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

[urutzizu]

Though being in the EU did not seem to necessarily help when it came to this: The main point of contention between the UK and US being the proposed Digital Services Tax, well France just this week was forced to suspend its plans for one over the threat of Tariffs, and the P3 (UK, France, Germany) were basically bullied by the US with, again, Tariffs into triggering the sanctions mechanism in the Iran nuclear deal last week.

Point being that even as members of the EU, european countries are not really sovereign vis-a-vis the United States. The Idea of collective retaliation was intended to counter this, but as long as EU-US trade is such a one-way street, Europe is dependent on US defense assets, and the EU is not united enough to introduce things like the digital services tax uniformly (and Germany et. al. therefore unwilling to risk a trade war over a french tax), then membership of the EU does not safeguard sovereignty in an effective way. Brexit will just make a already dire situation worse.

[urutzizu]

First Indy Poll post GE:



https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1222871389050372096

[urutzizu]

Terrorist attack in Streatham, London

Another Convicted Terrorist released early apparently.

[urutzizu]

If, God forbid, something happens, Boris will go down as Martyr of epic proportions for the British right and much of British Society as a whole. He will have been martyred with a 25+% lead in the polls, Britain having left the European Union, a Landslide Majority, upended much of Conservative economic philosophy and turned British politics in an unprecedented way towards populism. In one year. Justified or not, his legacy would be seen as Overshadowing every Conservative Prime Minister since Churchill, including Thatcher.

But, it looks like he will be okay. I wish him well.

[urutzizu]

We have seen the same in Continental Europe in Countries where the Public has seen the Government handling as negative, often even more negative than in the UK, Spain for instance.

A Surge in Government disapproval of the Virus response does not have to mean massive changes in its general election polling fortunes, especially if the opposition where it is in Government (i.e. Wales), does not handle the Crisis significantly better. On certain issues, testing chiefly, they have actually handled it worse.

Additionally that Poll also had Boris Approval at 51-34, which is quite a bit better then what we have seen elsewhere with Polls that were conducted entirely after the recent revelations.  

[urutzizu]

The UK (the country in general I mean, not the Government per se) seems to be reacting much harsher or more fearful to the second wave than almost any other European country, except perhaps Ireland. Across Europe restrictions are getting tighter, but almost nowhere a actual second national lockdown is being seriously considered, despite many countries having more serious Infection rates than the UK. In terms of positivity rate UK is actually in the lower half of Europe. Its also reflected in consumer confidence and google mobility data. Of course UK and Ireland have less resilient health case systems than much of Europe, but on the other hand during this Pandemic the UK has done well where it has actually followed the approaches by other European Countries and done badly where it went a different approach. You could even make the Argument that the "Circuit Breaker" is essentially a abstract form of British Exceptionalism, and that has tended not to really have brought the best results during the pandemic. Sage are not better than their Counterparts on the mainland.

[urutzizu]

I do wonder whether any European countries could have pursued an elimination strategy early in the pandemic.

Some eastern European countries came very close during the summer, Croatia presumably did, Slovenia and some of the Baltics came very close. The main reason imo why it can't be sustained is because in Europe you have a huge internal market with integrated supply chains, millions of people who commute every day across borders, you cannot completely close borders like would be necessary.
Even Croatia's reinfections probably came from the western Balkans, particularly Serbia, which falsifies it's data to hide the extent of the outbreak (cool that we are still propping up Vucic btw). And Serbia/BiH is not even in the EU. In Germany and Austria we have had huge problems at our Borders to Czechia, but we cannot close the Border because our Hospitals and Care Homes are dependent on Czech cross border workers.
So the only way to do elimination would be all Countries in Europe (not even just EU) agreeing to elimination, and that is politically impossible.

UK and Ireland are of course the exception and might actually be able to, but even then you still have hauliers that have to cross the channel. And as the events from December show, the most disruption you can afford is have them do rapid antigen tests as the French currently ask for, but those are of course very inaccurate. However the strategy here for the UK is obviously to just keep out mutations and not every single infection, so it is not so important.

[urutzizu]

Also the J&J Vaccine doesn't seem to be used at all in the UK despite regulatory approval. We have done somewhere between 2-2.5 Million shots of it, and because it is a single dose vaccine that translates into having about 5 Million more Biontech/Moderna doses.

It's weird because it was thought that the UK authorities were more flexible but on this Issue it was actually the opposite! UK seems to only use Moderna/Biontech on under 40s, while in Germany (and most European countries I know of) there was a recommendation against it by the advisory committee (sub 60), but in practice anybody could get it if they didn't want to wait for the mrna, the authorities actively promoted that, and many people did. Same with the Child vaccinations by the way.

[urutzizu]

It's interesting because the combination of
- ending the furlough scheme totally (most european countries keep it partially or at least extend it way into 2022)
-Universal Credit cut
-Taper rate cut
-Increasing Work allowance

added on to the already present situation of
-labour shortage
-strict immigration policy regarding low to medium skilled workers

is very clearly intended to add even more carrots to returning to work and even harder sticks to staying not working (for whatever reason) onto an economy with already 4.5% unemployment. If the UK actually manages to go to 3% or so like Japan, kudos (I have doubts), but even so, forcing it down no matter the inflationary pressure, seems to me such a clear revision of thatcher, even as the instruments to achieve it (Unemployment benefit cut, tax reduction) are still compatible with right-wing ideology.

[urutzizu]

Found this interesting, some in depth research into the political leanings of British Indians:
https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/11/18/britain-s-new-swing-voters-survey-of-british-indian-attitudes-pub-85784




Religious Breakdown interesting, would have expected Sikhs to lean conservative. But only Hindus and Christians.



Note: Colours swapped



UK-India relations not important for voting intentions, Modi not liked even among Hindus. Even among Conservative-leaning, it is mainly economic interest driving political leanings. So overall, Indians are actually quite similar to the white majority.

[urutzizu]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/03/bank-of-england-raises-interest-rates-to-05

Interesting that despite the current situation UK is opting for going ahead with not one but two tax increases (NI and Corporation tax) and is raising interest rates a second time. It seems that in the rest of Europe this sort of strategy is seen as economic suicidal, many countries are actually cutting taxes further eg. France, Italy, or at least freezing them at current level eg. Germany and the idea of raising Interest rates seems to be dismissed out of hand as ineffective and even totally counterproductive, because inflationary pressures are linked to supply issues.

It seems that UK strategy is more of a return to Thatcher first term (1979-1983) monetarism. Is going to involve a lot more short term pain for yozu, but long term makes perhaps a lot of sense actually when you consider the constant carousel European electoral cycles, whereas the British only has to take place in January 2025 (once FTPA repeal is passed).