UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Interesting and pretty funny article I thought and one piece that stuck out to me,

But there is also something more sinister brewing here. Hospital appointments on the day of the queen’s funeral are cancelled. Food banks are closed. Normal people’s funerals are also cancelled. On the day the queen died, Liz Truss, our new prime minister, quietly lifted the ban on fracking in this country and also announced a plan to relieve Britons of crippling energy bills this winter without explaining where that money is going to come from. I’m not suggesting that anybody offed the queen early for political expediency, but parliament will now be closed for a month: again, to respect the dead queen.

Yeahhh. All of this, despite the genuine affection I realize many people (hell, even myself as an American) had for Lizzie really stinks of the archaic energy of monarchy. But I digress.

The important thing to note is that these decisions were taken by the government, not by the King or even 'the Palace'. Rather amusingly it has already been briefed that he does not approve of everyone going full Stop All The Clocks over his mother's death and that the decision to call a Bank Holiday at very short notice (which has caused the largest amount of disruption, particularly in the health service)* was entirely down to the government - which, of course, it has to have been. It is certainly possible that a new administration is trying (rather ineptly and it would seem not particularly successfully) to use the Queen's death and funeral for political ends, but that would not be on the monarchy itself, either as an institution or as a general principle.

N.B. on fracking we can be... aha... reasonably sure that our new monarch is not a massive fan. Not that he can do anything other than complain in private, but it means that joining the dots, again, leads to political decisions by the elected government, not the institution of the monarchy (whatever you think of it).

Again, there's nothing but long-standing convention keeping King Charles from expressing his political opinions. The guy pays all the taxes he's legally required to, why shouldn't he express his opinions on subjects he cares about?

I rather think that not expressing their opinions on matters is a detriment to the popularity of European Royalty. If King Charles actively engaged in promoting good things such as environmental protections and so forth, on issues he has a passion for, and actively engaged in keeping His Government's feet to the fire, the public would, I think, thank him for it.

I'm sure they'd also appreciate his last lobbying for homeopathic woo.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

When she was originally selected her mother agreed to campaign for her but her father refused. I suspect he ordinarily votes for candidates to the left of Labour - Leeds has historically been reasonably strong for the alphabet left.

Yes, this makes sense. Reading between the lines of what has been said of his politics, he appears to be either a Trot or a Tankie, whereas her mother is - or at least was - a Liberal Democrat: stood as a paper candidate for them in a hopeless ward about twenty years ago. They are divorced.

Engineering and Maths professors have a weird tendency to gravitate towards fringe politics. I don't understand why.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

On a lighter note, a former Deputy Prime Minister has been accused of taking bribes from OnlyFans.

To blacklist other adult entertainment websites

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

When should we expect for canning to be reintroduced ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Academic qualification don't seem to correlate much with intelligence of Politician's, Richard Burgon has a degree from Cambridge. Thérèse Coffey who famously admitted to giving leftover antibiotics to friends has a PHD in chemistry.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Academic qualification don't seem to correlate much with intelligence of Politician's, Richard Burgon has a degree from Cambridge. Thérèse Coffey who famously admitted to giving leftover antibiotics to friends has a PHD in chemistry.

It's almost like being good at writing papers, taking tests, and running experiments is a wholly different skill set and personality trait than sagacity or common sense!

I mean you would expect somebody from a STEM background to have at least heard about antibotic resistance, or maybe have read about it especialy after becoming health minister regardless of their personal skills but apparently that's a bridge too far.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Will they let His Majesty go as well now?

I don't understand what the point of that, he's a ceremonial figurehead with no power.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Will they let His Majesty go as well now?

I don't understand what the point of that, he's a ceremonial figurehead with no power.

Before he became the monarch, his interest in this topic was a widely known matter of record. There's a reason why PM Truss told him he couldn't go just days after his mother died.

So ? I'm interested in climate change doesn't mean I should get to go. The purpose of COP is for policy makers to meet to cordinate their policy response to climate change. King Charles is not a policymaker.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

With the mid-terms coming up did anyone see the hilarious take on Twitter.com about how the US democrats would somehow dominate UK Politics?

Can anyone imagine US consultants trying to run an actual campaign in UK politics, or more hilariously UK politicos going over to the US*- a lib dem by-election team would cause carnage.


*Fun fact- it was a British TU official who helped get the Romney 47% comment tape out there...

I mean a certain tory MP worked the Mcgovern campaign and came up with the line "we won the argument". There's always been a certain amount of political flow between the countries.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Isn't it extremely unusual(to the point of being unheard off) for a minister to be fired before they've been offered a chance to resign ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

How has the TUSC been able to remain organizationally alive despite having next to no electoral success ? Shouldn't their supply of activists exausht at some point.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

To many that would say "oh no not another leadership election" the answer is simple.

You need leadership elections to find out which candidate is in practice the better campaigner to lead your party in an election.

May and Sunak were appointed and turned out crap in record time, despite being good on paper.

Truss was elected in a leadership contest and was worse than both.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Forbes would also be the more conservative candidate economically. Which will win plaudits in some quarters but creates difficulties in others.

It would very possibly make the "left of Labour" schtick in the central belt a bit harder to pull off.

It's however very easy to be left of Labour today. Certainly in contrast to 2017 when the SNP got a central belt fright.

Labour's problems electorally, which you can trace back as far as 1987 (relative to rUK) in it's old Scottish heartlands are exactly as they always have been.

Correct.

Labour lost scotland because it drifted too much to the right on the economy under New Labour.

Glasgow with it's extreme poverty has always been a political paradise for socialist politicians.

They didn't exactly rebound much when they shifted much further left under corbyn.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Forbes would maybe be the best successor, *but* for the "social conservatism" elephant in the room - and that alone may be enough to in reality sink her chances.

Possibly. But she is fairly pragmatic about them. But being a 'Wee Free' is a bigger liability than social conservatism stemming from it.

Is she actually socially conservative (including politically) or just a member of a church which is? Just seen a graphic from Sky News which states she is against gay marriage and abortion, but a quick Google could only find her opposing abortion (but not necessarily legally) and nothing on gay marriage.

I don't think her church membership will beome a massive issue unless people within the SNP want it to become an issue.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

b]Left Party, which came out as the most anti-monarchist political party in our parliament. They took offense that an "archaic" non-elected head of state was given such a privilege.
[/b]

Ultra-rare Left Party W

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The Lib Dems look pretty out of contention in Argyll + Bute, so my assumption is that the SNP win on a heavily split field (God knows what order the other parties are in). Lanark + Hamilton East has enough residual Labour support that I would assume they will quite easily squeeze a lot of the Tory vote, whether it’s enough to win I’m not sure.

North Ayrshire and Arran is similar to East Renfrewshire, being seats where the Tories were clearly stronger in 2019 but which had Labour history and you’d expect on current polling couldn’t be won by the Tories but the SNP vote share will only be in the 30s. Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock is also in this bucket. In these seats how much campaigning the Tories and Labour do will matter a lot, as will any media narrative about Scotland being a Labour vs SNP battle.

Put it this way, whatever the past couple of elections say about a constituency, if in the 2024 general election the Tories are sub-20% and Labour are over 30%, then basically every urban/Central Belt constituency should see Labour outpolling the Tories, especially as the general election Labour vote has already been artificially squeezed by both the Tories and SNP in these places but remains stronger in local elections (with a lot of voters being willing to vote Labour in the right circumstances). 

Aye, that pretty much tracks. The Lib Dem coalition that used to deliver them rural Highland seats seems to have just dissolved, with the singular exception of Jamie Stone, who seems to cling on by the skin of his teeth each cycle. And aye - Labour should outpoll the Tories across the Central Belt if current polling holds, and they're leading the Tories by 10-15%.

What was that coalition and how did it dissolve(was the student fees fiasco that much of a big deal in places without that many students) ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Thought of another London example. Mitcham and Morden used to be humdrum lower middle class suburbia (which is still the case in part of the western, Morden end of the constituency), but much of Mitcham especially is now among the most deprived parts of London. It remains very unfashionable and un-gentrified. I think some of the factors at play there included ‘refugees’ from Wandsworth council’s, um, dubious housing policies, to put it mildly, and a large community of Ghanaian immigrants settling there.

What are those policies ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1660941692042715136?t=5jIr1Y2gAfqOi1Lq0eO...
Might help Sunak

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1667245877608566787?t=dBZv6Gikk1VMx44-GF...
Boris designs as MP, guess that's the end of it
.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-green-climate-change-starmer-miliband-b2372012.html

Enviormentalism is pretty popular, this seems like a really dumb thing to say and very uncharacteristic of Starmer

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The issue isn't so much regulatory changes (which are fairly likely anyway and, for whatever it's worth, relations with The Sun are really very cold: Starmer pressed the 'go' button on the prosecution of the present CEO of News UK when he was DPP and she only got off by throwing one of her co-defendants under the bus in the most spectacular manner imaginable: I wouldn't read much into the odd staffer-written piece with the by-lines of Shadow Cabinet members attached)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/09/rupert-murdoch-keir-starmer-labour-party-power-no-10

Sorry but I just don't think Starmer will be the knight of the realm valiantly tackling the ills of the British politico-mediatic elite. All the indications are he will run a steady ship but will not actually tackle the underlying issues to make the political culture in the UK a healthier one. House of lords reform, wrestling the press from oligarchs, getting rid of tax havens, some form of more proportional representation...all of these are actually net benefits for rank and file Labour members, but the paranoia about wanting to please the select few and not having armageddon headlines on the second day in office is too strong a force for him to actually act.

How would proportional representation benefit Labour Party members?

Let their votes actually count towards the composition of parliament for one?

*I suspect that even during periods of labour government, labor members dispraporinately live in conservative/non-swing seats.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

The issue isn't so much regulatory changes (which are fairly likely anyway and, for whatever it's worth, relations with The Sun are really very cold: Starmer pressed the 'go' button on the prosecution of the present CEO of News UK when he was DPP and she only got off by throwing one of her co-defendants under the bus in the most spectacular manner imaginable: I wouldn't read much into the odd staffer-written piece with the by-lines of Shadow Cabinet members attached)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/09/rupert-murdoch-keir-starmer-labour-party-power-no-10

Sorry but I just don't think Starmer will be the knight of the realm valiantly tackling the ills of the British politico-mediatic elite. All the indications are he will run a steady ship but will not actually tackle the underlying issues to make the political culture in the UK a healthier one. House of lords reform, wrestling the press from oligarchs, getting rid of tax havens, some form of more proportional representation...all of these are actually net benefits for rank and file Labour members, but the paranoia about wanting to please the select few and not having armageddon headlines on the second day in office is too strong a force for him to actually act.

How would proportional representation benefit Labour Party members?

Let their votes actually count towards the composition of parliament for one?

*I suspect that even during periods of labour government, labor members dispraporinately live in conservative/non-swing seats.

The Labour membership makes up less than 2% of the electorate.

They asked how it'd benefit Labour Party members.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I didn't mention pure PR, I still believe Labour or really any centre left force is massively disadvantaged by the fact that swathes of the population would like to vote against Tories but cannot do so. Johnson had a huge majority in seats and yet did not win a majority of the vote. He pushed through a massive constitutional change on the basis of this false mandate

Well that and a popular referendum on it.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I’m very boring and always just liked AV where you got a 1st and 2nd.

This seems like a substantially worse system than FPTP, seeing as that whether you get a second vote depends on whether you accurately guess who will finish in the top two. It's good that it's gone now.

I don't understand this cirticism towards AV, you don't get a second vote. It's just that you vote counts even if your top choice is eliminated.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

12 month of minesterial perks isn't nothing.