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Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#441

Post by kibwen »

cee_el123 wrote: post #338
hairofadog wrote: post #90

I know this topic is important in substance and the thing I'm about to say is an aesthetic issue, but as an American watching this unfold I have admired the Brits for the sense of heart that still seems to be present in their politics. I'm referring to the parliamentary sessions in which, even though they're savagely roasting each other, they're doing in a way that feels somehow good-hearted and doesn't lay bare the…

Could it have anything to do with the fact that the UK is a much older democracy ? ( the first English parliament was called in 1295 )

Parliament itself is that old, but it's possible to argue that the UK didn't qualify as a democracy until the Reform Acts of the 1800s (and possible to argue against it too, of course).

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#442

Post by factcheckdec »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #267
tomp wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's time for an early General Election. Every trace of the Tories must be obliterated. Sounds like completely unbiased opinion. /s More seriously, I'm only interested in hearing the arguments for a general election from nominal conservative (Tory) supporters. All arguments from leftists are just "we want to win" in disguise so are completely untrustworthy. From what I understand of UK politics, Johnson won the las…

It's an extremely biased opinion, and I make no apologies. I think every single living member of every Tory cabinet present and past should be strung up in Parliament Square. I'm not in any sense unclear about my views on them. We have had twelve years of disastrous Tory austerity that has comprehensively destroyed the UK's economy. What's the plan? Let them keep trying until they get something right? How long is it…

@dang, here's a member calling for the execution of members of a political party.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#443

Post by lostlogin »

PaulHoule wrote: post #408
lostlogin wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Britain the PM is chosen by the party in power so you don't get the divided government situations The UK government has been in utter turmoil for a long time now and it’s at its worst right now. This resignation marks a new low in self destructive politics and posturing. I know you are referring to a different type of political impasse, but the chaos that is present in the UK is not a lot better than what the US…

It's a different kind of turmoil than we have in the US. I subscribe to The Economist which would like to support the Tories but has had nothing but contempt for Teresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Some people say that the Democrats in the US are like the losers in professional wrestling but the complete incompetence and inability of Labor to get elected makes it possible for conservatives to get elected by pand…

> It's a different kind of turmoil than we have in the US.

100%.

The inability of Labour to make headway at this time is so depressing.

The common ground between the UK and the US is the inability to find and promote leaders with a combination of age, charisma and ability on their side.

If their best are those elected, the future is grim.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#444

Post by kergonath »

brink wrote: post #397
pjc50 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? She's a Brexiteer running on an "anti-woke" platform, we need more serious people instead.

Are you implying woke is serious?

Not being anti-woke does not make someone woke. There’s a whole bunch of people who think both sides range from silly to dangerous and would rather solve comparatively inconsequential issues like the economy/cost of life/global warming.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#445

Post by factcheckdec »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #363
tomp wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This viewpoint is both evil (literally wanting to kill people... like the "best" politicians of the 20th century! /s) and delusional (UK had approximately 0 GDP growth since 2010, like other main European countries - so I doubt it was Brexit or Tories) https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDPDPC@WEO/DEU/FRA/...

So I should be tolerant of the people that have killed a couple of million people and destroyed the country? At what point is it okay to no longer be tolerant of them?

How many people did the government led by Tony Blair kill, by the way? Or do we only care about British lives?

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#446

Post by cjrp »

ycombigator wrote: post #400
PaulHoule wrote: post #320

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…

> The structural impact of some choices she made are still present in British society even now, decades later.

Financial impact too; oil company privatisations and tax cuts which offset the income from the oil fields deprived the UK of a sovereign wealth fund equivalent to Norway's (although likely not as large, due to variations in the price of oil).

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#447

Post by actionablefiber »

neilwilson wrote: post #287
actionablefiber wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 1/3 makes a pretty huge difference... And more importantly she was announcing these policies at an exact time when the Bank of England was trying to raise interest rates and sell bonds to fight inflation. So you have the government and the central bank pursuing contradictory goals: one trying to jumpstart consumption by borrowing and spending and the other trying to cool it by raising the cost of borrowing and r…

It wasn't a contradictory goal. The sect Truss belongs to considers that aggregate demand is solely a matter for the central bank to sort out, and that it has to respond to the fiscal setting of the government. Not the other way around. This is enshrined in law at s11 of the Bank of England Act 1998. "In relation to monetary policy, the objectives of the Bank of England shall be— (a)to maintain price stability, and (…

The BoE had to completely flip its policy to rescue pension funds which were getting margin calls because of Truss and Kwarteng's mini-budget destroying the gilt market, so I guess you're right.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#448

Post by lostlogin »

PaulHoule wrote: post #433
ycombigator wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Barack Obama introduced almost universal healthcare

Terms and conditions apply.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#449

Post by cjrp »

pjc50 wrote: post #388
chrisseaton wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're doing in a way that feels somehow good-hearted and doesn't lay bare the naked resentment and hatred that seems to be all we have left in the USA It's nice that it looks this way, but the different parties and their supporters in the UK absolutely hate each other. Front-bench party members now routinely and openly using words like 'scum' and 'detest' to talk about their colleagues on the other side. I don't…

I would say that the hate between parties is not nearly as strong as the hate within parties, often veiled entirely or hidden in extremely polite language. After all, the other party is opposition, your own party is competition . I remember Jo Cox, who was the conservative who got killed? The death of Jo Cox wasn't a party political matter, it was a US-style radicalized loner.

Sir David Amess, Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea. Murdered almost exactly a year ago.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#450

Post by brailsafe »

ShredKazoo wrote: post #275

This might sound crazy... but if the UK is already de facto ruled by financial markets, in the sense that the PM has to step down if the markets don't like what they're doing, maybe it's time to try prediction market-based governance for real? What would've happened if instead of simply announcing the proposal, Truss had described the proposal and the government had sponsored a conditional prediction market on the ec…

In watching Canadian parliamentary proceedings over the last few years, there have been many an amusing moment where I've realized most of the people constructing proposals, debating issues, or doing interviews, are always either out to deliberately screw us, are actually just not very intelligent, or are somewhat brazenly out of touch and think they're really going to nail it this time. In years prior, I would have assumed that parliamentarians are doing some sort of complicated work that's reserved for those few brilliant and lucky individuals who make their way to the top power positions. But alas, only some are brilliant, maybe about as many as in the general population.
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