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Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

reuters.com

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Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#51

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #44
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it If you could get one bill through Parliament, what would it do?

Most of the real power is in the budget, which is technically a bill, but I would 100% go for "change the voting system". Almost anything except D'Hondt is better than FPTP; for simplicity, we could just copy the Scottish Parliament's use of AMS. I would also insert a trapdoor that future changes to the voting system would require the approval of >50% of eligible voters, including non-voters. Yes, I know Parliament c…

[deleted]

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#52

Post by pjc50 »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #14

Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts. I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened…

The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres...

Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#53

Post by mytailorisrich »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #43
marysol5 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Palestine Action specifically, because the leadership of that group are violent terrorists. It's weird how you people never notice that NOBODY else is "arrested"

Over 2,000 middle aged women have been arrested as terrorists on the basis of holding protest signs though, it's been widely reported.

They did that on purpose, though: Palestine Action has been banned on the basis of being a "terror organisation", this means that supporting them is a criminal offence. Knowing that, they purposedly propested by holding signs saying that they supported Palestine Action... and therefore they were arrested as expected (and really the police has no choice in such cases not to undermine the rule of law).

Note what the Court of Appeal said when ruling that the ban on terror grounds was legal:

[It was] "a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism. It is not - as claimed - a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes, operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation which operates with secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy property and cause injury. " [1]

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gy927jx88o

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#54

Post by pjc50 »

roenxi wrote: post #8

I'm not entirely certain of the electoral details, but the UK Labour party is neck-and-neck with the UK Conservatives for falling from being a top-2 party [0]. This type of decisive reform may be sufficient to keep them out of 3rd place, so it is worth a try. The voters could take to it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_U...

The collapse of the ancient Conservative party to behind not one but two crank astroturf right-wing parties is something to behold.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#55

Post by rapsey »

pjc50 wrote: post #44
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it If you could get one bill through Parliament, what would it do?

Most of the real power is in the budget, which is technically a bill, but I would 100% go for "change the voting system". Almost anything except D'Hondt is better than FPTP; for simplicity, we could just copy the Scottish Parliament's use of AMS. I would also insert a trapdoor that future changes to the voting system would require the approval of >50% of eligible voters, including non-voters. Yes, I know Parliament c…

The grand coalition governments of the EU are not in any way better. They just result in bickering and gridlock because parties that hate each other get stuck in the same room.

This is your pet issue, completely based on the grass looking greener on the other side.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#56

Post by cassianoleal »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #43
marysol5 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Palestine Action specifically, because the leadership of that group are violent terrorists. It's weird how you people never notice that NOBODY else is "arrested"

Over 2,000 middle aged women have been arrested as terrorists on the basis of holding protest signs though, it's been widely reported.

Funny u/JumpCrisscross who was asking for sources has now deleted the post with the question.

> Since July last year, police have arrested at least 2,787 people across the UK for holding signs displaying statements such as “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, according to the civil liberties organisation Defend Our Juries.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/16/arrested-ret...

> An 83-year-old was arrested alongside 64 other people at a pro-Palestine protest in Liverpool city centre.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1wg4e1nlrjo

> "The law does not have an age limit", the head of the Metropolitan Police said after an 83-year-old retired priest was arrested for supporting a banned protest group.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vrjkev802o

And in the same above article there's an explanation about why this "violent terrorist group" has been banned:

> The move to ban the organisation was announced after two Voyager aircraft were sprayed with red paint at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 20 June. It caused about £7m of damage, police said.

Their violence was against capital.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#57

Post by pjc50 »

rapsey wrote: post #55
pjc50 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the real power is in the budget, which is technically a bill, but I would 100% go for "change the voting system". Almost anything except D'Hondt is better than FPTP; for simplicity, we could just copy the Scottish Parliament's use of AMS. I would also insert a trapdoor that future changes to the voting system would require the approval of >50% of eligible voters, including non-voters. Yes, I know Parliament c…

The grand coalition governments of the EU are not in any way better. They just result in bickering and gridlock because parties that hate each other get stuck in the same room. This is your pet issue, completely based on the grass looking greener on the other side.

The gridlock is real whether it happens inside or outside the party. This is partly why we're here in the first place! Starmer is out because he couldn't do coalition management inside the Labour party.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#58

Post by gaiagraphia »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #43
marysol5 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Palestine Action specifically, because the leadership of that group are violent terrorists. It's weird how you people never notice that NOBODY else is "arrested"

Over 2,000 middle aged women have been arrested as terrorists on the basis of holding protest signs though, it's been widely reported.

[flagged]

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#59

Post by cryo32 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #29
cryo32 wrote: post #26

Might as well just hand Farage the next general election at this rate. The last decade has been personality cult after personality cult. We had the start of stability and have thrown chaos in again. Just what the opposition want.

You mean Starmer has a personality?

God no. None at all. That's what we need though. No more bloody populist snakes!

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#60

Post by pjc50 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #56
OgsyedIE wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 2,000 middle aged women have been arrested as terrorists on the basis of holding protest signs though, it's been widely reported.

Funny u/JumpCrisscross who was asking for sources has now deleted the post with the question. > Since July last year, police have arrested at least 2,787 people across the UK for holding signs displaying statements such as “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, according to the civil liberties organisation Defend Our Juries. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/16/arrested-ret... > An 83-year-old wa…

I agree with you generally but the RAF are part of the state and not meaningfully "capital". If you attack the military then yes obviously you are going to get the book thrown at you. That does _not_ justify going after the people with signs.
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