This thread exists to discuss British politics.
Political issues related to Northern Ireland and the Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) are also considered on-topic here if there's no more appropriate OTC thread for them.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.
As with other OTC threads, off-topic posts may be thumped or edited by the moderators.
- There is a dedicated thread to discuss LGBTQ+ rights in the United Kingdom. That doesn't mean it's always off-topic here, but unless something's directly linked to political events, that's probably a better thread for it.
- There's also a separate thread to talk about your favourite British Prime Ministers.
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
What I am not understanding about the Labour infighting is this belief that the leader they elect has to win the next election, and the next election could be right now.
Hear me out for a minute. A recurring theme seems to be that it is not in Labour's best interest to become "the party of opposition" and just oppose everything the Tories do "because they can."
What is the problem with that position, in the first two or so years of a five year parliament? Labour are not going to be in power anyway for five years, so why insist on being a "government in waiting" when you are going to be waiting for five years.
Because on the other hand the reflexive "oppose everything" mantra gives something to Labour they clearly desperately need. It gives them time. Labour have not stopped since 1997. 13 years in power, followed up with 5 years of intense opposition where everyone was feeling the water in the new age of coalition politics. Going back to the status quo of Labour vs Tories should almost be a relief.
Labour need to relax, retreat and rediscover who they are. Get away from Parliament and come up with some new, bold policies that give people hope. It is time to think strategy, not tactics.
I don't like the recent mood coming out of Labour, this sense they've got to support the government because people have declared a mandate for what Osborne's doing by voting Tory in the election. That's Osborne's lie - especially given that recent moves in the budget and onwards have shown they're quite openly moving away from what their manifesto promises were already. It's shocking that an opposition party would buy into this, and be seen openly saying they must not rebel because it won't help them get back into power.
They're supposed to be offer real alternatives to government policy, not bending over to be Osborne's whipping boy just because they think it'll get them back into power.
Apparently younger and newer Labour members and MPs are much more left-wing now than during the Blair years and that it seems new membership is swinging Labour back towards the left. I'm afraid that's what's necessary. With genuine respect intended to the SNP, the SNP do not represent enough of the country to be the primary party of opposition, even though their words speak for many of us right across the country. Mhairi was right - there has to be a united and strong opposition to this government. It cannot fall to the SNP to be what the entire country needs unless they become a nation-wide party with enough MPs to pull it off.
Trying to be Tory-lite just for a chance at government simply gives Labour the reputation the Lib Dems are now living with after the coalition years. SNP MPs like Mhairi have been sounding like the Labour MPs of old. The simple fact is that our media loathes the left, even the centre-left, and supports the right. Since Labour cannot win in the eyes of the media it needs to be a party that is true to itself - even if that means they don't get into government next time (and they won't).
This is a feeble government majority, for god's sake. A proper opposition has the power to do a world of good. The reason the Tories keep blackmailing Labour to vote with them 'because it's the will of the people, as expressed in the election' is because they cannot pass these things on the tiny majority they have. A proper opposition can be the check a government this ideologically extreme absolutely, desperately needs to have.
So where the hell is it?
This is why I lean towards wanting to see Corbyn as Labour leader - someone needs to try and form a proper opposition. There's no way Corbyn could lead Labour into a new government, especially with such a hostile media, but he can potentially create a proper opposition. All those Tories mocking the idea of Corbyn handing them the next election are also missing this point - a weak government majority with a strong opposition means a government can't get away with anything the opposition doesn't want it to get away with. Yes, Corby will probably hand the Tories another election in five years time - but he might be able to deliver a stronger opposition in the short and long term - and this country hasn't had one of those since John Smith (since the Tories were themselves an atrocious opposition party which is part of the Greek tragedy of Cameron getting into power at all).
A strong opposition now can do more to curb the Tories in this parliament than the Lib Dems could ever have possibly hoped to achieve as coalition partners in the previous term.
edited 21st Jul '15 4:43:39 PM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Corbyn suffers the Obamacare problem
Ask Americans if they like Obamacare, and many don't Ask if they prefer Affordable Care Act, and it has more support. Question them on individual mandates in the law, and they love them.
If you take people through Corbyn's policies step by step they agree.
But with the Daily Mail - the paper that supported Hitler, The Telegraph - the paper that suppresses news unpopular with advertisers, and the Murdoch empire he is never going to be heard.
The actual figures for the 'Labour pissed it up the wall' idiots. Annual Deficit under Major - £30-40bn pa. Considered healthy by the international money markets. Annual Deficit under Blair/Brown £20-30bn pa.
SO less in actual maths terms, and, because of inflation, less in real terms - £30bn in 1991 is a bigger debt than £30bn in 2006.
Except for 3 years there was a Surplus.
In other years there would have been a small surplus or negligible deficit, so Brown took the opportunity to borrow at EXTREMELY low rates to build infrastructure.
Between 97 and 2007 the Debt, as a share of GDP had fallen from 45% to 35%- although the actual amount had gone up, the economy had grown quicker.
And then in 2008 our deficit was not £35bn. It was £190bn. In 2009 it was £210bn.
Boys and girls - what happened in 2008? Did Teachers suddenly start driving Gold plated Rolls Royces? Were unemployed being handed Caviare and Champagne?
Or were a bunch of people, many of who we now know to be taking part in questionable dealings cock up big style?
If the recession was Brown's fault, exactly how did he crash the US economy? Destroy Lehman Brothers.
Corbyn is about the only Labour MP pointing this out.
That's what websites like the voteforpolicies website showed. Take away the individuals, the party association and the soundbytes and just give people the manifesto promises, in anonymous text, and the choices people make show the UK is a very left-wing country by nature. In fact, it wasn't just Labour policies that resonated, it was Green policies in particular that people liked.
But the minute you tell them which party the policies they chose actually belong to, they go into denial and back-track.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
I completely agree. The SNP do not want Britain to remain together. It defies all logic that they are the most unified and vocal opposition to the Tories and yet it appears to be the case!
At this point there's looking like a decent case for the SNP making a sister party to fight their corner in England. I honestly think that it would get a large number of votes, and many seemed to want such a thing after Sturgeon's performance in the debates prior to the election. A weird situation indeed, but such is the current state of politics here!
If they could get someone with Sturgeon's appeal and public speaking ability, it would certainly be interesting to see if it could happen. The media would certainly trying to kill it in its nest, but there's not much to lose by giving it a go. Especially with the English Votes issue, given that a lot of areas in England have said that this particular brand the Tories are spouting is not what they want to see. Some manner of regional devolution of power to regional areas, yes, but not like Cameron's suggesting (and not what Blair offered years ago either).
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
Labour's going through what our Democrats are going through: they seem to think they can win back the people who voted Labour 40 years ago. They can't, those people are gone and aren't coming back.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
It's the opposite, actually - they've been ignoring their base and drifting off to the right, and now they're getting outflanked on the left by the Greens, the SNP, and (of all parties) UKIP. The vote the three relatively mainstream candidates are chasing is... well, it's tough to define, and it basically boils down to Tory voters distracted by the last dying flickers of their consciences.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
That's what i mean, some English middle and working class voters who were (or came from families who were) ex-Labour stalwarts, a demographic which has been drifting to the right and which the mainstream parties have been chasing to the abandonment of any identity they might have stood for.
It's much like the U.S., except that the actual leftist demographics in the UK do have a choice and can vote for different parties more effectively, but the Democrats spent 30 years chasing the "Reagan Democrats", sometimes winning (Clinton) but neglecting to build for the future, and are only now starting to figure out where their real bread and butter is.
Edit: From Brits i've spoken to elsewhere, there seems to be an idea that UKIP isn't all knuckle-draggers. They're kind of similar to the American Libertarians, idealistic and with some genuine good ideas that aren't being entertained by mainstream parties, but they also attract the "guns, god, and country" crowd who just latch onto their message because their policies would let them discriminate to their heart's content.
edited 21st Jul '15 6:54:59 PM by Ogodei
V
You mean proper regional Parliamentsnote , and a English Parliament based outside London?
And News from the Labour Campaign:
Cooper was the only Labour leadership hopeful so far to speak out against the findings of the YouGov poll, which is the first to be published since the leadership contest began and claims to be based on a sample of Labour members, registered supporters and union supporters. As well as a win for Corbyn (43%), the poll suggests Andy Burnham (26%) would come second, Cooper (20%) third and Liz Kendall (11%) fourth.
Polls of party members are difficult to conduct and the British Polling Council has yet to conclude its inquiry into how the pollsters managed to get the general election result wrong.
But the poll, in the absence of any other data beyond constituency and union nominations, will send shockwaves through a party establishment that never thought Corbyn’s brand of anti-austerity politics had a chance of winning.
The poll, which predicts Corbyn winning with 53% of the vote in a runoff against Burnham, questioned 1,054 people, of whom 20% have yet to decide how to vote.
And the Blairites strike back:
“These figures are disastrous for the Labour party, disastrous. The fact is the other candidates need to decide who is the ABC candidate – the Anyone but Corbyn candidate,” he said.
McTernan complained that party activists were “suicidally inclined” and condemned MPs who had “lent” their nominations to Corbyn in order broaden the debate, even though they did not want him as leader. “They need their heads felt,” he said. “They are morons.”
Tony Blair is due to address an event hosted by the Progress thinktank on Wednesday and is likely to repeat his warnings against a Labour lurch to the left. Before the general election, he cautioned that when a traditional leftwing party took on a traditional rightwing party it usually ended with a “traditional result” – a Tory victory.
edited 21st Jul '15 11:43:08 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
HGW XX/7
If Labour can become a British PODEMOS or Syriza...
Schild und Schwert der Partei
If Corbyn wins, do you think the Red Tories will still take his whip?
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
The party needs a purging of the ranks by all accounts. To use the Democrats analogy, like how the Blue Dogs got all-but wiped out in the 2010 and 2014 elections
@Greenmantle: Basically. I'm a fan of exploring how a 'federal' system could be adapted to the UK to produce devolved regional parliaments. Being Welsh, I'm very much a fan of devolving power out to proper regional parliaments.
That statement attributed to Tony Blair about 'traditional' results isn't quite right.
This country is, by inclination, left-wing. We have a range of left-wing parties and relatively fewer right-wing parties. Traditionally, the left-wing vote gets heavily split whereas the right-wing vote consolidates. In elections where the left-wing vote splits dramatically, the Tory party does well. The Tories know this, which is one of the reasons why they're such fans of divide-and-conquer tactics (to everything), and why they pushed so hard for the Green party to be included in the election debates.
In the FPTP system, what these splits do is affect proportioning - the number of votes that translate into a seat. The more split the left-wing vote is (for example, when the Lib Dems do well at the expense of Labour), the fewer Tory votes are required to translate into a seat - Tories therefore get more parliamentary seats from the number of votes they've received and therefore can form better government majorities than raw voting numbers would suggest. This is what happened in 1983; the number of people voting Tory fell, but Thatcher nevertheless gained an unprecedented majority. The recently formed Alliance (SDP/Liberal) chewed up the Labour vote which affected the number of votes needed to translate into a Tory seat. As a result, despite less people voting Tory, more seats were produced from the numbers that did vote for them.
In elections where the left-wing vote heavily favours one dominant left-wing party, the voting proportions are much worse for the Tories and they get fewer seats from the number of votes they have. These days we have the SNP and Greens growing stronger, Labour still with enough voters to be considered one of the two main Westminster parties and the Lib Dems soaking up... something. That massive split in the left is a boon to the Tory party under the FPTP system. It's also one of the less publicised reasons why they fear UKIP - the last thing they need is to give right-wing voters more party choice out of fear this could damage the advantage their voting proportions gain from multiple left-wing parties.
As a result, under traditional voting lines in the FPTP system, Labour (or any one, single left-wing party) has to decisively capture the country's left-wing vote at the expense of all the other left-wing parties. That's what puts a left-wing party into government in this country under the FPTP system.
What Blair did was circumvent this problem - by accepting the left vote would be split between parties, he decided the extra votes needed had to come from the right instead, and took Labour into the right's territory to capture them. What that article seems to be saying is that the only way a left-wing party can get into government is by stealing the right-wing vote and leaving the left-wing voters they're not trying to capture to be picked up by other left-wing parties... they should actually be trying to mop up those left-wing voters. Technically, there are more left-wing voters in this country than right-wing voters.
Unfortunately, the other problem this country has is that left-wing voters are less likely to get off their backsides to go to the polls and actually vote... meaning the Tories also benefit disproportionately from low voter turnouts. These years of voter apathy this country has been suffering is something the Tory party has a vested interest in encouraging. Voter apathy leads to low voter turnout which favours a Tory result. That might, possibly, explain why the Blair machine decided the right votes were a more strategic target than the disengaged left votes.
edited 22nd Jul '15 9:55:25 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
V
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Although I'd also say that more power needs to be devolved from Holyrood and Cardiff to lower, regional levels.
Keep Rolling On
Problem 2.
The Judean Popular Front.
That whole routine was written is despair at the left's ability to self destruct though infighting. Lots of groups who constantly split and fight because they don't agree with 5% of the other. The right doesn't have this. How many Right wing parties are their - 1 1/2 (single issue hate Europe)
Walk into any Union Conference and you are confronted by crowds protesting about everything. Listen to the speeches and be told that the speakers members "Really Really" support this.
No they don't. They want you to make their life a bit better - while they may well oppose the bad treatment of transexuals in South America if asked, it isn't on their mind.
On PZ Myers site I was subject to sneers and attacks. My Crime? Suggesting the fact that the DNA Helix MacGuffin in the background going the wrong way wasn't as important as the message of the cartoon, and people shouldn't get hung up on it. Apparently I was letting the creationists win.
No, I'd disagree there. I live in an area described as 95% rural, one of the geographically largest but population smallest in the country (only 150,000). It's also got one of the oldest populations and a well below average wage and abysmal (even by UK standards) transport and road infrastructure.
I don't think we'd benefit from devolved admin really. 3/4 of the Scottish population lives in the central belt. Greater Glasgow and Greater Edinburgh might benefit from extra powers, but I don't see how devolution would really help us. What works for Dumfries and Galloway would work for Ayrshire, the Borders, Clackmannanshire, etc.
Efficiency improvements yes, actual devolution, no. It's much more significant an issue in England.
Wales is similar, I suspect
A procrastination in of itself
Regionalising England is an interesting idea and I've tried to work it out myself several times. You really can't try and do any population balancing, still I've tried it a few times and got interesting results.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
V
But what about the Highlands & Islands, especially Shetland?
I agree population balancing won't work, England's cultural boundaries don't work that way. However, something sort of based on this
◊ might work
Something like this:
- Cornwall: Truro
- Kent: Maidstone
- Sussex: Brighton?
- Wessex: Salisbury or Winchester
- ??: Bristol
- ??: Oxford?
- Mercia (Midlands): Birmingham!
- Anglia: Norwich or Ipswich
- Lancashire: Manchester
- Yorkshire: York or Leeds
- Northumbria?: Durham or Newcastle
- Cumbria?: Carlisle
edited 22nd Jul '15 11:25:59 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
@Greenmantle: There is a very significant issue with regional administration in Wales. The north tends to view it as a south versus north thing. Having lived all over Wales, I don't think it's that simple. Wales is similar in issues of population concentration to Scotland (re: Erudite Esotericist's post), so the immediate problem is efficiency.
Long-term, there may be something in regionalising the Welsh Assembly to a degree.
It's worth noting that the UK is already regionalised for both national and internation purposes. Regionalising the UK regions could run along those lines since they already exist... it might not be what a lot of people would expect, however.
The English regions are listed here (Scotland and Wales are a single region each with no deeper split).
UK government gags advisers in bees and pesticides row
Over 70% of our agriculture is dependent on bee pollination. There's major population collapse occurring. Pesticides are playing a part in that collapse and some of the known offenders (which is why they've been banned in the first place) are being brought back. The evidence is against bringing them back, so the experts were gagged.
edited 22nd Jul '15 11:30:34 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
There are perils to excessive devolution - you lose many of the economies of scale, clever financial tricks, and redistributive powers of a national government, meaning that much more of the financial burden of essential services is placed on unpopular taxes in regions that can't easily afford them.
A procrastination in of itself
I've tried the Anglo-Saxon regions, the problem is that you end up with a massive Mercia, that areas has way to many people to be one region.
Some regions come easy, London, East Anglia, South-West, Yorkshire. But that makes it harder to put it all back together again.
edited 22nd Jul '15 1:12:35 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
HGW XX/7
Add the Danelaw.
Schild und Schwert der Partei
A procrastination in of itself
Here's what I have for a 6 region division. though you could expand it to 8 by pulling London out of the Home Countries and Manchester out of Lancashire-Manchester (note that counties are actually shown as the total pop of all the different component parts of their ceremonial country put together).
Realm of York (pop: 8,663,200): Yorkshire (pop: 5,234,700), Northumberland (pop: 316,300), Tyne and Wear (pop: 1,104,100), Durham (pop: 816,300), Stockton-on-Tees (pop: 191,800).
Realm of Lancashire-Manchester (pop: 7,049,000): Lancashire (pop: 1,461,400), Cumbria (pop: 499,800), Greater Manchester (2,685,400), Merseyside (pop: 1,380,800), Cheshire (pop: 1,021,600).
Realm of Mercia (pop: 12,624,100): Lincolnshire (pop: 1,042,000), Nottinghamshire (pop: 1,090,600), Derbyshire (pop 1,019,500), Shropshire (pop: 473,900), Staffordshire (pop: 1,098,300), West Midlands (pop: 2,739,800), Warwickshire (pop: 546,500), Leicestershire (pop: 980,800), Rutland (pop: 37,600), Northamptonshire (pop: 693,900), Buckinghamshire (pop: 756,600), Oxfordshire (pop: 654,800), Gloucestershire (pop: 1,289,800).
Realm of Wessex (pop: 4,011,300): Somerset (pop: 910,200), Wiltshire (pop: 684,000), Dorset (pop: 745,400), Devon (pop: 1,135,700), Cornwall (pop: 536,000).
Realm of Anglia: (pop: 4,926,000): Cambridgeshire (pop: 806,700), Norfolk (pop: 859,400), Suffolk (pop: 730,100), Essex (pop: 1,729,200), Hertfordshire (pop: 183,600), Bedfordshire (pop: 617,000).
Realm of Home Counties (pop: 15,438,500): Berkshire (pop: 863,800), Greater London (pop: 8,196,700), Kent (pop: 1,731,400), Sussex (pop: 1,609,100), Surrey (pop: 1,135,500), Hampshire (pop: 1,902,000).
edited 22nd Jul '15 1:40:37 PM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
It really is depressing when the SNP are the only genuine opposition to the Tories in the UK. I mean I like and vote for them but I don't wholly trust them, yet they're doing what Labour should be doing - standing united against austerity and at least putting on a pretence of caring about poor people.
Mhairi Black got widespread support for her hard hitting maiden speech recently, even from non SNP supporters. They're daring to stand against the Tories, and all Labour can do is piss and moan, and they'll do nothing else until 2020.
2016 does not look good for Labour it has to be said, but it looks very very very good for the SNP.