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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

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Particularly since Elisabeth I came long after that date. It’s definitely not 1414.

I'd say it's 1688: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution

Other possible choices are 1708 (last example of the monarch refusing royal consent to an act of parliament, Queen Anne on the Scottish Militia Bill), or 1834 (last example of the monarch dismissing their government, William IV sacking the Whigs; he had to have them back in 1835 as the Tories he installed couldn't command a majority of the Commons).

Or you can point to things like the Kerr Sacking (in Australia, but using (vice-)regal power) and say it's not quite done yet, though in decline for centuries...

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#572
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn't have any authority, in practice. It has been that way since 1414. The second the monarchy tried to exert control over politics would be the second it was abolished.

did you perhaps mean 1914? i’m not a historian but i DID watch Hamilton a few times and it really seemed like King George had quite a lot of power and authority…

I often wonder if George was merely the figurehead for colonial frustrations. After all, Parliament precipitated the revolution by insisting that they had the power to tax the colonies.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#573
post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 powe…

(Sorry for the double "for the sake of" mistake in that last sentence. Too late to correct it now.)

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the belief that wider representation in the government, less polarization, a strong parliament and a weak executive is more desirable.

A weak executive would seem to reduce representation in government though? As each member of parliament must necessarily represent the biggest groups in their constituencies. So a decent size group scattered across many dozens of constituencies into relatively tiny groups would simply never get taken seriously without a strong executive.

No, you've got that exactly backwards. Parliament is the representation. Because of proportional representation, parliament represents all groups in the country, and not merely the majorities in each district.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#575

I think the relevant question is, why did a Thatcherite monetary policy collapse overnight in 2022 when it didn't in the early 1980s? One reason is that the British nationalized services that Thatcher sold off to private investors in the 1980s (railroads, electricity, etc.) no longer exist, other than the national health service, which the British public would riot over if it was privatized. With nothing left to cann…

Is this GPT?

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#576

What Curtis argues in his documentaries - that politicians now are mere birocrats at the mercy of the markets - seems truer than ever. There is no place for decisions that do not sit well with the markets, unless you live in a dictatorship - Russia, China, etc. That means all creative or unproven political decisions will be punished by the markets leaving us in a rather stagnant world ruled by market forces.

To which of his documentaries are you referring? Adam Curtis, right?

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree; the video in the comment above yours was edited specifically to focus hate on a couple of high school students. While I have to admit I'm not a fan of that debate style, if you want to know the context behind it, there's an episode of Radiolab on the topic: https://radiolab.org/episodes/debatable The short version is that it seems to have been a response and rebellion to what was already an arguably ridiculo…

Yeah so it was essentially satire. You'd think that in a community of "hackers" that should value actual skepticism and subversion that people wouldn't fall so easily for obvious propaganda.

Defending their performance by arguing that it was rebellion or satire is pretty much admitting that the debate style (fast debating, AKA spreading [1]) is ridiculous and deserves rebellion or satire.

And if this was an intentionally extreme example meant to demonstrate problems with the format, then sharing it and citing it here seems entirely appropriate and even expected.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreading_(debate)

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I saw it was Truss and Kwarteng who caused the immediate issues, so not really a fall person, so much as the people who caused the problem leaving. They came up with the disasterous "mini-budget" which kicked it all off, they dismissed a senior treasury civil servant right before that, they didn't co-ordinate with the bank of england. Sure there are deeper problems that are not of their making but they made…

I think it's arguable that the minibudget overreaction wasn't remotely rational reporting or accurate as the cause of the gilt coupon drop. Certainly that day a load of people made money on them as it was very obvious they'd be fine. But in the cloud of noise that followed, with even the nations top economic journalists regurgitating nonsense... i doubt 0.5% of the adult population could even tell you what happened t…

I'd say that all economics at a national level is about confidence. If the markets have confidence in what you're doing they don't react badly, if they don't have confidence in what you're doing, they react badly.

By not laying the ground properly for their "mini-budget" they (Truss and Kwarteng) caused the markets to lose confidence in them, causing the problems that occurred.

It doesn't really matter what most people thought of it, as they don't run the financial markets :)

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#579
post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A weak executive would seem to reduce representation in government though? As each member of parliament must necessarily represent the biggest groups in their constituencies. So a decent size group scattered across many dozens of constituencies into relatively tiny groups would simply never get taken seriously without a strong executive.

No, you've got that exactly backwards. Parliament is the representation. Because of proportional representation, parliament represents all groups in the country, and not merely the majorities in each district.

Exactly.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#580
post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all the major Brexit leaders were upper class publicly educated twits. (Johnson, Rees Mogg, Farage).

The issue is the inability of the Remain leaders to speak to the population as a whole, especially those inclined to nativism

They wouldn't need to if the upper class twits weren't allowed to just make stuff up.

Part of the current crisis is the intra-party conflict between the "libertarian" faction that wants more immigration to boost the economy and the "nationalist" faction that wants to eliminate it to win easy votes. They got to have their cake and eat it for the last decade (people voted Brexit to both increase and to decrease immigration from India), but this caught up with them.

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