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United Kingdom Budget Visualization

uk.wikibudgets.org

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Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#141

Post by easytiger »

gutnor wrote: post #92
fergie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 campa…

Brexit is not a threat to democracy in the absolute sense. It is a threat to democracy because, after 3 years, we now know that it is a power wrestling within the ruling class, for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class. All the good reasons you may have had before and right after the referendum are irrelevant now. What Brexit is and what it is used to do is clear for all to see, and it is not a democratic excerci…

> ruling class, for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class.

You can't really expect to be taken seriously with nonsense like this?

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#142

Post by _edo »

There are a couple of good graphs of the U.S. budget on wikipedia as well.

Take a guess at what you think we spend (dollars and percent of budget) on major categories (defense, Social Security, transportation, education, Medicare/Medicaid, SNAP, interest) and see how close you get.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#143

Post by mattmanser »

gutnor wrote: post #92
fergie wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 campa…

Brexit is not a threat to democracy in the absolute sense. It is a threat to democracy because, after 3 years, we now know that it is a power wrestling within the ruling class, for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class. All the good reasons you may have had before and right after the referendum are irrelevant now. What Brexit is and what it is used to do is clear for all to see, and it is not a democratic excerci…

You are probabaly a remainer, as am I, but you are using a remainer's justification for a re-run. And pretending leavers believe this. They generally don't.

No significant proportion of people have changed their mind. The leavers still want to leave, everyone's sick of parliament dragging this out for years.

Many remainer's are still hoping for some sort of magic unicorn waving it's horn and we'll stay in.

The time to do that was 2 years ago, not now, just get it over with already.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#144

Post by petschge »

ackshually wrote: post #135
onlingyding wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was however a significant amount of misinformation coming from the leave campaign which are hard to ignore and given our current situation are fairly relevant. For example it was repeatedly stated that a vote to leave didn't mean a vote to leave the single market or that Turkey was joining the EU which will 'flood' the UK with Turkish immigrants. The leave campaign was extremely successful because it targeted d…

Didn't intend to imply that the Leave campaign was performed wholly in good faith, I'm not so naive as to think that there are not parties that benefit from the weakness of the pound and instability that the unprepared government has caused scrambling to react to a referendum the majority of MPs were sure would come up remain. However your point on the leave campaign is only one side of the story; The BBC's coverage…

So the government and BBC being (unfairly perhaps) pro-remain is a reason to vote leave? Yes, you can argue "both sides were unfair". But one side was unfair by lying, the other was unfair by using their position of power to spread correct (but favorable to them) information. Not the same kind of unfair at all.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#145

Post by lucb1e »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #85
lucb1e wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things I found interesting: - We spend a billion on water management ("deltafonds"). I had no idea it took so much upkeep. I also like subsection "experiments" of 21 million euros. - 21 million still goes to "healthcare for resistance fighters and victims of world war 2", plus 246 million for pensions of the same group ( https://rijksfinancien.nl/visuele-begroting/2018/jv/u/volksg... ). We're still paying for th…

I see a section for €48b for national debt. I thought the Netherlands was one of the few countries to not have debt?

I have no clue how a country can have billions of debt and not be declared bankrupt or (at least) go through major cost-saving reforms. Many (most? all?) countries have massive amounts of debt but apparently there isn't anyone who isn't getting paid (given the amount of debt countries have, everyone should have an uncle that is still owed $100k or so by their government, but I don't know anyone that works for the government and doesn't get paid, so apparently it's not that kind of debt). I don't get it, but I'm not surprised that we have a huge amount.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#146

Post by benj111 »

mattmanser wrote: post #143
gutnor wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brexit is not a threat to democracy in the absolute sense. It is a threat to democracy because, after 3 years, we now know that it is a power wrestling within the ruling class, for the exclusive benefit of the ruling class. All the good reasons you may have had before and right after the referendum are irrelevant now. What Brexit is and what it is used to do is clear for all to see, and it is not a democratic excerci…

You are probabaly a remainer, as am I, but you are using a remainer's justification for a re-run. And pretending leavers believe this. They generally don't. No significant proportion of people have changed their mind. The leavers still want to leave, everyone's sick of parliament dragging this out for years. Many remainer's are still hoping for some sort of magic unicorn waving it's horn and we'll stay in. The time t…

To be fair you don't need anyone to change their mind for the outcome to change, Leavers skew older so mortality would swing the result in remains favour.

Id agree that each side is entrenched, I still think you need to have that vote, or come up with an option somewhere between the 2 camps, not swing to an even further extreme as we seem to be doing at the moment. No deal wasn't a thing we were discussing in the run up to the referendum, it wasn't even a thing we were really discussing this time last year.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#147

Post by benj111 »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #90
nvarsj wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure this is true. Cameron had a majority government after the 2015 election. Prior there was a coalition government which also held a majority. May lost the majority after the snap election and had to build a coalition with the DUP and others. In Johnson’s case he doesn’t have any majority at all. It’s a weird situation that only exists afaik because of the fixed term act, as the PM can no longer trigger an…

Correct, the Fixed Term Parliament act was supposed to cure a government supposedly "abusing democracy" by calling an election at their whim. Well at least that seemed to be the LibDem line during the coalition. In requiring a super-majority, and a search for a second government first it's badly broken the system. As we can see, there is a government 20 odd votes short of a majority stuck there. Stuck there having lo…

"I am intrigued though, that neither side has made calls to repeal the Fixed Term Parliament Act"

Boris Johnson doesn't want an election. It was suggested after the first vote that he could table something that only required a simple majority, but he didn't, you cant really argue it's people against parliament, when you are (hopefully) a majority of parliament.

Those against a hard Brexit don't want an election now because it impairs their ability to do that, plus its been nicely illustrated to them why you don't want too much power to reside with the executive.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#148

Post by frobozz »

ackshually wrote: post #22
frobozz wrote: 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…

There may be more nuance, but as long as at least 650000 people were hoodwinked by that, or by the threat of their children being conscripted into the EU army or by the fear of Turkey joining imminently; or lured by the bogus newfound opportunities like buying fewer than five bananas at a time in the supermarket, or sending foreign criminals and scroungers back where they came from, then misinformation tipped the balance.

I don't doubt that many people had legitimate, considered reasons for voting to leave. Those people are not the point of the argument.

I'm certain that many did not have good reasons. I have met them. They post stupid memes on Facebook about poppies offending Muslims.

If enough of those people were swung by The Bus or anything from Boris Johnson's 30-year campaign of lies about "Barmy Brussels Bureaucrats", then this is not a democratic result.

It's harmful to the national discourse not to address misinformation. That is what truly chips away at the concept of democracy.

If we just accept that lying to the electorate is all part of the game, then it becomes just that - a game, to be won by the loudest and least scrupulous players, rather than a sensible decision-making tool.

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#149

Post by kmm »

iikoolpp wrote: post #126
kmm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is…

This is the same kind of shit as the faux neutrality news reporters are held to on scientific topics. But, suddenly, because it's political we should then listen to their shit viewpoints?

If you don't want to listen, I can't force you, but what's the point of poisoning the discussion so the people who do want to listen, like me, don't get a chance to? How can you even say their viewpoints are "shit" if you don't know what they are, what the nuance is, the context. Is that opinion informed, or is it from out-of-context snappy soundbites repeated from your filter bubble?

Re: United Kingdom Budget Visualization

#150

Post by cja »

OscarCunningham wrote: post #109
cja wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Nations exist and have implications. 2a. If a Pole used to a certain living standard is happy to work for a lower wage than a Briton who is used to a higher standard of living then is that good or bad? Is it ok to have an opinion about it? Is it ok to have an opinion about it if you are a low paid Briton and a million Poles move to the UK? 2b. The UK is of finite size. Population is concentrated in certain areas w…

My point is that none of those arguments have anything about them that makes them specific to nations. For example 2a could equally be said by someone in London about immigration from the North. Why do we let these arguments have force at the national level but ignore them at subnational and supernational levels?

"Why do we let these arguments have force at the national level but ignore them at subnational and supernational levels?"

Because nations already exist and are they are accepted. Sometimes their borders are accepted too.

Around 2015 I had a conversation with a Slovenian who told me that if I didn't like the new population density in my city then I could move to Wales.

It's unlikely that I would be allowed to build a wall around Worcester or that London would be allowed to create a high tech system for identifying, catching and repatriating northerners. (Although a Chinese-style social credit system might work.)

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