General British politics discussion thread

SFAIK, the new protest laws in the UK target people who have equipment that could be used for lock-ons. This looks like overreach, since lots of people go about with equipment of that kind for completely lawful reasons — cyclists and motorcyclists with chains and padlocks, members of various construction trades with superglue or gaffer tape; practically anybody with a white van with luggage straps or similar equipment to prevent cargo from shifting around in transit; etc. In fact, from reports, the republican protestors arrested before the coronation procession were arrested on the basis that the van they arrived in had luggage straps in it.

There's a regularly repeated cycle in which:

• government enacts new laws giving police sweeping public order powers
• government assures public that new powers will only be used responsibly and in appropriate situations and that "the innocent have nothing to fear"
• powers are almost immediately used irresponsibly and inappropriately against innocent people to interfere with wholly lawful activity
• uproar ensues
• political embarrassment ensues; politicians tear strips off police leadership
• police become nervous about using powers, and largely stop using them
• law becomes pointless and is not used
• law gets quietly repealed.

To a lot of Londoners this is just another nail in the coffin of the Met's reputation.

I found it hard to believe that the number was as high as a thousand so I looked it up - it's 150, according to the Guardian. Still a high number. Apparently those numbers have gone up since it has been made mandatory for police officers themselves to report misconduct. IIRC, in the case of Sarah Everard's killer, he was known by his colleagues to be a sexual predator.

The new Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, spoke last November of how some officers were working under “very restrictive” conditions because “frankly we don’t trust them to talk to members of the public”.

“It’s completely mad that I have to employ people like that as police officers that you can’t trust to have contact with the public,” he told BBC Radio 4.

And a campaign group asks the obvious questions:

"we have to ask how they passed vetting to be hired in the first place, how long their prejudice was allowed to fester in the Met’s ranks, and how many others like them remain in post.”

150 out of 30k can't deal with the public, its not that suprising.. Every large organisation has people it can't get rid of.

that's highly likely not the case realistically when we examine where britain is going.

there were already laws to stop protesters holding up traffic, it was already illegal to block a road and the police were arresting protesters.

the real reason the laws were brought in was highly likely due to potential protests when brexit really bites.

the government want to be able to clamp down on them and stop them, so they needed laws to ban, in name, protest.

they are popular with a certain group of people in britain absolutely, the problem for them is that they apply to them also.

has been does not mean won't be.

the government over there are preparing themselves for a lot of eventualities and just in cases.

it actually doesn't.

the tories want the bill so as to crack down on any and all protesting, the labour leader is refusing to do or say anything that could be used by the tories and the hard right media to attack him hence avoiding saying he will abolish it.

All he said changes bigger than Clause IV. Not that he will add to that particular clause or commit to others.

Especially seeing as Clause IV has just added another failure to the list with Trans Pennine being nationalised.

And is happy to say that the problem is only that it went wrong and not the act itself.

You would want to be a serious scumbag to vote for that man.

Since 2005, when Scotland elected 59 MPs the results have been as follows:

2005 Lab 41 SNP 6

2010 Lab 41 SNP 6

2015 Lab 1 SNP 56

2017 Lab 7 SNP 35

2019 Lab 1 SNP 48

Although they are delighting in the SNP's current misfortunes, I reckon Labour know that Scotland won't be coming back to them in the numbers that existed in the Blair/Brown era. And although Scotland will only elect 57 MPs the next time out, I reckon that without Scotland, it will be hard for Labour to form an overall majority. Despite Starmer's rapid race to the right, English voters who are fed up with the Tories will, in certain constituencies, vote Lib Dem rather than Labour.

The question then is whether, in the event of a coalition, the Lib Dems will get it right this time and ensure that they don't get out-manoeuvred on delivering PR as occurred under Nick Clegg.

Mm, this projection is calling a majority of round ten for Lab-Lib Dem,

Obviously a slight dip could eliminate that...

Could Starmer find himself knocking on the doors of SDLP/Plaid Cymru/whoever?

SDLP take the Labour whip anyway. 3 at absolute best, 2 more likely; 0 is still possible.