General British politics discussion thread

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222490#Comment_121222490

I understand that, but it disproportionally favours the Tories, by about two to one. The Tory majorities are bigger on the 43% they attain regularly, and they win more elections. They wreck the economy and leave Labour sort it out then blame the Labour Gov for not getting the economy back to 'great' that the Tories promise in the following GE.

A PR voting system would cause the Tory party to split, with LibDems benefitting from the more rational Tory faithful, while Labour would lose the loony left to a new Loony Left party, while consolidating the centre ground position. Whether that would be sufficient to win a GE outright, it might give them sufficient seats to guarantee there place in any resulting Gov.

Risky I admit, but losing the swivel eyed ultra right wing Tories for ever, and relegating the Loony Left to the loony bin would be a prize beyond price for the British public.

PommieBast

Yep, meant 2029 rather than 2019...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222401#Comment_121222401

A lot of Greens/LibDems/etc will lend Labour their vote in the next election but they certainly will not for the one after. The British economy is in no state for them to do anything radical enough to hold onto the tactical vote.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222306#Comment_121222306

Apart from Blair's 1997 win no Labour government has lasted more than 6 years. Aside from 1970 whenever they lost office they were out for at least 12 years.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121221865#Comment_121221865

Not too long ago in the Brexit thread I perhaps a little harshly called him "Tory lite". Now whether he actually turns out to be Tory lite remains to be seen, but he appears happy enough to portray himself/his party as that for now.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222287#Comment_121222287

The role of the party membership will be interesting - they're waaay to the right of the voters they need to attract in order to avoid disaster, never mind win power. This membership endorsed Truss, after all.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222809#Comment_121222809

The membership had a very poor choice since one of them was a little (now that is unkind) bit too brown (also unkind) and very much a low flier as far as talent was concerned - but so was the other one - probably more so as events were to prove.

It takes some sort of stupid to crash the economy in just a few days, requiring the BoE to sink billions to prop up the GB Pound. And to last just 42 days when much of the time was taken up by a massive State Funeral of the Sovereign (of over 70 years) must be a record of Olympic proportions of stupid.

The Tory Party members had a choice between tweedledum and tweedledumber. They chose the dumber one of course.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222886#Comment_121222886

What's even dumber than crashing the economy in days is that she is still out there brazenly saying she was "Harry Perkinsed"

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222761#Comment_121222761

I think it's ridiculous to call him that. In the past few years, they've tried to turn racist cruelty into a form of entertainment, deliberately crashed the economy more than once and are now openly spreading the sort of conspiracy theories one would expect from Alex Jones.

I just want serious people in government now. That's it. That's how low the bar is. I want people who at least appear partly qualified, who can conduct themselves with a degree of dignity and gravitas and who don't behave like X accounts with the blue check.

Labour have a lot to do and little time in which to get it done. My expectations aren't high but if we can see some improvement, I'll be happy enough given what we've been subjected to here.

Water John

Whether UK should continue with HS2, a marked contrast is what Spain has achieved with fast speed rail:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/11/spains-high-speed-trains-arent-just-efficient-they-have-transformed-peoples-lives

Not wishing to derail the thread, couldn't resist that.☺️

breezy1985

There was a good BBC documentary last night about British Rail pre privatization.

2 divisions of BR had R&D departments tasked with building "a faster train" one of which is the basis for today's normal speed train and the other a failed "tilt" train.

All of these hoops were jumped through simply because the government wouldn't fork out the same money France were paying to lay their new high speed tracks.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121223093#Comment_121223093

Not the best comparison. Spain has just over half the UK's population on a much larger, better-shaped landmass. The UK could have copied this but for various reasons did not. I wonder if Spain has the same NIMBY culture that's so prevalent and toxic here.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121222646#Comment_121222646

But not a prize beyond price for the Labour party. The brute fact is that, while FPTP may advantage the Tories more than it advantages Labour, it advantages both, and both will be disadvantaged by a more democratic electoral system. In PR the Labour party would likely split or shrink. Your scenario envisages it shedding its loony left and consolidating the centre vote but, yes, it is high risk, since there would be competition for the centre from the no-longer-disadvantaged Liberal Democrats, and quite possibly from a more centrist Tory party (if they shed the demented right) or from a centrist breakaway from the Tories (if they don't).

Even if one of the these parties were to clean up the centre vote, and even if it were the (rump of the) Labour party, you hypothesise that this might be sufficient to win a GE outright. Spoiler; it would not. Such a party would be well-positioned to take a place in a governing coalition, but (a) that's not what the Labour party wants, expects or considers satisfactory, and (b) there's no guarantee that the party in question would be them anyway.

Sam Russell

Remember, the LibDems were an amalgamation of a breakaway from the Labour Party that formed the Social Democrats in 1981, and the old Liberal Party from the 19th century.

But I agree, bringing in the STV PR system would shake up the British political system, but it would be for the good of democracy. Of course, every winning politician is all for democracy - till an election is lost.

They could start with the local elections to test it out.

Peregrinus

They've already tested it out in the UK, in elections to the devolved assemblies in Wales, Scotland and NI, and in local elections in Scotland, NI and (I think) some Welsh local authorities. Even in England they've put a toe in the water by using preferential voting in mayoral elections (where there are directly-elected mayors).

I don't think lack of experience or lack of testing is the barrier here. The main barrier is that it's not in the interests of either the Tory or the Labour parties. I think that alone is pretty much an insurmountable barrier, to be honest, unless there's a political crisis so profound that both parties lose political legitimacy and authority and are unable to oppose a popular demand for electoral reform. That combination of developments is a fairly remote contingency.

But, if it's not insurmountable, the second barrier is that they had a referendum on PR in the relatively recent past, and rejected it.

Legally, of course, Parliament could introduce it anyway. But, as we know, in the UK a non-binding referendum is, politically speaking, absolutely binding. Plus there's a strong constituency of anti-democrats in the UK that sees a referendum primarily as a mechanism for putting a question beyond further democratic review for an indefinite but lengthy period, so they'd be very angry if there were to be another referendum on the question any time in the next 20 years or so. All of this would make the dominant political parties, even if they wanted to introduce PR, extremely hesitant about doing it. They'd have to burn considerable political capital to drive through a change that, at best, they would feel very ambivalent about.

Tl;dr: it ain't gonna happen.

ArmaniJeanss

Sunak's majority increases by 2 as an SNP MP defects to the Conservatives. Rishi winning!

SNP MP Lisa Cameron defects to Tory party over ‘toxic and bullying’ treatment | Scottish National party (SNP) | The Guardian

Pretty weird really. Can completely understand the defection if you having issues within the party. But presumably she is pro-independence for Scotland, so joining the most anti-independence party is bizarre. I guess if Labour don't want her, then the Conservatives are her only shot at retaining the seat though that seems a long shot.

An SNP in such disarray is probably better news for Labour than the Conservatives.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227412#Comment_121227412

Can't imagine many of the people that voted for her as an SNP candidate would be likely to follow her to the Tories.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227412#Comment_121227412

She sounds a bit like the Kate Hoey of the SNP.

Her big falling out with the party came after she voted against legalising abortion in NI and then against a motion banning protests outside abortion clinics. The usual banging on about "erosion of religious freedom" was involved.

She was also involved behind the scenes in getting Westminster to block Scotland's Gender Recognition Bill.

Strazdas

It's extraordinary that Labour cannot bring themselves to criticise Israel for their actions in Gaza (Starmer and Thornberry in interviews yesterday). It's making them look like a right wing party, just another version of the Tories.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227561#Comment_121227561

Sky News tried to imply Starmer was an antisemite yesterday because he worked with Jeremy Corbyn.

We have all seen what happens in England if Labour politicians don't tow the Israeli line.

You seem to bang this "same as the Tories" drum every day with Starmer and to be honest it comes across as uninformed horse sht.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227561#Comment_121227561

Why?

The media here is the least trusted in Europe. They lied about Hillsborough, they claimed that 28 million Romanians and Bulgarians were on their way here to claim benefits and they aggressively shilled for both Brexit and the Tory party.

The fact that Starmer's wife is Jewish will mean nothing to them.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227616#Comment_121227616

If you have to sound like the Tory Party to get into power in the UK (i.e. not offend the usual suspects), then you are in a really bad place as an opposition party.

Peregrinus

It's a tactic. We've discussed it before. So far, it's working very well for Labour. Why would they change it?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227731#Comment_121227731

They sound nothing like the Tories. There's no Labour version of Andrew Bridgen or Liz Truss. They're not pandering to conspiracy theorists and they're not resorting to blatant and baseless fearmongering.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227757#Comment_121227757

I totally get the reasons but Starmer is a human rights lawyer. If he feels he can't even speak out about a basic humanitarian issue, it's not a great look.

Nate--IRL--

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227776#Comment_121227776

I'd suggest it speaks more to the Environment he has to operate within.

Nate

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227776#Comment_121227776

You "get the reasons"

But

Over and over it's "same as the Tories" "same as the Tories"

It's a very student politics Momentum approach to the issues.

Tom Mann Centuria

I think it would be politically astute for Starmer to acknowledge what Muslim and BAME people have to say and their fears, since lots of Labour's votes outside of the "redwall", those in London, the Midlands and North of England come from those communities.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228243#Comment_121228243

This is going to sound cynical but those votes are probably in the bag. They're not likely to vote Tory after the past 5 years. Most of the UK's population and wealth are in southern England and London. The latter is a Labour stronghold but the former is not.

As I said, this is cynical but there's just no political gain for him to make while the risk of being tarred and feathered by the tabloids is very real.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121227901#Comment_121227901

Do you admit that they are probably an anti-Israel and anti-Brexit party but cannot admit to it in public? I didn't say they are the same as the Tories btw - I said their habit of talking out of both sides of their mouth at the same time (to keep the right wingers on board) is *making them look like* a right wing party.

Podge_irl

I can happily give Starmer ample leeway as I think his primary job is to get Labour elected and that is the most important thing.

However, it appears to be the official policy of a party led by a human rights lawyer, that the 100% support Israel and their actions in "defending" themselves while they are pretty incontrovertibly committing numerous human rights offences. The full throated condemnation of hamas was welcome (and far more than Corbyn could muster), and they are correct to express support for Israel and their right to defend themselves but not even hinting at respect for laws and human rights is morally cowardly.

Tom Mann Centuria

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121228343#Comment_121228343

Ah yeah I know what you mean and it's probably not likely, but they're In the bag until they're not. Tower Hamlets council proved the potential in recent years, (though they seem to be doing a miserable job in power!) and Bradford in times gone by. They'd be wise to readmit Abbott sooner rather than later, not just for her seat but a Domino effect. Lot of ifs and buts but there's increasing discontent from BAME and Muslims within Labour about the direction they're headed.