Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister • Hacker News Board

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#531

Post by Lio » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:28 PM UTC

AzzieElbab wrote: post #512

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.

Serious means impotent? You guys voted for brexit and that would put brexiters with the majority/centre. Plus this isn’t general election to the best of my understanding. Therefore, no need to appeal to leftists at all.

> You guys voted for brexit and that would put brexiters with the majority/centre.

The brexit vote passed with a very slim majority, which is why it's still controversial here.

It's also a cross spectrum issue, i.e. not of the left or the right.

Personally, I would like to see our politics become more centred and pragmatic again.

I don't want anyone like either Jeremy Corbyn or Jacob Rees-Mogg near the levers of power. Both seem determined to destroy things of value for the sake for the sake of the personal political dogmas.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#532

Post by AzzieElbab » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

cjrp wrote: post #414

brink wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying woke is serious?

If wokeness is the biggest problem a politician sees at the moment (which is the implication if that's the platform they're running on), then no - they are not serious.

Of cause wokeness is the biggest issue because it causes paralysis of governance. No one can get anything done when non-issues or issues with no solutions are prioritised

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#533

Post by danans » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

rdtwo wrote: post #2

Did not outlast the lettuce. Lettuce wins

To be fair, I've not seen a lettuce that lasts 44 days and is still edible. Cabbage yes, lettuce no.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#534

Post by bena » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:35 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #499

bena wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I personally have become a fan of the Wyoming Rule for the House. That seems fair without getting into crazy sizes.

I mean, if the US had representation in the same proportion as the UK, they'd have roughly 3300 representatives. The town I grew up currently has a population of 1500. So I can see why we wouldn't do that.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#535

Post by telotortium » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:36 PM UTC

ycombigator wrote: post #416

charlieyu1 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And American top politicians don’t go to top schools?

Looking at American politics from the outside, I feel like (in most cases), you're lucky if your elected representatives know how to spell the names of common vegetables and know that the US doesn't share a border with Afghanistan.

Eh, that's true to an extent, especially in the House and double especially in state government, but don't take John Oliver or Daily Show as completely representative. Watching those shows, you'd probably never know, for example, that Ron DeSantis, who is currently one of the Republican frontrunners for 2024, went to Yale and Harvard Law School.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#536

Post by thebooktocome » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:42 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #358

thebooktocome wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_America... Nine in the last thirty years, not including the ambassador killed overseas.

I compared Parliament against Congress as that seemed comparing apples-to-apples. But nine is still less than the UK, adjusting for population! And that's before access to guns!

> In the past few years we've had politicians on both sides killed in politically motivated attacks. I think that's a worse tally than the US as well. (emphasis added)

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#537

Post by chrisseaton » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:45 PM UTC

thebooktocome wrote: post #536

chrisseaton wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I compared Parliament against Congress as that seemed comparing apples-to-apples. But nine is still less than the UK, adjusting for population! And that's before access to guns!

> In the past few years we've had politicians on both sides killed in politically motivated attacks. I think that's a worse tally than the US as well. (emphasis added)

Worse per capita, for an apples-to-apples group of high-profile politicians.

That's got to be a cause for alarm? In a society with less access to weapons?

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#538

Post by nuc1e0n » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

whoooooo123 wrote: post #469

addicted wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK government also has an excellent civil servant corps. In reality it’s the civil service, that continues across government, that keeps the UK govt running. The elected officials are limited to providing high level directions. One of the major mistakes made by Kwarteng as chancellor was firing an extremely senior civil servant which spooked not just the civil service but also the markets, because it indicated th…

No-one wants elected officials running the government? Then why do we elect them?

If there's no-one that wants to change anything then things stay the same. Ron Swanson will keep things running smoothly.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#539

Post by trash3 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #167

kmlx wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you’re talented why would you ever go into politics or work as a civil servant?

Setting money aside for a moment, one can do much more good in a government position that as a private entity (unless you have Bill Gates level wealth, but that is a different conversation). My dad worked for a nationalized bank - we were poor, but my dad helped tons of people thanks to his job with the government. His pay was shit, he had nothing to show for his 33 years of work money wise , but he was so happy help…

No post body was provided.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#540

Post by PaulHoule » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #519

PaulHoule wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

The problem with many of those unions was just that they depended on industry that no rational country could have continued to run forever. Like are you seriously going to just continue to mine coal forever, in mines that have been active for 100s of years and were just losing money. The leader of the coal miners union didn't even fight for coal minor wages, he was talking actually revolution. Some privatizations wer…

Coal miners seem to have a sense of entitlement everywhere.

Coal was mostly crushed in the 1980s by the low capital cost of

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

and the low cost of gas of Natural gas in the US and UK, the latter because of the discovery of petroleum in the North Sea. The same economic steamroller pushed "pause" on nuclear energy.

Today we see coal miners in the US who are empowered by the "one state, two votes" structure of the Senate to keep the industry alive despite it being basically uneconomic as well as environmentally unsound, the difference is this time the coal miners are supported by the right instead of the left.

Those who hate Thatcher today aren't so much pining away for the way things used to be but instead for the loss of their dreams for how they think things could have been.

Thatcher's most memorable slogan was "There is no alternative" and it's that sense that the realm of the possible in politics shrunk dramatically is why people have a sense of loss. (I'm amused that both Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton liked that slogan too.)