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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

#441

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

lgkghfjhgjhfg wrote: post #433
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pop…

The "neoliberal dogma" has made America the most prosperous country in the world. Your thesis doesn't compute.

except it really hasn't. America was dominant after WW2 and has mostly been costing downhill since. in the past 2 decades inequality has increased, life expectancy is stagnant, obesity is up, cost of healthcare and education is up. public transit is worse than it was in the 1950s. it's pretty hard too find a metric on which the US is doing better on than Europe at this point

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#442

Post by Ste_Evans »

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…

[dead]

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#443

Post by r_hoods_ghost »

chimeracoder wrote: post #315
grumpyprole wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also the adverts of sick babies who would not get the funding they needed if the money was spent on implementating proportional representation. A similar lie was used to sell Brexit.

> And also the adverts of sick babies who would not get the funding they needed if the money was spent on implementating proportional representation Proportional representation and ranked choice voting are orthogonal concepts. A referendum for ranked choice voting doesn't necessarily implement proportional representation.

No, but it would likely be more proportional than the current system in the UK where the last time a single party won a majority of the popular vote was 1931 and yet parties usually have a majority in parliament. Proportionality is not a binary thing. You can have more or less proportional systems of government based on the selection / election mechanic chosen.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#444

Post by thazework »

krona wrote: post #20

> ..in office but barely in power To me this sums it up. The political kayfabe is in part constructed to make it appear like the government is in control of state affairs, but Blair's legacy was to remove power from government and spread it thinly through an increasingly overweight bureaucracy that answers to itself and only sings the governments tune when it empowers itself.

Blair's legacy? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4tXPx5Bk5w

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#445

Post by culi »

VK538FY wrote: post #319
culi wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've fully considered the alternatives here. Alternatives like Approval or even RCV (which admittedly has its own issues) don't at all weaken the rural vote here. Approval means all those rural parties can be voted for instead of having to be consolidated and also increases the chance that some city folk will vote for them. RCV allows rural people to vote for the longshot candidate they ACTUALLY wan…

I appreciate your suggestions but would really need to see some simulations to digest the potential effects. Not that my opinion counts for much but it's always good to suggest alternatives when one criticizes. That said, the duopoly isn't always so bad historically. Many cases of individual candidates who broke party lines or walked the fine line. It depends to a great degree on party discipline or the lack thereof.

you're probably asking for historical examples. Tbh I lack the knowledge of the specific politics of Montréal to think of the best comparisons, but if you want a more abstract toy to play around with the large variety of different voting systems available, I've made a toy just for that:

https://votevote.page/

sorry for the self-plug

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#446

Post by ashwagary »

version_five wrote: post #351
nicoburns wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem you have in the US is that you only have one alternative choice, so if neither choice is good, then you have no recourse

There are two components though. One is the ability to choose the party, the other is the pressure on a party to adjust so that it appeals to enough voters to elect it. If a party doesn't need to adjust to get some votes, as in proportional representation, then we (potentially) end up with coalitions that live or die based on narrow issues, which is what the original post I replied to alluded to. On the other hand, i…

Put simply, "when most of the thieving stopped, the thriving stopped."

Britain faltering is not "strange" and has little to do with political party, rather its ability to use violence to extract capital from productive outside entities and support its welfare state is nearing an end.

The Economist has a long history of avoiding the elephant in the room because the people running it are hopelessly biased.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#447

Post by mytailorisrich »

astrange wrote: post #272
mytailorisrich wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No, immigration has kept unskilled workers' wages low.

That's why businesses have been keen and workers have had enough.

That's not specific to the UK, and is the usual effect of large immigration.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#448

Post by dazc »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #86
dazc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are other parties, but, aside from tactical voting, most people accept you're going to get a labour or conservative government no matter what. A recent exception may have have been the Con/Lib coalition but it was a union of unequal partners at the best of times.

Where you see some inevitability "...you're going to get a labour or conservative government no matter what", I see choices not taken. It's if you're implying political free will doesn't exist. It's very hard for me to understand where you're coming from (no offence!).

Yes there are choices not taken. It's more a case of voter apathy than pure logic though.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#449

Post by mytailorisrich »

gghhzzgghhzz wrote: post #228
mytailorisrich wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalisation with control handed to the workers . And of course there's also the little thing about McDonnell and Corbyn being Marxist and socialist. Again, too many people still seem not to be willing to see what's not even hidden. History should really be compulsory over the whole of secondary school. Edit: they had hinted it very strongly but did not mention it in the 2017 manifesto apart from calling to promot…

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…

In English "run by the workers" have a very different meaning from "involving the workers". So your point is a strawman.

Yes a large portion of readers probably works in startups, the pinnacle of market and financial capitalism and should in all logic despise Corbyn and McDonnell... although that's irrelevant to the discussion.

McDonnell and Corbyn are indeed life long euroseptics and very satisfied with Brexit, which made it even more ridiculous to see so many students cheering them.

Re: The strange case of Britain’s demise

#450

Post by pasabagi »

roenxi wrote: post #390
fader wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, yes -- I have significantly smaller gas and electric bills despite being in a larger house in a colder climate as a result of better construction and insulation and more energy-efficient appliances. I also moved to a city where I can walk or bike for daily tasks so I fill up my (more fuel-efficient) car's gas tank about a quarter as often. I'm not claiming this is the case generally across the UK -- I'm i…

Heh, ouch. Hopefully that is a lesson to me in phrase my questions more carefully. However, I don't think that is quite enough to show that Jevons' paradox has been avoided - you'll find that with the savings from paying less for heating and your car you have a bit more money left over - what happened to it? Because it represents the energy that was freed up. It isn't enough to say "Well I spent less energy on heatin…

The problem with your argument is that the energy cost of, say, charging a phone, is multiple orders of magnitude less than heating a room, and that in turn is many orders of magnitude from producing steel through recycling, and so on.

Comparable objects (a steel section produced in an arc furnace vs a steel section smelted from ore) have radically different energy requirements. If you legislate away the worst offenders (uninsulated houses) the raw drop in energy consumption is such that even if everybody starts leaving their lights on all the time, usage will still drop.

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