This thread exists to discuss British politics.
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Recent political stuff:
- The vote to see if Britain should adopt Alternative Voting has failed.
- Lib Dems lose lots of councils and councillors, whilst Labour make the majority of the gains in England.
- The Scottish National Party do really well in the elections.
A link to the BBC politics page containing relevant information.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 3rd 2023 at 11:15:30 AM
A procrastination in of itself
I don’t see local authorities raising council tax, they’ll just make even deeper cuts into local government services.
Oh and Brexit related news. Several Unionist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland have announced their withdrawal from the Good Friday Agreement in protest of the Irish Sea border. They are currently saying they will keep their opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol “peaceful and democratic”, but we’ll see how long they keep to that.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Organized Canine Bureau Special Agent
How strange that allegations against (mostly) Meghan are coming out after she and Harry did interviews with Oprah on taking advantage of staff working with the Palace.
"Exit muna si Polgas. Ang kailangan dito ay si Dobermaxx!"
...What’s the council tax? I’m used to local governments being funded off property taxes, which affect higher-wealth people with high-value properties the most. (And to municipal spending mainly being transit, bike lanes, road maintenance, policing, firefighting, whereas it feels like you’re talking about social services.)
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Labour supports the income tax freeze (which, as Silas mentioned, will cause more and more low earners to pay tax due to inflation), but opposes Sunak's corporation tax rises (which tax the profits of large companies). This may not be a particularly progressive budget, but it seems to be successfully outflanking Starmer and Dodds to the left.
Edited by Iaculus on Mar 4th 2021 at 2:51:47 PM
What's precedent ever done for us?
Figure of Hourai
Exactly what constituency is he trying to appeal to, here?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Council tax is based off property value, yes, but it also gets charged to tenants. And local authorities have to fund all the community social services and basic things like refuse collection as well as local roads. Not sure on who funds the police etc., though; but given that policing is centralised in Scotland I think it might actually be funded by the central government.
So naturally, a hike in council tax is based entirely on what you happen to live in regardless of whether you own it, whilst cuts to services target things that can be considered optional first because you can't stop dealing with rubbish.
Edited by RainehDaze on Mar 4th 2021 at 1:16:57 PM
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A procrastination in of itself
Also, both the number and value amounts of council tax bands are set centrally. So a council can’t put an extra band on the high end to get money out of super pensive properties, or make the lowest band bigger to keep poor people at the lowest rate.
Plus you can get out of most of council tax if the property is empty, so it does nothing to combat the problem of vacant second-homes.
It’s probably mixed. With the Home Office funding the police forces directly and local council’s having to fund things like community support officers and outreach programs.
I know that I have to pay extra if I want a green bin for garden waste, so sadly you can stop/reduce dealing with rubbish. I’m not old enough to be sure but I suspect that bins used to be weekly in a lot of places that now collect them fortnightly.
Oh come on! If we’re gonna flag hump it’s meant to give us the opportunity to keep left on economic issues.
The editorial team at the Times and the Telegraph? I get the fear around Labour’s dismal reputation on the economy, but I’m starting to question if they can actually be fixed.
It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens if Starmer leads us into a shitshow of a local election result, there’s not really anyone around to challenge him, but a lot of his support within the party came on the basis that he might be able to actually win something.
Edited by Silasw on Mar 4th 2021 at 1:38:31 PM
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Figure of Hourai
Oh, they were, I have good memory of that. It used to be just the one black bin collected every week, then they added the recycling bin and it moved fortnightly, then they added a green bin for gardening waste (this was in Bedfordshire), and right now I'm at two different recycling bins and a black bin collected on a three-week cycle, with an option for the brown gardening one but no garden so it doesn't really matter.
They can't stop collecting the main waste, though, unless you want really big problems to start.
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A procrastination in of itself
You’re got it worse than me then. I’ve got a fortnightly cycle, with a general waste bin and two different recycling ones. Plus the tiny little food waste bin that gets done each week.
You’re right that waste collection can’t stop totally without everything going to shit, but rubbish services certainly have been hit by cuts over the years, same as everything else.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Figure of Hourai
Though I'm also not surprised, because it went from collecting one bin weekly to having a whole plethora of bins, I consider the outcome where it's collecting three bins over three weeks to be perfectly reasonable as a result. Now, if there were a week with no collection, that's bad...
I had that happen a few times but it was the actual binmen just... skipping us? That was ridiculous.
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Oh, bother.
In the USA in my old neighborhood they gather three bins (regular waste, yard waste, recyclables) every Monday morning.
Disgusted, but not surprised
A procrastination in of itself
As long as the collection is regular enough that my bins don’t overfill I’m not bothered, but that’s the risk with bigger gaps, suddenly you run out of space. I’m sure that happens to some people over Christmas, when all bin collection goes wonky for a couple weeks.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
It's almost entirely forgotten now, but in 2008 Dom Joly made a series for Channel Five called Complainers.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Oh come on! If we’re gonna flag hump it’s meant to give us the opportunity to keep left on economic issues.
'Meant' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. It seems more that it was an attempt to cover for Labour's present lack of detailed, concrete ideology (minus authoritarianism and casual racism/ableism). Certainly doesn't seem like it has had much cut-through, either - Starmer's favourability rating seems to have been steadily falling amongst both 2019 Labour and 2019 Conservative voters. A recent Redfield poll has Johnson winning 'best Prime Minister' by a whole eighteen percentage points against Starmer. Looking back through recent polls is interesting because he's now consistently less popular than Labour itself - one of his key early selling points was that he would salvage the party's reputation with his own personal popularity, but now he seems to be dragging it down.
This is looking very much like a Jo Swinson/CUK/Theresa May situation, where the media managed to manufacture a political figure's popularity through rave reviews right up until they became prominent enough for the voting public to actually take a look at what they were being sold.
Edited by Iaculus on Mar 4th 2021 at 3:45:46 PM
What's precedent ever done for us?
Haven't seen it mentioned yet: following Joe Anderson's arrest in December, Labour had to decide on a new candidate to run for (and almost guaranteed to win) the position of Mayor of Liverpool City Region.
A shortlist of 3 women was determined - reported in the BBC 7th Feb
The Party scrapped this shortlist without explanation - reported in the BBC 23rd Feb
As far as I know no explanation has been provided since either. They also said that the people on the shortlist would not be allowed to re-apply.
Some people suggested that they wanted to avoid any councillers in case they became wrapped up in Anderson's case.
This has since seemingly been proven wrong as the new shortlist - reported in the BBC yesterday - is 2 more councillors:
- Anthony Lavelle
- Joanne Anderson (no relation, but personally I don't expect that to matter)
Both are relatively new though, so perhaps that is why... however not saying anything on the matter does encourage the worst take.
"Ballots will be sent to Labour members in the city next week."
meow
RE: Bins- I suspect I'm a fair bit younger than Silas, but I remember it being weekly until I was about 10. Where I live now, rubbish is weekly but recycling is fortnightly.
I've heard rumblings that the position was going to be scrapped for ideological reasons, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
In unrelated news, I got my census letter today, and filled it out online.
jamie-b-good.tumblr.com
Over here, they cycle between rubbish and recycling every week. You can pay extra to also have garden rubbish in a brown bin if you don't want to use it as compost, which is taken bi-weekly at the same time as one of the others (not sure which one).
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.
Jimmy Spratt, MLA for Belfast South 2007-2015, died today aged 69.
Today's stats:[1]
- 00,124,025 deaths
- 04,201,358 cases
- 20,982,571 first doses
- 00,963,862 second doses
We have vaccinated just under 31% of the UK's population.
The Duke of Edinburgh has undergone a successful heart operation.[2]
Sir Philip Rutnam has been given a £340,000 payout by the government for unfair dismissal.[3]
Here is coverage of yesterday's hearing in the Scottish Parliament over the handling of harassment complaints.
And in today's edition of don't read the comments... don't read the comments in reply to BBC's post regarding the nurses union condemning the 1% pay rise as "pitiful"... unless you agree that it shows nurses as being "out of touch" in "tough times" and "should be grateful they still have a job".
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Speaking of polls, the latest YouGov voting intention survey has the Conservatives at 45% and Labour at 32%, which is officially a the first time a national poll has recorded a bigger gap than in the 2019 general election (43.6% vs 32.1%). 36% of those surveyed think Boris Johnson would be the best prime minister, 33% don't know, and only 28% think it should be Starmer.
This is obviously grim news for Labour in the upcoming locals, and while the Conservatives' surge can be attributed to the successful rollout of the vaccination programme, their own dipping numbers (and inability to consolidate the 'not Tory' vote) can't. I suspect we'll see knives out for Starmer before long.
What's precedent ever done for us?
A procrastination in of itself
The problem with knives coming out for Starmer is the question of who the hell replaces him? Who do we have that can win an election? Corbyn’s branding remains toxic while Starmer seems unwilling to try the obvious idea of Corbyn’s popular policies combined with a fresh face without a ton of baggage.
I’ve talked about Burnham a bunch in the past, but he can’t actually be the best option, can he? He’s failed in two different leadership contents.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Figure of Hourai
I would like to nominate my toaster, my pet dog, and a shopping trolley fished out of a nearby stream as suitable replacements on the grounds that they have not opted to try to be more economically rightward than the bloody Tories, and none of them have any political baggage.
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Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Well, the Labour right will presumably be pushing Reeves - she's been extremely visible of late. Rayner will presumably abandon Starmer's sinking ship and launch her own bid as the unifying candidate - she's always been ambitious, but it remains to be seen how much appetite there is for unity after the Labour right's utterly vile behaviour over the last year, and whether she'll actually be able to muster any support from the increasingly demoralised, radicalised, and/or discredited Labour soft left. Clive Lewis will probably make another play from the left - he's been one of Starmer's most visible and prominent critics, and has adeptly gathered a following for himself over the past few months. Always a chance something more substantial will emerge from those rumours of sexual misconduct he's had floating around him for a while now, though.
One thing I would hope is that Labour voters in the next leadership election will take a more critical attitude towards how the media evaluates 'competence' and 'electability' in politicians, though. British newspaper columnists are some of the stupidest, most insular, and most casually vicious people in the country, and their approval or disapproval has less than zero bearing on a politician's actual ability to serve as a democratic representative in the sovereign governing body of the country, their ability to obtain and exercise meaningful political power, and their ability to interact with other human beings.
'What if we make our next leader a tedious nonentity with less than five years of political experience and suspiciously glowing praise from people who openly hate our party and its ideals' was always a terrible idea, and we need to recognise and accept that if we want to actually get anywhere. Corbynism should be recognised as a brief but impressive surge in popularity and relevance for a profoundly decayed and dysfunctional political party, and we need to be much more clear-eyed in understanding that the corrupt and malevolent structure that brought it down may not be the best source of insight on what might be more effective in defeating it.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Nicola Sturgeon in a confidence-and-supply agreement with Labour? I mean, if Labour literally can't pick a leader, then she's the next best thing.
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
Figure of Hourai
Given the current situation in Holyrood? Ahahahah.
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There's also no money for local authorities, which combined with the fact that local authorities have to run a balanced budget means that there will be across the board rises in council tax, a tax that is notoriously regressive AND since even those rises won't make up the losses in business rates etc. it's likely that local authorities will be cutting spending, much as they have had to do for the last ten years.
Yes, this Tory government likes to spend. But only if they are doing the spending. Austerity never ended in the local government sector.