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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

#321

Post by chimeracoder »

ben_w wrote: post #263
908B64B197 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now that the implications are becoming clear, a majority want to return to the EU Why not simply have regional votes to separate from the UK and join the EU? Scotland tried not that long ago.

Because the voting map looked like this, and the UK just can't do that kind of subdivision: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Un... Also, look how narrow the margins are on that scale bar. Most of those regions would need to be further subdivided, and the whole of the UK would end up like Baarle-Nassau: Baarle-Nassau https://maps.app.goo.gl/aRn73rm1cz2fHznt7?g_st=ic

> Because the voting map looked like this, and the UK just can't do that kind of subdivision

The UK has plenty of experience drawing partition lines in other countries. I have full faith that they could manage it here if they tried.

Looking at the map, these would even be very clean lines by British standards.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#322

Post by andrekandre »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #256
wazoox wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Curious to see what HN's opinion on mandatory voting is. We have that in Australia and the sense is that it tends to dull the extreme fringes of the party platforms since they need to broadly appeal to the mainstream.

  >  Australia and the sense is that it tends to dull the extreme fringes of the party platforms
even if thats true... you still have the overton window [0] to worry about (slowly lurching in one direction or another towards extremism)

still though, i feel its more fair if 99% rather than 30% of the people decide how they want to run their country

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#323

Post by foobarian »

rr808 wrote: post #138

I think its just a return to normal service after a spectacular period in the 90s and early 2000s. Back then everything was close to perfect, economy, music, politics UK became the best at everything. Now its kinda back to how it was in post war era which is fine but not great.

I think it's worse than that, it feels like the end of the exponential part of the massive growth S-curve that started after WW2 with rebuilding, tech breakthroughs, the transistor, electronics, computers, globalization, etc. Now all that is finally in steady state and the structures that built up around the growth are falling in on themselves. People try to blame whichever government is currently in power or whatever but it's mostly irrelevant.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#324

Post by VK538FY »

int_19h wrote: post #301
VK538FY wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the case of my small example: I am the rural vote so I don't see our collective force as tyranny of course. As long as basic rights are respected. Ours is a case of a region with specific identity and interests not shared by the single metropole so a purely proportional result is not ideal from our perspective. But I understand your point.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#325

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #197
fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the stuff you listed happened after Johnson won (or came to light after his victory), and before he resigned in disgrace, so doesn’t particularly serve the point you are making.

he wrote Seventy Two Virgins (the book having a character who loved money, had a hocked nose and jewish name) in 2004. he continuously wrote racist, sexist and homophobic comments in his articles since. His relationship with Jennifer Arcuri and public spending implications was out before 2019. It was all out in the public domain. It was the media's jobs to ignore this and pretend the main issue was one case where Cor…

I haven’t looked into this question before, but it’s fascinating to compare the second-hand characterizations of what Johnson has apologized for with his direct quotes: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson...

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#326

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

roenxi wrote: post #258
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…

Democracy is remarkably robust and people fighting is not an indication that it is faltering. The UK has a long and proud history of tenuous balance between different groups that are all on the verge of doing violence to one another, the current era is remarkably peaceful and cooperative. People are undercalling the effects of a multi-decade campaign against energy security in favour of environmentalist goals. The dr…

Absolutely none of that is true.

The UK has the highest energy prices of any country in Europe and - not coincidentally - its energy companies make the highest profits.

The UK could have promoted renewables, and did for a while. But the current government - like you - is actively hostile to decentralised solutions that work, and prefers to promote corporate choke points over energy supply that have put the entire population at risk of fuel poverty.

It's been the same story across most of the privatised industries. The concept of the common good has been replaced with an oligarchic dystopia in which a few corrupt winners shake down everyone else.

The root cause is neoliberal dogma, which has been aggressively promoted to the population since the 1970s. It was sold as "freedom". But it's only ever been used to justify increasingly extreme economic apartheid and incredibly poor strategic planning.

The UK is not a poor country. It's not even an energy poor country. But it's on course to having the poorest working population in Europe.

That's not the fault of windmills and solar panels, and it's disingenuous to suggest it is.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#327

Post by gghhzzgghhzz »

cuteboy19 wrote: post #318
gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing a few things here. Firstly that involving workers in the ownership and running of a company is a successful model that is working in German for example. Focus on short term shareholder value is not good for employees or the company. You are posting on a site that has a large percentage of people working in start-ups. Comments like your kind of goes completely against the audience. Secondary, I've hear…

Youre both wrong. under marxism public utilites would be owned and run by the workers i.e. the people in total, not just the workers who happen to work at the utility. this is because union ownership of public utilites is a recipie for failue and cannot be compared to successful for profit coops

I think you are conflating socialism with statism.

Personally I don't believe Marxism to imply state control, or public ownership to mean state ownership.

I'd also see ownership models to include workers and customers. e.g. as a seasonal reference Building and Loan from It's a Wonderful Life.

Of course not everyone sees it that way.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#328

Post by Taniwha »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #309
8note wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

if the minority parties work together with the opposition to form a majority representing a majority of the public surely that's a great example of real democracy in action, it may be a 'peril' to the governing party .... but at that point they represent a minority of the populous - this is not 'shocking' this is how a democratic country should behave

I live in New Zealand we have a proportional representative voting system (MPP), since we changed we've had coalitions and minority governments .... but we haven't had dysfunction or anarchy, largely I think because our parties know that if they go beyond the pale they wont get reelected

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#329

Post by andrekandre »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #71
equalsione wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the outside looking in, was the opposition worse? On the one hand, labour seem really similar to the Tories - disunited, dogma over common sense and oddly out of touch. Their policies _were_ opposite to Tory policies but they are trying to be an opposition so… Yes Corbin was a leftie (corduroy elbow patches and all) but he’s a leader of a left wing party. It’s like complaining that Thatcher was a bit right-wing.…

Corbyn is a hardcore anticapitalist whose aim is a socialist society (soviet block style). He is in favour of Brexit, too, for this reason. Same goes for McDonnell, a Marxist. That's very far left and is opposed by most people including in the Labour Party. Basically, those guys were the Communist Party and unsurprisingly people did prefer to keep the Tories... It was the same in the 80s when Labour was essentially u…

  > Blair saw that the centre left was politically the best bet, and pragmatically that social policies needed the private economy to produce wealth.
in the end, what happened to the produced wealth? is everyone doing much better now than then?

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#330

Post by asdadsdad »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #292
cecida wrote: post #254

I'm based in Ireland, and travel regularly to both Britain and California with work. I've always been shocked with the poverty and sense of systemic decline I witness in San Fran. Visiting London and being part of the tech industry can insulate you from just how grim things are in large parts of Britain as well though. Not saying Ireland is some sort of utopia by any means, and we have our own enormous challenges wit…

Ireland's prosperity is built on a house of cards to do with low corporation taxes. I wouldn't be surprised if Ireland faces serious economic challenges and maybe even decline in coming years as governments are getting increasingly serious about not allowing corporations to only register profits in overseas jurisdictions with low tax rates.

Yeah, agree. Also the EU cracking down on tax tricks like that.
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