General British politics discussion thread

Fixed term parliaments act was completely revoked.

The proof that they really don't get what poverty is, or the effects it has, can be seen from the recent 'debate' about VAT on private schools.

We had newspaper articles pleading from parents that they would no longer be able to afford the school, and that would deprive their siblings of so much. While I can understand the feelings of children not wanting to have to move school, it pales into insignificant against children not being able to eat, or have clothes etc.

It just shows the disconnect that many have.

@pixelburp

Always worth correcting this misconception: the UK had the lion's share of the EU's poorest regions amongst the Western (original/early) members of the bloc. The whole of Eastern Europe was excluded from that comparison. Post-Brexit, however, the country is trending towards Eastern European levels of poverty ... in some respects, not all.

" I don't know if the UK is par for the course for a large European country or if it is particularly bad by European standards"

I know it doesn't make one a utopia and the other the dark ages but the fact a country like France holds "liberte, fraternite, egalite" in the national consciousness and the UK fawns over the class system and a bunch of spongers in crowns really does mean something.

"Us and them, have and have not" is a much loved and respected part of UK society sadly.

I don't see Strasbourg on that list.

Even committted Conservatives tell me the current lot needs a spell in opposition so no doubt they'll get a hammering. Think it'll be a 8-12% national swing rather than the 20% of the by-elections though.

As what they do post-defeat need to see what the next intake of MPs are like.

Except that map dates from ten years ago, so the current thirteen years of Tory governance is irrelevant.

Perhaps it'd be more useful to recall that prior to joining the EEC, the UK was "the sick man of Europe" and it was only EEC -> EU membership that allowed the country regain some of its imperial prosperity. One could argue that the default position of an isolated UK is to be an economic backwater, and it's now reverting to type. The reasons for that? Probably many and varied.

well your aticle kind of proves celtic ramblers point blaming mainly miss thathcher for this

Because even though that article was written in 2018, it relies entirely on the report and accompanying data published in 2014. It is the worst kind of brainless journalism, recycling old news that wasn't particularly well written in the first place. And here we are, only a few months from 2024 and the same text is still doing the rounds, with no up-to-date data to back up the point being made.

Even so, even if these areas were the "poorest in Europe" in 2014, then that was mostly attributable to Labour's bad governance, unless we accept the revisionist article's premise that it was, in fact, due to Thatcher. In either case, that tends to make the argument that the poor unfortunate Tories inherited an unmanageable mess and it's not their fault they couldn't do anything for those regions when it had been twenty, thirty, forty years in the making.

Just give them your vote in 2024/2025 and another five years in government to build on the groundwork they've been laying all this time and you'll see change for the better ... /s

No, but I didn't write the report - only highlight that the report covered the time Labour had been in power (for thirteen years) and the Tories had only just re-taken control.

So if anyone is going to post that infographic and cite that "poorest areas in Europe" half-truth, they're placing the blame at Labour's door - whether they mean to or not. It's really (really, really, really) easy to not regurgitate bad journalism that's been repeatedly debunked for a whole decade and undermines one's credibility.

For the record, I'm not trying to say the Tories have done a good job during their tenure - but way back in 2003, I saw Labour taking the country in an unhealthy direction and voted with my feet instead of my ballot. Nothing that has happened since has come as any surprise to me, as (like Ireland's property crash a few years later) the signs were clear enough to see for anyone who was watching. In the end, I'd attribute most of it to the rottenness of FPTP as an electoral system, but it's not helped by a poorly educated, frequently disengaged, electorate either and a ruling class that benefits from both.

Don't forget the sheer racism towards Wales, Scotland and Ireland and that's only from the English who realise those places exist.

Add to that the north/south divide which is close to being as bad as the above and then the West Country which is only not hated because people actively forget it is there.

It all comes from the idea that there are people born and bred to rule and another group of sub humans too stupid to be allowed self determination.

Groningen was the area where the Dutch found a huge Natural Gas field in the 1950s.