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The strange case of Britain’s demise

economist.com

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Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#301

Post by int_19h »

VK538FY wrote: post #289
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…

I understand your point. 'First past the post' may not be ideal for your country. For other countries, it is appreciated despite its inconveniences. Example: Québec. We inherited 'first past the post' from England. The results are obvious: small parties with significant numbers of voters in many ridings don't end up in parliament. But Québec is a rural province with only one city worthy of the name, Montréal, almost…

The problem with what you describe is that it doesn't merely prevent large areas from dominating the smaller; it actually allows the smaller areas to gang up and impose policies on the majority. Tyranny of the majority sucks, but tyranny of the minority is even worse.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#302

Post by gernb »

wazoox wrote: post #207
euix wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is a common trend through the west. Here in Canada the current Federal Liberals won the last two election with about 30% of the vote which when you take into account how many people even vote amounts to something like ~5 million people in a country close to 40 million. The kind of overarching policies and rhetoric coming out of government is widely disproportionate to that level of mandate.

Yup. In France Macron hold total power with less than 30% of voters and less than 30% of good opinion in polls. His "pension reform" has everyone against it, the unions, all political parties but his own, even the employers association, but it will be enforced anyway. Democracy is dead, and it even began to smell.

> Democracy is dead, and it even began to smell.

what's your solution?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#303

Post by Apocryphon »

astrange wrote: post #268
JPKab wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We traded one wrinkly liar the media held accountable for another wrinkly liar the media views as their grandpa.

Bothsides posting should have stopped around 2005. There's nothing impressive about telling people how above it all you are.

2003, surely.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#304

Post by gernb »

Silhouette wrote: post #286
mjfl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"democracy is under threat when people I don't like are democratically elected." Is it invisible to you how such statements are, themselves, bad for democracy?

The problem is that in many Western systems the people who gain power aren't democratically elected. In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. However most of us aren't even getting that far because the people who gain power often don't even have the support or even acceptance of the majority.

You said

> In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority

But isn't that exactly what's happening? The minority (red) won against the majority (blue).

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#305

Post by Silhouette »

akiselev wrote: post #232
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…

At this point UK government services don’t need reform, they need funding. Austerity has absolutely crippled everything.

The problem with that argument is where the money comes from. If you look at government tax take relative to GDP we aren't paying in much less tax than at any other time in most of our living memories. If anything it is the other way around.

We'd all like public services that do everything for everyone but few of us would be willing to pay what that would actually cost and many of us literally couldn't afford it. Meanwhile expectations of government services are rising and in many areas demographics are against us. If you rule out reform of government services then you don't have a lot of options left to square a lot of circles.

It's important to consider that "reform" is not the same as "cutting standards". For example if we could redistribute the available resources for health and social care to focus more on prevention than cure then many problems might be detected and dealt with earlier resulting in lower overall costs and crucially also better outcomes for patients. Of course there is so much firefighting happening in the NHS now that it's hard to see how any radical reform could happen without a huge injection of both cash and trained medical staff over a period longer than a single electoral cycle and that makes it a political problem as much as an economic or healthcare one.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#306

Post by lambertsimnel »

8note wrote: post #300
Adverblessly wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The majority can be struck down by a group of minorities? Or the plurality?

I think the issue is that recent governing coalitions' majorities in the Knesset (over and above what they need to appoint a prime minister) is smaller than an individual small party. Consequently, an individual small party could unilaterally bring down the government (or threaten to).

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#307

Post by lambertsimnel »

foolswisdom wrote: post #284
lambertsimnel wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Simple, because you aren't going to form a coalition with parties radically different than yours, you choose those that are mostly aligned with you. But now any party within the coalition, even a small one, can force the coalition to listen to them, because the alternative is to form a coalition with parties even more at odds.

That's the dilemma the big parties face. By choosing not to deal with each other, they empower small parties. Without actual majority support, they (rightly) have to compromise with somebody.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#308

Post by halo »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #18

Remarkable article. 2000-odd words, goes into great detail talking about politics, psycho-analyzing the Tories...it is all because they went to Eton...of course...the Brexit, the bankers...it is all so simple. A brief sentence is expended on planning, no mention about supply-side problems, the productivity crisis in govt (which is now 50% of the economy)...nothing. I will say this another way, you can measure the int…

Can you expand on “supply-side problems”, “economic reform” and “structural issues” without filtering it through euphemisms?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#309

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

8note wrote: post #300
Adverblessly wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The majority can be struck down by a group of minorities? Or the plurality?

No, he's complaining that minority parties can join with the opposition to form a majority and consequently bring down the government (this can happen when government forms a minority government or relies on minority parties to form a government).

A shocking example of the perils of democracy.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#310

Post by nine_zeros »

mixtur2021 wrote: post #245
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…

UK issued one million Visas last year: https://workpermit.com/news/uk-visas-issued-one-million-peop... New Visas are being introduced for skilled/semi skilled: https://aristonesolicitors.co.uk/news/new-uk-visas-set-to-la... UK is NOT trying to emulate North Korea. This is a bad faith statement. Those countries (USA, China, Singapore) you mentioned are not in the EU Common Travel Area either. On trade, the UK is negot…

None of that replaces being freely connected to the second largest economic bloc next door.
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