Live data from Hacker News

Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

bbc.co.uk

491–500 of 651 posts

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Labour has nobody to blame but themselves. They walked the exact same path that democrats did in the US—abandoning their working class base in favor of college educated liberals. The error in that approach became clearer more quickly for them because they don’t have (as much) the added overlay of racial sectarianism to keep working class minorities voting for them.

Agree 100%. IMO abandoning the working class is by far the stupidest thing the Democratic Party has done in recent memory. And even now, as it should be becoming crystal clear, they still don't seem to have the ability for introspection. They keep thinking they should be winning handily, and on the merits this is a plausible argument, but they really have a hard time with culture. I find it very frustrating, because I am pretty sympathetic to having the US become a modern social democracy like some Western European nations, but our politicians seem to focus on culture wars instead. When your party can have basically all of the ideas and the other party still succeeds dramatically by just saying they hate you, it's time to ask why.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He already has been for years. See the Black Spider memos he secretly sent to ministers, and all the secret carve-outs the Queen had. They have their grubby fingers in politics, but are just clever at hiding it.

> all the secret carve-outs the Queen had Reference? Or details for ducking ourselves?

> Reference?

here are some references, though not sure if this was what GP was refering to.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/queen-immuni...

There are others, search for "royal consent" as apposed to "royal assent"

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite C-Span shows was The Prime Minister's Questions[0]. Don't mess with British politicians. Even the grumpiest old dogs can savage most American politicians, as the folks that tried roasting Galloway found out[1]. [0] https://www.c-span.org/series/?PrimeMinisterQue [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5u1skEoqLs

This always seemed to me like pure theater. Have there ever been any serious consequences to anything anyone ever said during the Prime Minister's Questions? Or are they (like every other politician the world over) just putting on a good show for the folks back home?

The serious consequences are that if you do especially badly like Truss did yesterday the voters get pissed and you have to resign.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#495

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…

> 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…

There was an attempted mass shooting at the Republican practice for the Congressional baseball game back in 2017 [0] that was a politically motivated domestic terrorist attack (per the FBI's report on the incident in 2021). If Steve Scalise (the house GOP whip who was shot that day) hadn't been there with his security detail, a couple dozen Republicans would have likely died that day including Senator Rand Paul and future Florida governor (and the current leading 2024 presidential candidate not named Trump or Biden) Ron DeSantis.

We've had 4 presidents assassinated in our history (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy) and there were attempts on the lives of at least 3 more while they were president or president-elect (Jackson, FDR, Reagan). There have also been a significant number of attempts on the life of presidential candidates (Huey Long and RFK were assassinated, George Wallace was shot and paralyzed) We also don't know where Flight 93 would have gone on 9/11 if the heroes on board hadn't charged the cockpit and crashed the plane in a Pennsylvania field instead of somewhere in DC. The reason why we haven't had many politicians assassinated lately is largely good luck but also because we now have Secret Service protection for all major presidential candidates.

Words like "scum" and "detest" are also not that different from the way people speak about political opponents here. Every presidential election for at least the past 20 years has involved people throwing words like "socialist", "communist", "fascist" and "theocrat" around to describe the other party's presidential candidate even when those candidates were centrists. There's always alarmist insinuations that we're going to turn into the USSR or Nazi Germany if the wrong political party wins the next election. In reality, the US will be largely the same but always getting slightly worse no matter which party wins the election. The difference between the donkeys and the elephants is that one of them makes things worse faster than the other (but people don't agree which is the lesser evil). I imagine Labour and Tory are probably the same way in the UK (although Truss did seem to be especially terrible at her job even compared to her predecessors).

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shoot...

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#496
post #483
post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All arguments from leftists are just "we want to win" The argument is that the party is being eviscerated in opinion polling, they’ve lost the support of the public and that since they're effectively doomed they're free to do what we know they love to do - attempt to secure themselves a role in the private sector for after the election. Given that this it the Conservative party, it's not exactly a secret that they'…

The idea of "election every 4/5 years" is that in the meantime, politicians can do momentarily unpopular things.

They are far beyond momentarily unpopular right now. A policy blip that would lose the Tories a few dozen seats - VAT or income tax hike - is one thing. What they’re facing is an extraordinary collapse. They’re polling as if they’d just enacted prohibition and banned football

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my favorite C-Span shows was The Prime Minister's Questions[0]. Don't mess with British politicians. Even the grumpiest old dogs can savage most American politicians, as the folks that tried roasting Galloway found out[1]. [0] https://www.c-span.org/series/?PrimeMinisterQue [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5u1skEoqLs

> as the folks that tried roasting Galloway found out I don’t particularly like that guy, but my goodness he’s absolutely brilliant in that exchange.

That was when things were getting hyper-partisan (they still are).

There were a bunch of Democrats and liberals, that were saying "I wish Galloway could be President!"

I'm like ... no, you really wouldn't like that ...

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#498
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Is a country a democracy if people are blocked from voting because they are female?

Obviously democracy is a sliding scale, but what was in place in the 1800s had a lot of headroom.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#499
post #258

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…

The population of the UK is about 67 million. The House of Commons is the major legislative body and it is comprised of 650 members. That's roughly 1 member per 100,000 people. You know your member. Parliament is dissolved every 5 years. So elections are pretty regular, but not overwhelming. There's a House of Lords, but they seem to have far less power. The work of Parliament gets done in the Commons. The main legis…

> Senators are a little weird.

The whole system is weird. Why is a vote in one state more powerful than a vote in another?

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#500
post #114
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling an election is now back in the hands of the government (not parliament) since the repeal of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act; a PM can ask the monarch to call an election without having to get the agreement of parliament. Neither the current nor next PM (whoever they end up being) is likely to do this if the polling numbers are anything to go by, of course. I think the only other way an election can be called i…

Technically speaking, King Charles III does not actually need to PM to ask in order to dismiss parliament and force a new election. Given that Charles I and Charles II both dismissed parliament maybe Charles III will grow a pair and do the same. It is somewhat ironic that while dismissing parliament caused the downfall of the monarchy for Charles I is it likely to buy a significant amount of time for the monarchy if…

Exactly. Queen Elizabeth sacked the Australian PM in 1978.
Post reply on HN