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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

#421

Post by jillesvangurp »

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.

Democracies elsewhere can learn a thing or two from recent election rounds in the US, the UK, and elsewhere. Basically, we've seen a surge in populism and irrational sentiment dominating politics and being translated into actual policy with disastrous results. The lesson there is that you can win an election and then loose an empire.

I don't think it's a British problem either. We've had populists dominating politics in quite a few countries in recent decades. France just had a close call where a neo fascist came close to winning the elections. The Austrians have actually gone there. My home country the Netherlands has had populists come close a couple of times as well. Italy just elected a populist. The issue is that the type of policies populists preach tend to not involve a whole lot of carefully considered long term planning. Big gestures that are supposedly popular and then all hell breaks loose when reality and fantasy meet.

Brexit sounded great to people with no clue about how economies work. Now they are dealing with inflation, lots of failing policies, and the notion that they might soon have to rename their country as it is won't be great or united anymore if Scotland and Northern Ireland cease to be a part of it. I don't think anyone voted for that in England. But it would be a direct consequence of what they did vote for.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#422

Post by wizofaus »

phatfish wrote: post #294
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mandatory voting in a proportional representation electoral system feels like the best way to me. You can't force people to vote when their vote can end up worthless like with first past the post. Not sure if you have PR or FPTP in Aus.

Neither, it's essentially a type of ranked voting that is often referred to as "two party preferred" on the assumption that for any seat, it will go to one party or the other, and it's likely to be one with the highest first+second preference count (not exactly how it works, but you can find the details online easily enough. A fairly typical scenario is that the ALP might have something like 40% of the 1st preference votes and the Liberals 45%, but the 2nd preference votes overwhelmingly favour the ALP and they take the win). There hasn't been any serious discussion over the need to revisit mandatory voting (personally I don't think it should be over a certain age - there's an argument those over 75, who are making up an increasingly larger percentage of the population, have undue influence on selection of a government whose job should be to put forward policies etc. that determine the long-term future of our country, which is of far more relevance to those who'll be alive to see it. I imagine once I'm past 75 I wouldn't be so concerned with voting in every election on that basis. But I'll admit it's not something I feel particularly strongly about.)

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#423

Post by aragilar »

phatfish wrote: post #294
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mandatory voting in a proportional representation electoral system feels like the best way to me. You can't force people to vote when their vote can end up worthless like with first past the post. Not sure if you have PR or FPTP in Aus.

The system used varies across the different jurisdictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare%E2%80%93Clark_electoral_s..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Australi... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote#Austr... cover the majority of systems we have (most of the differences/changes are subtle, see https://antonygreen.com.au/inclusive-gregory-another-serious... for example).

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#424

Post by mjfl »

rconti wrote: post #406
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?

"democracy is under threat when people ~I don't like~ who advocate the overturn of democracy are elected" FTFY.

You really are not grasping how ubiquitously this concept is used. Biden has declared democratically elected people like Georgia Meloni and Victor Orban, and candidates like Marine le Pen to be dangers to democracy. It certainly isn't restricted to Trump. The fact that you jump to him shows how blind you are.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#425

Post by kieranmaine »

kristianc wrote: post #403
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…

How would Starmer needing to accommodate for instance, the Lib Dems on every position, be an improvement on this? Take the issue of housing policy for instance. Britain urgently needs more houses, but the Lib Dems turn up at every local election and by-election on a NIMBY platform. The same for building new energy infrastructure- the Lib Dems famously blocked the building of new nuclear plants ‘because they wouldn’t…

Can't deny the issues with housing policy.

I feel your point on nuclear only paints half the picture. During their time in the coalition the Lib Dems did push for an expansion of wind power, with the subsequent ban on on-shore wind coming after their demise in the 2015 election. Also, the number of solar installations dived after the Lib Dems were dispatched with and the subsidies were removed.

In terms of "terrible decision making, and indecisive government" I believe this is a better description of all that has come to pass after the coalition with only a single party in power.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#426

Post by wizofaus »

rayiner wrote: post #381
Silhouette wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In a real democracy the big challenge should be how to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. Protection of minorities has nothing to do with democracy, and is often anti-Democratic. In the west, minorities are increasingly being invoked by elites as pretexts for strengthening anti-Democratic institutions and overruling majorities.

Can you give an example? I'd suggest protections against "tyranny of the majority"/"mob rule" are a cornerstone feature of any successful democracy. The point is to ensure that it's not possible simply by force of numbers alone to elect governments who then enforce laws and implement policies that could significantly disadvantage any minority group.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#427

Post by theGnuMe »

jen20 wrote: post #384
akiselev wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the Tories run on making things worse 13 years ago (austerity)? Thanks to COVID, Brexit, and the war in Ukraine, they have succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

Actually no, they did not run on that. They ran on a platform of “sharing the proceeds of growth”, and then changed their mind after getting into office. I believe the outgoing minister left a (lighthearted?) note saying “I’m afraid there is no money left”, which was used as a partial justification.

08 financial crises the uk went full austerity and basically missed out on the economic boom.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#428

Post by uejfiweun »

nxmnxm99 wrote: post #415
alvah wrote: post #412

"Britain seems trapped in a doom loop of superannuated governments which, after a term or two of charismatic leadership and reformist vim, wind up bereft of talent, sinking in their own mistakes and wracked by backbench rebellions; in office but barely in power" That's not just Britain, the entire West has this problem. IMO the rise of professional politicians who've never worked outside of politics is a major cause…

This is why the West is stagnating and the power center of the world has shifted East once more after half a millennia.

Is the West really stagnating? If anything, I'd say it's at the peak and continuing to climb. The bulk of the West's power is united under a single language, on a continent that's practically invincible, and it has constructed a system in which the brightest minds from around the world come to the US to work for Western companies and study in Western universities. Sure, China is catching up quickly, but that's because it is heading down a path that was already first cleared by the West - I'd expect diminishing returns to its strategy.

I think it's really quite different from what you describe. In my eyes, the game is over, the West already won, and the best that other powers can hope for is to join the West in victory - it's a fool's errand to try and supplant it entirely.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#429

Post by sbaiddn »

benj111 wrote: post #242
makomk wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is part of the problem. UK politics and the media narratives around it have beeen utterly wrecked by the fight over Brexit and the attempts to give its creators the boot. For example, take this claim: "Investment is down and inflation higher than it would have been inside the European Union." The UK's inflation in the year to November 2022 was 10.7%, compared to 10.1% in the Eurozone. It just doesn't seem…

10.7% v 10.1% is 0.6%. how long before that compounds into a sizable figure? I never really bought into the doomsday scenarios. Just a slow slide of Spanish package holidays getting more expensive and people not connecting the dots.

Pretty long. Itd take 120 years for relative prices to double, compared to 7 years doubling at 10% inflation.

Also, 0.6% is probably noise or error

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#430

Post by reducesuffering »

rayiner wrote: post #399
jen20 wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The center is represented in the UK by Labour, and by the Democrats in the US. The left is not represented in either country.

The “center” or “left” of what? The US is a country that’s as religious as Iran where a decisive majority disapprove of the Supreme Court’s ban on school prayer: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/13/south-carol... . It’s a country where 68% of Americans wouldn’t pay even $10 per month in energy bills to mitigate climate change: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-... You might not…

Yes, but since the US is a more right-wing country than the rest of the developed world (healthcare, death penalty, taxes...), that would mean the Democrats are "centrist" and Republicans "right." Characterizing based on relativity to the developed world seems much more fitting, since we're discussing it between people mostly from other developed countries and in a thread about Britain.
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