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Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

bbc.co.uk

541–550 of 651 posts

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#541
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Americans still mog, and I mean badly mog, British at actual competitive debate. This is true both in their inferior form of "British Parliamentery debate" as well as the various American styles, such as Lincoln Douglas, Policy, or Public Forum.

Definitely. I mean check out some of the recent winners of the US National Debate Championships. https://youtu.be/fmO-ziHU_D8?t=34

Here's the American Debate Association's 2019 High School Championships:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqjHz9laqgU&t=368s

And debate between the Harvard Democrats and Republicans:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYLcpQQCjLE&t=1655s

I've never seen or heard of a debate like the one in Peter Schiff's youtube channel there, and it is pretty obviously being shared on social media for emotional effect.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#542
post #163
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically speaking, King Charles III does not actually need to PM to ask in order to dismiss parliament and force a new election. Given that Charles I and Charles II both dismissed parliament maybe Charles III will grow a pair and do the same. It is somewhat ironic that while dismissing parliament caused the downfall of the monarchy for Charles I is it likely to buy a significant amount of time for the monarchy if…

The other way round. If he gets out of his limited role and engages into politics, it will be the end of monarchy.

Not necessarily the end of the monarchy. Parliament would just choose a new monarch as it did in 1688 when Charles II tried to choose an heir that Parliament didn't like.

It's been settled via the civil war and the Glorious Revolution, power in the UK rest ultimately in the House of Commons not the monarchy.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#543

Question for Brits here - Is the UK just as divided along ideological lines as the U.S is currently?

Over a long enough period of time it swings back and forth and the divide is somewhere near the middle.

However, the right leaning Conservatives have fucked up everything for such a long amount of time starting with Brexit it's pretty much guaranteed that left leaning Labour will win the next election in two years.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#544
post #533
post #2

Did not outlast the lettuce. Lettuce wins

To be fair, I've not seen a lettuce that lasts 44 days and is still edible. Cabbage yes, lettuce no.

I don't know this meme, so I can only assume the lettuce has already been harvested? If from seed, you can still have fresh lettuce at around 44 days. :)

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#545
post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same “public” as in “public houses” (actually privately-owned premises) or “public companies” (publicly traded but still private interests). One more quirk of the English language.

The public in public houses presumably comes from the fact that they're open to the public to enter. There's obviously the implied need to buy something if you spend a length of time there, but compare to a private house (I.e. a residence) where the public does not by default have permission to enter.

Historically, pubs (which is short for "public house") originated as personal residences, whose owners (pub operators are still called "landlords") started creating income by making and selling food and beer to neighbours and strangers.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#546
post #34

Tories should have gone with Rishi.

The most Chinese friendly candidate in the current global politics? As a Hongkonger living in UK he really instilled lots of fear among our people

Yep, I think he'd be a terrible choice.

I think he's ambitious for his own sake but I don't think he really cares about the country long term. I base that on the fact that his wife didn't pay tax here until it threatened his career and that he retained a US green card as a "plan B" for after he'd finished being in power.

I feel he had no skin in the game.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This always seemed to me like pure theater. Have there ever been any serious consequences to anything anyone ever said during the Prime Minister's Questions? Or are they (like every other politician the world over) just putting on a good show for the folks back home?

The serious consequences are that if you do especially badly like Truss did yesterday the voters get pissed and you have to resign.

She resigned because of what she said at Questions?

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a typical misunderstanding of British politics. In theory the King is supposed to have power on a range of things, but there are very clearly set constitutional conventions that mean he does not. These are now so powerful that not even the "theory" is able to supersede them. This was found out the hard way by Boris Johnson when he tried to prorogue (suspend) Parliament using the Royal Prerogative. The supreme…

Honestly having lived in the UK I find the flexibility of the unwritten constitution to be both a good and a bad thing. On one hand, the constitution where I come from (Portugal) is unnecessarily binding and causes a lot of issues the country suffers from. On the other hand in the UK you get this feeling that the PM can do almost anything, which in the hands of a decent person can heavily advance the country or in a…

> you get this feeling that the PM can do almost anything

Technically, whoever has the majority in the parliament can literally do anything, including introducing the laws that require photo ID for voting (in a country without a mandatory photo ID) [0], or that anyone who protested in past five years are required to wear an electronic tag [1]. Or, because why not, to get rid of the election process - completely or partially.

[0] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

[1] https://twitter.com/TheDonsieLass/status/1582642029762207744

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#549
post #88

Only 45 days in the post; shortest in UK history. She tanked the economy quicker than anyone before. It's quite impressive how you can mess up this bad. Borrowing money to pay for tax cuts for the rich... Unbelievable.

The sad part is that there's a can of worms just like her in the Conservative Party. She's merely the one that got sacked for it, but the next Tory PM will most likely have the same agenda, although he / she will most likely tread more carefully. After leaving the EU the UK economy has become extremely unstable, with strikes occurring almost on a weekly basis, just like we had in the 60's and 70's before the UK becam…

> Mind you that the UK isn't self-sufficient in terms of food (hasn't been for more than 120 years) and economic dire straits could actually lead to food shortages and famine!

Let's be realistic, this is never going to happen.

Re: Liz Truss resigns as UK prime minister

#550
post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Senators are a little weird. The whole system is weird. Why is a vote in one state more powerful than a vote in another?

I personally have become a fan of the Wyoming Rule for the House. That seems fair without getting into crazy sizes. I mean, if the US had representation in the same proportion as the UK, they'd have roughly 3300 representatives. The town I grew up currently has a population of 1500. So I can see why we wouldn't do that.

That’s not the problem though. Having an elected member represent a larger number of people is fine. However having a rural candidate represent less voters than an urban candidate is terrible.

Wherever you vote it should be worth the same.

The system hasn’t kept pace with demographic changes.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/31/u-s-populat...

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