Much as I yield to no one, not even @Richard_Tyndall in believing that Brexit was a huge and costly waste of time, nevertheless, the UK parliament doing whatever the hell it likes is not undemocratic and binning all these or indeed any laws is a democratic act.
A fucking, fucking stupid democratic act but a democratic act nevertheless.
No it’s just the executive wanting to decide . Even some Leave politicians are moaning about that and say it goes against the point of Brexit .
Who cares what they say it does. It is a democratic act by a democratically-elected government. Don't like it? Vote in another one.
You might not be able to. There was talk some years back of the govt of the time wanting to abolish 5 yearly elections. I am sure we covered it here on PB.
Would it be democratic for the elected govt to decide to cancel elections? After all, they are an elected govt....
Government introduces Act to abolish elections Challenge in Courts Government passes laws to override courts Government passes law to abolish elections Civil uprising
Or something.
No idea.
The laws of logic dictate that there can be no final answer to "who guards the guards" - which is what this boils down to; since whatever the first answer is, it needs another set of superguards over them and so on ad infinitum.
Practicality suggests that the answer is 'the army and the crown'. Those who swear loyalty oaths in this country do so to the crown, not government or parliament.
They swear loyalty to the monarch (named), and to the said monarch's heirs and successors. Not to the crown.
So if we expect the small minority of monarchist oath-swearers to honour their oaths, it's up to the rest of us to sort things out.
Bunch of thick diddy's , I would not piss on royalty if they were on fire. A bunch of nasty parasites.
I asked ChatGPT to “comment on the British royal family in the style of the poster malcolmg from politicalbetting.com” but sadly it seems not to have included this site in its training material.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
You do realise that it's Parliament that will decide whether or not to give the government the powers, don't you?
Much as I yield to no one, not even @Richard_Tyndall in believing that Brexit was a huge and costly waste of time, nevertheless, the UK parliament doing whatever the hell it likes is not undemocratic and binning all these or indeed any laws is a democratic act.
A fucking, fucking stupid democratic act but a democratic act nevertheless.
Handing fiat powers to ministers without sufficient scrutiny is not a particularly democratic act, even if can be forced through Parliament. It wasn't any kind of manifesto commitment; the government, though it has a substantial majority in Parliament, is massively unpopular.
We voted in the government and they decided to do this. Just like not holding a referendum on Maastricht or telling us how many people we can have in our houses for tea. Perfectly democratic.
And who cares if the government is massively unpopular - are you proposing a different prioritisation of policies depending on the most recent opinion poll, including, presumably, a call for a Labour government right this minute.
This is our democratic system, warts and all and you know what that great Boris fan said of democracy, now, don't you.
Unsure if this is a defence of our system or a summary of the defence used by the Reichstag when it passed an enabling act and abolished its own powers.
Ministers will no longer need to consult parliament. This is the end of our democratic system.
Good point. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the procedure in the UK now if the govt tried to abolish elections and place itself in power for perpetuity.
I'm sure Mick Lynch would be on board. If it was a Labour government doing the abolishing.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the government has decided to abolish some laws that no one cares about and we have already got to Godwin. And it will presumably go through parliament. Why hasn't the HoL already sent back something about a recent bill?
These laws that nobody cares about include things like the right not to be rostered to work unreasonable hours. Dangerously unreasonable if you do something that risks yourself and others.
We know that the spivs envisaged Brexit as their great opportunity to get the plebs to work longer in less costly conditions for less pay. More profit for them in a deregulated world.
So it is a very direct concern of all of us that the government wants no scrutiny as it rips up all this "red tape". You may be ok with lax regulation on what gets loaded onto a truck and how many hours the driver can do, but when that starts to kill more people hope it isn't you and yours.
Fine. I look forward to the Labour party's line on what gets loaded onto a truck. We can then decide if it's better than what this will leave us with (almost certainly I have no doubt) and vote on that.
No one is disputing that it is fucking stupid, indeed that formed the basis of my first post on the subject. @Cyclefree is wrong when she called it undemocratic, however.
And then we got onto the hyperbole, Godwin, and the end of times.
All I am asking is this:
Is it democratic to vote to elect people who then chose to abolish democracy?
Yes, I have a democratic vote. That elects an MP who sits in a parliament. But that parliament then votes to remove its own role in passing laws. Edicts are issued which directly impact me - potentially lethally. I have no say, my MP has no say, they literally are issued as orders which we have to obey.
Its democratic in that we indirectly enable this to happen, but not democratic in what happens after we do so.
Who is abolishing democracy? They are getting rid of some laws. Because they are idiots. But that is what parliament does. Introduce and, in this instance, get rid of laws. That is their entire function.
But they are not, oh let's think of an example here, trying to abolish a central plank of our current democratic system by abolishing the House of Lords. That would be crazy talk.
Much as I yield to no one, not even @Richard_Tyndall in believing that Brexit was a huge and costly waste of time, nevertheless, the UK parliament doing whatever the hell it likes is not undemocratic and binning all these or indeed any laws is a democratic act.
A fucking, fucking stupid democratic act but a democratic act nevertheless.
Handing fiat powers to ministers without sufficient scrutiny is not a particularly democratic act, even if can be forced through Parliament. It wasn't any kind of manifesto commitment; the government, though it has a substantial majority in Parliament, is massively unpopular.
We voted in the government and they decided to do this. Just like not holding a referendum on Maastricht or telling us how many people we can have in our houses for tea. Perfectly democratic.
And who cares if the government is massively unpopular - are you proposing a different prioritisation of policies depending on the most recent opinion poll, including, presumably, a call for a Labour government right this minute.
This is our democratic system, warts and all and you know what that great Boris fan said of democracy, now, don't you.
Unsure if this is a defence of our system or a summary of the defence used by the Reichstag when it passed an enabling act and abolished its own powers.
Ministers will no longer need to consult parliament. This is the end of our democratic system.
Siri, show me an analogy guaranteed to make people take the other side in the discussion.
It's probably a fair analogy in this case though, as Topping's argument can be summarised as:
- Literally *anything* that gets through parliament is by definition 'perfectly democratic'.
Clearly untrue, there is more to good democratic standards than simply getting a law passed through parliament.
How should we define them? Genuine question.
This is why we need a written constitution, with clear rules and a high bar for constitutional changes.
Now, many will argue that we have done very well thank-you without a clearly codified constitution in Britain. And they are probably right regarding the past but the past is not guearantee of the future.
Completely off-topic: a friend wants to donate to a trans charity but not to Mermaids, does anyone know anything about Gendered Intelligence? They seem quite sensible from their website.
I'm not aware of any great controversy. Somewhat affirmative, like Mermaids, as I understand it, but seen as a bit less strident in that viewpoint.
Bayswater and Genspect are two others, on the less affirmative side, depending on your friend's views on the issue.
(I offer no particular opinion on which approach is best - it is a bit of a concern for me that a child's/parent's views might be quite strongly shaped by which website they happen to stumble on to first. I don't think there's a truly balanced charity that really embraces the full range of options or the lack of strong evidence on what is the best path).
If Lee Anderson were just a harmless pillock, like several of the more extreme backbenchers on all sides, I wouldn't bother commenting. But he's not. He's the closest thing the PCP have got to Tommy Robinson. He spreads hate and prejudice; his comments on travellers over the years have been a particular disgrace, but he likes to attack all unpopular (in the eyes of the tabloids) minorities. Yes, he was in the Labour Party, but he wouldn't be now. Benn and Foot, mentioned earlier, would disown him instantly.
He's the UK equivalent of somebody like MTG. For Sunak to appoint him is a crass error. And I'd think the same if I were a Tory.
I agree. You can easily spot the actually dangerous extremists in both parties (though most have recently been expelled from Labour) as opposed to the mouthy but ultimately paper tiger ones.
Much as I yield to no one, not even @Richard_Tyndall in believing that Brexit was a huge and costly waste of time, nevertheless, the UK parliament doing whatever the hell it likes is not undemocratic and binning all these or indeed any laws is a democratic act.
A fucking, fucking stupid democratic act but a democratic act nevertheless.
Handing fiat powers to ministers without sufficient scrutiny is not a particularly democratic act, even if can be forced through Parliament. It wasn't any kind of manifesto commitment; the government, though it has a substantial majority in Parliament, is massively unpopular.
We voted in the government and they decided to do this. Just like not holding a referendum on Maastricht or telling us how many people we can have in our houses for tea. Perfectly democratic.
And who cares if the government is massively unpopular - are you proposing a different prioritisation of policies depending on the most recent opinion poll, including, presumably, a call for a Labour government right this minute.
This is our democratic system, warts and all and you know what that great Boris fan said of democracy, now, don't you.
Unsure if this is a defence of our system or a summary of the defence used by the Reichstag when it passed an enabling act and abolished its own powers.
Ministers will no longer need to consult parliament. This is the end of our democratic system.
Good point. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the procedure in the UK now if the govt tried to abolish elections and place itself in power for perpetuity.
I'm sure Mick Lynch would be on board. If it was a Labour government doing the abolishing.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the government has decided to abolish some laws that no one cares about and we have already got to Godwin. And it will presumably go through parliament. Why hasn't the HoL already sent back something about a recent bill?
These laws that nobody cares about include things like the right not to be rostered to work unreasonable hours. Dangerously unreasonable if you do something that risks yourself and others.
We know that the spivs envisaged Brexit as their great opportunity to get the plebs to work longer in less costly conditions for less pay. More profit for them in a deregulated world.
So it is a very direct concern of all of us that the government wants no scrutiny as it rips up all this "red tape". You may be ok with lax regulation on what gets loaded onto a truck and how many hours the driver can do, but when that starts to kill more people hope it isn't you and yours.
Fine. I look forward to the Labour party's line on what gets loaded onto a truck. We can then decide if it's better than what this will leave us with (almost certainly I have no doubt) and vote on that.
No one is disputing that it is fucking stupid, indeed that formed the basis of my first post on the subject. @Cyclefree is wrong when she called it undemocratic, however.
And then we got onto the hyperbole, Godwin, and the end of times.
All I am asking is this:
Is it democratic to vote to elect people who then chose to abolish democracy?
Yes, I have a democratic vote. That elects an MP who sits in a parliament. But that parliament then votes to remove its own role in passing laws. Edicts are issued which directly impact me - potentially lethally. I have no say, my MP has no say, they literally are issued as orders which we have to obey.
Its democratic in that we indirectly enable this to happen, but not democratic in what happens after we do so.
Who is abolishing democracy? They are getting rid of some laws. Because they are idiots. But that is what parliament does. Introduce and, in this instance, get rid of laws. That is their entire function.
But they are not, oh let's think of an example here, trying to abolish a central plank of our current democratic system by abolishing the House of Lords. That would be crazy talk.
There are 2 issues here
1) abolishing a fuckton of laws without considering the full consequences in advance. 2) they are not just abolishing laws, but pulling law making/deciding ability (in effect) into the executive/permanent government apparatus.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Sheer whataboutery.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
Much as I yield to no one, not even @Richard_Tyndall in believing that Brexit was a huge and costly waste of time, nevertheless, the UK parliament doing whatever the hell it likes is not undemocratic and binning all these or indeed any laws is a democratic act.
A fucking, fucking stupid democratic act but a democratic act nevertheless.
Handing fiat powers to ministers without sufficient scrutiny is not a particularly democratic act, even if can be forced through Parliament. It wasn't any kind of manifesto commitment; the government, though it has a substantial majority in Parliament, is massively unpopular.
We voted in the government and they decided to do this. Just like not holding a referendum on Maastricht or telling us how many people we can have in our houses for tea. Perfectly democratic.
And who cares if the government is massively unpopular - are you proposing a different prioritisation of policies depending on the most recent opinion poll, including, presumably, a call for a Labour government right this minute.
This is our democratic system, warts and all and you know what that great Boris fan said of democracy, now, don't you.
Unsure if this is a defence of our system or a summary of the defence used by the Reichstag when it passed an enabling act and abolished its own powers.
Ministers will no longer need to consult parliament. This is the end of our democratic system.
Good point. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the procedure in the UK now if the govt tried to abolish elections and place itself in power for perpetuity.
I'm sure Mick Lynch would be on board. If it was a Labour government doing the abolishing.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the government has decided to abolish some laws that no one cares about and we have already got to Godwin. And it will presumably go through parliament. Why hasn't the HoL already sent back something about a recent bill?
These laws that nobody cares about include things like the right not to be rostered to work unreasonable hours. Dangerously unreasonable if you do something that risks yourself and others.
We know that the spivs envisaged Brexit as their great opportunity to get the plebs to work longer in less costly conditions for less pay. More profit for them in a deregulated world.
So it is a very direct concern of all of us that the government wants no scrutiny as it rips up all this "red tape". You may be ok with lax regulation on what gets loaded onto a truck and how many hours the driver can do, but when that starts to kill more people hope it isn't you and yours.
Fine. I look forward to the Labour party's line on what gets loaded onto a truck. We can then decide if it's better than what this will leave us with (almost certainly I have no doubt) and vote on that.
No one is disputing that it is fucking stupid, indeed that formed the basis of my first post on the subject. @Cyclefree is wrong when she called it undemocratic, however.
And then we got onto the hyperbole, Godwin, and the end of times.
All I am asking is this:
Is it democratic to vote to elect people who then chose to abolish democracy?
Yes, I have a democratic vote. That elects an MP who sits in a parliament. But that parliament then votes to remove its own role in passing laws. Edicts are issued which directly impact me - potentially lethally. I have no say, my MP has no say, they literally are issued as orders which we have to obey.
Its democratic in that we indirectly enable this to happen, but not democratic in what happens after we do so.
Who is abolishing democracy? They are getting rid of some laws. Because they are idiots. But that is what parliament does. Introduce and, in this instance, get rid of laws. That is their entire function.
But they are not, oh let's think of an example here, trying to abolish a central plank of our current democratic system by abolishing the House of Lords. That would be crazy talk.
There are 2 issues here
1) abolishing a fuckton of laws without considering the full consequences in advance. 2) they are not just abolishing laws, but pulling law making/deciding ability (in effect) into the executive/permanent government apparatus.
Interesting video of Zelensky in Paris - the body language appears a lot more stiff than London:
Zelensky to attend EU summit to press for weapons, fighter jets.
The Ukrainian president started a surprise tour of Europe on Wednesday with visits to Britain and France, marking just his second venture abroad since the Russian invasion almost a year ago VIDEO
Bit like a Father of the Bride speech from a father who’s not a fan of the groom..
I don't see it, to be honest. Looks more natural with Macron than he did with Sunak, to my eyes - which I'd expect to be honest, as he's known/worked with Macros much longer than with Sunak. I'd also expect him to look more comfortable with Johnson than with Sunak.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Sheer whataboutery.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
So it's a fundamental constitutional change that you are in favour of. Is all.
How on earth has PB even got to arguing about whether it's democratic to abolish elections depending on the procedure used?!!!
Good grief.
Even Hyufd wouldn't paint himself into that corner!
Perhaps because many Leavers will follow where the Brexiteers lead? Recall that, to date, Brexit has not exactly racked up a lot of successes, so as always, distract from the everyday with a big gesture. Perhaps on 1st January 2024 the Houses of Parliament will be bathed in projections of Union flags and possibly Churchill pictures?
Interesting video of Zelensky in Paris - the body language appears a lot more stiff than London:
Zelensky to attend EU summit to press for weapons, fighter jets.
The Ukrainian president started a surprise tour of Europe on Wednesday with visits to Britain and France, marking just his second venture abroad since the Russian invasion almost a year ago VIDEO
Bit like a Father of the Bride speech from a father who’s not a fan of the groom..
I don't see it, to be honest. Looks more natural with Macron than he did with Sunak, to my eyes - which I'd expect to be honest, as he's known/worked with Macros much longer than with Sunak. I'd also expect him to look more comfortable with Johnson than with Sunak.
Difference in the attitude in the whole government?
For example, when he visited No. 10, the assembled staff applauded him. Would that happen in Paris? Or the thing with the Speaker?
Much as I yield to no one, not even @Richard_Tyndall in believing that Brexit was a huge and costly waste of time, nevertheless, the UK parliament doing whatever the hell it likes is not undemocratic and binning all these or indeed any laws is a democratic act.
A fucking, fucking stupid democratic act but a democratic act nevertheless.
Handing fiat powers to ministers without sufficient scrutiny is not a particularly democratic act, even if can be forced through Parliament. It wasn't any kind of manifesto commitment; the government, though it has a substantial majority in Parliament, is massively unpopular.
We voted in the government and they decided to do this. Just like not holding a referendum on Maastricht or telling us how many people we can have in our houses for tea. Perfectly democratic.
And who cares if the government is massively unpopular - are you proposing a different prioritisation of policies depending on the most recent opinion poll, including, presumably, a call for a Labour government right this minute.
This is our democratic system, warts and all and you know what that great Boris fan said of democracy, now, don't you.
Unsure if this is a defence of our system or a summary of the defence used by the Reichstag when it passed an enabling act and abolished its own powers.
Ministers will no longer need to consult parliament. This is the end of our democratic system.
Good point. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to the procedure in the UK now if the govt tried to abolish elections and place itself in power for perpetuity.
I'm sure Mick Lynch would be on board. If it was a Labour government doing the abolishing.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the government has decided to abolish some laws that no one cares about and we have already got to Godwin. And it will presumably go through parliament. Why hasn't the HoL already sent back something about a recent bill?
These laws that nobody cares about include things like the right not to be rostered to work unreasonable hours. Dangerously unreasonable if you do something that risks yourself and others.
We know that the spivs envisaged Brexit as their great opportunity to get the plebs to work longer in less costly conditions for less pay. More profit for them in a deregulated world.
So it is a very direct concern of all of us that the government wants no scrutiny as it rips up all this "red tape". You may be ok with lax regulation on what gets loaded onto a truck and how many hours the driver can do, but when that starts to kill more people hope it isn't you and yours.
Fine. I look forward to the Labour party's line on what gets loaded onto a truck. We can then decide if it's better than what this will leave us with (almost certainly I have no doubt) and vote on that.
No one is disputing that it is fucking stupid, indeed that formed the basis of my first post on the subject. @Cyclefree is wrong when she called it undemocratic, however.
And then we got onto the hyperbole, Godwin, and the end of times.
All I am asking is this:
Is it democratic to vote to elect people who then chose to abolish democracy?
Yes, I have a democratic vote. That elects an MP who sits in a parliament. But that parliament then votes to remove its own role in passing laws. Edicts are issued which directly impact me - potentially lethally. I have no say, my MP has no say, they literally are issued as orders which we have to obey.
Its democratic in that we indirectly enable this to happen, but not democratic in what happens after we do so.
Who is abolishing democracy? They are getting rid of some laws. Because they are idiots. But that is what parliament does. Introduce and, in this instance, get rid of laws. That is their entire function.
But they are not, oh let's think of an example here, trying to abolish a central plank of our current democratic system by abolishing the House of Lords. That would be crazy talk.
There are 2 issues here
1) abolishing a fuckton of laws without considering the full consequences in advance. 2) they are not just abolishing laws, but pulling law making/deciding ability (in effect) into the executive/permanent government apparatus.
1) is dumb 2) is the undemocratic one.
2) moot imo. And not without precedent.
Moot how?
And there is plenty of precedent for stupid, undemocratic actions. That doesn’t mean we should repeat them.
There have already been articles in the media about international businesses being unnerved by the year of multiple PMs and the unpredictability of the UK's legal, financial and political systems.
If regulations get dumped en masse will we an influx of foreign investors or a stampede of firms pulling out for somewhere more predictable and stable?
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Sheer whataboutery.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
So it's a fundamental constitutional change that you are in favour of. Is all.
Not even that. As I argued earlier we need a written constitution, with clear rules and a high bar for constitutional changes.
My whataboutery point is that there is no equivalence, no analogy even, between: on the one hand giving ministers the power to decide on a whim whether to keep or ditch 4,000 laws, and on the other hand proposing a constitutional change, winning an election, and delivering that change, subject to the full scrutiny of our elected MPs.
If you cannot see the difference there is no hope for you.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
How can there be so many EU laws on the books that it is impossible to review them all? We were told for years that the EU was simply an economic community and that there was very little intrusion into UK life. Remainers also argued that all these EU laws were appropriately scrutinized with democratic oversight.
It sounds like politicians and Remainers were lying about all of this.
The problem is that it’s EU legislation, and there are groups of people that think EU legislation is automatically good, and other groups who think that EU legislation is automatically bad. Very few commentators are looking at the actual legislation, and instead are focussing on divergence from the EU being either good or bad...
Which is precisely the argument against this absurd bill.
But the opposition to it appears to concentrate little on the actual proposals, but more is against the whole concept of divergence from EU regulations, in the context of wanting to rejoin in the future.
What’s absolutely certain, is that leaving the EU but not diverging over time, ends up with the worst of all worlds.
Let’s face it, divergence over time is inevitable given the ream’s of crap produced by the European Parliament and Commission. Unless we adopt this wholesale our legal systems will diverge. And since we no longer have MEPs to share in the largesse of those promoting those new laws it seems unlikely that we will, ISO and the like being an exception.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Sheer whataboutery.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
So it's a fundamental constitutional change that you are in favour of. Is all.
Not even that. As I argued earlier we need a written constitution, with clear rules and a high bar for constitutional changes.
My whataboutery point is that there is no equivalence, no analogy even, between: on the one hand giving ministers the power to decide on a whim whether to keep or ditch 4,000 laws, and on the other hand proposing a constitutional change, winning an election, and delivering that change, subject to the full scrutiny of our elected MPs.
If you cannot see the difference there is no hope for you.
The executive, presumably supported by their party, makes laws all the time. If they are making laws which don't command the support of their parliamentary MPs then they are ejected. As we have seen quite recently.
I don't get your problem.
Either the parliamentary party agrees with this in which case it would pass in the HoC or the parliamentary party doesn't agree with it and therefore they replace the executive with one that will command the support of the parliamentary party.
I mean this is exactly what we have seen with Liz Truss not three-odd months ago and people are still calling it the end of democracy.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Arguably if there are c. 4,000 laws that would be impacted by this change and it is extremely complicated to change, this shows:
(1) Just how much the UK was tied into the EU and that its independence was more theoretical than anything else and
(2) Attempting to have Parliament debate each and every one of these changes would clog up Parliament for years, possibly well over a decade, and ensure that no other business was done.
On (1), that seems to suggests that those in the Remain camp who claimed the Brexiteers' bemoaning the loss of UK independence as fanciful were at, best, guilty of being naive and, at worst, deliberately dishonest.
On (2), much as I get @Cyclefree's point re the principle, surely the practicalities of Government dictate this is the only way to approach the subject.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
So Lee Anderson is a moron.
Of course it is not a deterrent. Humanity has been executing people since the dawn of time and we still have murderers. If it worked as a deterrent, murders would have stopped long ago.
It is simply a punishment. Tit for tat and nothing more. Perhaps the more politically astute see it as a way to remove their competitors from the field of politics?
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Arguably if there are c. 4,000 laws that would be impacted by this change and it is extremely complicated to change, this shows:
(1) Just how much the UK was tied into the EU and that its independence was more theoretical than anything else and
(2) Attempting to have Parliament debate each and every one of these changes would clog up Parliament for years, possibly well over a decade, and ensure that no other business was done.
On (1), that seems to suggests that those in the Remain camp who claimed the Brexiteers' bemoaning the loss of UK independence as fanciful were at, best, guilty of being naive and, at worst, deliberately dishonest.
On (2), much as I get @Cyclefree's point re the principle, surely the practicalities of Government dictate this is the only way to approach the subject.
Ministers should delay a rise in the energy price cap to prevent a 20 per cent rise in bills from April, the personal finance expert Martin Lewis has said.
In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, Lewis argued that wholesale prices were likely to come down in the summer. He said there was a degree of desperation from “shivering” families struggling to deal with the cost of living.
The energy price guarantee limits bills for the average household to £2,500 a year but this is due to rise to £3,000 from April 1. The two-year guarantee was announced in the autumn but was scaled back by Hunt to end in March after the chaotic fallout from Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
The declining cost of wholesale energy prices means that bills are set to come down anyway from July. The Resolution Foundation said it expected the average bill to fall to £2,200 by October, below the present price guarantee.
Lewis described raising the guarantee as a “national act of harm” and urged Hunt to act before the budget on March 15. He said in the letter: “In practice, energy firms will need to know much sooner if the planned rise isn’t happening on April 1, or they are bound to have to communicate to customers that it is coming.”
Arguably if there are c. 4,000 laws that would be impacted by this change and it is extremely complicated to change, this shows:
(1) Just how much the UK was tied into the EU and that its independence was more theoretical than anything else and
(2) Attempting to have Parliament debate each and every one of these changes would clog up Parliament for years, possibly well over a decade, and ensure that no other business was done.
On (1), that seems to suggests that those in the Remain camp who claimed the Brexiteers' bemoaning the loss of UK independence as fanciful were at, best, guilty of being naive and, at worst, deliberately dishonest.
On (2), much as I get @Cyclefree's point re the principle, surely the practicalities of Government dictate this is the only way to approach the subject.
Your flawed assumption is that any 'EU law' is one that the UK wouldn't have chosen to implement anyway.
There is no imperative to remove all these laws beyond satisfying a few headbangers. If there is a law which HMG feel causes concern, holds Britain back etc. then as the democratically eleceted government let them repeal that law but... allow proper consideration of the consequences of that repeal.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Interesting video of Zelensky in Paris - the body language appears a lot more stiff than London:
Zelensky to attend EU summit to press for weapons, fighter jets.
The Ukrainian president started a surprise tour of Europe on Wednesday with visits to Britain and France, marking just his second venture abroad since the Russian invasion almost a year ago VIDEO
Bit like a Father of the Bride speech from a father who’s not a fan of the groom..
I don't see it, to be honest. Looks more natural with Macron than he did with Sunak, to my eyes - which I'd expect to be honest, as he's known/worked with Macros much longer than with Sunak. I'd also expect him to look more comfortable with Johnson than with Sunak.
Difference in the attitude in the whole government?
For example, when he visited No. 10, the assembled staff applauded him. Would that happen in Paris? Or the thing with the Speaker?
This is all getting a bit needy. Ooh! Do you think he 'likes' likes me?
Ministers should delay a rise in the energy price cap to prevent a 20 per cent rise in bills from April, the personal finance expert Martin Lewis has said.
In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, Lewis argued that wholesale prices were likely to come down in the summer. He said there was a degree of desperation from “shivering” families struggling to deal with the cost of living.
The energy price guarantee limits bills for the average household to £2,500 a year but this is due to rise to £3,000 from April 1. The two-year guarantee was announced in the autumn but was scaled back by Hunt to end in March after the chaotic fallout from Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
The declining cost of wholesale energy prices means that bills are set to come down anyway from July. The Resolution Foundation said it expected the average bill to fall to £2,200 by October, below the present price guarantee.
Lewis described raising the guarantee as a “national act of harm” and urged Hunt to act before the budget on March 15. He said in the letter: “In practice, energy firms will need to know much sooner if the planned rise isn’t happening on April 1, or they are bound to have to communicate to customers that it is coming.”
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
So Lee Anderson is a moron.
Does the argument against it rest on the possibility of miscarriages of justice?
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
So Lee Anderson is a moron.
Does the argument against it rest on the possibility of miscarriages of justice?
Not exclusively.
I feel the government shouldn't execute its citizens when they are already in custody and not a clear and present risk to the population.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Sheer whataboutery.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
So it's a fundamental constitutional change that you are in favour of. Is all.
I think modifying the Lords is only part of the problem and that changing the franchise of the Upper House will create unintended consequences for the Commons, (for example, whether the PM could be in the new Lords or only in the Commons) and indeed the rest of the constitutional settlement as it stands. A sensible approach is surely to convene a Royal Commission, setting a two year timetable for the report, and then enact a broader settlement that has a wider consensus than merely a party political approach.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
That is because none of that 53% believe that they or their nearest and dearest will ever hang at the end of the rope. And some of them will be wrong.
It is always easy to impose draconian punishments on other people, after all, they deserve it.
Some of their nearest and dearest might end up murdered by serial killers too
Lock the murderers up. They will not do it again. There is no need to become a supporter of murder yourself. After all, if you approve of murdering people by execution then you approve of murder, so why arrest murderers for doing what you approve of?
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
With all this talk of the U.K. giving Ukraine its tanks and planes, are we potentially not leaving ourselves a little naked. I hate to say it, but should we not be rearming. You have can’t “speak softly and carry a big stick”, without a big stick.
I'm no military expert, but getting rid of our planes clearly DOES reduce our defence. But if we give Ukraine ALL our tanks, today, I can't see how the security of the UK would be affected.
Tanks fight other tanks.
There haven't been any tank battles on UK soil ever, and if this hypothetical enemy is strong enough to be able to land tanks, then we've lost control of the sea and air anyway and have probably lost.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Arguably if there are c. 4,000 laws that would be impacted by this change and it is extremely complicated to change, this shows:
(1) Just how much the UK was tied into the EU and that its independence was more theoretical than anything else and
(2) Attempting to have Parliament debate each and every one of these changes would clog up Parliament for years, possibly well over a decade, and ensure that no other business was done.
On (1), that seems to suggests that those in the Remain camp who claimed the Brexiteers' bemoaning the loss of UK independence as fanciful were at, best, guilty of being naive and, at worst, deliberately dishonest.
On (2), much as I get @Cyclefree's point re the principle, surely the practicalities of Government dictate this is the only way to approach the subject.
Your flawed assumption is that any 'EU law' is one that the UK wouldn't have chosen to implement anyway.
There is no imperative to remove all these laws beyond satisfying a few headbangers. If there is a law which HMG feel causes concern, holds Britain back etc. then as the democratically eleceted government let them repeal that law but... allow proper consideration of the consequences of that repeal.
Oh, and let the HoC vote to confirm the repeal.
No doubt the vast majority of those laws were voted for by the UK government. Maybe an approach would be to start this year with those EU laws that the UK actually voted against.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Well that's a different issue. Locking convicted serial killers up for life would allow for miscarriages of justice to be corrected; execution does not.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Sheer whataboutery.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
So it's a fundamental constitutional change that you are in favour of. Is all.
Not even that. As I argued earlier we need a written constitution, with clear rules and a high bar for constitutional changes.
My whataboutery point is that there is no equivalence, no analogy even, between: on the one hand giving ministers the power to decide on a whim whether to keep or ditch 4,000 laws, and on the other hand proposing a constitutional change, winning an election, and delivering that change, subject to the full scrutiny of our elected MPs.
If you cannot see the difference there is no hope for you.
The executive, presumably supported by their party, makes laws all the time. If they are making laws which don't command the support of their parliamentary MPs then they are ejected. As we have seen quite recently.
I don't get your problem.
Either the parliamentary party agrees with this in which case it would pass in the HoC or the parliamentary party doesn't agree with it and therefore they replace the executive with one that will command the support of the parliamentary party.
I mean this is exactly what we have seen with Liz Truss not three-odd months ago and people are still calling it the end of democracy.
Getting rid of Liz Truss was not an example of democracy. A majority of Tories voted for her and she was then removed by MPs who put a placeman in - you might recall that the Tory members were not asked to vote again. The public did not vote. No re-election happened.
Whatever Truss's replacement was, democratic it wasn't.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I should have added that my median expectation of her was that she would explode Prince William with a Czech-made limpet bomb given the first opportunity, so I was right in my own terms. I just forgot to add that
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Well that's a different issue. Locking convicted serial killers up for life would allow for miscarriages of justice to be corrected; execution does not.
Miscarriages of justice for serial killers are almost non existent as they have to be convicted for multiple separate murders
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I should have added that my median expectation of her was that she would explode Prince William with a Czech-made limpet bomb given the first opportunity, so I was right in my own terms. I just forgot to add that
Sympathies.
Similarly, when I said 'Putin won't invade Ukraine' I forgot to add 'and get away with it easily.'
I forgot to add 'by a large margin' when I said Trump would not win in 2016.
My predictive powers are awsome, but often abbreviated.
I think part of the underlying cause is the legacy of the UK not engaging with the EC/EU relationship enough to exploit it expertly, plus 45 years of an inadequate scrutiny operation in Westminster.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Only for serial killers and terrorists who kill multiple people more than once
Bloody hell. Somebody who kills multiple people more than once needs psychiatric help, not execution. Completely unproductive waste of time - once they're dead, they're dead.
Interesting video of Zelensky in Paris - the body language appears a lot more stiff than London:
Zelensky to attend EU summit to press for weapons, fighter jets.
The Ukrainian president started a surprise tour of Europe on Wednesday with visits to Britain and France, marking just his second venture abroad since the Russian invasion almost a year ago VIDEO
Bit like a Father of the Bride speech from a father who’s not a fan of the groom..
I don't see it, to be honest. Looks more natural with Macron than he did with Sunak, to my eyes - which I'd expect to be honest, as he's known/worked with Macros much longer than with Sunak. I'd also expect him to look more comfortable with Johnson than with Sunak.
Difference in the attitude in the whole government?
For example, when he visited No. 10, the assembled staff applauded him. Would that happen in Paris? Or the thing with the Speaker?
This is all getting a bit needy. Ooh! Do you think he 'likes' likes me?
The culture/attitude of an organisation is always worth considering. It has a bigger effect than is often realised.
For example, one of the major change that Thatcher did, was get Global Warming accepted as a thing by the civil service. The senior civil servants fought this, angrily, for quite a while. Once the change went through the system, the effect on interactions with the government by other governments and groups was massive.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
Only for serial killers and terrorists who kill multiple people more than once
Bloody hell. Somebody who kills multiple people more than once needs psychiatric help, not execution. Completely unproductive waste of time - once they're dead, they're dead.
A great, and deservedly scathing, thread header Cyclefree.
"The Executive is giving itself “do anything we want” powers."
They should call it an Enabling Act maybe?
Again we need to be reminded that many of the current critics were less critical of all this then it was not our parliament legislating for it but the structures of the EU.
There's no comaprison. At all.
The c. 4,000 laws this shambles of a Government is aiming to give itself the powers of arbitarily keeping or ditching, were put in place over a period of nearly 50 years, with 11 General Elections, four changes of Government and ample time for scrutiny by our elected MPs.
How long has the House of Lords been established. The Labour Party are very keen to abolish that.
Sheer whataboutery.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
So it's a fundamental constitutional change that you are in favour of. Is all.
Not even that. As I argued earlier we need a written constitution, with clear rules and a high bar for constitutional changes.
My whataboutery point is that there is no equivalence, no analogy even, between: on the one hand giving ministers the power to decide on a whim whether to keep or ditch 4,000 laws, and on the other hand proposing a constitutional change, winning an election, and delivering that change, subject to the full scrutiny of our elected MPs.
If you cannot see the difference there is no hope for you.
The executive, presumably supported by their party, makes laws all the time. If they are making laws which don't command the support of their parliamentary MPs then they are ejected. As we have seen quite recently.
I don't get your problem.
Either the parliamentary party agrees with this in which case it would pass in the HoC or the parliamentary party doesn't agree with it and therefore they replace the executive with one that will command the support of the parliamentary party.
I mean this is exactly what we have seen with Liz Truss not three-odd months ago and people are still calling it the end of democracy.
Getting rid of Liz Truss was not an example of democracy. A majority of Tories voted for her and she was then removed by MPs who put a placeman in - you might recall that the Tory members were not asked to vote again. The public did not vote. No re-election happened.
Whatever Truss's replacement was, democratic it wasn't.
I think many people on here opining about (the death of) democracy have quite a free-ranging view of what they think democracy is as it relates to the UK constitution and our own parliamentary democracy.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
In the US why are the pro-lifers also pro-execution?
When you get multiple lives, perhaps the first one does not matter? After all the second life is for eternity
The righteous have always murdered people in droves. They burned so many as witches that they had trouble keeping count and in battlefields there is always a privileged idiot sent along bibles and crosses to assure the poor cannon fodder that god is on their side...
Arguably if there are c. 4,000 laws that would be impacted by this change and it is extremely complicated to change, this shows:
(1) Just how much the UK was tied into the EU and that its independence was more theoretical than anything else and
(2) Attempting to have Parliament debate each and every one of these changes would clog up Parliament for years, possibly well over a decade, and ensure that no other business was done.
On (1), that seems to suggests that those in the Remain camp who claimed the Brexiteers' bemoaning the loss of UK independence as fanciful were at, best, guilty of being naive and, at worst, deliberately dishonest.
On (2), much as I get @Cyclefree's point re the principle, surely the practicalities of Government dictate this is the only way to approach the subject.
Your flawed assumption is that any 'EU law' is one that the UK wouldn't have chosen to implement anyway.
There is no imperative to remove all these laws beyond satisfying a few headbangers. If there is a law which HMG feel causes concern, holds Britain back etc. then as the democratically eleceted government let them repeal that law but... allow proper consideration of the consequences of that repeal.
Oh, and let the HoC vote to confirm the repeal.
No doubt the vast majority of those laws were voted for by the UK government. Maybe an approach would be to start this year with those EU laws that the UK actually voted against.
A quick search comes up with this:
"Official EU voting records* show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times since 1999, according to UK in a Changing Europe Fellows Sara Hagemann and Simon Hix."
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
I reckon there’d be some MPs and voters in favour of executing drug users.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
Quite right. Time to clamp down on the tofu-eating wokerati, the anti-growth coalition and, most of all, the murdering scum who tried to overturn the will of the overwhelming majority (well, 52%) by having another referendum.
Yes, SKS - that means you. Off to the gallows, off with your head.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
I reckon there’d be some MPs and voters in favour of executing drug users.
A bit of tough love to win the war on drugs.
It would have the effect of depleting the number of posters on here, but perhaps worth a try.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
I reckon there’d be some MPs and voters in favour of executing drug users.
A bit of tough love to win the war on drugs.
It would have the effect of depleting the number of posters on here, but perhaps worth a try.
Depending how widely you define 'drug users', could also ease a lot of pressures on the NHS...
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
Quite.
Pavement parkers. Litterers. People who flush wet wipes. Drivers who don't give way to pedestrians at side roads. Hillwalkers who listen to music out loud (indeed, anyone who does this).
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
So Lee Anderson is a moron.
Does the argument against it rest on the possibility of miscarriages of justice?
Not exclusively.
I feel the government shouldn't execute its citizens when they are already in custody and not a clear and present risk to the population.
Threatening to leave the country is usually an idle threat but I find it hard to imagine staying in the UK if they brought back the death penalty. Just the thought of it is too horrible to have to live with on a day to day basis, and I don't want my tax money spent on state sanctioned murder.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
Quite.
Pavement parkers. Litterers. People who flush wet wipes. Drivers who don't give way to pedestrians at side roads. Hillwalkers who listen to music out loud (indeed, anyone who does this).
- Wearing a loud shirt in a built up area - Being in possession of an offensive wife
I oppose the death penalty primarily on the miscarriage of justice grounds. I recognise many other people support it. Shouldn't that opinion be represented in Parliament?
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
If this country followed others or was still following Victorian laws you would have been hung decades ago - so I would be very careful over what you wish for...
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
If this country followed others or was still following Victorian laws you would have been hung decades ago - so I would be very careful over what you wish for...
A free one-way ocean cruise and an activity holiday clearing the Australian bush, in practice, was quite common.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
I reckon there’d be some MPs and voters in favour of executing drug users.
A bit of tough love to win the war on drugs.
It would have the effect of depleting the number of posters on here, but perhaps worth a try.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
Quite.
Pavement parkers. Litterers. People who flush wet wipes. Drivers who don't give way to pedestrians at side roads. Hillwalkers who listen to music out loud (indeed, anyone who does this).
People who have a ground height letter box with heavy duty brushes which is down a long pathway and behind two gates.
I oppose the death penalty primarily on the miscarriage of justice grounds. I recognise many other people support it. Shouldn't that opinion be represented in Parliament?
Seems to be in HMG, who have been issuing a reverse ferret over the Party Chair's comments. But as the Graun feed says -
"As Tory deputy chair, Anderson is not a member of the government, and he is certainly not in charge of penal policy, and so in one sense his views don’t matter. But that does not mean they are not important. Rishi Sunak did not appoint him despite his hardline and illiberal views on crime, welfare, immigration etc. He appointed him because of them. Anderson is supposed to show working class Ukip and Brexit party voters that their views are represented in the Tory party.
But if, as soon as Anderson does something likely to appeal to this constituency, government colleagues say they don’t agree, then at some point the man in the Ashfield shopping centre might feel he’s being strung along."
If you remind the voters that the police play a key role in you getting convicted of a death penalty crime then support for the death penalty will be in single digits.
The death penalty is probably more trouble than it’s worth.
But, I have no moral objection to it. The world is a better place with people like Julius Streicher, Amon Goeth, Hans Frank, and Lavrentiy Beria permanently removed from it.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
I reckon there’d be some MPs and voters in favour of executing drug users.
A bit of tough love to win the war on drugs.
Back in the 1980s I remember an economist article that to removev prisons all crimes carried a percential risk of the death penalty...
Equally it could have been Patrick Minford because it's suitably insane...
The death penalty is probably more trouble than it’s worth.
But, I have no moral objection to it. The world is a better place with people like Julius Streicher, Amon Goeth, Hans Frank, and Lavrentiy Beria permanently removed from it.
What about all the people we've killed incorrectly? What about their lives, do they not matter?
If you remind the voters that the police play a key role in you getting convicted of a death penalty crime then support for the death penalty will be in single digits.
Add to that the Daily Mail and similar newspapers.
I oppose the death penalty primarily on the miscarriage of justice grounds. I recognise many other people support it. Shouldn't that opinion be represented in Parliament?
Seems to be in HMG, who have been issuing a reverse ferret over the Party Chair's comments. But as the Graun feed says -
"As Tory deputy chair, Anderson is not a member of the government, and he is certainly not in charge of penal policy, and so in one sense his views don’t matter. But that does not mean they are not important. Rishi Sunak did not appoint him despite his hardline and illiberal views on crime, welfare, immigration etc. He appointed him because of them. Anderson is supposed to show working class Ukip and Brexit party voters that their views are represented in the Tory party.
But if, as soon as Anderson does something likely to appeal to this constituency, government colleagues say they don’t agree, then at some point the man in the Ashfield shopping centre might feel he’s being strung along."
Being strung along still better than being strung up, which could happen if it turned out he wasn't being strung along.
If you remind the voters that the police play a key role in you getting convicted of a death penalty crime then support for the death penalty will be in single digits.
Even smaller when you point out it's the Police often under intense public pressure to find thea criminal and go back to an easier life.
How can anyone with a brain support the death penalty?
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
I’ve actually come 180 degrees on this. I used to be a total liberal and I firmly believed the death penalty should be reserved for absolutely the worst cases: traitors, child killers, police slayers, nameless itinerants, and obviously foreign stealers of penny loaves etc
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
Quite.
Pavement parkers. Litterers. People who flush wet wipes. Drivers who don't give way to pedestrians at side roads. Hillwalkers who listen to music out loud (indeed, anyone who does this).
People who have a ground height letter box with heavy duty brushes which is down a long pathway and behind two gates.
Summary execution on the village green.
People who deliver leaflets despite me having a ground height letter box with heavy duty brushes which is down a long pathway and behind two gates
Comments
Good grief.
Even Hyufd wouldn't paint himself into that corner!
But they are not, oh let's think of an example here, trying to abolish a central plank of our current democratic system by abolishing the House of Lords. That would be crazy talk.
Now, many will argue that we have done very well thank-you without a clearly codified constitution in Britain. And they are probably right regarding the past but the past is not guearantee of the future.
Bayswater and Genspect are two others, on the less affirmative side, depending on your friend's views on the issue.
(I offer no particular opinion on which approach is best - it is a bit of a concern for me that a child's/parent's views might be quite strongly shaped by which website they happen to stumble on to first. I don't think there's a truly balanced charity that really embraces the full range of options or the lack of strong evidence on what is the best path).
1) abolishing a fuckton of laws without considering the full consequences in advance.
2) they are not just abolishing laws, but pulling law making/deciding ability (in effect) into the executive/permanent government apparatus.
1) is dumb
2) is the undemocratic one.
"Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that, if elected, his party would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber. "
For example, when he visited No. 10, the assembled staff applauded him. Would that happen in Paris? Or the thing with the Speaker?
And there is plenty of precedent for stupid, undemocratic actions. That doesn’t mean we should repeat them.
If regulations get dumped en masse will we an influx of foreign investors or a stampede of firms pulling out for somewhere more predictable and stable?
Lee Anderson? Really?
My whataboutery point is that there is no equivalence, no analogy even, between: on the one hand giving ministers the power to decide on a whim whether to keep or ditch 4,000 laws, and on the other hand proposing a constitutional change, winning an election, and delivering that change, subject to the full scrutiny of our elected MPs.
If you cannot see the difference there is no hope for you.
The Police and the CPS get it wrong, if they get it wrong the person is already dead. It doesn't make any sense to have it from that point of view. It doesn't act as a deterrent, see the USA.
So Lee Anderson is a moron.
Jim Spence: I saw Isla Bryson's tadger, so is she a man or a woman? Alex Cole-Hamilton: I'm not sufficiently qualified to make that distinction.
https://twitter.com/themajorityscot/status/1623592544972963840
I don't get your problem.
Either the parliamentary party agrees with this in which case it would pass in the HoC or the parliamentary party doesn't agree with it and therefore they replace the executive with one that will command the support of the parliamentary party.
I mean this is exactly what we have seen with Liz Truss not three-odd months ago and people are still calling it the end of democracy.
https://twitter.com/tomhfh/status/1623606135738580992?s=20&t=KmKD2ox5Ki8RFvIcm_YJMA
(1) Just how much the UK was tied into the EU and that its independence was more theoretical than anything else and
(2) Attempting to have Parliament debate each and every one of these changes would clog up Parliament for years, possibly well over a decade, and ensure that no other business was done.
On (1), that seems to suggests that those in the Remain camp who claimed the Brexiteers' bemoaning the loss of UK independence as fanciful were at, best, guilty of being naive and, at worst, deliberately dishonest.
On (2), much as I get @Cyclefree's point re the principle, surely the practicalities of Government dictate this is the only way to approach the subject.
(someone will come and tell me that tadger is also preferred northern England terminology too, now...)
It is simply a punishment. Tit for tat and nothing more. Perhaps the more politically astute see it as a way to remove their competitors from the field of politics?
Do you support the death penalty?
The absolute state of this comment.
In a letter to Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, Lewis argued that wholesale prices were likely to come down in the summer. He said there was a degree of desperation from “shivering” families struggling to deal with the cost of living.
The energy price guarantee limits bills for the average household to £2,500 a year but this is due to rise to £3,000 from April 1. The two-year guarantee was announced in the autumn but was scaled back by Hunt to end in March after the chaotic fallout from Liz Truss’s mini-budget.
The declining cost of wholesale energy prices means that bills are set to come down anyway from July. The Resolution Foundation said it expected the average bill to fall to £2,200 by October, below the present price guarantee.
Lewis described raising the guarantee as a “national act of harm” and urged Hunt to act before the budget on March 15. He said in the letter: “In practice, energy firms will need to know much sooner if the planned rise isn’t happening on April 1, or they are bound to have to communicate to customers that it is coming.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/martin-lewis-rethink-price-cap-to-stop-20-rise-in-bills-vhc656pmj
There is no imperative to remove all these laws beyond satisfying a few headbangers. If there is a law which HMG feel causes concern, holds Britain back etc. then as the democratically eleceted government let them repeal that law but... allow proper consideration of the consequences of that repeal.
Oh, and let the HoC vote to confirm the repeal.
It is always easy to impose draconian punishments on other people, after all, they deserve it.
You can strive to leave things nice for the next person, or you can trash the joint.
House of Clergy and House of Laity near tied
https://twitter.com/synod/status/1623631455447404546?s=20&t=KmKD2ox5Ki8RFvIcm_YJMA
I feel the government shouldn't execute its citizens when they are already in custody and not a clear and present risk to the population.
https://twitter.com/bfmtv/status/1623423589381808136
For example serial killer Patrick Mackay who killed a grandmother and priest with an axe is up for parole and confessed to killing a 4 year old too
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11713743/amp/Serial-killer-Patrick-Mackay-grilled-Parole-Board-safe-freed-freed.html
But if we give Ukraine ALL our tanks, today, I can't see how the security of the UK would be affected.
Tanks fight other tanks.
There haven't been any tank battles on UK soil ever, and if this hypothetical enemy is strong enough to be able to land tanks, then we've lost control of the sea and air anyway and have probably lost.
"Biological sex is not necessarily the same as gender" is the answer that ACH was squirming to find.
Whatever Truss's replacement was, democratic it wasn't.
I should have added that my median expectation of her was that she would explode Prince William with a Czech-made limpet bomb given the first opportunity, so I was right in my own terms. I just forgot to add that
Similarly, when I said 'Putin won't invade Ukraine' I forgot to add 'and get away with it easily.'
I forgot to add 'by a large margin' when I said Trump would not win in 2016.
My predictive powers are awsome, but often abbreviated.
I think part of the underlying cause is the legacy of the UK not engaging with the EC/EU relationship enough to exploit it expertly, plus 45 years of an inadequate scrutiny operation in Westminster.
But we are where we are.
For example, one of the major change that Thatcher did, was get Global Warming accepted as a thing by the civil service. The senior civil servants fought this, angrily, for quite a while. Once the change went through the system, the effect on interactions with the government by other governments and groups was massive.
- Execute serial killers
- Release them after a limited prison term
Another option is to jail for life.
(I don't comment on this particular case, of which I know nothing)
Now I would cast the net more widely. We have to get tough
The righteous have always murdered people in droves. They burned so many as witches that they had trouble keeping count and in battlefields there is always a privileged idiot sent along bibles and crosses to assure the poor cannon fodder that god is on their side...
"Official EU voting records* show that the British government has voted ‘No’ to laws passed at EU level on 56 occasions, abstained 70 times, and voted ‘Yes’ 2,466 times since 1999, according to UK in a Changing Europe Fellows Sara Hagemann and Simon Hix."
https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-facts-behind-claims-uk-influence/
Are murder rates increasing?
A bit of tough love to win the war on drugs.
Yes, SKS - that means you. Off to the gallows, off with your head.
https://twitter.com/synod/status/1623637933881192448?t=6xYXuJflpJEexGLQYHT6DA&s=19
Pavement parkers.
Litterers.
People who flush wet wipes.
Drivers who don't give way to pedestrians at side roads.
Hillwalkers who listen to music out loud (indeed, anyone who does this).
- Being in possession of an offensive wife
Summary execution on the village green.
"As Tory deputy chair, Anderson is not a member of the government, and he is certainly not in charge of penal policy, and so in one sense his views don’t matter. But that does not mean they are not important. Rishi Sunak did not appoint him despite his hardline and illiberal views on crime, welfare, immigration etc. He appointed him because of them. Anderson is supposed to show working class Ukip and Brexit party voters that their views are represented in the Tory party.
But if, as soon as Anderson does something likely to appeal to this constituency, government colleagues say they don’t agree, then at some point the man in the Ashfield shopping centre might feel he’s being strung along."
But, I have no moral objection to it. The world is a better place with people like Julius Streicher, Amon Goeth, Hans Frank, and Lavrentiy Beria permanently removed from it.
Equally it could have been Patrick Minford because it's suitably insane...
That poor teacher in Bristol who rented out to a murder victim was lucky the death penalty didn't exist, the way the newspapers were on him.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/lost-honour-christopher-jefferies-true-4432281
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/article-2020289/Chris-Jefferies.html
https://twitter.com/synod/status/1623641475245387776?t=-lkaU6Qppc2LUvhCz9tiAg&s=19