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Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

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Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you’re cherrypicking right-wing talking points to support an argument that doesn’t have much evidence

> you’re cherrypicking right-wing talking points In your first comment you said you thought the right-wing party weren't talking like this! No I think the problem is just as bad across all parties - hence those recent examples from a couple of moderate left-wing party members as well. That's the worst of it - the civility and willingness to work together is down across the board so I can't see a change of government…

each of the examples you’ve given were and currently are being endlessly rerun and reran in the media. condemned by allies and discussed ad nauseum. this is hardly routine, normalised behaviour you can point to and say “this is representative of the whole”

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#432
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all parliament's faults, it's still largely populated by well educated, intelligent individuals who are skilled orators and debaters. Even some of the most awful parliamentarians would easily talk circles around me in any kind of debate. For anyone not aware, a large number of our politicians come from a background at public schools such as Eton, and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Institutions…

Did you mean private schools? Public school education in the UK is quite problematic.

A non-Brit telling Brits what their school system is like. Funny.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that British politics are more resentful, but that you don't see it the way you do in the US because the structure of the system is different. In Britain the PM is chosen by the party in power so you don't get the divided government situations you see in the US where usually the Democrats control some of (1) the Presidency, (2) the Senate, (3) the House of Representatives and the Republicans control…

I think you need to read more into Thatcher and what happened under her to understand why some sections of society reacted like this. I don't know a huge amount about Regan, but I doubt you can really compare them. Britain in the late 70s and early 80s had huge issues which Thatcher addressed, but in hugely contentious ways, in some cases destroying entire industries and their communities. The structural impact of so…

I've got three books about Thatcher I am reading right now.

To interpret Thatcher you need to know about the labor unrest in the UK in the 1970s. Back then there seemed to always be a strike in some chokepoint industry (Coal mining, trucking) that threw the rest of the economy into chaos, almost like a general strike. This gets talked about it in this song

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(Wish_I_Could_Fly_Like)_Superm...

A lot of people saw the labor movement as a big problem, thus Thatcher was in position to make a big crackdown against it. I occasionally meet an Americans who is opposed to unions, but there never was a time when a reasonable person could say unions were bringing the US economy to its knees.

Reagan had an impact of moving the US to the right a lot like Thatcher did, but not so much.

The Democrats largely accepted Reagan's viewpoint because it was perceived to work. Clinton accepted Reaganism just as Blair accepted Thatcherism, in fact both politicians were able to outdo their predecessors because on the other side of the aisle they were able to neutralize any possible opposition and normalize the slogan "there is no alternative".

Although Barack Obama introduced almost universal healthcare but implemented the public-private partnership plan that Nixon offered in 1974... One that almost works as a policy, but does great damage to institutional legitimacy because it looks like another case of regulatory capture and ultimately contributes to the nation becoming ungovernable.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#434
post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be the latter until the marks started getting elected. For the congressional boomers (Pelosi, McConnel et al), it's a grift. For the young crowd (AOC, Crenshaw, etc), it's a mission.

This - the problem with Truss was that she was a "true believer" in total garbage, so as soon as she tried to turn it into policy it blew up. Johnson's skill was in talking a lot and not delivering any policy.

Let's also be clear the ideas were right-wing libertarian market fundamentalism, fomented through the shady 55 Tufton Street establishment, likely funded by American billionaire money.

The market fundamentally rejecting the ideas of the market fundamentalists would be hilarious, if it wasn't happening to us.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#436
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all parliament's faults, it's still largely populated by well educated, intelligent individuals who are skilled orators and debaters. Even some of the most awful parliamentarians would easily talk circles around me in any kind of debate. For anyone not aware, a large number of our politicians come from a background at public schools such as Eton, and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Institutions…

> public schools such as Eton I always have to remind myself that an English "public school" is what most people call a private school. Per Wikipedia[0]: > "public" in the sense of being open to pupils irrespective of locality, denomination or paternal trade or profession. I emphatically agree that an emphasis on rhetoric will make smart people smarter. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom…

It’s the same “public” as in “public houses” (actually privately-owned premises) or “public companies” (publicly traded but still private interests). One more quirk of the English language.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#438
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legitimate only means that the :rules: were followed and nothing more. It does not mean that the rules or the system they reside in are just.

I never claimed otherwise. I just answered to the comment stating that she was illigetimally in her position, as if the UK was a dictatorship, which isn't the case.

I think that there is a bit more nuance needed if you claim 100% legitimacy.

Winning an election on one manifesto, being chosen by 100k members, and then ripping the manifesto up and trying to implement a set of completely different policies would strike most, I think, as not 100% legitimate even if it's legal.

And just to add that she campaigned with members on ripping up the manifesto.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For all parliament's faults, it's still largely populated by well educated, intelligent individuals who are skilled orators and debaters. Even some of the most awful parliamentarians would easily talk circles around me in any kind of debate. For anyone not aware, a large number of our politicians come from a background at public schools such as Eton, and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford. Institutions…

And yet Americans still mog, and I mean badly mog, British at actual competitive debate. This is true both in their inferior form of "British Parliamentery debate" as well as the various American styles, such as Lincoln Douglas, Policy, or Public Forum.

This doesn't necessarily have any bearing on the culture of parliament, and I must confess I don't know a huge amount about competitive debate.

Naturally the most obvious explanation for the US beating the UK at something is that the US population is 5x ours. Another explanation is that outside of public schools and Russel Group universities, we don't actually have much of a culture of competitive debating or debating societies any more. None of the schools I went to had a debate club, despite being relatively good schools, and I never heard of any debate competition being held.

From what I've seen from US competitive debate, it seems to be surprisingly popular with minority students and seems to use a style of rhetoric and scoring that I'm completely unfamiliar with - seemingly sometimes rewarding speed or Gish galloping. Here, the debates that most people would be familiar with are most commonly judged by their ability to convince the audience and are more popular with well educated, upper middle class people.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#440
post #284
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean private schools? Public school education in the UK is quite problematic.

No "Public Schools" in the UK refers to a very specific subset of fee-paying schools mentioned in the Public Schools Act of 1868 (sometimes informally includes a couple of others). Private Schools are the other fee-paying schools. What a non-Brit might think of as "public" schools are actually called "state" schools in the UK

And this comes down to history.

When these schools were founded, the alternative was to have private tuition - as opposed to be taught "publicly" and live with children from other families.

(The school I went to was founded in 1513 - but is known as a private school rather than a public one because it was never a boarding school).

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