| left on everything else
|
| Blair won three sizeable outright majorities in the three
| elections he lead Labour in
| midasuni wrote:
| You can say a lot of things about Blair, but "Lost" isn't
| one of them.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on
| EU /immigration and lost the left on everything else_
|
| Yes, that's a good point, but it's not only the right.
| All the traditionally Labour constituencies in the North
| (but not only) which voted for Brexit did so largely
| because of immigration.
|
| Immigration control is not traditionally right wing only.
| The left has also been in favour of control and
| restrictions in order to protect workers' wages.
| tobylane wrote:
| I don't think overwhelming is the right word, his vote share
| was around Blair's average.
|
| Now that half of Tory MPs have been cabinet members, it's
| harder to demand loyalty by dangling a job for votes.
| Especially the ministerial roles that the public are aware of.
|
| The article seems to be avoiding the term "lame duck period".
| It reads an excessively selective set of opinions, and it's
| unclear who should be trying harder.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > his vote share was around Blair's average
|
| Blair got 35% of the vote after 8 years of power and the Iraq
| war, against a decent challenger and experienced politician.
|
| Corbyn got 32% -- as the opposition -- against an incumbent
| who's approval ratings at the time were underwater and who
| led an unpopular party who'd been in power far too long
| already.
| tobylane wrote:
| Yes, I missed out the bit where that 3% difference in vote
| lead to a 93 (out of 650) difference in seats.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Corbyn got 202 MPs in 2019, Blair in his 3rd term got 355
|
| Corbyn wasn't just deeply unpopular across the country
| outside of student areas. I spoke to life long remainer
| lib dems in the Tory/Lab marginal seat of Crewe and
| Nantwich who were voting Tory to stop Corbyn. Across
| rural areas in Cheshire people were voting Tory because
| they were scared of Lib Dems backing Corbyn.
|
| Due to the way that FPTP works, his concentrated support
| in student/young urban areas was wasted, with the result
| being a Tory landslide.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > life long remainer lib dems
|
| This describes me. Luckily I was able to meaningfully
| vote LibDem, because I really could not see myself voting
| for BoJo or Corbyn in the last election. Neither Starmer
| nor Sunak would be my first choice, but in contrast I
| could hold my nose and vote for either of them if I had
| to.
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| Blair wasn't being sabotaged by his own party that bought
| Facebook ads to sabotage him. I'd say Corbyn did superbly.
| https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/labour-hq-
| spent-50...
| petesergeant wrote:
| > I'd say Corbyn did superbly
|
| Poe's law never fails
| midasuni wrote:
| He did superbly in granting a massive majority to
| Johnson. If that was his goal ("win the argument" but not
| the election) then you can't really fault him.
| TapWaterBandit wrote:
| I'm astounded people are STILL burying their heads in the
| sand about Corbyn. But I suppose that is a large part of the
| reason why labour was losing for so long they kept denying
| the obvious reality that the electorate just did not like
| Corbyn but wouldn't get rid of him for internal
| political/ideological reasons.
| akiselev wrote:
| There's only one meme in British politics seen more often
| than Malcolm Tucker quotes: "It's Corbyn's fault!"
|
| It's febrile at this point.
| nailer wrote:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2019-50768605
| tim333 wrote:
| "Jeremy Corbyn 'most unpopular opposition leader of past 45
| years', says poll"
|
| https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/jeremy-corbyn-
| most...
|
| I'm not sure it's really fair but that's kinda how the polls
| went.
| makomk wrote:
| The article is part of the problem. UK politics and the media
| narratives around it have beeen utterly wrecked by the fight
| over Brexit and the attempts to give its creators the boot. For
| example, take this claim: "Investment is down and inflation
| higher than it would have been inside the European Union." The
| UK's inflation in the year to November 2022 was 10.7%, compared
| to 10.1% in the Eurozone. It just doesn't seem at all plausible
| that the UK would somehow have substantially lower inflation if
| it were in the EU, based on what countries actually in the EU
| have experienced, yet it's treated as so obviously true that
| only lying Brexiters would reject it.
|
| This belief is boosted by the fact the British press only ever
| compares our inflation with France, which has the lowest
| inflation in Europe due to substantial nuclear generating
| capacity and energy subsidies funded through borrowing. Our
| government was attacked for attempting even a fraction of those
| energy subsidies to the point they did a U-turn because
| ultimately the public pays for it, but that downside is ignored
| when talking about France. They also also have substantially
| more national debt for obvious reasons... but luckily the UK
| national debt is usually only compared with Germany's.
| pharmakom wrote:
| > The UK's inflation in the year to November 2022 was 10.7%,
| compared to 10.1% in the Eurozone. It just doesn't seem at
| all plausible that the UK would somehow have substantially
| lower inflation if it were in the EU
|
| Why not?
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Did you even read the rest of their comment?
| [deleted]
| cauch wrote:
| I don't think people who say "UK inflation would have been
| better in the EU" are basing that on "in UK, it was 10.7% and
| in EU it was 10.1%", but rather on "since Brexit, wealth
| generated by export has dropped, wealth generated by import
| has dropped, wealth generated by EU migration workforce has
| dropped, ... which obviously means that the crisis can only
| be worse". It does not mean they are right, but even if UK
| had a smaller inflation than countries still in EU, you can
| still say that UK would have been better if you see that all
| indicators show that the cost of life was at the end globally
| affected negatively by Brexit.
|
| I always think that comparing inflation or national debt to
| other countries is meaningless. A big national debt used for
| good investment is way better than a small national debt
| while the infrastructures fall apart, and the state and cost
| of the infrastructure can be very different in each country.
| And for the same level of inflation, the effects would be
| very different based on the resources and market
| characteristics of the country and which measures are taken.
|
| (edit: and indeed, if you re-read the text around the quote
| you've extracted, this is indeed the reasoning: the author
| does not justify that with a comparison of the inflation
| rate, but with a list of where the Brexit made things worse)
| demux wrote:
| Where are you getting the 10.1% figure?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It's a deeper problem than simply being in power for too long.
| They have been in power that long because the alternative offer
| was _worse_ as you mention.
| gmac wrote:
| Counterpoint: that's utter nonsense.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I agree. In a pattern that seems to be repeated globally and
| frequently, dissatisfaction drives polarization, which in
| turn pumps up the dissatisfaction, and also encourages
| actions which are ideological rather than pragmatic and at
| least as rash as they are bold - and when they go wrong, it
| gives objective reasons to be even more dissatisfied.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Two party polarized systems, aside from the murky money
| enabling shadow control of both parties, enables
| centralized control of policy because rather than on a per-
| issue consensus decision, it enforcesstrictly "party line"
| votes.
|
| ... the "party line" being decided by the small cabal in
| charge of making the "party line", usually the ones with
| the most access to monetary funds.
|
| But the inability to see even 10% of party legislators
| deviate from party lines in various votes means that not
| only is rational policy not being well served, regional
| representation is being undermined since adhering to the
| party line does not optimize for the policy for their
| region/district.
|
| And in the US house/senate, the seniority system is another
| undemocratic institution. Why should changing
| representatives reduce your effective power in a
| legislative house? I can't think of a system where codified
| seniority was a good thing
| iso1631 wrote:
| The government in power from 2010-2015 was very different
| than the one today. For starters it was a coalition with the
| Lib Dems, but even comparing today's rump with Cameron's
| second ministry shows massive divergence in competence as
| well as policy.
| equalsione wrote:
| From the outside looking in, was the opposition worse?
|
| On the one hand, labour seem really similar to the Tories -
| disunited, dogma over common sense and oddly out of touch.
|
| Their policies _were_ opposite to Tory policies but they are
| trying to be an opposition so... Yes Corbin was a leftie
| (corduroy elbow patches and all) but he's a leader of a left
| wing party. It's like complaining that Thatcher was a bit
| right-wing.
|
| It seems like the core issue is that the voters want
| something like Tory-lite. Blair did that and no one wants to
| go back to it. So this is what you're left with
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| no it wasn't worse.
|
| There are massive systemic issues in the country. Lack of
| housing, regional inequality, geographical inequality,
| falling real terms wages, chronic underfunding of R&D.
| Basically everything is falling apart. 40 years of
| financialisation of public services and nearly every aspect
| of our lives (there's virtually nothing you can do as part
| of your daily routine that doesn't trigger a transfer of
| wealth from public or household money to the top). The
| Brexit vote itself was partially a reaction to these
| issues.
|
| These things need real solutions and real ideas. Any ideas
| that even start to address them let alone reverse the
| issues will look radical, and Labour 2017 / 2019 was barely
| doing that just offering a mild social democratic platform
| that would not be out of place in Northern Europe or indeed
| in the 1983 SDP-Liberal manifesto.
|
| Adding to that we would have had a planned and controlled
| Brexit, with certain Eu agreements being replaced with
| equivalent things with different names.
|
| All of this is mostly academic though as the first
| restrictions in the pandemic would have given the key to
| removing a Corbyn government by an effective establishment
| coup.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Corbyn is a hardcore anticapitalist whose aim is a
| socialist society (soviet block style). He is in favour of
| Brexit, too, for this reason. Same goes for McDonnell, a
| Marxist.
|
| That's very far left and is opposed by most people
| including in the Labour Party. Basically, those guys were
| the Communist Party and unsurprisingly people did prefer to
| keep the Tories...
|
| It was the same in the 80s when Labour was essentially
| unelectable. Blair saw that the centre left was politically
| the best bet, and pragmatically that social policies needed
| the private economy to produce wealth.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| The 2017 Corbyn manifesto was praised by Polly Toynbee of
| all people for goodness sake!
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/lea
| ked...
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Corbyn was a leftie ... but he's a leader of a left wing
| party
|
| Corbyn was hard left in a distinctly centrist country whose
| "Left Wing Party" is (despite its roots) very much left-
| leaning centrist, and who's only ever seen real success
| while occupying the middle-ground.
|
| > voters want something like Tory-lite. Blair did that and
| no one wants to go back to it
|
| If nobody wanted to go back to it then we'd have Rebecca
| Long-Bailey as Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal
| Opposition, not another centrist.
| gghhzzgghhzz wrote:
| The policies were popular. 2017 saw the reversal of
| decline in Labour votes that started under Blair. Labour
| got more votes than any Blair election other than 1997.
|
| There is a large constituency against the status quo in
| the UK. We have proof of that in the 2016 Brexit
| referendum, where 17 million people voted strongly
| against the establishment line and effectively against an
| economic model that we had had for 40 years. People voted
| in part to take back control, and what is nationalisation
| of basic aspects of our lives like water / housing /
| energy / drug manufacturing / transport etc if not taking
| back control?
|
| Since the pandemic, the implementation of a chaotic
| version of Brexit, and the cost of living crisis. The
| underlying aspects of the 2017 / 2019 Labour policies are
| even more starkly relevant. Everything has been laid
| bare, and for some reason the two main parties are now
| completely devoid of ideas or vision.
| Mezzie wrote:
| It's still interesting to think about given America's current
| gerontocracy. My last position put me in contact with a fair
| amount of local and state level politicians in the US and I'm
| _very_ concerned about the talent bases /pipelines of the
| political class here.
|
| There but for the grace of God...
| nailer wrote:
| If you're wondering too: gerontocracy is rule by the elderly.
| And that's indeed a good description of the US right now.
| neaden wrote:
| Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump were all
| born within a year of each other, with Biden being 4 years
| older. There is a specific generation of politicians Born
| within a decade period who managed to get elected young and
| have clung to power in both parties very successfully, see
| John Bohner, Nancy Pelosi, and Ted Kennedy for other
| examples.
| llampx wrote:
| Same in Germany
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Not really. German government is young compared to US.
| No-one in their late 70s anywhere near powerful positions
| federally.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Locally the person that I know that was most heavily involved
| in politics, serving as organizer for a well known local non
| profit, campaign manager for a mayoral campaign, etc, finally
| leached the limits of their patience. Now they use their very
| considerable organization skills as a marketing exec at a
| startup.
|
| Lessig proved tiresome in the later parts of his media
| campaign, but I don't think he was wrong about this basic
| asymetry: there's some political positions that are far more
| likely to receive substantial financial support, and this
| distorts nearly everything in our political system. The
| people who crusade against this are generally speaking, doing
| something irrational out of principle, meanwhile the people
| they're fighting just more money and power.
| [deleted]
| samwillis wrote:
| The way I think it works is each government starts with a finite
| amount of political capital after there is a change in majority.
| This is expended and used up over time, slowly in a growing
| stable economy, much faster when there are destabilising events.
|
| Delivering Brexit and mitigating Covid were massively
| destabilising events that required an enormous amount of
| political capital to deliver. On top of that you then have
| scandal after scandal which drain that political capital.
|
| Ultimately the Conservatives are out of political capital. They
| can only regain it by not being in power for a period of time.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Some at the top still benefit from unearned deference.
|
| Indeed. Quote a bit of Latin in a posh accent at most British
| people and they seem to completely take leave of their senses. A
| bit like the tonic immobility you can induce in some animal by
| turning them over and stroking them. This is why we have had
| ridiculous figures like Johnson and Rees Mogg in positions of
| power.
| justin66 wrote:
| There was a time a proper English accent earned one instant
| respect among Americans. We fixed that by taking some
| Englishmen and letting them talk on cable TV.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _There was a time a proper English accent earned one
| instant respect among Americans._
|
| I don't think this exploit was ever patched. The caveat is
| that it does need to be a _proper_ English accent, e.g. RP.
| Nobody is impressed with a chav talking like Ali G. But if
| somebody on American TV is talking like David Attenborough,
| it boosts their perceived credibility immensely.
| motohagiography wrote:
| How is deference earned, one wonders.
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| As a former inhabitant of England, I always thought that those in
| charge suffered from a uniquely wide 'competence gap' which I
| would like to define as the difference between someone's self-
| perceived competence and someone's actual competence. (The term
| is probably useful more broadly...)
|
| Maybe it is the historically class-based society alluded to in
| the article, but it always stunned me how those at the top, and
| in particular politicians, were pushing through policies without
| even a modicum of consultation. See for example the 'kamikwasi'
| budget of last month: in which other European country would this
| have been done so thoughtlessly?
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| I'd like to suggest you take a look at almost everything done
| in power by George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Francois Holland,
| Paul von Hindenburg, Silvio Berlusconi, Brian Cowen, Jair
| Bolsonaro... the list could go on... and compare and contrast
| and then ask if this is subjectively a phenomenon truly unique
| to the UK.
|
| Bad leadership of the type you describe has shown itself in
| every country in the World at some point.
|
| the Kamikwasi budget was the end goal of a section of the Tory
| party who had been planning every single part of it for well
| over a decade in think tanks, dinner parties and meeting rooms
| across London and party conferences. Truss told everyone in the
| party what she was planning to do as part of her campaign for
| leader. They voted for it because they believed it was the
| right thing to do for the country. She and her chancellor then
| went ahead with executing it, and the markets told them to get
| it in the bin, pronto.
|
| To paint it as a uniquely insane thing to do based on the class
| system playing out is an odd thing to do to me. It was a
| political ideology that was planned, plotted, wargamed and
| ultimately voted for.
|
| It all points to a need for the UK to be rid of the Tories for
| a generation or two, but I can't see the relationship to a
| unique and rabid myopic stupidity evident in it that you seem
| to.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| A competence gap is a very polite way to put it. In Britain we
| live in an _inverted meritocracy_ which rewards smug stupidity,
| elevates bullshit, while punishing and marginalising our most
| talented people.
|
| I thought this was going to be another cynical Economist hit
| piece like the earlier "Europe not pulling its weight" [1] but
| was surprised how on-the-money it is. Some well chosen quotes;
|
| "A family with the wrong members in control" wrote George
| Orwell of the English.
|
| Or, a country that "institutionalises lying" ruled "by chancers
| and cranks" sums it up nicely. We've had a profound leadership
| crisis in Britain for several decades now, and it's not just
| party politics. It's endemic to all institutions and industry.
| We positively celebrate corruption because we mistake it for
| power.
|
| We keep selecting incompetents to lead, in all areas, because
| we confuse their psychopathic cunning with "leadership". I
| believe that the recent visibility of "imposter syndrome" is
| tactical smoke to distract from the fact that there really are
| an extraordinary number of _actual imposters_ in charge
| everywhere. Are they 're getting scared? Exposure is coming.
|
| George Carlin put it best I think. He said the definition of
| real terror is waking up in mid-life and realising that all
| those pricks you went to school with are now running the
| country. But yes, it's our fault. We built a system that
| selects for them. And we continue to allow it to stand.
|
| What worries me is that, if tomorrow our country came to its
| senses and asked genuinely competent people to take the helm,
| it would already be far, far too late.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=33992393
| jrumbut wrote:
| From the outside, the most painful part of UK politics to
| watch is this instinctual reaction of "well, that didn't
| work, so let's do anything else." It takes a lot of luck to
| do that and land on a good idea.
|
| Again, from the outside, the UK looks like a country that has
| a lot to lose but it's acting quite desperate and it's hard
| to see why.
|
| > What worries me is that, if tomorrow our country came to
| its senses and asked genuinely competent people to take the
| helm, it would already be far, far too late.
|
| I agree with much of the post, but it's this kind of
| statement that worries me. I think there is a lot of room for
| incremental improvement in the UK, the dull work of growing
| in competence, but the appetite seems to be for sweeping
| measures.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > worries me... the appetite seems to be for sweeping
| measures.
|
| Yes that is concerning. Desperate voters will follow any
| crazy with bold promises.
|
| > I think there is a lot of room for incremental
| improvement in the UK
|
| Way I see it, I've lived through about 30-40 years of
| decremental decline, so if we started "incremental
| improvement" tomorrow, we'd be back where I started in the
| 1970s just by the time I die. I suppose that's better than
| watching ones country decline through all your life, like
| for Russians. Or disintegrate, as for ex-Yugoslavians for
| example.
|
| However, in the era of climate crisis, and myriad other
| threats, a sense of urgency is in the air which we cannot
| ignore. Unless rational and courageous minds take the lead
| someone else will.
|
| > the dull work of growing in competence.
|
| Knowing where to even start... how to counter the
| conditions that are causing us to lose competence... we
| need to plug the holes in the ship before charting a new
| course.
| notahacker wrote:
| > George Carlin put it best I think. He said the definition
| of real terror is waking up in mid-life and realising that
| all those pricks you went to school with are now running the
| country.
|
| Not too worried about that; didn't attend Eton. :D
| vsareto wrote:
| Pretty sure if you went to school with folks running a
| country, you're probably in the big club he talks about
| regular people not being in, so you're unlikely to wake up in
| terror
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| He means it a bit less literally than that.
|
| I'd call it the Biff Tannen (AKA Trump) effect.
|
| That jackass kid who would stick a compass in his hand for
| giggles, set fire to cats or drink a bottle of antifreeze
| is now, by pure devious guile and rotten luck for everyone
| else, the mayor of your city.
|
| You studied hard, went to college, served your nation,
| designed a better widget, raised a decent family, bought
| the dream... and have fuck-all say in what goes.
|
| It's nothing to do with elite schools, prominent families
| or money. That's what makes it even more horrifying. The
| race is not to the quick etc... How arbitrary it is. I
| think that's Carlin's point.
| sealeck wrote:
| I personally think that the problem is that our political class
| consists almost entirely of humanities-educated politicians.
| People (who presumably have humanities degrees) will say things
| like "politicians don't need to be experts" and the even more
| facile (well, I am really paraphrasing here) "why do you need
| an understanding of the subject matter to decide what actions
| to take".
|
| If you look at COVID-19 and climate change you really
| understand that politicians really don't know how to raise a
| number to the power of the other (i.e. understand exponential
| growth). I still vividly recall the ludicrous argument a friend
| (now studying philosophy at Oxford) attempted to advocate to
| me, which is that "we should not do anything now so that if we
| need to fight it later the economy is strong enough" (they did
| not understand exponential growth). Simple mathematics suggests
| that if you have some crisis which is going to get
| exponentially worse over time, and you can mitigate or stop now
| it's probably better to do something now, rather than later.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| There are several obvious culprits, here's the timeline:
|
| 1) Promoting the proxy war in Ukraine and impeding diplomatic
| negotiations, plus pushing for the expansion of NATO, had the
| result of pushing gas prices through the roof, driving record
| inflation (and enriching a few gas suppliers). This is the
| primary cause for the recent economic slump. The Neoconomist
| magazine is not going to address this issue, however.
|
| 2) A poorly managed Brexit. Maintaining a regulatory level
| playing field with Europe on issues like food safety standards
| would have facilitated trade. If Brexit had been better focused
| on pushing back against neoliberalism (halting the export of
| manufacturing jobs, limiting the import of cheap labor,
| controlling cross-border capital flows at the nation-state level)
| it would have worked out better. However, here's what gave
| impetus for the push for Brexit:
|
| 3) Privatization of national resources since Thatcher, and the
| resulting increase in costs for basic services. Railways,
| electrical suppliers, etc. were all put in the hands of wealthy
| interests who steadily raised rates to enrich themselves, leading
| to increasing poverty and the destruction of the British middle
| class. This growing wealth gap sparked national anger, hence
| support for Brexit.
|
| Face reality: the ~40-yr neoliberal program has been an absolute
| disaster, and should be thrown on the scrap heap of history
| immediately.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >Promoting the proxy war in Ukraine
|
| Taking a lead in helping the Ukrainians defend themselves seems
| like about the only laudable thing the UK government has done
| in a long time.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Pushing for the expansion of NATO and promoting a regime
| change operation in Ukraine that resulted in a government
| that attempted to ban the Russian language and which had an
| undeniable neo-Nazi element affiliated with it was not such a
| good idea in retrospect, was it?
|
| Imagine if a regime came to power in the USA, and it
| attempted to ban the Spanish language, eliminated Spanish-
| language versions of government documents, etc. Maybe many
| regions of the USA - such as much of the American Southwest -
| would not want to be ruled by such a government?
|
| Similarly, how do you think the USA would respond to Chinese
| military bases and nuclear weapons being based in Mexico, or
| Russian military bases and nuclear weapons being based in
| Cuba (oh, we've already seen what kind of response that
| triggered, back in 1962-1963, wasn't it)?
| justin66 wrote:
| > undeniable neo-Nazi element
|
| One of the things I've learned as an outsider while trying
| to distinguish between propaganda and reality vis a vis
| Ukraine is that the Nazis are pretty deniable.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| It would be weird if Ukraine didn't have any neo-Nazis,
| given that pretty much every other European country does.
| notahacker wrote:
| Speaking of weird, I don't think there's a single person
| banging on about how the presence of neo-Nazis in Ukraine
| justified the invasion that wouldn't have
| enthusiastically defended the actual Nazis in the
| 1930s...
| epistasis wrote:
| > attempted to ban the Russian language
|
| Yikes, this is a terrible lie. Source: the Ukrainians in my
| household who were primarily Russian speaking up until
| February.
|
| Your comment has no basis in reality, is just regurgitating
| the propaganda of a genocidal autocrat which is attempting
| to extinguish Ukrainians as a language.
|
| Repeating lies like this is somewhat despicable, and though
| I'm trying to remain polite because of HN rules, such
| ridiculous propaganda that you are spouting is beyond the
| pale and in real life would be close to fighting words.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Ukraine had no realistic prospect of joining NATO any time
| soon (that may change since the invasion).
|
| Without the expansion of NATO it might have been the baltic
| states that were on the recieving end of a 'special
| operation' long before now. And they would have been much
| less able to defend themselves than Ukraine has been.
|
| Pretty much every country has a 'neo-Nazi element'.
| Including Britain and the US. It isn't clear to me that
| Ukraine was any worse in this respect.
|
| >in a government that attempted to ban the Russian language
|
| "Ukraine's parliament approved a law on Thursday that
| grants special status to the Ukrainian language and makes
| it mandatory for public sector workers"
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-parliament-
| langua...
|
| If that what you are referring to? That doesn't sound like
| a ban on the Russian language to me.
| krona wrote:
| > Face reality: the ~40-yr neoliberal program has been an
| absolute disaster, and should be thrown on the scrap heap of
| history immediately.
|
| I still prefer NHS waiting lists to breadlines.
| epistasis wrote:
| In the US. The waiting lines for specialists are outrageous,
| a minimum of months to easily half a year for several types
| of specialists. And that's with devoting a massive amount of
| our GDP to healthcare, and receiving bad outcomes for it.
| trasz2 wrote:
| pifm_guy wrote:
| Britain is in a post-empire downfall, and has been for 120 years.
|
| If you want to see where it leads, see Portugal which is 50 years
| further ahead on that path.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The price of Britain surviving WW2, was losing their superpower
| status.
|
| The US assimilated all of the British technological and
| organizational advantages and after, what's left is a vassal
| state.
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