Live data from Hacker News

United Kingdom Budget Visualization

uk.wikibudgets.org

71–80 of 162 posts

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#71
post #5

There, at the top of "Other Expenditures", Slightly smaller than running the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales. That is what's governing the entire political agenda right now. That's the amount of money stuck on the side of a bus with the suggestion that we could spend it on the NHS instead

I didn't vote leave because of the money. I voted leave because I was dubious about the control the elected and unelected officials and secretaries in brussels had over British politics, and the rats nest of well paid jobs with crazy benefits waiting for british politicians in brussels when they retire from british politics, so long as they play nice with the EU and go along with the will of the government in Brussel…

Yes, we've heard this side a million times. What is in shorter supply is some examples of adverse outcomes of the "control".

And "nuance"? Nuance about what?

Your kind of comments can sometimes be summarised as: "I made a very educated and considered decision." It is not doing any explaining or engaging in debate

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#72
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you. Unfortunately, I have encountered quite a lot of people who do care about the money. Today, just half an hour ago, I saw someone tweeting that the EU was “bleeding the UK dry” by “taking” “£1 billion per month” [1] so I’m fairly sure that quite a lot of people did actually vote on the basis of the money. [1] 1e9, or roughly 0.01% of the EU-(annual)-GDP per month

Comparing £1b to the EU GDP per month and not the UK one is a bit disingenuous.

Yes, better to compare to UK gov budget in the linked article. So £12B vs £772B, or 1.5%. Also the the £12B doesn’t include the rebate or other benefits, so the real value is less.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#73
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Hacker News policy is to not talk about votes, but can we please be more vote friendly to this user, especially as they're new? I find it's very rare to see a Brexiteer in my usual bubble so I'm grateful to hear the opposing view. (At time of making this comment, the parent is greyed out from down votes.)

At this point, anyone who's still a Brexiteer has engaged in some extremely selective listening. There's no point in having a discussion with someone who won't seriously address the entirely likely problems of Brexit, both as a concept and how it is currently being done. (I mean, Brexiting to the status of Norway might at least have been feasible, but that's now a long way in the rear view mirror.)

I'm personally very worried about sentiments like the one you express. The smug complete dismissal of another's viewpoints, complete refusal to even just listen, generalizing over all people with the same ideas...

Opinions like being in favor of Brexit are not in any sense as fundamentally objectionable and unacceptable even for disucussion as, for example, nazism or racism. Political divisiveness is a significant issue, and behavior like this is only going to make it worse.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#74
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't vote leave because of the money. I voted leave because I was dubious about the control the elected and unelected officials and secretaries in brussels had over British politics, and the rats nest of well paid jobs with crazy benefits waiting for british politicians in brussels when they retire from british politics, so long as they play nice with the EU and go along with the will of the government in Brussel…

That's actually a good point and well said ... 3 years ago. However, today you cannot make that argument with a straight face when Boris is a PM with a very weak democratic mandate, actively undermining the democratically elected Parliament, doubling down on the lies made by the campaigns, pushing for highly damaging (according to the Government own assessment) economic measure. From the Cambridge Analytica scandal w…

(Lets call him "Johnson". "Boris" is either patronising or affectionate, and neither is appropriate for a head of state.)

No Conservative government has served an entire term with an outright majority since Thatcher in the 1980s. Johnson is in a sense "unelected", but his premiership is no less legitimate than that of Cameron or Major.

Like it or not, Johnson was the "biggest" voice behind the successful Brexit campaign, and it is therefore appropriate that he is tasked with making Brexit happen, and taking responsibility for its success or failure.

Its completely fair to say that Brexit is an economically stupid and possibly xenophobic project, but its not fair to say that Brexit is a threat to democracy. Brexit is exactly what democracy looks like at its best: the people forcing the ruling classes to make decisions that are against the ruling class's own interests.

EDIT: Johnson is of course the head of government, not the head of state, since the UK is a monarchy.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#75
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you. Unfortunately, I have encountered quite a lot of people who do care about the money. Today, just half an hour ago, I saw someone tweeting that the EU was “bleeding the UK dry” by “taking” “£1 billion per month” [1] so I’m fairly sure that quite a lot of people did actually vote on the basis of the money. [1] 1e9, or roughly 0.01% of the EU-(annual)-GDP per month

Comparing £1b to the EU GDP per month and not the UK one is a bit disingenuous.

I think both numbers are useful.

£1b/month would be 0.57 of UK’s 2018 gdp.

But knowing nothing about the £1bn number except that it came from a still-brexiteer I can’t give it much credibility.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#76
post #5

There, at the top of "Other Expenditures", Slightly smaller than running the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales. That is what's governing the entire political agenda right now. That's the amount of money stuck on the side of a bus with the suggestion that we could spend it on the NHS instead

I'll never stop being amazed by how available, accessible, and important these data are, yet so rarely accessed. People will argue with their relatives over the holidays until they're blue in the face, but can't take 10 minutes to read this vital information.

I'm totally fine with people disagreeing over how to interpret these numbers. A healthy democracy should see us able to debate policy based on differences in values or philosophy. Instead we mostly decide what we believe first, then filter to only see information that supports that belief.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#77
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't vote leave because of the money. I voted leave because I was dubious about the control the elected and unelected officials and secretaries in brussels had over British politics, and the rats nest of well paid jobs with crazy benefits waiting for british politicians in brussels when they retire from british politics, so long as they play nice with the EU and go along with the will of the government in Brussel…

How do you feel about the unelected House of Lords? Or, for that matter, the election-untested Prime Minister and his definitely unelected SPADs? The EU parliamentarians are paid well, but I think there's a staff quality issue here and that UK MPs are actually underpaid; for the hours and responsibility, it's basically a company director level job. (Of course, the only people that take EU pay and deliberately do a ba…

> (Of course, the only people that take EU pay and deliberately do a bad job or fail to turn up are ... UKIP MEPs)

Well that's blatantly not true. And their "job" is to represent their voters, which they are doing. "We shouldn't be here," was their cry in the Euro election.

Absenteeism/disruption by representative politicians is perfectly fine in my book, as long as that's what they campaign on.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#78
post #5

There, at the top of "Other Expenditures", Slightly smaller than running the Office of the Secretary of State for Wales. That is what's governing the entire political agenda right now. That's the amount of money stuck on the side of a bus with the suggestion that we could spend it on the NHS instead

I didn't vote leave because of the money. I voted leave because I was dubious about the control the elected and unelected officials and secretaries in brussels had over British politics, and the rats nest of well paid jobs with crazy benefits waiting for british politicians in brussels when they retire from british politics, so long as they play nice with the EU and go along with the will of the government in Brussel…

UK MEPs have only ever voted _against_ 2% of laws introduced by the EU (laws about human rights and closing corporate tax loopholes), they have voted _with_ 95% of the time. There's a reason for this, they took part in the shaping of those laws.

Now we have no way of shaping laws throughout the continent we're a part of. We've thrown it all out the window because someone told you that the EU is trying to stop us from having bendy bananas.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#79

That is a great idea. Understanding government expenditure on some level should be a fundamental part of a citizen's participation. I don't yet fully understand how to read it. It's not really clear to me what the difference in income and expenditure is - the impression the diagram gives me is other that income is balanced by expenditure, or that there is a budget surplus maybe. I think I recall that there is a budge…

> Understanding government expenditure on some level should be a fundamental part of a citizen's participation. HMRC sends people this information annually - a breakdown of what their amount of tax paid was spent on.

That doesn't mean it's understandable to the average person. SpaceX could send me detailed schematics of every rocket that launches and I wouldn't have a clue how it works.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#80
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't vote leave because of the money. I voted leave because I was dubious about the control the elected and unelected officials and secretaries in brussels had over British politics, and the rats nest of well paid jobs with crazy benefits waiting for british politicians in brussels when they retire from british politics, so long as they play nice with the EU and go along with the will of the government in Brussel…

Where do you stop with this train of thought though? Why do the MPs from the north have any say about what governs me in Berkshire? It's the same argument just at a larger scale.

Nations are magical.

It's bad for Polish people to immigrate here and take our jobs, but it's fine for people to move around within the UK.

We need to tax the rich more to end the homelessness on our streets, but we have no obligation to help those in Africa.

We need to use tariffs to protect our farmers, but there's no problem with shipping food across the country.

Post reply on HN