British Politics Thread

Probably; it would mean maintaining an HQ in each city and going to the expense of moving everything over. Not to mention security considerations....

Doesn't the EU have enough problems doing this between two locations?

Three, technically: the Parliament is based in Strasbourg, it sometimes sits in Brussels, and part of the administration is in Luxembourg.

Splitting England via the old saxon kingdoms is a nightmare, I've tried to work it out myself. If you have a Mercia than it ends up being stupidly large, Yorkshire pretty much needs to be it's own region to, London can work as a base population level but even then it's not easy to do, the South-East is heavily populated, while the South-West is incredibly lightly populated, East Anglia doesn't have much going for it either.

If the files can be saved from my old laptop I'll try and share them here, long story short trying to get even rough population equality between regions is insanely difficult.

Rotation is unusual nowadays but permanently settling different parts of the government in different cities is not that unusual. South Africa splits the three branches of government into different cities, some countries split the executive and the legislative branches, Germany actual left some of its ministries in Bonn after moving the capital back to Berlin.

A while ago, I read a piece about how the real second city is a spot in the middle of Manchester and Leeds [1]. This makes the implication that one could distribute the functions of the state through the strip from Liverpool to Leeds.

However, concerning regional devolutions, I'm no longer believing that regional divisions are the right size for the UK. Given around eight or nine regions, you can get regions that correspond to historically and geographically recognisable divisions of around the same size as small, well-managed nations that correspond nicely to the realms in Game of Thrones. However, while internationally the regions may seem normal sized, I don't think they fit the British geography and political context (plus I don't want "Growing Strong" to be my house words).

They're not quite small enough that you can focus on the issues of one type of geography and they're not quite small enough that you can pin a problem on an individual politician to hold them accountable but they are also not large enough that one manage its policies without interfering with an other- the size of Britain makes it really easy to move a business to skirt some regulation or some taxes; several popular commuter routes and major roadways cut across regions.

This isn't a federal republic, it's a unitary constitutional monarchy and that's something that has been a millennium in the making. Germany is a federation because it's barely been one country for a tenth of its history. The anglo-saxon kingdoms died with the harrowing of the north in 1069.

Now what do other unitary constitutional monarchies in Europe do? Well, Sweden and Norway have a strong focus on their municipalities and counties-subdivisions that we already have-I think it's in Sweden that these subnational divisions actually handle over half of all government spending.

Silas W's post reminds me, indirectly, of the original argument for the regional divisions. Because I realise that the equality of the sizes of the regions shouldn't actually matter that much. The regions aren't being represented in the national parliament, they are meant to be self-focused so that A&E closures in rural Anglia aren't being decided by somebody surrounded by the high density of London hospitals connected by the TFL network. I think that this can still work at the municipal level.

Yet a regional parliament would create a network of regional politicians that provides a regional political culture. Parties are always going to have to fight over the political centre ground in some way but having to maintain the coalition of regional sects stops some demographics from being ignored. It would provide an alternative to the conveyer belt of Oxford PPE graduates who not only seem to be unrepresentative but also just seem to be not actually very good politicians.

That's one half of "being too london centric", the other half is economic. That undercuts my case again because decisions about investment in infrastructure and economic development decisions work better at a regional level, I think.

The Harrods clientèle tend not to come from countries with the right to vote. If you were to post this statement in the Arab Spring thread, you may have a point.

IS has executed a British national: http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/13/world/meast/isis-haines-family-message/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Fuck, it's happened This was inevitable, with the guy having been named and there being no indication that anything could be done to save him, but still.

I wonder, do they actually think these executions would deter anyone (since at least some of their recruits are from Western societies, they'd have to realise...), or do they have some other agenda?

IS has made almost every power in the world their enemy. They are in no way a rational actor.

edited 13th Sep '14 8:24:08 PM by Rationalinsanity

They're baiting. They know no-one has the stomach for another protracted war in the region.

So it is like Vietnam?

Wait, was the UK involved in Vietnam?

Depends who you believe.

Quite. Not officially, at any rate.

No - the Viet Cong were doing fine by themselves.

edited 14th Sep '14 2:25:58 AM by Achaemenid

As Harold Wilson put it: "Because we can't kick our creditors in the balls."

The BBC: The papers: 'An act of pure evil'

There are no legal cases to be had for British action against ISIS, experts say.

Well that puts paid to the idea of solving things with a lawsuit.

New ISIS Video Reportedly Shows Beheading of British Aid Worker David Haines.

edited 14th Sep '14 5:04:20 PM by deviantbraeburn

A question that really needs to be asked in the wake of the Scottish election - 97% voter registration, over 80% turnout. Why can't that happen with general elections?

Here we have empirical proof that it is possible to get people engaged with politics. Young and old, people who have never voted before or haven't voted for years have done so again. This needs to be taken forward, and the lessons learned to get people voting in such numbers in every election.

It would be nice, but you have to admit that the "Once in a lifetime" aspect probably helped.

I think the US actually had that kind of turnout too, in 1860. Secession really gets people riled up.

Although this is all of Europe, it does make the UK into 4 countries

http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/668-nil-europe-equipopulous

edited 18th Sep '14 4:37:49 PM by Last_Hussar

Speaking as a Swiss person, I can tell you why a record turnout like that happens in referenda but not in elections: Different vote effects.

A vote in a general legislature election is for a political package and for people. A vote in a referendum is about a particular issue - and in this case, it's a really major issue.

I've always felt the UK should grant more autonomy to its countries. Have a separate clique of specifically UK parliamentarians, with the devolved governments doing most of the state and local policies.

Of course, my ideas for a new UK government would probably be seen as insane. I'd have each country with its own economy and parliament as mostly a defense/military-oriented thing.

edited 19th Sep '14 1:09:59 AM by Sledgesaul

That sounds a lot like American maxi-Libertarian thinking, Sledge.

On another subject, if I was in charge of MI5, I'd try to get more funds allocated to combating any potential terrorist attacks caused by disgruntled Scottish Nationalists. It's certainly a potential threat now.