Author Topic: UK politics 2019  (Read 17865 times)

Jubal

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2019, 10:13:29 AM »
Lots of crossed fingers today - by-election in Brecon and Radnor (rural Wales), basically Lib Dem vs Conservative and probably going to be very tight indeed. If LDs win, Johnson's majority is down to only one seat.
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Tusky

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2019, 06:36:21 AM »
congrats!

Big fan of this

Quote
Both Plaid Cymru and the Greens did not field candidates, to try to maximise the Remain vote.
<< Signature redacted >>

Jubal

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #17 on: August 04, 2019, 11:47:31 PM »
Yeah. Standing down is more complex in practice than on paper (voters have an awkward habit of not changing their voting behaviour predictably in the way parties want them to), but it's good to do it where it works and I hope we can agree on some reciprocal arrangements for an upcoming GE.

Really happy for Jane as well. She's a thoughtful person with a good head for policy and she'll be a very useful voice in parliament.
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dubsartur

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #18 on: August 12, 2019, 07:26:32 PM »
Yeah, that entitled attitude of large parties, that votes for smaller parties really belong to them in a predictable way does not make sense, especially when the media teaches people to vote for a party or a party head not a candidate and with turnout under 70% (I don't know how things are in the UK, but for a federal election in Canada 66% turnout is respectable, and MPs sometimes get elected without visiting their riding during the campaign). 

I can see how this particular byelection was a special case.

Parties have been dropping like flies in Canada (the Progressive Conservatives44 year old government in Alberta, the Bloc Quebecois, the federal Liberals almost dropped behind the NDP) but its never been in the middle of such a fraught issue as Brexit or paralyzed a whole level of government for three years.  Things didn't seem so bad in London earlier this summer, but London is its own place and I noticed the signs for Marxist walking tours and the stickers with a charming skulls-barbed-wire-and-weapons theme (in South Tirol its posters with a black white and red scheme).
« Last Edit: August 12, 2019, 10:50:02 PM by dubsartur »

dubsartur

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #19 on: August 12, 2019, 07:54:06 PM »
I am glad that I have a choice: I have not been looking seriously for academic jobs in the UK for a number of reasons.  If you are say a small business in the UK which relies on supplies from or sales to the rest of the UK EU, you don't have that luxury :( 

Right now, a lot depends on a parliament which hasn't been making the best decisions.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2019, 10:50:58 PM by dubsartur »

Jubal

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #20 on: August 12, 2019, 10:12:12 PM »
Yep. I'll be off to Lib Dem conference next month and arguing the case for improved (in my view!) policies on welfare and policing, but it all feels a bit like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic at the moment.
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dubsartur

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2019, 12:02:00 PM »
Are the Lib Dems working on proposed constitutional changes to prevent something like the end of the May prime ministership from happening again?  I have seen arguments that in the Netherlands, say, if a government can't pass a motion for X, then can't pass a motion for not-X, an election is called whether the government wants one or not.

Jubal

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2019, 01:21:59 PM »
Mm, I think it'd be very difficult in the UK system to provide a formal legally workable definition of X and not-X in your example, but I can see the argument for that.

Our biggest underlying problem, I think, is our voting system, in any case - it's largely responsible for locking most MPs into the two main party structures and giving them strong incentives to stay there no matter how venal, corrupt, or accepting of bigotry their party leadership are. Changing from FPTP to STV is the second longest standing liberal/lib dem policy, and one of the largest reasons I joined the party (in what seems now like a more innocent time, as grim as 2015 already was, before the word "Brexit" was a regular fixture in our politics).
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dubsartur

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2019, 02:51:02 PM »
Yes, unfortunately that was one of the first promises which the current Canadian PM broke after being elected, and electoral reform has failed three referendums in BC (getting a majority at first, but not a big enough majority).  So it looks like we are stuck with First Past the Post.

Jubal

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2019, 03:15:17 PM »
Yep. Trudeau has been very disappointing on a number of fronts (as much as I'd still happily have someone with his views replacing the leaders of, say, almost any of the countries higher in the world pecking order than Canada). The electoral reform failure will especially come back to haunt the Canadian liberals in years to come, I think.  :(
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dubsartur

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #25 on: August 13, 2019, 05:39:35 PM »
I am afraid that the people in big party machines and the old media commentariat who run the federal Liberal party are incorrugible: if they form the next government, that will be proof that putting up a figurehead whose dangerous ideas they can diffuse worked just fine, if they don't then it will be somebody else's fault.

The general thinking back in 2016 was that Johnson was just supporting Brexit because it would raise his profile outside London before he ran for head of the Tories, wasn't it?  And then when the referendum passed and he was faced with explaining how exactly he would deliver all the wonderful things he had promised, he disappeared for long enough for other people in the party to push him aside.

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #26 on: August 21, 2019, 11:55:45 AM »
Yes, party machinery is generally a pretty awful thing to have to cope with.

And yes, Johnson clearly always wanted to be PM, he was high profile nationally before he even became Mayor of London so it wasn't so much profile raising as burnishing his Conservative credentials with the party base. Then after the referendum, his bid for the leadership was scuppered partly because lots of Tory MPs hated him and partly because some people expected to back him at the time instead launched their own bids. So he became foreign secretary, then resigned, then spent a while criticising the government for not being purist enough and rode the wave of May's failure into Downing Street, where he's still on a popularity honeymoon taking votes off the Brexit Party :/
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dubsartur

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #27 on: September 03, 2019, 05:07:56 PM »
And wow, now the Liberal Democrats are going from taking seats from the other parties in byelections to having Conservative MPs defect to them  :o

Could Johnson be planning to hold an election and hope that he can pull together a coalition which does not include that Northern Irish party?  Then he could put the customs controls in the Irish Sea, leave the EU and tell his base in England he has won.  I just don't see a plausible end game for him, unless he really thinks that the EU will accept an insurgency in Ireland for slightly smoother trade with the UK.


Jubal

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Re: UK politics 2019
« Reply #29 on: September 06, 2019, 04:45:30 PM »
Well, after his first week in parliament as PM Johnson is currently the only person to have been appointed Prime Minister and never won a vote in the House of Commons. On anything. 0% record.

His own brother resigned within four days of parliament returning, and his majority of one seat has gone to minus forty due to defections from the ranks. It is in many senses pretty funny - after weeks of being bigged up by the press for his decisiveness etc (if not as much as in that weird Newsweek fantasy article), the second he's had to do anything it's just instantly fallen to bits. Even Theresa May now looks like a strong PM by comparison, which given how useless she was is pretty weird to realise.
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