The strange case of Britain’s demise • Hacker News Board

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#271

Post by dfawcus » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:53 PM UTC

hermitcrab wrote: post #104

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the population we are concerned with learned a foreign language until the age of 16. Brits are "famously monolingual" because the country only speaks one language (unlike almost every other European country). I don't know, I haven't tried to talk to any of them in a language that isn't English. Again, your supposition that this must be true is based on what? It must…

>I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the population we are concerned with learned a foreign language until the age of 16. I live in the UK and I am struggling to think of more than 1 or 2 British born people I know personally that speak anything other than English with any fluency.

From the 2011 census, around 30% of Scots are fluent in a second language.

https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glanc...

(We don't yet have the results for the 2022 census)

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#272

Post by astrange » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:53 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #112

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else. Brownites sound good but say nothing specific...often the specific stuff is bad too. I agree with you in that there is a route in the centre, but Labour aren't. The party is fundamentally broken. Starmer isn't it, Reeves isn't a leader, Streeting is a joke. Obviously, they have moved to the centre on immigration…

> The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else Yes, that's a good point, but it's not only the right. All the traditionally Labour constituencies in the North (but not only) which voted for Brexit did so largely because of immigration. Immigration control is not traditionally right wing only. The left has also been in favour of control and restrictions in or…

Their wages are low because they're British and live in a failing country.

Immigration raises wages; more people = better economy. That's why every other Anglo country is doing better than them. And has food that isn't brown slop.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#273

Post by TapWaterBandit » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:53 PM UTC

akiselev wrote: post #221

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm astounded people are STILL burying their heads in the sand about Corbyn. But I suppose that is a large part of the reason why labour was losing for so long they kept denying the obvious reality that the electorate just did not like Corbyn but wouldn't get rid of him for internal political/ideological reasons.

There’s only one meme in British politics seen more often than Malcolm Tucker quotes: “It’s Corbyn’s fault!” It’s febrile at this point.

> It’s febrile at this point.

Not really sure what you're saying here. Did you mean to use the word "juvenile"?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#274

Post by cauch » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:56 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #5

petesergeant wrote: post #4

I feel like the article lays it out pretty well? It’s a government who’s been in power too long, whose talent base was massively thinned by a Brexit Purity witch hunt and the impossibility of delivering the Brexit fairy-tale, and who weren’t simply ejected at the last election because of Corbyn’s overwhelming unpopularity.

It's a deeper problem than simply being in power for too long. They have been in power that long because the alternative offer was worse as you mention.

Judging what is "worse" is tricky. Of course, if the alternative is proposing policies that don't fit with your ideology, you are going to judge them badly ("how can they be good politicians, they haven't even understood what is obvious to me"). But it does not mean they are worse, it just means that they are not representative of your ideology. In a healthy democracy, the community should accept that there will be people with different ideology, and that there will therefore be political parties representing them.

I think this is the problem: politicians representing the ideology X can afford to be mediocre because they have some room before "voting for mediocre politicians that still agree with what I believe is the best" is worse than "voting for non-mediocre politicians that disagree with what I believe is the best". If a party ends up with mediocre politician, it is its own failure, and the other parties (even if they themselves have bad politicians) are not responsible: the other parties represent other people. If the party that represents your ideology is managing to put forward mediocre politicians, then, it is your failure for letting that happens or accepting this situation.

(I'm not saying that you are incompetent: you may have failed because it was impossible. Still, it's certainly not the responsibility of people who have a different ideology)

In short, in a healthy democracy, there will always be a "worse" party. It cannot take away the responsibility of the party you have voted for for being bad. It's a bit like having giraffes and lions at the zoo, and having the lions saying "the meat is full of maggots and really bad quality, but the alternative is having the vegetables that suits the giraffes, so, it's the giraffes' fault".

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#275

Post by mrtksn » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:56 PM UTC

JonChesterfield wrote: post #265

We shut down the entire economy in indecisive confused fashion for covid and the bill comes due. War with Russia towards the end of that has not helped. Both of those look far more significant than leaving the EU to me.

Leaving the EU is structural issue, the war and the pandemic are disasters that will yield their damage and go away.

The significance of the structural issues is that it defines you and your limits. It’s bit like, being victim of a car crash can be life changing but choosing not to go to a University defines you.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#276

Post by TapWaterBandit » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

Adverblessly wrote: post #260

dignick wrote: post #145

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to b…

Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government…

This is interesting. Does Israel have parliamentary supremacy? In NZ we have MMP which is proportional but Supreme Court rulings on law do no "override" action as parliament is still supreme. So it can't override laws perse.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#277

Post by astrange » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #195

jodrellblank wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is to refuse to let Conservatives leave that kind of spin uncontested. Everything the comment accused Corbyn of doing leading to "you people will never win in the real world" was done by BoJo, and it didn't stop him winning in the real world.

you should always ask the question. what was it that made it so difficult to elect someone like Corbyn, yet so easy to elect someone like Johnson? That's the actual interesting question here.

Mostly seems to be that British press is entirely opinionated tabloids who choose to "find out" that a scandal happened a year later based on whether they like the guy it happened to or not.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#278

Post by lambertsimnel » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

Adverblessly wrote: post #260

dignick wrote: post #145

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to b…

Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government…

> Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition.

If small parties' power is such a problem, why don't the big parties form another grand coalition? Or form Scandinavian-style pre-election pacts with the small parties?

[Edited to acknowledge grand coalitions aren't a foreign concept in Israel]

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#279

Post by hermitcrab » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:58 PM UTC

nine_zeros wrote: post #144

As an outsider, but generally appreciative of British culture's influence on me, I was (and continue to be) flabbergasted with Britain's inward outlook. For the vast majority of British history, Brits were only wealthy when they traded outside. The trade took various forms such as East India company, trading outposts, industrial trade outside the island, colonization, financial capitalization etc. Britain ruled the s…

>The trade took various forms such as East India company

I think Indians might question calling what the East India Company did to India 'trade'.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#280

Post by version_five » Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 11:59 PM UTC

Adverblessly wrote: post #260

dignick wrote: post #145

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to b…

Here in Israel with proportional representation, every small party has outsized power since every one of them has enough power to vote down the current government by joining hands with the opposition. As a result, decisions that are undesirable by the majority are consistently made. We are currently after an election but before forming a new government and as part of the coalition negotiations the upcoming government…

I subscribe to the idea that the most important aspect of democracy is to be able to kick out the incumbents (and less important is that every opinion gets direct representation). I think for all the challenges in the US, it does this quite well.