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The UK Politics Thread (Formerly the Brexit thread)

#1241 User is offline   TheRetiredBridgeburner 

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 12:34 PM

View PostMezla PigDog, on 13 December 2019 - 12:22 PM, said:

View PostGothos, on 13 December 2019 - 12:16 PM, said:

Is Corbyn one of those politicians that are way better at and more interested in entrenching their position within their party than being concerned with government and what voters expect?


He was trying to shift the party back to its socialist roots and thought there was a majority in the country that wanted that too. It got mired in Brexit, media bias towards the Conservatives and pretty poor leadership skills. My view is that he is a thoroughly decent man completely unsuited to leadership and who ran out of ideas after his first year at the helm. Party Politics in this country is poisoning everything. We need a revolution but we won't get one until people are on their knees. They think they are now but they have no idea how bad it could get.


Mezla is spot on. The fact he's held his seat for god knows how many years should tell you on a local level he's a politician with respect. I honestly think he is a decent bloke - but the way politics is in this country you need more than decency which is a rare commodity and not the thing a lot will pay attention to. (how sad is that?)

There's a trainee solicitor in my team at work who converted to law having studied politics, with a masters in political communication. She was saying at our Christmas meal the other night that if people actually understood the amount of sway and control the media have on the political opinion of this country there'd be a riot.
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#1242 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 12:37 PM

View PostTheRetiredBridgeburner, on 13 December 2019 - 12:34 PM, said:

if people actually understood the amount of sway and control the media have on the political opinion of this country there'd be a riot.


Once the NHS is gone and people are literally dying for want of being able to afford healthcare (a'la the US) there will be. It's just a matter of time. If only we had the gumption of the French...



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#1243 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 13 December 2019 - 07:42 PM

'Labour suffered its worst defeat since 1935, [...] it's still hard to believe that Tories were able to win some of their new Northern and Midlands seats. How could Labour strongholds like Bolsover, Sedgefield (Tony Blair's old seat), and Blyth Valley turn blue? Until now, it was unthinkable if only because of tribal loyalties—working-class Northerners would never ally themselves with posh Tories like Boris Johnson!—but the EU referendum ended those certainties. Something similar happened in Scotland with the independence referendum of 2014. [...] That's the kind of radical realignment that happened in the North and Midlands of England on Thursday, where the Conservatives grabbed 24 seats that Labour had held for decades.

[...] Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn wasn't much of a factor in these former socialist strongholds. In all my visits to Northern England and Wales, including two this year, I've never heard anyone mention Corbyn, much less complain about him—he's just one more Southerner leading the party, albeit one who lacks even a hint of charisma. Elsewhere, though, he was a huge liability. [...]

Corbyn's attempt to take a middle-of-the-road stance on Brexit, when he wasn't avoiding the country's dominant political issue entirely, alienated both the working-class Leave supporters in the North and Midlands and liberal Southerners who voted Remain.'

https://slate.com/ne...bour-party.html

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 13 December 2019 - 07:42 PM

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#1244 User is offline   Macros 

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Posted 14 December 2019 - 12:39 AM

Apparently Labour crippled the country and we're still dealing with that.

According to my dad's friends.


Just fucking bomb the UK to remove this stupidity
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#1245 User is offline   Mezla PigDog 

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Posted 14 December 2019 - 07:41 PM

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown could have Regulated the banks and taxed the rich considerably more but I'm not sure they could have done much about US sub prime mortgages. And the Tories have done even less since. Too complicated compared to the "Labour always overspend" mythology that Conservative supporting newspapers like to peddle.

Which I know you are basically saying Mac. But I'm so depressed I can't help myself weakly trying to reason with the abyss (small A).
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#1246 User is offline   Grief 

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Posted 14 December 2019 - 11:00 PM

View PostMezla PigDog, on 13 December 2019 - 10:26 AM, said:

This result really could herald the break up of the UK.


I kind of feel this idea resonates more with English commentators because English political commentary tends to consider the rest of the UK chiefly in order to reflect upon English politics. Brexit has dominated English politics since the referendum and so this gets projected onto the rest of us. For example Scottish Independence is framed as a possible reaction to English politics, in order to make a point about English politics, because that's the chief discussion - and the dynamics of Scottish politics itself get a bit glossed over.

Scottish Independence has recently been polling better but is still below 50% when I last checked. I also think English commentary overstates Scotland's Remain credentials (and anti-Tory credentials in certain regards), and that Brexit fatigue could easily play against people voting for another constitutional shakeup.

I agree that the possibility is there, especially depending on how the government handles the transition in regards to things like granting another referendum. But overall I think English media has been quick to play up "the Tories destroying the Union" - particularly given most of them are happy enough to forget about the rest of the Union except when it's a convenient tool to make some point about English politicians - and I don't yet believe the hype.

View PostMezla PigDog, on 13 December 2019 - 10:36 AM, said:

The only exception being the last European Election where the results reflected the country that I think I'm living in. It really must be the electoral system in that case, right?


There's research that suggests that people vote closer to their true preference in those elections because they're not seen as so important (though this can also increase protest voting and such). It's harder to eliminate strategic voting in the elections people prioritse but we could certainly do better than FPTP.

View PostTheRetiredBridgeburner, on 13 December 2019 - 12:34 PM, said:

There's a trainee solicitor in my team at work who converted to law having studied politics, with a masters in political communication. She was saying at our Christmas meal the other night that if people actually understood the amount of sway and control the media have on the political opinion of this country there'd be a riot.


The impact of the media (and media bias) is fairly hard to establish but there's a fair amount of research that suggests it's probably smaller than a lot of people think. For example there's an interesting study that mapped the introduction of Fox news across towns in America and found that Republicans gained between 0.4 and 0.7 percentage points in Presidential elections from Fox being introduced.

The tendency to overstate (and generally blame) the influence of media on both sides is a big part of the present populist landscape. To me, it risks failing to address people's real political concerns and playing into the general attack on traditional politics, experts, etc. I think the media deserves some of the scrutiny it's getting - I certainly don't think its unbiased - but especially in a thread about Brexit think we should be careful of assigning it too much weight.

Cougar said:

Grief, FFS will you do something with your sig, it's bloody awful


worry said:

Grief is right (until we abolish capitalism).
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#1247 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 21 December 2019 - 01:31 AM

'‘Get Brexit done’: Wealthy Tory donors buying EU citizenship for themselves, documents reveal

[...] Cyprus offers a so-called “golden passport” scheme that allows investors to effectively buy EU citizenship if they spend around €2m (£1.7m) on property in the country – a trifling amount for Britain’s wealthiest.

Applicants for citizenship do not have to live in – or even visit – Cyprus to get the passport. Once secured a Cypriot passport gives the freedom to live, work and study in all 28, soon to be 27, EU member states – just as a British passport currently does ahead of Brexit.

Reuters said Cypriot government documents show Tory donors including Alan Howard, a top hedge-fund manager, and Jeremy Isaacs, a former Lehman Brothers chief, applied for citizenship – and that Cyprus’s interior ministry recommended the applications be approved.

[...] The news agency also reports the documents appear to suggest other Tory donors have applied.

[...] Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit coordinator, commented: “Conservative party donors, backing Brexit but at the same time seeking EU citizenship via Cyprus. Pardon my French but ordinary British citizens are being screwed over by their elite.”'

https://www.independ...obox=1576859083
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#1248 User is offline   Azath Vitr (D'ivers 

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Posted 05 January 2020 - 06:26 PM

'The answer to Brexit, the Conservative Party’s election victory and everything in British politics is (with apologies to Douglas Adams) 336,038.

That number is what you get when you divide the 3,696,423 total votes cast nationally for the Liberal Democrats party in last week’s election by the 11 seats the party actually won. By contrast, Prime Minister Boris Johnson led his Conservative Party to victory via a far more economical average of 38,265 votes for each of its 365 seats — a roughly tenfold difference in the parties’ ability to translate votes cast into seats won.

[...]

The first-past-the-post system works well within a two-party system, but not where there are multiple parties. For Britain, that generally wasn’t a problem until Brexit fractured the long-stable coalitions of its two major political parties, creating an opening for challengers like the Liberal Democrats and Brexit Party.

“When you don’t have two parties, the first-past-the-post system is really bad at translating voter beliefs into seats,” said Sara Hobolt, a political scientist at the London School of Economics.

[...]

Across much of Europe, the same issues at the heart of the Brexit debate, such as immigration and membership in the European Union, have been just such a wedge for small parties. In countries with proportional representation, the result has been a major party realignment[...]

If Britain had a proportional system, the pro-Remain parties could have formed a coalition with a majority in Parliament. The Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, the Greens and Labour, which all promised to stop Brexit directly or hold a new referendum offering that as an option, won over 50 percent of the votes between them.'

https://www.nytimes....&pgtype=Article
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#1249 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 06 January 2020 - 08:10 AM

Oh look British warships off to the gulf. Not getting involved my arse, De Pfeffel.
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#1250 User is offline   Malankazooie 

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Posted 10 January 2020 - 07:11 PM

Oh boy, now "Megxit" is a thing. Hate it.

Do we need this? Do we care? (I don't) Isn't he like way back in line now, and a lot of calamity would have to come to pass before a crown would ever touch his ginger locks? Why is this so drama dripped and full of importance? Is there some important role and responsibilities serving as the Duke of <?> that is being abandoned by this retreat into private life?
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#1251 User is offline   Macros 

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Posted 10 January 2020 - 07:12 PM

He can just ask his dad for advice.....
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#1252 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 10 January 2020 - 08:00 PM

It isn't important at all, but the tabloids are losing one of their favourite playthings so we will never hear the end of it. Fuck tabloids. They are a scourge on society. And responsible for Brexit too.
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#1253 User is offline   Gorefest 

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Posted 10 January 2020 - 08:01 PM

And on that note, i also blame Australia for Brexit because they inflicted Rupert Murdoch upon the world.
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#1254 User is offline   Malankazooie 

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Posted 12 January 2020 - 05:16 PM

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#1255 User is offline   Cause 

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Posted 13 January 2020 - 11:53 PM

I hate myself for even asking this question but I read an article that said Megan can probably earn 100k dollars per publish speech and Harry can probably earn 500k

Why? What can harry possibly speak about as an expert? Why would I care about his opinions on anything?
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#1256 User is offline   Primateus 

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Posted 14 January 2020 - 09:33 PM

View PostCause, on 13 January 2020 - 11:53 PM, said:

I hate myself for even asking this question but I read an article that said Megan can probably earn 100k dollars per publish speech and Harry can probably earn 500k

Why? What can harry possibly speak about as an expert? Why would I care about his opinions on anything?


Well, you wouldn't, but for some reason a lot of people do care.
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#1257 User is offline   Mezla PigDog 

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Posted 14 January 2020 - 10:19 PM

I can't stop reading the Harry and Megan news. It's that or politics or climate crisis on the news site I go to and I don't want to be driven to despair so Harry and Megan it is. For me it is a bit of anything that can give insight into what really goes on behind closed doors in the royal family. Can the queen really be that cold and miserable or is she an strategic genius? All the speculation about how they will be funded etc has me interested from a political perspective too. It's actually a watershed moment in the modern royal family and I'm English so I have to care. And as well I think that ever since seeing Harry walking behind his mothers coffin on live tv I've kind of been rooting for him a bit so I think it's great he's giving the whole thing the two fingers. I just hope he is looking at a full break away long term rather than this halfway house. And if he has a full break - what if he writes a memoir or something? That would be awesome but The Firm would struggle to continue with some of the mystery gone. Nobody in the blood line has broken rank since Edward VII. It's a big deal. The tabloids are being very uncool about it though.
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#1258 User is offline   TheRetiredBridgeburner 

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Posted 15 January 2020 - 01:16 PM

View PostMezla PigDog, on 14 January 2020 - 10:19 PM, said:

I can't stop reading the Harry and Megan news. It's that or politics or climate crisis on the news site I go to and I don't want to be driven to despair so Harry and Megan it is. For me it is a bit of anything that can give insight into what really goes on behind closed doors in the royal family. Can the queen really be that cold and miserable or is she an strategic genius? All the speculation about how they will be funded etc has me interested from a political perspective too. It's actually a watershed moment in the modern royal family and I'm English so I have to care. And as well I think that ever since seeing Harry walking behind his mothers coffin on live tv I've kind of been rooting for him a bit so I think it's great he's giving the whole thing the two fingers. I just hope he is looking at a full break away long term rather than this halfway house. And if he has a full break - what if he writes a memoir or something? That would be awesome but The Firm would struggle to continue with some of the mystery gone. Nobody in the blood line has broken rank since Edward VII. It's a big deal. The tabloids are being very uncool about it though.


I'm also finding it difficult to completely ignore, and I'm not usually all that interested. To be honest the press have treated her abominably and I don't blame them for wanting out of it - good luck to them. Did raise an eyebrow yesterday at the fact nothing has been said by The Firm about the negative coverage of Meghan, but as soon as the story of a potential feud between the brothers touches William it's "joint statement" time. So, nothing to say in all that time before?

That could be an entirely unfair reading of it, but it did cross my mind nonetheless.
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#1259 User is offline   Malankazooie 

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Posted 20 January 2020 - 04:54 AM

Okay, now I've seen the term - Sussexodus. I'm out, packing it in. Gonna grab an ice pick, put it in the fire until the tip is glowing red, and then in quick succession jam into both eyes. Done and dusted I'll be, and happier for it.
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#1260 User is offline   Cause 

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Posted 21 January 2020 - 06:27 PM

They stepped down to avoid the media? Live a peaceful life? However Meghan is going to restart his celebrity career and Harry will continue to use his name to make money and do charity work? Why would the media coverage lessen?
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