UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[Silent Hunter]

Former Welsh Secretary Dame Cheryl Gillan (Con, Chesham and Amersham) has died aged 68.

[Blair]

A bit slow admittedly...

https://twitter.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1379164412632793090

[CumbrianLefty]

Boasting to hacks about being a "terminally offline" leadership has actual real world consequences?

Who knew??

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Boasting to hacks about being a "terminally offline" leadership has actual real world consequences?

Who knew??

I wonder why Biden's offline-ness is one of his greatest strengths but Starmer's is proving to be a liability. Does it have to do with the different way parties are structured in the UK? The heavily messaging-focused talent set required to be a successful LOTO? Both?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think mostly it's still an asset, it just means occasional boobs like this. What is probably required is someone on the team who is terminally online and can keep an eye on things.

[Blair]

Boasting to hacks about being a "terminally offline" leadership has actual real world consequences?

Who knew??

I wonder why Biden's offline-ness is one of his greatest strengths but Starmer's is proving to be a liability. Does it have to do with the different way parties are structured in the UK? The heavily messaging-focused talent set required to be a successful LOTO? Both?

Biden team managed it while also knowing they needed to give the left of the party something... I’ve generally been annoyed by the failure to offer something that at least shows they’re trying.

Might also have something to do with the longer campaign; being LOTO for 5 years means that this sort of stuff just comes up a lot more. 

[CumbrianLefty]

Not doing more to keep the non-crank left on board looks like a strategic error right now.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Biden was the nominee in the run-up to the election and is now the incumbent. There was a lot of important news to report then and he had more opportunity to drive the narrative.

In contrast, we're years out from the next election, Starmer has no real influence on what happens right now and there isn't very much political news now that is getting much attention. So mistakes like this get more attention, because there isn't as much to drive them out of the news.

That said, I'm not sure this shows the benefit of being terminally online. Johnson had a screw-up like this on a regular basis during the election campaign and it didn't make very much difference. Starmer doesn't have nearly the same teflon qualities, but it still won't be a story even the terminally online will recall in 6 months time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It won't be a story that many are aware of now: I've not heard mention of it on the TV or radio news broadcasts.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Perhaps some of the British posters here could help explain this to me.
(By the way, I am not and do not 'identify as' a Tory.)

Under a Tory government, when anything health-related goes wrong (or the Labour Party needs something to campaign on), it is because the Tories have been starving 'our NHS' of funds, or 'privatising' it. Yet no government since 1945 has ever reduced spending on healthcare, and since 2010 as percentage of GDP it has only really plateaued.

When anything goes well, e.g. vaccines so far, it is because of the 'wonderful' NHS (the same thing which has been destroyed by the Tories) and volunteers.

Now I am not trying to defend Tory healthcare policy, which I don't know much about; but this seems wildly inconsistent. Maybe it's a bit of a straw-man, but I hear it a lot. And as for the vaccine programme, I think it's widely acknowledged that much of our success relative to other countries is down to Kate Bingham, a venture capitalist.

[Geoffrey Howe]

(In fact I am a member of the Labour Party, which I joined to vote in the leadership election, and not for entryist reasons. Now some people here might say that my vote for Keir Starmer is proof of entryism...)

[afleitch]

Days of Loyalist violence in Belfast to get the attention of the UK media and it hardly being reported weirdly sums up the pointlessness of the Union for even diehard Unionists.

[Blair]

If anybody needs a laugh...

https://mobile.twitter.com/Femi_Sorry/status/1380023850751062022

[Silent Hunter]

France uses Second Ballot, which is arguably even less representative. Also, as plenty of other countries demonstrate, PR doesn't give you good politicians.

[CumbrianLefty]

If anybody needs a laugh...

https://mobile.twitter.com/Femi_Sorry/status/1380023850751062022

I mean, in its own way this is GENUINELY AWESOME

(just not in any of the respects that Femi imagines)

[Cassius]

Not this sh**t again.

France uses Second Ballot, which is arguably even less representative. Also, as plenty of other countries demonstrate, PR doesn't give you good politicians.

PR is a wonderful way of getting governments that everybody hates. Indeed, our one recent example of coalition is proof positive that the electorate doesn’t want politicians from different sides to work together.

[Alcibiades]

I mean, FPTP is essentially indefensible from an intellectual perspective, and it only persists out of inertia and its blatant self-propagating nature (i.e. governments which get power through FPTP are not going to want to abolish it) in this country. I suppose you could make a practical argument, but is the UK’s politics actually less dysfunctional than Germany’s or Scandinavia’s?

[Geoffrey Howe]

Not this sh**t again.

France uses Second Ballot, which is arguably even less representative. Also, as plenty of other countries demonstrate, PR doesn't give you good politicians.

PR is a wonderful way of getting governments that everybody hates. Indeed, our one recent example of coalition is proof positive that the electorate doesn’t want politicians from different sides to work together.

Would you regard Israel as a success for PR?...

Anyway, from what I can tell, people don't understand how to use STV - i.e. people giving their first preference tactically. I know someone who is campaigning for the Greens in the London Mayoral and apparently this is a big problem for them.

[Blair]

The problem for London is that you can’t expect people to understand a system used in an election with 30% turnout and where Labour actively say ‘it’s a two horse race’!

I’m being slightly vacuous but the races in London have always been relatively boring and haven’t really been changed by being STV.

[Geoffrey Howe]

The problem for London is that you can’t expect people to understand a system used in an election with 30% turnout and where Labour actively say ‘it’s a two horse race’!

I’m being slightly vacuous but the races in London have always been relatively boring and haven’t really been changed by being ATV.

Well fair enough, it might be better advertised (or manipulated) in a national election.

But it also shows just how little some people think before casting their ballot.

[YL]

Of course it isn't actually proper STV, it's "Supplementary Vote", a horrid bastardisation of STV/AV/IRV where you can only give two preferences and all but the top two are eliminated after the first count.

[Pericles]

The British people aren't going to vote for electoral reform anyway so it's just a distraction for Labour.

[CumbrianLefty]

I would be wary of reading a *massive* amount into an undertaking a decade ago which was putting forward far from the most popular option for electoral reform, and for a large number of people turned into a de facto plebiscite on one of the most despised politicians of modern times.

Though of course it *could* be passed without a referendum, especially if various parties committed to that in their manifestos.

[Geoffrey Howe]

I would be wary of reading a *massive* amount into an undertaking a decade ago which was putting forward far from the most popular option for electoral reform, and for a large number of people turned into a de facto plebiscite on one of the most despised politicians of modern times.

Though of course it *could* be passed without a referendum, especially if various parties committed to that in their manifestos.

Though it may have been a vote on Clegg, it did best where the Lib Dems lost support to Labour in 2015.

[Pericles]

I would be wary of reading a *massive* amount into an undertaking a decade ago which was putting forward far from the most popular option for electoral reform, and for a large number of people turned into a de facto plebiscite on one of the most despised politicians of modern times.

Though of course it *could* be passed without a referendum, especially if various parties committed to that in their manifestos.

It's not the AV referendum but people don't tend to vote for actual electoral reform unless there is a very obvious need for it. And sadly, the last two hung parliaments haven't shown a very obvious need for it.