Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
But it’s nit introducing extra nutcases, since a system like STV where local voters have a wider choice of candidates, and all of them have to work and to campaign to get elected, should reduce the number of lazy idiots in the mainstream parties. If it lets some fringe parties get elected (and they would need a reasonable level of support to secure a place in a multi-member seat) then the overall effect would be to corral the nutters into one group where we can see them and know who they are. And under most PR systems, the majority of sensible MPs have usually found ways to avoid being held to ransom by a nutter party, at least until it gets very significant support. Israel is an exception, but then Israeli politics is exceptional and their pure mathematical PR not something often advocated for the UK.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
That's quite the piece, pointing out all the things that Ireland could do in the 1960s or 1980s when they were a far poorer country, that they just do not have capability for now.
eg a working ship with sonar, an airforce with some jets etc.
Ireland's defence spending is criminally low:
Irish population: 5 million / Irish gdp: $500 Billion / GDP per cap: $100k Irish defence budget: €1.23 billion ($1.32 Bn) Rounded 0.3% of gdp.
They're not in NATO mind either...
So what? As the article made clear, Russia is poking round Ireland to test British western defences, not because it has a strategic interest in Ireland itself.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
That's quite the piece, pointing out all the things that Ireland could do in the 1960s or 1980s when they were a far poorer country, that they just do not have capability for now.
eg a working ship with sonar, an airforce with some jets etc.
Ireland's defence spending is criminally low:
Irish population: 5 million / Irish gdp: $500 Billion / GDP per cap: $100k Irish defence budget: €1.23 billion ($1.32 Bn) Rounded 0.3% of gdp.
They're not in NATO mind either...
Defence spending per capita is a more accurate measure, given their artificially inflated GDP figures. Their spending is nonetheless very low.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
That's quite the piece, pointing out all the things that Ireland could do in the 1960s or 1980s when they were a far poorer country, that they just do not have capability for now.
eg a working ship with sonar, an airforce with some jets etc.
Ireland's defence spending is criminally low:
Irish population: 5 million / Irish gdp: $500 Billion / GDP per cap: $100k Irish defence budget: €1.23 billion ($1.32 Bn) Rounded 0.3% of gdp.
They're not in NATO mind either...
They don’t need to be in NATO, they are in the sweet spot where their neighbour needs to cover them in order to protect themselves from the back door and nobody is going to attack them as either the US would intervene or the EU. I guess the only pressure to raise their defence spending would come from the EU.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
That's quite the piece, pointing out all the things that Ireland could do in the 1960s or 1980s when they were a far poorer country, that they just do not have capability for now.
eg a working ship with sonar, an airforce with some jets etc.
The interesting thing is the Irish (this is an Irish newspaper) are raising this, although to be cynical, they are not in any grave danger so it is a matter of national pride.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
Utter rubbish. Utilising the post-Brexit settlement to the best national advantage is the clear and settled view of the vast bulk of the party...
Even if we were to accept that's the case, there's absolutely no such consensus on what that means.
The rest of your comment, which I've clipped, just indicates incomprehension that the Tory party was (though likely no longer is) a broad church.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
And the determination of the centre to resist that (see the recent Polish election). Would Israel be any better with FPTP ?
Probably not. But that's the key point here.
The electoral system is only of secondary importance in terms of what makes for in/stability, or the influence of extremes. What matters more is political culture, within parties, between parties, and in the country at large. Where you have fractiousness, the seeking of division, preference to play zero-sum over win-win, and a primary focus on purity over results, you will always get division and instability, however representatives are elected; and likewise for consensus or debate-within-accepted-boundaries in reverse.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
And the determination of the centre to resist that (see the recent Polish election). Would Israel be any better with FPTP ?
Israel would be just as much a mess politically under FPTP. PR didn’t create the fractured Israeli political system. That comes from a country split between liberal Tel Aviv-ers, settlers, very religious Jewish groups, “Arab Israelis”, etc.
To extrapolate on what David H said, we have one dimension of proportionality, but we have this orthogonal dimension of ordinality. More ordinal systems, like STV, AV and open lists, encourage politicians to try to reach beyond a narrow constituency. You may see that as a good thing.
There are plenty of examples of extremists being in power under FPTP, as with today’s GOP in control of the House, or Modi in India.
Well, quite. I was just turning back David's comment on him. FWIW, I think the greater representative nature of PR is a decent argument in its own right.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
But it’s nit introducing extra nutcases, since a system like STV where local voters have a wider choice of candidates, and all of them have to work and to campaign to get elected, should reduce the number of lazy idiots in the mainstream parties. If it lets some fringe parties get elected (and they would need a reasonable level of support to secure a place in a multi-member seat) then the overall effect would be to corral the nutters into one group where we can see them and know who they are. And under most PR systems, the majority of sensible MPs have usually found ways to avoid being held to ransom by a nutter party, at least until it gets very significant support. Israel is an exception, but then Israeli politics is exceptional and their pure mathematical PR not something often advocated for the UK.
STV isn't a proportional system and we shouldn't pretend it is - it discriminates against small parties and in favour of transfer-friendly centrist ones. Unsurprising that the Lib Dems advocate it. Now, we can argue whether that's a feature or a bug, depending on what we value most as the purpose of an electoral system. But it's not proportional.
Also, it can easily be gamed (as it usually is in Scotland), to ensure that the public gets only marginal choice, by nominating only as many candidates as the party feels it can realistically win, rather than one for each vacancy.
Oh, he’s the son of a toolmaker. I hadn’t realised that
I have no objection to people who qualify’ as refugees…… some of the Albanians, I don’t think do …… being sent somewhere else, but if some poor soul is trying to escape from potential torture, or worse, and want to make a better life for themselves and their children, well then we should welcome them.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
But it’s nit introducing extra nutcases, since a system like STV where local voters have a wider choice of candidates, and all of them have to work and to campaign to get elected, should reduce the number of lazy idiots in the mainstream parties. If it lets some fringe parties get elected (and they would need a reasonable level of support to secure a place in a multi-member seat) then the overall effect would be to corral the nutters into one group where we can see them and know who they are. And under most PR systems, the majority of sensible MPs have usually found ways to avoid being held to ransom by a nutter party, at least until it gets very significant support. Israel is an exception, but then Israeli politics is exceptional and their pure mathematical PR not something often advocated for the UK.
STV isn't a proportional system and we shouldn't pretend it is - it discriminates against small parties and in favour of transfer-friendly centrist ones. Unsurprising that the Lib Dems advocate it. Now, we can argue whether that's a feature or a bug, depending on what we value most as the purpose of an electoral system. But it's not proportional.
Also, it can easily be gamed (as it usually is in Scotland), to ensure that the public gets only marginal choice, by nominating only as many candidates as the party feels it can realistically win, rather than one for each vacancy.
On the latter, commonly you’d nominate one more than that, which does provide choice. And of course the voter has the option of skipping someone in their favoured party that they don’t like and choosing someone from another party in preference.
On the former, your two points sit oddly against each other, since transfers are commonly within parties. Or are all over the place. Neither Scotland nor Ireland nor Australia is awash with centrist parties or centrist politicians, so if there is anything in your comment it would merely be at the margins. And, of course, working in the contrary direction is STV’s encouragement for politicians to be distinctive and stand out, within their parties.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
Utter rubbish. Utilising the post-Brexit settlement to the best national advantage is the clear and settled view of the vast bulk of the party. That a career in the PCP holds some bizarre attraction to conviction Lib Dems, and CCHQ continues to stuff the candidates lists with them is the great mystery of our age. Instead of continually fighting to 'modernise' the party so it's exactly the same as the other parties, why not fuck off and join one.
"Utilising the post-Brexit settlement to the best national advantage" lol.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
The first three years were not hamstrung because of the Labour party (who was not in government), they were hamstrung due to the Conservative party using a 48/52 vote for leaving the EU as a mandate to do things they literally campaigned on not doing (leaving the single market, for example). The Tory psychodrama of infighting and right wing fanaticism is what caused those three years of turmoil; refusing to reach across the aisle when governing with a minority is what caused those years of turmoil. It is not the job of (then) Her Majesties Loyal Opposition to concede everything to the government of the time, especially when that government is not a majority one.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
And the determination of the centre to resist that (see the recent Polish election). Would Israel be any better with FPTP ?
Israel would be just as much a mess politically under FPTP. PR didn’t create the fractured Israeli political system. That comes from a country split between liberal Tel Aviv-ers, settlers, very religious Jewish groups, “Arab Israelis”, etc.
To extrapolate on what David H said, we have one dimension of proportionality, but we have this orthogonal dimension of ordinality. More ordinal systems, like STV, AV and open lists, encourage politicians to try to reach beyond a narrow constituency. You may see that as a good thing.
There are plenty of examples of extremists being in power under FPTP, as with today’s GOP in control of the House, or Modi in India.
I think you're conflating "division in society" with "political mess".
The US, for example, has lots of the former, but relatively little of the latter, due to a fixed electoral cycle and a winner-takes-all approach to elections - there's only really a political mess when neither party has sufficient control of White House, Congress and Senate to get anything done, and even then you can argue that's an intended feature of the system.
Israel generally has lots of both: currently there's very little of the former, which may or may not last; the latter is much more likely to return with a vengeance in the medium term.
You're correct that moving from PR to a less proportionate system wouldn't magically produce a harmonised society, but it would likely remove a lot of the uncertainty that comes from multiple inconclusive elections in a year. Plus, there's a reasonable argument to be made that, due to different groups tending to live in concentrated areas, FPTP would actually give a more representative results at least some of the time (eg no more issues with Arab MKs only making it over the threshold if they manage to agree a joint prospectus before the election).
One of the numerous headbanger groups on the Tory Right might accidentally trigger an election here...
I mean it is actually the only way to deal with this issue. If the party of government cannot govern - go to the electorate. Run on the plan they want to pass. If they win, use that as a whip for their MPs. If they lose, accept that.
If we build our asylum policy on performative cruelty to vulnerable people as a "deterrent" then we can't act all sad and surprised if a victim of our cruelty decides that death is preferable.
If we build our asylum policy on performative cruelty to vulnerable people as a "deterrent" then we can't act all sad and surprised if a victim of our cruelty decides that death is preferable.
Although the timing is unfortunate I would be interested to know how many suicides occur generally in the asylum system. Suicide is complex (as per the poor head teacher/OFSTED) and it is rarely one thing that drives it.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
The first three years were not hamstrung because of the Labour party (who was not in government), they were hamstrung due to the Conservative party using a 48/52 vote for leaving the EU as a mandate to do things they literally campaigned on not doing (leaving the single market, for example). The Tory psychodrama of infighting and right wing fanaticism is what caused those three years of turmoil; refusing to reach across the aisle when governing with a minority is what caused those years of turmoil. It is not the job of (then) Her Majesties Loyal Opposition to concede everything to the government of the time, especially when that government is not a majority one.
There were lots of reasons for the mess, but labour are not absolved of playing a part. Too many decided that they didn't like the result and tried for a second vote (i.e. go away and think what you've done).
Nothing wrong with that - it was democratic to do so, but it failed the sniff test. Before the referendum the people were told that whatever the vote was, it would be invoked. After the nation voted to leave, many who thought that wrong went back on the commitment to honour the result. And so Johnson won an 80 seat majority. And we had Johnson in charge for Covid.
Sir Keir is saying the Tories have had seven years to make Brexit work. That’s untrue, whether it is shit or fantastic, and he was one of the main drivers of it being four years, not seven
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
"You didn't give us what we wanted, even though it's not what we campaigned on..." sounds more outrageous to me, FWIW.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
But it’s nit introducing extra nutcases, since a system like STV where local voters have a wider choice of candidates, and all of them have to work and to campaign to get elected, should reduce the number of lazy idiots in the mainstream parties. If it lets some fringe parties get elected (and they would need a reasonable level of support to secure a place in a multi-member seat) then the overall effect would be to corral the nutters into one group where we can see them and know who they are. And under most PR systems, the majority of sensible MPs have usually found ways to avoid being held to ransom by a nutter party, at least until it gets very significant support. Israel is an exception, but then Israeli politics is exceptional and their pure mathematical PR not something often advocated for the UK.
STV isn't a proportional system and we shouldn't pretend it is - it discriminates against small parties and in favour of transfer-friendly centrist ones. Unsurprising that the Lib Dems advocate it. Now, we can argue whether that's a feature or a bug, depending on what we value most as the purpose of an electoral system. But it's not proportional.
Also, it can easily be gamed (as it usually is in Scotland), to ensure that the public gets only marginal choice, by nominating only as many candidates as the party feels it can realistically win, rather than one for each vacancy.
All voting systems can be gamed (Arrow). Parties can reduce the choice on offer to voters by standing fewer candidates, although that can backfire (as sometimes seen in Northern Ireland). It's still a step up from FPTP or AV where parties only ever stand 1 candidate.
All voting systems discriminate against small parties, for some definition of small. Proportionality is a continuum, but STV generally produces results that are much more proportional than FPTP or AV. Lijphart counts it as a proportional system, while putting SNTV into a semi-proportional category.
STV is an ordinal system and ordinal systems favour transfer-friendly candidates/parties. As you say, is that a feature or a bug? STV doesn't necessarily work out well for centrist parties, however. The two longest running systems to use STV -- Ireland and Malta -- are notable for not having a successful centrist party.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
The first three years were not hamstrung because of the Labour party (who was not in government), they were hamstrung due to the Conservative party using a 48/52 vote for leaving the EU as a mandate to do things they literally campaigned on not doing (leaving the single market, for example). The Tory psychodrama of infighting and right wing fanaticism is what caused those three years of turmoil; refusing to reach across the aisle when governing with a minority is what caused those years of turmoil. It is not the job of (then) Her Majesties Loyal Opposition to concede everything to the government of the time, especially when that government is not a majority one.
There were lots of reasons for the mess, but labour are not absolved of playing a part. Too many decided that they didn't like the result and tried for a second vote (i.e. go away and think what you've done).
Nothing wrong with that - it was democratic to do so, but it failed the sniff test. Before the referendum the people were told that whatever the vote was, it would be invoked. After the nation voted to leave, many who thought that wrong went back on the commitment to honour the result. And so Johnson won an 80 seat majority. And we had Johnson in charge for Covid.
The first referendum was about if we should leave or not, not how we leave.
The election called by May was, in part, about that question. The electorate voted in a way that reflected the outcome of the referendum - a party that wanted leave could form a government, but not have free sway to do all the things it wanted without compromise to other parties.
May, instead of compromising with other parties and trying to pass a deal that could get through the HoC, decided the far right of the Tory party was more important to placate and so her government eventually fell.
Johnson then campaigned on an "oven ready deal". He won a large majority on that "oven ready deal" (and, in my view, his promises to "level up" and essentially end austerity). The HoC voted for that "oven ready deal". We live under the conditions of that deal. If you do not like the outcomes of Brexit - the people responsible are those who made that deal.
If you do not like that Johnson was PM or other things he did whilst PM, that also lies with May, Cameron and the Tory party more generally. The Labour party had no duty to prop up May or her Brexit deal when she refused to work with them on it.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
Cork is not UK. It's Ireland (ROI)
Yes, and the Irish Examiner is an Irish newspaper.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
Cork is not UK. It's Ireland (ROI)
Yes, and the Irish Examiner is an Irish newspaper.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
And the determination of the centre to resist that (see the recent Polish election). Would Israel be any better with FPTP ?
Israel would be just as much a mess politically under FPTP. PR didn’t create the fractured Israeli political system. That comes from a country split between liberal Tel Aviv-ers, settlers, very religious Jewish groups, “Arab Israelis”, etc.
To extrapolate on what David H said, we have one dimension of proportionality, but we have this orthogonal dimension of ordinality. More ordinal systems, like STV, AV and open lists, encourage politicians to try to reach beyond a narrow constituency. You may see that as a good thing.
There are plenty of examples of extremists being in power under FPTP, as with today’s GOP in control of the House, or Modi in India.
I think you're conflating "division in society" with "political mess".
The US, for example, has lots of the former, but relatively little of the latter, due to a fixed electoral cycle and a winner-takes-all approach to elections - there's only really a political mess when neither party has sufficient control of White House, Congress and Senate to get anything done, and even then you can argue that's an intended feature of the system.
Israel generally has lots of both: currently there's very little of the former, which may or may not last; the latter is much more likely to return with a vengeance in the medium term.
You're correct that moving from PR to a less proportionate system wouldn't magically produce a harmonised society, but it would likely remove a lot of the uncertainty that comes from multiple inconclusive elections in a year. Plus, there's a reasonable argument to be made that, due to different groups tending to live in concentrated areas, FPTP would actually give a more representative results at least some of the time (eg no more issues with Arab MKs only making it over the threshold if they manage to agree a joint prospectus before the election).
I didn't describe the US as being in a "political mess". I said it had extremists in power.
I am unconvinced that a less proportionate system would remove the uncertainty of multiple inconclusive elections in Israel. When the biggest party is getting less than a quarter of the vote, you're still going to get inconclusive results. Conclusive results come when you have 2-party politics and squeezing Israeli society into just 2 parties ain't happening.
There is no sense in which FPTP would give "more representative results" without massively distorting what "representative" means. It would benefit parties whose votes is geographically concentrated, so Arab parties, settler parties, while working against the likes of Yesh Atid and Labor who have a more dispersed support.
Of course, switching to a constituency system would also make more obvious the electoral apartheid operated in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers get to vote, but Palestinians don't. You would have to have Israeli constituencies covering the occupied territories, an admission of annexation.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Opposition opposing in dog bites man shock.
Exactly. In a proportional system it is reasonable to expect parties to work together and hammer out a consensus. In an adversarial, majoritarian system, it is the opposition’s job to use what (limited) powers and leverage they have to make the government’s life difficult, in order to test the solidity of their propositions. It is unreasonable to blame the opposition when the government, or its plans, go awry, any more than you can blame a defence lawyer for the failure of a prosecution.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
That's quite the piece, pointing out all the things that Ireland could do in the 1960s or 1980s when they were a far poorer country, that they just do not have capability for now.
eg a working ship with sonar, an airforce with some jets etc.
Ireland's defence spending is criminally low:
Why? They don't face any credible strategic threats, don't need to use defence spending for corporate welfare and aren't so neurotic they need symbols of national vanity.
NEW @IpsosUK : 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov) Labour 41% (-5) Conservative 24% (-1) Lib Dems 13% (+1) Greens 9% (+3) Reform 7% (+3) Other 6% (-)
I've seen a few polls recently where Labours vote share has been decreasing, with some seemingly going to Greens or LDs. I do wonder if SKS basically being Tory-lite is starting to move the base away from Labour the more likely a GE seems.
Why is it okay for Tories to keep throwing red meat to their base, but Labour is supposed to actively alienate theirs? It isn't even like the proposition of SKS doing Tory policies with a more managerial / efficient style is popular - Rwanda isn't a popular policy, austerity is not popular, privatising the NHS is not popular. And yet that is what the Labour party is proposing... Brain rot country...
The key paragraph is the one that begins: To be effective in delivering what we promised the public, the Bill must exclude all avenues of legal challenge. She then goes into what laws this means, and throws into the normal heady mix of international law, common law, Judicial Review, and even the government's own Illegal Migration Act.
I don't know about anyone else, but for the first time in reading this I've concluded that Braverman is positively dangerous and wants this country to adopt policies towards the judiciary seen most recently in places such as Hungary and Poland.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
I mean, this sounds like nonsense. Similar stories were shared in the US and then loads of advocacy groups (for shops) had to walk it back because it just wasn't true. It did, on the other hand, work as a shield for closing shops and increasing prices (and record profits).
NEW @IpsosUK : 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov) Labour 41% (-5) Conservative 24% (-1) Lib Dems 13% (+1) Greens 9% (+3) Reform 7% (+3) Other 6% (-)
Broad trend similar to other polls over the past month. Conservatives flat or slightly lower (does this mean they are at the bottom of their support?) Labour loosing votes and other parties up (Labour not sealing the deal with the protest vote going elsewhere?)
NEW @IpsosUK : 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov) Labour 41% (-5) Conservative 24% (-1) Lib Dems 13% (+1) Greens 9% (+3) Reform 7% (+3) Other 6% (-)
I've seen a few polls recently where Labours vote share has been decreasing, with some seemingly going to Greens or LDs. I do wonder if SKS basically being Tory-lite is starting to move the base away from Labour the more likely a GE seems.
Why is it okay for Tories to keep throwing red meat to their base, but Labour is supposed to actively alienate theirs? It isn't even like the proposition of SKS doing Tory policies with a more managerial / efficient style is popular - Rwanda isn't a popular policy, austerity is not popular, privatising the NHS is not popular. And yet that is what the Labour party is proposing... Brain rot country...
Maybe. And, in their target seats other opposition parties should be stepping up their campaigning, reminding voters that they exist and are in contention locally. As an election approaches you’d expect an uptick in the LibDem and Green shares.
You have effective decriminalisation of shop lifting. Combined with other crimes dropping in return massively - burglary barely pays anyone. Drug dealing gets target by the police, heavily.
Look forward couple of years and all shops will have auto entry control. And if you look a bit like a shop lifter, Facial recognition (shared between shops) will say no. So no shopping for you.
NEW @IpsosUK : 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov) Labour 41% (-5) Conservative 24% (-1) Lib Dems 13% (+1) Greens 9% (+3) Reform 7% (+3) Other 6% (-)
Are Reform taking from Con or Lab? It's UKIP all over again.
Other messy possibility is that Operation Draft Dave has worked a bit to move the Conservatives back towards the centre and picked up some votes there, but losing votes on the right.
That closes the ConLab gap (Lab down) even if it leaves the Conservatives on roughly the same share.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
Tories had a majority. You can't blame opposition parties for opposing - the government with a majority is responsible for passing - or not passing - legislation.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
Utter rubbish. Utilising the post-Brexit settlement to the best national advantage is the clear and settled view of the vast bulk of the party...
Even if we were to accept that's the case, there's absolutely no such consensus on what that means.
The rest of your comment, which I've clipped, just indicates incomprehension that the Tory party was (though likely no longer is) a broad church.
Clipping an argument whilst wanting to respond to it is rather telling.
I mean, this sounds like nonsense. Similar stories were shared in the US and then loads of advocacy groups (for shops) had to walk it back because it just wasn't true. It did, on the other hand, work as a shield for closing shops and increasing prices (and record profits).
Trust the BBC to cast this entrepreneurial scheme in a bad light - sophisticated & clever Albanians have revolutionised the British drug trade with their savvy and bold business model and now Eastern Europeans are going to do the same for pickpocketing
NEW @IpsosUK : 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov) Labour 41% (-5) Conservative 24% (-1) Lib Dems 13% (+1) Greens 9% (+3) Reform 7% (+3) Other 6% (-)
I've seen a few polls recently where Labours vote share has been decreasing, with some seemingly going to Greens or LDs. I do wonder if SKS basically being Tory-lite is starting to move the base away from Labour the more likely a GE seems.
Why is it okay for Tories to keep throwing red meat to their base, but Labour is supposed to actively alienate theirs? It isn't even like the proposition of SKS doing Tory policies with a more managerial / efficient style is popular - Rwanda isn't a popular policy, austerity is not popular, privatising the NHS is not popular. And yet that is what the Labour party is proposing... Brain rot country...
Hm. Starmer has made clear that he will repeal the Rwanda Bill if it goes through. And I'm not aware of his policies on favouring austerity or privatising the NHS. Source?
Fatalists should read the last two paragraphs, along with the rest of the article.
Either one of Zelensky or Zaluzhny is going to have to triumph in their bitter power struggle because the stand off is counter (offensive) productive.
Lt. Gen. Cavoli (SACEUR) told them how to do the counter-offensive but they didn’t do it his way and fucked it up so they probably need a change of political or militarily leadership to make any progress.
See the recent two parter in the WaPo for the details.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
NEW @IpsosUK : 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov) Labour 41% (-5) Conservative 24% (-1) Lib Dems 13% (+1) Greens 9% (+3) Reform 7% (+3) Other 6% (-)
I've seen a few polls recently where Labours vote share has been decreasing, with some seemingly going to Greens or LDs. I do wonder if SKS basically being Tory-lite is starting to move the base away from Labour the more likely a GE seems.
Why is it okay for Tories to keep throwing red meat to their base, but Labour is supposed to actively alienate theirs? It isn't even like the proposition of SKS doing Tory policies with a more managerial / efficient style is popular - Rwanda isn't a popular policy, austerity is not popular, privatising the NHS is not popular. And yet that is what the Labour party is proposing... Brain rot country...
Maybe. And, in their target seats other opposition parties should be stepping up their campaigning, reminding voters that they exist and are in contention locally. As an election approaches you’d expect an uptick in the LibDem and Green shares.
I know Carla is targeting Thangam Debbonaire's seat. I remember door knocking at the last GE for her and hearing lots of "we're sympathetic to the Greens, but we want to show our support for Corbyn" on the doorstep. I doubt SKS will have quite the same fan club...
NEW @IpsosUK : 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov) Labour 41% (-5) Conservative 24% (-1) Lib Dems 13% (+1) Greens 9% (+3) Reform 7% (+3) Other 6% (-)
Are Reform taking from Con or Lab? It's UKIP all over again.
Lab's vote has certainly drifted but how much of that is down to all the immigration talk and how much is it down to Gaza? On this poll Lab are down 5 but LD/Green are up 4. The stress on immigration is no doubt leaking some Lab voters to Ref - but how many? A third party surge offering an alternative to grudging Lab (but keen anti-Con) voters is surely the only chance the Cons have for the next GE.
However, 24% isn't winning any elections - no matter what Reform Uk do.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
The first three years were not hamstrung because of the Labour party (who was not in government), they were hamstrung due to the Conservative party using a 48/52 vote for leaving the EU as a mandate to do things they literally campaigned on not doing (leaving the single market, for example). The Tory psychodrama of infighting and right wing fanaticism is what caused those three years of turmoil; refusing to reach across the aisle when governing with a minority is what caused those years of turmoil. It is not the job of (then) Her Majesties Loyal Opposition to concede everything to the government of the time, especially when that government is not a majority one.
The idea that they campaigned on not leaving the single market is just not true. It was the obvious implication of controlling EU immigration.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
Tories had a majority. You can't blame opposition parties for opposing - the government with a majority is responsible for passing - or not passing - legislation.
Well they didn’t have a majority for most of that era but, that aside, the point is that he is claiming they had seven years, when he was one of the main people responsible for it only actually being four.
On this occasion I’m not criticising his campaign for a second referendum after committing to enact the result of the first, or generally putting a spoke in the wheels of getting a deal done, but the cheek of saying there’s been seven years to do it when it’s been four, thanks in a large way to him
Fatalists should read the last two paragraphs, along with the rest of the article.
Either one of Zelensky or Zaluzhny is going to have to triumph in their bitter power struggle because the stand off is counter (offensive) productive.
Lt. Gen. Cavoli (SACEUR) told them how to do the counter-offensive but they didn’t do it his way and fucked it up so they probably need a change of political or militarily leadership to make any progress.
See the recent two parter in the WaPo for the details.
'His way' involves overwhelming air superiority and rather more kit.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
The first three years were not hamstrung because of the Labour party (who was not in government), they were hamstrung due to the Conservative party using a 48/52 vote for leaving the EU as a mandate to do things they literally campaigned on not doing (leaving the single market, for example). The Tory psychodrama of infighting and right wing fanaticism is what caused those three years of turmoil; refusing to reach across the aisle when governing with a minority is what caused those years of turmoil. It is not the job of (then) Her Majesties Loyal Opposition to concede everything to the government of the time, especially when that government is not a majority one.
The idea that they campaigned on not leaving the single market is just not true. It was the obvious implication of controlling EU immigration.
Literally Leavers went on TV and touted us being able to stay in the single market if we wanted to like other countries:
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
Utter rubbish. Utilising the post-Brexit settlement to the best national advantage is the clear and settled view of the vast bulk of the party...
Even if we were to accept that's the case, there's absolutely no such consensus on what that means.
The rest of your comment, which I've clipped, just indicates incomprehension that the Tory party was (though likely no longer is) a broad church.
Clipping an argument whilst wanting to respond to it is rather telling.
I didn't want to embarrass you all over again.
But here you go: ...That a career in the PCP holds some bizarre attraction to conviction Lib Dems, and CCHQ continues to stuff the candidates lists with them is the great mystery of our age. Instead of continually fighting to 'modernise' the party so it's exactly the same as the other parties, why not fuck off and join one...
Doesn't make any more sense the second time around.
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
It's not just Europe now. They're a party-within-a-party and rejoicing in their pseudo-structures as such. Star Chambers and so on.
But the structural problem is the same. Well, almost: May had equal rebellions from the Tory left, Major had pressure from the likes of Clarke and Heseltine, Sunak has much less from that wing, not least because Johnson purged them. But either way, the net result is that the government has no firm majority.
The Tory Right has learned from the US Republicans that as long as the moderates stay loyal and pliant, the Right can leverage their votes to continually force policy and personnel to their wing.
I would argue the issue is, in many ways, FPTP - if you have "safe seats" on 30-40% of the vote because there is no unified opposition, you end up with people who are frothing at the brain without anywhere near majority support, even in their own constituency. Put that together with 24 hour news cycles, and you have nutters who are incentivised to say the most ridiculous stuff because it gets them on TV and in headlines and therefore loved by those who care too much about politics and spend all their time online caring about politics (namely - us) when most people couldn't tell you who is in the cabinet.
Much as I favour PR, FPTP does keep most nutcases of left and right out of parliament. BxP was polling a steady low-double-digit share under Johnson, before the election. The dynamics of FPTP (including the Brexit Party opting out of standing in many seats), ended up squeezing that down to 2% on polling day but under PR, those dynamics wouldn't have been anything like as intense and it's entirely plausible that the previous share would have maintained, as in 2015 - resulting in 60-80 Brexit Party MPs.
In reality, the issue is less the electoral system but the system of selection, which plays to the prejudices of party members and only then to the public (not least because an individual candidate's views matter very little in terms of influencing the public's vote, especially when not already an MP with a record).
And PR tends to put more power into the hands of parties rather than less. STV (not technically PR) and open lists can answer that question; both are systems rarely used across the world.
FPTP promotes parties with a minority of the votes getting majorities to govern - this gives outweighted power to the governing party and demands that parties hold together even if they (ideologically) should split or die. Governing since the Brexit referendum has mostly about the survival of the Tory party as an entity, or the PMs position within the party - not about leading the country. PR might give more representation to fringe parties, but they would have less power overall - because they would have to work in coalition with other parties to govern. I think the same issue is true for the Labour party, tbh - they need to split and FPTP and ABC voting is the only thing keeping them as a single party.
And that assertion is consistent with PR in Israel, the French Fourth Republic or Italy, I suppose?
The power of fringe parties depends on their leverage in terms of the maths, and their willingness to use that leverage to make or break governments. I think it's a stretch to suggest that introducing 15-20% of nutcase MPs into the Commons would reduce their power - particularly in the current context with a vocal and active Tory right and the recent experience of a Labour party taken over by its hard left.
But it’s nit introducing extra nutcases, since a system like STV where local voters have a wider choice of candidates, and all of them have to work and to campaign to get elected, should reduce the number of lazy idiots in the mainstream parties. If it lets some fringe parties get elected (and they would need a reasonable level of support to secure a place in a multi-member seat) then the overall effect would be to corral the nutters into one group where we can see them and know who they are. And under most PR systems, the majority of sensible MPs have usually found ways to avoid being held to ransom by a nutter party, at least until it gets very significant support. Israel is an exception, but then Israeli politics is exceptional and their pure mathematical PR not something often advocated for the UK.
STV isn't a proportional system and we shouldn't pretend it is - it discriminates against small parties and in favour of transfer-friendly centrist ones. Unsurprising that the Lib Dems advocate it. Now, we can argue whether that's a feature or a bug, depending on what we value most as the purpose of an electoral system. But it's not proportional.
Also, it can easily be gamed (as it usually is in Scotland), to ensure that the public gets only marginal choice, by nominating only as many candidates as the party feels it can realistically win, rather than one for each vacancy.
The final issue can be addressed through the nomination rules if you want, though that gaming of the system can have consequences that should put parties off. Sinn Fein missed out on a number of TDs at the last Irish general election due to not standing enough candidates.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
Tories had a majority. You can't blame opposition parties for opposing - the government with a majority is responsible for passing - or not passing - legislation.
Well they didn’t have a majority for most of that era but, that aside, the point is that he is claiming they had seven years, when he was one of the main people responsible for it only actually being four.
On this occasion I’m not criticising his campaign for a second referendum after committing to enact the result of the first, or generally putting a spoke in the wheels of getting a deal done, but the cheek of saying there’s been seven years to do it when it’s been four, thanks in a large way to him
The Tories had a majority when Cameron stepped down. May had a majority when she first became PM - she later held a general election and lost it. At that point, she could have worked with the HoC to pass a bipartisan deal. She refused.
You're going to have to wait a few more years before you can start rewriting history we all lived through, I'm afraid.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
The Conservatives did not start planning for Brexit in December 2019. They have been working on Brexit since 2016. Seven years after the referendum, sufficient time has elapsed to to start assessing how it's going.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
Tories had a majority. You can't blame opposition parties for opposing - the government with a majority is responsible for passing - or not passing - legislation.
Well they didn’t have a majority for most of that era but, that aside, the point is that he is claiming they had seven years, when he was one of the main people responsible for it only actually being four.
On this occasion I’m not criticising his campaign for a second referendum after committing to enact the result of the first, or generally putting a spoke in the wheels of getting a deal done, but the cheek of saying there’s been seven years to do it when it’s been four, thanks in a large way to him
The Tories had a majority when Cameron stepped down. May had a majority when she first became PM - she later held a general election and lost it. At that point, she could have worked with the HoC to pass a bipartisan deal. She refused.
You're going to have to wait a few more years before you can start rewriting history we all lived through, I'm afraid.
Yes they had a majority for about 12 months after the vote, then didn’t have one for about 30. That’s the three and a bit years I’m talking about, I’m afraid
Fatalists should read the last two paragraphs, along with the rest of the article.
Either one of Zelensky or Zaluzhny is going to have to triumph in their bitter power struggle because the stand off is counter (offensive) productive.
Lt. Gen. Cavoli (SACEUR) told them how to do the counter-offensive but they didn’t do it his way and fucked it up so they probably need a change of political or militarily leadership to make any progress.
See the recent two parter in the WaPo for the details.
'His way' involves overwhelming air superiority and rather more kit.
I wouldn't assume he'd have done any better.
Cavoli and Miley told them to focus on one point in the Russian positions and drive toward Melitopol. Z&Z (they are both blaming each other at this point) instead spread their forces out along a 600km line with what mass there was concentrated in the north. Result: net loss of territory to the RF in 2023.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
The Conservatives did not start planning for Brexit in December 2019. They have been working on Brexit since 2016. Seven years after the referendum, sufficient time has elapsed to to start assessing how it's going.
You have effective decriminalisation of shop lifting. Combined with other crimes dropping in return massively - burglary barely pays anyone. Drug dealing gets target by the police, heavily.
Look forward couple of years and all shops will have auto entry control. And if you look a bit like a shop lifter, Facial recognition (shared between shops) will say no. So no shopping for you.
Followed by the inevitable accusations/legal actions for racial discrimination.
Absurd, but yet another way in which this Conservative split resembles Brexit in 2018-19. I seem to remember some resigned over May's approach then voted for it, such as Johnson, Davis and I think Raab.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
The Conservatives did not start planning for Brexit in December 2019. They have been working on Brexit since 2016. Seven years after the referendum, sufficient time has elapsed to to start assessing how it's going.
We don't need another seven years to work out how it's going...
Success usually requires both talent and luck. But the more luck you have, the less talent you need. It strikes me that Sunak's problem is that it's all happened too easily and too fast. Maybe in a sense he has been too lucky for his own good. He's totally lying about his WhatsApp messages, anyway, the slippery toad.
No, Sunak's problem is the same as May's, and Cameron's, and John Major's. There is a group of Conservative MPs obsessed by Europe to the exclusion of anything else, even the continuance of their own government. And for the most part they are wrong about Europe.
Utter rubbish. Utilising the post-Brexit settlement to the best national advantage is the clear and settled view of the vast bulk of the party...
Even if we were to accept that's the case, there's absolutely no such consensus on what that means.
The rest of your comment, which I've clipped, just indicates incomprehension that the Tory party was (though likely no longer is) a broad church.
Clipping an argument whilst wanting to respond to it is rather telling.
I didn't want to embarrass you all over again.
But here you go: ...That a career in the PCP holds some bizarre attraction to conviction Lib Dems, and CCHQ continues to stuff the candidates lists with them is the great mystery of our age. Instead of continually fighting to 'modernise' the party so it's exactly the same as the other parties, why not fuck off and join one...
Doesn't make any more sense the second time around.
That's kind of you poppet. Sadly you don't extend the same courtesy to yourself. Clipping anything when space isn't required is ScottP level of posting.
Russian submarine 'chased' from Cork Harbour by British navy Military insiders say the Russians are probing British defence systems as they realise the UK is vulnerable on its western flank because the Irish navy has no sonar capabilities https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41288176.html
The cold war continues.
Cork is not UK. It's Ireland (ROI)
Ruski sub had parked itself just outside territorial waters, with a surface vessel on probable lookout.
British helicopter turned up and did some sonar things in the water, followed by iirc a frigate.
The direct allusion to "Cork Harbour" is a bit of a geographical stretch; perhaps the journo had Christmas drink taken.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
If you follow that logic, then the opposition can't criticise the government for any stupid thing the government did that the opposition opposed. Neither, without looking really stupid, can they criticise the government for stupid things that the opposition also supported. So, effectively, the opposition cannot criticise the government?
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
If you follow that logic, then the opposition can't criticise the government for any stupid thing the government did that the opposition opposed. Neither, without looking really stupid, can they criticise the government for stupid things that the opposition also supported. So, effectively, the opposition cannot criticise the government?
They can, but they can’t say ‘you’ve had seven years to make this work’ when they prevented them from getting started on it for three and a half of them - if he’d said ‘Four years they’ve had to make Brexit work’ that would be fine, even if that meant ignoring something else that might have distracted them in 2020-21
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
If you follow that logic, then the opposition can't criticise the government for any stupid thing the government did that the opposition opposed. Neither, without looking really stupid, can they criticise the government for stupid things that the opposition also supported. So, effectively, the opposition cannot criticise the government?
They can, but they can’t say ‘you’ve had seven years to make this work’ when they prevented them from getting started on it for three and a half of them - if he’d said ‘Four years they’ve had to make Brexit work’ that would be fine, even if that meant ignoring something else that might have distracted them in 2020-21
Making it work includes getting a deal through Parliament.
You seem to believe that wasn't the responsibility of the Brexiteers. Many of whom voted against all kinds of options.
You have effective decriminalisation of shop lifting. Combined with other crimes dropping in return massively - burglary barely pays anyone. Drug dealing gets target by the police, heavily.
Look forward couple of years and all shops will have auto entry control. And if you look a bit like a shop lifter, Facial recognition (shared between shops) will say no. So no shopping for you.
Followed by the inevitable accusations/legal actions for racial discrimination.
Which is already happening. The security guard at Majestic in Wandsworth has been accused of profiling who he lets in the store - opens the door for individual customers.
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
I see that Leavers still haven't moved on from blaming Remainers for how shit Brexit is.
Come off it. For him to say there’s been seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he’d been straining every sinew to make sure it would never be enacted is one of the most outrageous things I’ve heard.
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Maybe he wanted to stop it because he knew it was going to be shit. And now it's here, and it is shit. But still, that's somehow his fault and not the people who told us it was going to be great and are actually responsible for delivering it and made sure it was as shit as possible.
You’re missing the point. It’s not about whether it’s good or bad, it’s that he is criticising the Tories for having had seven years to make Brexit work, when up until four years ago today he was part of a group of people that were obstructing them from being able to do anything at all.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
If you follow that logic, then the opposition can't criticise the government for any stupid thing the government did that the opposition opposed. Neither, without looking really stupid, can they criticise the government for stupid things that the opposition also supported. So, effectively, the opposition cannot criticise the government?
They can, but they can’t say ‘you’ve had seven years to make this work’ when they prevented them from getting started on it for three and a half of them - if he’d said ‘Four years they’ve had to make Brexit work’ that would be fine, even if that meant ignoring something else that might have distracted them in 2020-21
Making it work includes getting a deal through Parliament.
You seem to believe that wasn't the responsibility of the Brexiteers. Many of whom voted against all kinds of options.
OK, I get it. Anyone who opposed Brexit can do or say whatever they like without question
Eight MPs representing the Democratic Unionist Party are said to be considering voting against Rishi Sunak's Rwanda plan, Westminster sources tell me Ministers said to be aware. It would mean that just 21 Tory MPs are needed to defeat the Government.
Comments
Their spending is nonetheless very low.
The rest of your comment, which I've clipped, just indicates incomprehension that the Tory party was (though likely no longer is) a broad church.
https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/keir-starmers-speech-in-buckinghamshire/
The electoral system is only of secondary importance in terms of what makes for in/stability, or the influence of extremes. What matters more is political culture, within parties, between parties, and in the country at large. Where you have fractiousness, the seeking of division, preference to play zero-sum over win-win, and a primary focus on purity over results, you will always get division and instability, however representatives are elected; and likewise for consensus or debate-within-accepted-boundaries in reverse.
I was just turning back David's comment on him.
FWIW, I think the greater representative nature of PR is a decent argument in its own right.
Also, it can easily be gamed (as it usually is in Scotland), to ensure that the public gets only marginal choice, by nominating only as many candidates as the party feels it can realistically win, rather than one for each vacancy.
Well.
The climate minister (Graham Stuart) is being flown all the way back from Cop28 in Dubai to vote for the Rwanda bill, then flown straight back.
So dragged from the final negotiations at a climate change summit, via a 8,700-mile round flight, for a single vote.
Telling.
@benrileysmith
Labour's Yvette Cooper on this: "I guess they can say at least one flight has taken off as a result of this legislation."
Good Lord. He was a huge part of the reason they were hamstrung for the first three years! Utterly shameless
“ If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […]Then I say again, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.”
Oh, so lower migration is linked with higher wages? He should try coming on here and saying that!
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/12/zelenskyy-ukraine-war-coalition-00131199
Fatalists should read the last two paragraphs, along with the rest of the article.
On the former, your two points sit oddly against each other, since transfers are commonly within parties. Or are all over the place. Neither Scotland nor Ireland nor Australia is awash with centrist parties or centrist politicians, so if there is anything in your comment it would merely be at the margins. And, of course, working in the contrary direction is STV’s encouragement for politicians to be distinctive and stand out, within their parties.
The US, for example, has lots of the former, but relatively little of the latter, due to a fixed electoral cycle and a winner-takes-all approach to elections - there's only really a political mess when neither party has sufficient control of White House, Congress and Senate to get anything done, and even then you can argue that's an intended feature of the system.
Israel generally has lots of both: currently there's very little of the former, which may or may not last; the latter is much more likely to return with a vengeance in the medium term.
You're correct that moving from PR to a less proportionate system wouldn't magically produce a harmonised society, but it would likely remove a lot of the uncertainty that comes from multiple inconclusive elections in a year. Plus, there's a reasonable argument to be made that, due to different groups tending to live in concentrated areas, FPTP would actually give a more representative results at least some of the time (eg no more issues with Arab
MKs only making it over the threshold if they manage to agree a joint prospectus before the election).
No one in their right mind could fail to be dumbfounded by the gall of it, whichever side they voted for
Not that the government’s panicking but in through the commons door has just walked a Mr Peter Bone
Nothing wrong with that - it was democratic to do so, but it failed the sniff test. Before the referendum the people were told that whatever the vote was, it would be invoked. After the nation voted to leave, many who thought that wrong went back on the commitment to honour the result. And so Johnson won an 80 seat majority. And we had Johnson in charge for Covid.
Sir Keir is saying the Tories have had seven years to make Brexit work. That’s untrue, whether it is shit or fantastic, and he was one of the main drivers of it being four years, not seven
All voting systems discriminate against small parties, for some definition of small. Proportionality is a continuum, but STV generally produces results that are much more proportional than FPTP or AV. Lijphart counts it as a proportional system, while putting SNTV into a semi-proportional category.
STV is an ordinal system and ordinal systems favour transfer-friendly candidates/parties. As you say, is that a feature or a bug? STV doesn't necessarily work out well for centrist parties, however. The two longest running systems to use STV -- Ireland and Malta -- are notable for not having a successful centrist party.
What should be done when Ukraine announces that it is leaving the NPT - probably by detonating a nuke*?
Should we accept the facts on the ground?
*At a guess, single stager, air lenses, two point implosion, levitated, hollow core with external neutron source.
The election called by May was, in part, about that question. The electorate voted in a way that reflected the outcome of the referendum - a party that wanted leave could form a government, but not have free sway to do all the things it wanted without compromise to other parties.
May, instead of compromising with other parties and trying to pass a deal that could get through the HoC, decided the far right of the Tory party was more important to placate and so her government eventually fell.
Johnson then campaigned on an "oven ready deal". He won a large majority on that "oven ready deal" (and, in my view, his promises to "level up" and essentially end austerity). The HoC voted for that "oven ready deal". We live under the conditions of that deal. If you do not like the outcomes of Brexit - the people responsible are those who made that deal.
If you do not like that Johnson was PM or other things he did whilst PM, that also lies with May, Cameron and the Tory party more generally. The Labour party had no duty to prop up May or her Brexit deal when she refused to work with them on it.
Simple as.
Timed out now after a months of silence from Starmer.
https://x.com/mrharrycole/status/1734549990305919162?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
@IpsosUK
: 8 in 10 say Sunak govt doing a bad job on immigration / Reform up to 7% (highest ever from Ipsos) / Lab lead 17 🚨
Voting intention (v Nov)
Labour 41% (-5)
Conservative 24% (-1)
Lib Dems 13% (+1)
Greens 9% (+3)
Reform 7% (+3)
Other 6% (-)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67687565
I am unconvinced that a less proportionate system would remove the uncertainty of multiple inconclusive elections in Israel. When the biggest party is getting less than a quarter of the vote, you're still going to get inconclusive results. Conclusive results come when you have 2-party politics and squeezing Israeli society into just 2 parties ain't happening.
There is no sense in which FPTP would give "more representative results" without massively distorting what "representative" means. It would benefit parties whose votes is geographically concentrated, so Arab parties, settler parties, while working against the likes of Yesh Atid and Labor who have a more dispersed support.
Of course, switching to a constituency system would also make more obvious the electoral apartheid operated in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers get to vote, but Palestinians don't. You would have to have Israeli constituencies covering the occupied territories, an admission of annexation.
Why is it okay for Tories to keep throwing red meat to their base, but Labour is supposed to actively alienate theirs? It isn't even like the proposition of SKS doing Tory policies with a more managerial / efficient style is popular - Rwanda isn't a popular policy, austerity is not popular, privatising the NHS is not popular. And yet that is what the Labour party is proposing... Brain rot country...
https://conservativehome.com/2023/12/12/suella-braverman-a-third-bill-that-fails-to-stop-the-boats-will-amount-to-the-most-legalistic-suicide-note-in-history/
The key paragraph is the one that begins: To be effective in delivering what we promised the public, the Bill must exclude all avenues of legal challenge. She then goes into what laws this means, and throws into the normal heady mix of international law, common law, Judicial Review, and even the government's own Illegal Migration Act.
I don't know about anyone else, but for the first time in reading this I've concluded that Braverman is positively dangerous and wants this country to adopt policies towards the judiciary seen most recently in places such as Hungary and Poland.
This would be like Just Stop Oil criticising the government for road congestion on the days they were the ones preventing cars from moving
There will be reports that some of the men in small boats arriving at Dover aren’t really asylum seekers next
You have effective decriminalisation of shop lifting. Combined with other crimes dropping in return massively - burglary barely pays anyone. Drug dealing gets target by the police, heavily.
Look forward couple of years and all shops will have auto entry control. And if you look a bit like a shop lifter, Facial recognition (shared between shops) will say no. So no shopping for you.
It's just fatuous nonsense
That closes the ConLab gap (Lab down) even if it leaves the Conservatives on roughly the same share.
Not that it really matters at this point.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/kings-of-cocaine-albanian-mafia-uk-drugs-crime
Lt. Gen. Cavoli (SACEUR) told them how to do the counter-offensive but they didn’t do it his way and fucked it up so they probably need a change of political or militarily leadership to make any progress.
See the recent two parter in the WaPo for the details.
However, 24% isn't winning any elections - no matter what Reform Uk do.
On this occasion I’m not criticising his campaign for a second referendum after committing to enact the result of the first, or generally putting a spoke in the wheels of getting a deal done, but the cheek of saying there’s been seven years to do it when it’s been four, thanks in a large way to him
I wouldn't assume he'd have done any better.
https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/26b0dd30-b987-4d9c-8a2b-a6e6915e6019
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/open-britain-video-single-market-nigel-farage-anna-soubry_uk_582ce0a0e4b09025ba310fce
But I have no desire to relitigate fights from 5-6 years ago. We are where we are, because of the Tories. It is the Tories mess, and they own it.
But here you go:
...That a career in the PCP holds some bizarre attraction to conviction Lib Dems, and CCHQ continues to stuff the candidates lists with them is the great mystery of our age. Instead of continually fighting to 'modernise' the party so it's exactly the same as the other parties, why not fuck off and join one...
Doesn't make any more sense the second time around.
You're going to have to wait a few more years before you can start rewriting history we all lived through, I'm afraid.
Is Jenrick really about to vote for the bill he just resigned against?
@carlgardner
Absurd, but yet another way in which this Conservative split resembles Brexit in 2018-19. I seem to remember some resigned over May's approach then voted for it, such as Johnson, Davis and I think Raab.
British helicopter turned up and did some sonar things in the water, followed by iirc a frigate.
The direct allusion to "Cork Harbour" is a bit of a geographical stretch; perhaps the journo had Christmas drink taken.
NEW: Tory rebels being threatened with whip removal if they vote against tonight.
MPs told there will be “consequences”.
It’s getting hairy.
Here we have a seven year bitch
You seem to believe that wasn't the responsibility of the Brexiteers. Many of whom voted against all kinds of options.
BREAKING
Eight MPs representing the Democratic Unionist Party are said to be considering voting against Rishi Sunak's Rwanda plan, Westminster sources tell me
Ministers said to be aware. It would mean that just 21 Tory MPs are needed to defeat the Government.