Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
And yet in the one example in recent times where the UK had such a coalition, the people who most support PR bitched like hell about it, and the party which for decades had been advocating exactly that as their principal political aim now regards that one example of it in practice as a disaster which tainted their party for a generation. Rather odd, is it not, to argue for a great idea in theory but a disaster [in their own view] in practice?
Looking back, what was so wrong with the 10-15 gov't ?
Nothing, it was the best in 50 years with the exception of the Thatcher governments, which were a very special case. All the more bizarre that the LibDems regard it as a badge of shame.
The Tories screwed the Lib Dems over. Which at one level is normal. They have no interest in boosting a rival party. On the other hand the Tory government needed the Lib Dems at the time and the latter made real contributions to the government. Making the experience so unpleasant for their partners doesn't encourage them to engage with it later on. Not sure Cameron managed that tension well.
The Tories didn't screw the Lib Dems over, they screwed themselves over.
The Lib Dems brought good ideas to the table and the Tories happily took them then spent years saying "we've done this".
The Lib Dems didn't shout about their achievements, they looked weak and infirm. They didn't seem proud of what they'd done - and if they're not why should anyone else?
Things like the pupil premium, raising the tax threshold, the Tories more happily boast about what they've done than the party that suggested them at the election.
I agree the Lib Dems willingly walked into the trap set them by the Tories and can be said to be authors of their own misfortune. They won't want to author another misfortune like that again.
My question is whether the Tories should have been in the business of setting traps for their coalition partners and if it ultimately damaged them too. William Hague who was involved in the negotiations boasted at the time that he had killed off the Lib Dems
The Tories didn't lay traps. I didn't say they did.
The Tories took credit for the good ideas - and the Lib Dems let them do so.
All governments take credit for what goes right - and take the flak for what goes wrong, that's the nature of politics. But the Lib Dems abdicated taking responsibility for the 2010-15 government. The Lib Dems looked abashed at what was going on rather than proudly standing up and saying "look at this, this is us". That's on them not the Tories.
After five years of government what were Clegg and his MPs shouting that were their big achievements? Frankly the only thing I remember the Lib Dems coming up with during that time that they proudly shouted as their own was the 5p bag charge - which may have been a good environmental idea but was that a good legacy for five years in office?
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
So, first, it's not a "new" word in the normal sense of that word, as already discussed. It may be new to you of course, and is undoubtedly used more than in the past, largely I think thanks to the Me Too movement that has led to more discussion of abusive behaviour in relationships. I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't. I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
So those who voted Liberal Democrat were "represented" when their MPs supported a big rise in tuition fees? That's nice.
Yes. That is what coalition government means - making compromises for both partners. That was of course a helluva compromise but presumably they weighed up what they would achieve in return. Plus as junior partner they had no real choice.
The coalition imo was a perfect example of, er, a coalition. Of course many still don't forgive the LDs for going into power and not enacting 100% of the LD manifesto.
The flaw in the argument for me is that if people vote for someone who says they are going to do X and they then agree to do Not X it is meretricious to claim that those who voted for them on the basis of X are represented. They are not. They are deceived and adding their votes to the votes for the government is simply wrong.
I accept that countries that are used to Coalitions will learn this and vote in the knowledge that this is likely to happen but those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 really struggled to get over it.
But the LDs (in this instance) didn't get voted into government. No one did. The closest was the Cons. Surely people appreciate that if you are not voted into government with a majority then you can't be held to your election promises. I'm sure the LDs said words to the effect of "if we form the next government we will...." Which I'm sure they would have.
But they didn't form the next government, they were invited in as junior partners to a coalition.
That was the only shot at limited power they were given and they took it. Rightly in my view.
I was a fan of the Coalition government. As a socially liberal fiscally conservative voter it probably represented me better than any government in my life time. And I think that the country benefited in a big way so I would certainly agree that they did the right thing. But the argument that they had the support of 50%+ of the electorate is untrue in specific cases of which tuition fees is one of the more egregious examples.
To put it more bluntly, when politicians go into a room and come out with a compromise they don't represent those that voted for them, they represent themselves. It works, it may be necessary but it is not true to say it has democratic legitimacy.
Yes it does, because the public democratically entrusted them with the responsibility to sort something out should the situation of a hung parliament arise, even if we did not want that situation to arise.
It is completely democratically legitimate, what it may not be is ideal or desirable, or indeed as democratic as something else. But it is not democratically illegitimate for democratic representatives to act in such a manner.
In the sense that they are entitled to do so sure, but that is no more the case than it is under our system.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
It's overused. People seem to use it to suggest their opponent doesn't mean what they say they mean, which can be true sometimes, but conveniently means that you can claim your opponent is opposing you for sinister reasons to try to confuse reality rather than just because they oppose you.
Yes, just like virtue signalling is overused to claim people are saying things because they want to look good not because they actually believe them. Lots of phrases are misused or weaponised as rhetorical devices in political discourse, but that doesn't make them invalid or useless concepts.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
What word would you use for the process of gradually making someone doubt the reality that they know ?
The Post Office case is actually quite a good example - many were immune to the process, but quite a few came to believe that they must have made the (non existent) accounting mistakes that landed them in trouble.
(I agree with you, though, that it's a term used well beyond its actual meaning in the political sphere.)
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
So those who voted Liberal Democrat were "represented" when their MPs supported a big rise in tuition fees? That's nice.
Yes. That is what coalition government means - making compromises for both partners. That was of course a helluva compromise but presumably they weighed up what they would achieve in return. Plus as junior partner they had no real choice.
The coalition imo was a perfect example of, er, a coalition. Of course many still don't forgive the LDs for going into power and not enacting 100% of the LD manifesto.
The flaw in the argument for me is that if people vote for someone who says they are going to do X and they then agree to do Not X it is meretricious to claim that those who voted for them on the basis of X are represented. They are not. They are deceived and adding their votes to the votes for the government is simply wrong.
I accept that countries that are used to Coalitions will learn this and vote in the knowledge that this is likely to happen but those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 really struggled to get over it.
But the LDs (in this instance) didn't get voted into government. No one did. The closest was the Cons. Surely people appreciate that if you are not voted into government with a majority then you can't be held to your election promises. I'm sure the LDs said words to the effect of "if we form the next government we will...." Which I'm sure they would have.
But they didn't form the next government, they were invited in as junior partners to a coalition.
That was the only shot at limited power they were given and they took it. Rightly in my view.
I was a fan of the Coalition government. As a socially liberal fiscally conservative voter it probably represented me better than any government in my life time. And I think that the country benefited in a big way so I would certainly agree that they did the right thing. But the argument that they had the support of 50%+ of the electorate is untrue in specific cases of which tuition fees is one of the more egregious examples.
To put it more bluntly, when politicians go into a room and come out with a compromise they don't represent those that voted for them, they represent themselves. It works, it may be necessary but it is not true to say it has democratic legitimacy.
Yes it does, because the public democratically entrusted them with the responsibility to sort something out should the situation of a hung parliament arise, even if we did not want that situation to arise.
It is completely democratically legitimate, what it may not be is ideal or desirable, or indeed as democratic as something else. But it is not democratically illegitimate for democratic representatives to act in such a manner.
I think on that last point we will have to agree to differ.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
That depends entirely on whether or not the views of those MPs is being represented in Government. Would you say that the majority of those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 had their views represented in the 2010-2015 Coalition? I suspect not. The same would apply to many of those who voted Tory in that election.
Coalitions are a great excuse for party leaders to ignore their promises and ignore the electorate.
The electorate want different things. FPTP ignores a lot, in fact usually the majority, of the electorate.
And coalitions give them none of it. They serve the political parties not the electorate.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
And you drip drip this message out to others so they end up believing it. Victim and abuser have now in the eyes of the world swapped places.
Example in politics? The Kavanagh hearings imo had a gaslighty air at times.
A certain type of Conservative whose party has been in power for the last 10 years enabling austerity, bonfires of quangos, Brexit, Dom-ism and all that other good shit, yet still insists that the UK is being strangled by Cultural Marxism, the Blob, Common Purpose, political correctness gone mad, BLM, Wokeism, the EU etc reeks of gaslight imo.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
And yet in the one example in recent times where the UK had such a coalition, the people who most support PR bitched like hell about it, and the party which for decades had been advocating exactly that as their principal political aim now regards that one example of it in practice as a disaster which tainted their party for a generation. Rather odd, is it not, to argue for a great idea in theory but a disaster [in their own view] in practice?
It's actually an indication why I have a suspicion that it's the Conservatives and the parties of the right who would best adapt to PR.
The Tories first response has historically been "what can we do to ensure we keep at least one hand on the wheel?" while Labour's has been "We're morally right, we can't compromise, take it or leave it."
The fate of third parties in scenarios where they're potentially needed has been to be in danger of absorption by the Tories (hug them close and work with them) and exclusion by Labour.
The reaction to the Coalition years from some in the Lib Dems (not all) has emphasised that - that compromising to get a workable consensus is shameful due to a sort of desire for purity of purpose in a "holier than thou" kind of viewpoint.
While the Right were more on the way of "Hey, that worked okay, didn't get everything we wanted, but the blend of it seemed to work even better than either of us could have got alone. Still want to go it alone, of course, but yeah, that wasn't too bad."
(With some exceptions, of course).
I suspect that under PR, the Big Two would fragment into their true factions, and those who make up the Right would possibly work better together than those who make up the Left.
Could be balls, of course; it's just my personal suspicion.
This is an absurd debate. Of course this government is legitimate. That is not in question. At the same time the demand for people to pay it fealty is also absurd - just because the government is legitimate doesn't mean that you should like or respect the fact that its incompetence has killed tens of thousands of people and that the Brexit bomb is armed and ready to explode.
It it classic Tory gaslighting and hypocrisy.
OH NO!
"gaslighting"
Life is seriously too short to try to work out what it means.
A neologism too far.
Hardly a neologism. The term refers to a play by Patrick Hamilton (one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, imho) from 1938 and has been used colloquially as a term to mean a particular kind of psychological abuse since the 1960s. Perhaps you need to lift your ban on learning new things, who knows, you might learn something!
No it hasn't.
Wikipedia disagrees with you.
So what. It has not been in any kind of common usage until a few months ago.
The term gaslighting has been around for years, certainly before the accession of Trump.
Yes indeed. I feel, anecdotally, that its use has ramped up considerably and people are broadening its use to its detriment, but the idea its not been around for a long time us not sustainable
Gaslighting is an excellent term when used correctly. Of course it often isn't but that's the case with most terms coined to describe something both complex and specific.
My theory is that people tend to react adversely to terms which are frequently used by those of the opposite politics to them. They say things like "meaningless" or "pretentious tosh" or "tired old cliche" or "not even a real word" when the reality is they do understand it but don't wish to acknowledge the existence of what it's describing.
So, typically, you will get right wingers bridling at this one - gaslighting - since it is mainly used by the Left. Not sure why but it is. Other examples of this are "islamophobia" and "white privilege" and "mansplaining". These terms irritate the hell out of the reactionary antiwokerati.
But it's not one way traffic. It works the other way too. "Virtue signalling" for example. People on the Left instinctively hate that one. And increasingly "Woke" as it becomes weaponized as an insult rather than offered as a compliment.
They're all good terms though imo. Overused, misused, but invaluable in the right context.
I think you're right, and that's why I think ones like virtue signalling and snowflake can be very useful and applicable across the spectrum.
Interesting pair of examples.
Snowflake, the Left has successfully neutralized this one by managing to turn it around and use it (with the same meaning) against the Right as often as it is used BY the Right. This has worked because it is clear there are as many if not more right wingers who are easily triggered by nothing much - i.e. are "snowflakes" - as there are left wingers.
Virtue signalling, not so much. This remains an insult owned and used almost exclusively by the Right. It's next to impossible for the Left to turn this one around because right wingers so rarely openly express virtuous sentiments. They keep such virtue as they possess well hidden.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
I would draw a distinction between games that have been monetised by allowing participants to buy things for real money (eg packs in FIFA or pretty much anything in GTA) and those where you "earn" your stake in the game. The former is clearly gambling. The latter more of a game.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
So, first, it's not a "new" word in the normal sense of that word, as already discussed. It may be new to you of course, and is undoubtedly used more than in the past, largely I think thanks to the Me Too movement that has led to more discussion of abusive behaviour in relationships. I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't. I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
In that case it can just as easily be the other way round - the wife gaslighting the husband via an accusation.
One definition is:Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem
That's the problem with the concept - an accusation of it almost automatically meets the definition.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
Sure, most constituencies have more than 2 candidates. But in the vast majority of seats there either one very clear favourite or a competition between just two candidates. Three or more way battles are rare.
I would draw a distinction between games that have been monetised by allowing participants to buy things for real money (eg packs in FIFA or pretty much anything in GTA) and those where you "earn" your stake in the game. The former is clearly gambling. The latter more of a game.
I agree 100%, though that's likely to kill most mobile games potentially as they all seem to be going down that route.
I think games where you buy a random item but they are all fairly equal or innocuous is one thing (eg random colours or images that don't particularly affect gameplay) but getting eg an in-game advantage like better weapon or better player etc is a major issue.
Interesting article on which ads seem to be working for the Democrats, and which don't.
Democratic ad makers think they’ve discovered Trump’s soft spot https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/02/democrats-ads-trump-341903 ...Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and recent protests, he said, “really made concrete for people the ways in which his leadership has direct consequences on them and their loved ones … It’s easier to make ads that talk about his leadership than before the outbreak.”
The advertising elements that appear to work, according to interviews with more than a dozen Democrats involved in message research, vary from ad to ad. Using Trump’s own words against him often tests well, as do charts and other graphics, which serve to highlight Trump’s distaste for science. Voters who swung from President Barack Obama to Trump in 2016 — and who regret it — are good messengers. And so is Joe Biden, whose voice is widely considered preferable to that of a professional narrator. Not only does he convey empathy, according to Democrats inside and outside Biden's campaign, but using Biden's voice "helps people think about him as president," said Patrick Bonsignore, Biden’s director of paid media.
But the ad makers’ overarching takeaway from their research was this: While Trump may not be vulnerable on issues of character alone, as he demonstrated in 2016, he is vulnerable when character is tied to his policy record on the economy and health care....
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
Sure, most constituencies have more than 2 candidates. But in the vast majority of seats there either one very clear favourite or a competition between just two candidates. Three or more way battles are rare.
So you can make an educated decision. You get at least two pre-formed coalitions ready for government giving a negotiated prospectus that you can approve or reject, or you can signal your preferences with a third party vote.
Under PR there is no such equivalent election once the negotiated prospectus has been created as the election has already happened.
Having a choice of two is a better choice than no choice at all.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
It didn't matter who I voted for. I was getting either Johnson or Corbyn as Prime Minister. That's one reason the Big Two adhere to FPTP. It makes any change from them enormously difficult. I don't think anyone is pretending that FPTP doesn't lock in the existing Big Two unless there's a truly colossal shift. It's the entire driver for things like dodgy bar charts (trying to emphasise the discrepancy between local representation and government, because FPTP conflates the two hugely).
FPTP gives party government, and presses down to two parties who are the incumbent Big Two. It's possible to change that, but requires massive and sustained stupidity from an incumbent or very special circumstances.
FPTP means that we get to choose from whatever the current Tory Leader offers us or whatever the current Labour Leader offers us. That's the only choice we get. We can hope at least one is overall palatable.
Note the import declaration setting out the customs codes for all the goods in the consignment. For a supermarket delivery that can be 4,000 items.
Mainland UK companies are not going to export to Northern Ireland. It's just not worth it for a tiny and anomalous market. Northern Ireland will be supplied from the South. Supermarkets will close up shop in NI unless they have operations in the Republic, which I think is Tescos and Lidl, but not ASDA or Saisnbury's
I would draw a distinction between games that have been monetised by allowing participants to buy things for real money (eg packs in FIFA or pretty much anything in GTA) and those where you "earn" your stake in the game. The former is clearly gambling. The latter more of a game.
I agree 100%, though that's likely to kill most mobile games potentially as they all seem to be going down that route.
I think games where you buy a random item but they are all fairly equal or innocuous is one thing (eg random colours or images that don't particularly affect gameplay) but getting eg an in-game advantage like better weapon or better player etc is a major issue.
But the ad makers’ overarching takeaway from their research was this: While Trump may not be vulnerable on issues of character alone, as he demonstrated in 2016, he is vulnerable when character is tied to his policy record on the economy and health care.
I think that's always the case. It applies in the UK to how best Labour should attack Boris. I think Starmer understands this.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
That depends entirely on whether or not the views of those MPs is being represented in Government. Would you say that the majority of those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 had their views represented in the 2010-2015 Coalition? I suspect not. The same would apply to many of those who voted Tory in that election.
Coalitions are a great excuse for party leaders to ignore their promises and ignore the electorate.
The electorate want different things. FPTP ignores a lot, in fact usually the majority, of the electorate.
No it doesn't as if the electorate feels ignored under FPTP then they can elect someone else under FPTP. The opposition can appeal to unite those who feel ignored behind them in order to win power.
I think you know this is rubbish. Because something "can" happen does not mean that it is realistic. Did you feel that the opposition united to appeal to unite the ignored in 2005? Or were you a Blairite back then?
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
And yet in the one example in recent times where the UK had such a coalition, the people who most support PR bitched like hell about it, and the party which for decades had been advocating exactly that as their principal political aim now regards that one example of it in practice as a disaster which tainted their party for a generation. Rather odd, is it not, to argue for a great idea in theory but a disaster [in their own view] in practice?
Looking back, what was so wrong with the 10-15 gov't ?
Nothing, it was the best in 50 years with the exception of the Thatcher governments, which were a very special case. All the more bizarre that the LibDems regard it as a badge of shame.
If their signature achievement was getting on top of the public finances following the bank crash - which certainly is the self image of that government, it's identity if you like - it could be a challenge to maintain that accolade if this Tory government opts for magic money over sound money in response to the corona crash. It will then look for all the world as if "austerity" last time was political choice not financial necessity. I predict some interesting debate in this area over the next few years. You (and Dave and George and Nick) need to get a believable story ready to roll.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
It didn't matter who I voted for. I was getting either Johnson or Corbyn as Prime Minister. That's one reason the Big Two adhere to FPTP. It makes any change from them enormously difficult. I don't think anyone is pretending that FPTP doesn't lock in the existing Big Two unless there's a truly colossal shift. It's the entire driver for things like dodgy bar charts (trying to emphasise the discrepancy between local representation and government, because FPTP conflates the two hugely).
FPTP gives party government, and presses down to two parties who are the incumbent Big Two. It's possible to change that, but requires massive and sustained stupidity from an incumbent or very special circumstances.
FPTP means that we get to choose from whatever the current Tory Leader offers us or whatever the current Labour Leader offers us. That's the only choice we get. We can hope at least one is overall palatable.
The only reason that you are getting either Corbyn or Johnson unless there's a big shift is because that is who the public is voting for. No more, no less.
It happens under other electoral systems. In Ireland there was going to be either Varadkar or Martin to be the next Taoiseach even though the most votes went to Sinn Fein led by McDonald.
I fail to see how STV gave any more real educated choice there than FPTP has here.
I would draw a distinction between games that have been monetised by allowing participants to buy things for real money (eg packs in FIFA or pretty much anything in GTA) and those where you "earn" your stake in the game. The former is clearly gambling. The latter more of a game.
I agree 100%, though that's likely to kill most mobile games potentially as they all seem to be going down that route.
I think games where you buy a random item but they are all fairly equal or innocuous is one thing (eg random colours or images that don't particularly affect gameplay) but getting eg an in-game advantage like better weapon or better player etc is a major issue.
If you know what you are buying then that's OK legally, I think. The problem is when you don't, and there's a chance (a low chance, mind) of getting something really good.
Even when you do know what you are buying, it is still a poor way of doing things, particularly when children are involved.
I'm not sure why games started doing this (rather than just charging an up-front fee). Piracy, or just more lucrative?
It destroys the whole concept of a game if you can buy your way in. Although you can buy better equipment for sports (and many industries are based on pretending such equipment makes more of a difference than it actually does) it isn't quite the same thing.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
That depends entirely on whether or not the views of those MPs is being represented in Government. Would you say that the majority of those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 had their views represented in the 2010-2015 Coalition? I suspect not. The same would apply to many of those who voted Tory in that election.
Coalitions are a great excuse for party leaders to ignore their promises and ignore the electorate.
The electorate want different things. FPTP ignores a lot, in fact usually the majority, of the electorate.
And coalitions give them none of it. They serve the political parties not the electorate.
Having lived in 3 countries, two with an FPTP lower house and one with a Hybrid-PR lower house, I can say that the one with the PR serves their electorate much better than the other two do.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
Sure, most constituencies have more than 2 candidates. But in the vast majority of seats there either one very clear favourite or a competition between just two candidates. Three or more way battles are rare.
So you can make an educated decision. You get at least two pre-formed coalitions ready for government giving a negotiated prospectus that you can approve or reject, or you can signal your preferences with a third party vote.
Under PR there is no such equivalent election once the negotiated prospectus has been created as the election has already happened.
Having a choice of two is a better choice than no choice at all.
Still, it's funny how voters in countries with PR are generally much more satisfied with the state of democracy in their countries. You'd think if they were voting in a system that gave them what you laughably call "no choice at all" they wouldn't be so happy about it.
Or have a look at the Democracy Index: the top six ranked countries all have some form of PR.
If their signature achievement was getting on top of the public finances following the bank crash - which certainly is the self image of that government, it's identity if you like - it could be a challenge to maintain that accolade if this Tory government opts for magic money over sound money in response to the corona crash. It will then look for all the world as if "austerity" last time was political choice not financial necessity. I predict some interesting debate in this area over the next few years. You (and Dave and George and Nick) need to get a believable story ready to roll.
I don't need a story at all. I'm in no way responsible for this government, didn't vote for it, and have never voted in any election for Boris. Nor are Dave and George responsible for it. They were on the other side of the civil war.
As for 'austerity' (stupid word!), it's coming, irrespective of what this or any other government does. You can't have a mega crash of the economy without wealth being destroyed, that's kinda what it means. And less wealth means less government revenues.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
That depends entirely on whether or not the views of those MPs is being represented in Government. Would you say that the majority of those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 had their views represented in the 2010-2015 Coalition? I suspect not. The same would apply to many of those who voted Tory in that election.
Coalitions are a great excuse for party leaders to ignore their promises and ignore the electorate.
The electorate want different things. FPTP ignores a lot, in fact usually the majority, of the electorate.
No it doesn't as if the electorate feels ignored under FPTP then they can elect someone else under FPTP. The opposition can appeal to unite those who feel ignored behind them in order to win power.
I think you know this is rubbish. Because something "can" happen does not mean that it is realistic. Did you feel that the opposition united to appeal to unite the ignored in 2005? Or were you a Blairite back then?
I think Howard tried to with his "are you thinking what I'm thinking" spiel in 2005. I don't think he did a good job of it, but I think he was trying. Cameron did a better job of it in 2010 which is why he won.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
And yet in the one example in recent times where the UK had such a coalition, the people who most support PR bitched like hell about it, and the party which for decades had been advocating exactly that as their principal political aim now regards that one example of it in practice as a disaster which tainted their party for a generation. Rather odd, is it not, to argue for a great idea in theory but a disaster [in their own view] in practice?
Looking back, what was so wrong with the 10-15 gov't ?
Nothing, it was the best in 50 years with the exception of the Thatcher governments, which were a very special case. All the more bizarre that the LibDems regard it as a badge of shame.
The Tories screwed the Lib Dems over. Which at one level is normal. They have no interest in boosting a rival party. On the other hand the Tory government needed the Lib Dems at the time and the latter made real contributions to the government. Making the experience so unpleasant for their partners doesn't encourage them to engage with it later on. Not sure Cameron managed that tension well.
Yes and no. Clegg was happy being screwed. The policy shift on tuition fees? Made by him and Laws and not even communicated to his MPs. The decision to stay in lockstep with the Tories right up to dissolution and the election being called? All on Clegg. Soft Tory voters approving of the government decided they may as well vote Tory which is how so many yellow seats went Blue.
The lesson isn't that the coalition government was bad. It wasn't. Its that Clegg was happy to give ground for little reward - LibDem MPs more loyally voted for Tory bills they disagreed with than Tory MPs did. Clegg could have held a gun to Cameron's head as Foster did to May, but didn't. Because he enjoyed being screwed by Cameron.
It would have turned out better for the LDs had their anti-Coalition MPs sat on the Opposition benches. Intially that group would probably been in low single figures , but long before 2015 it would have grown to be bigger than today's LD parliamentary party.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
It's overused. People seem to use it to suggest their opponent doesn't mean what they say they mean, which can be true sometimes, but conveniently means that you can claim your opponent is opposing you for sinister reasons to try to confuse reality rather than just because they oppose you.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
That last paragraph was striking. Is there a legal limit of 25,000 tests they can perform or something?
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
Sure, most constituencies have more than 2 candidates. But in the vast majority of seats there either one very clear favourite or a competition between just two candidates. Three or more way battles are rare.
So you can make an educated decision. You get at least two pre-formed coalitions ready for government giving a negotiated prospectus that you can approve or reject, or you can signal your preferences with a third party vote.
Under PR there is no such equivalent election once the negotiated prospectus has been created as the election has already happened.
Having a choice of two is a better choice than no choice at all.
Still, it's funny how voters in countries with PR are generally much more satisfied with the state of democracy in their countries. You'd think if they were voting in a system that gave them what you laughably call "no choice at all" they wouldn't be so happy about it.
Or have a look at the Democracy Index: the top six ranked countries all have some form of PR.
I see no evidence that voters in PR countries are much more satisfied.
The "Democracy Index" is opaque and lacks transparency as to how numbers are generated. The UK is losing points due "functioning of government" and "political culture" - why? Australia is losing points due to "political participation" despite the fact that turnout at elections in Australia is 100% (!)
You're not usually guilty of this, but posting a bald tweet without any explanation, especially aa the content of this one is mystifying, can be frustrating.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
I picked up on it but agree with it and have said so myself here before.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
You're not usually guilty of this, but posting a bald tweet without any explanation, especially aa the content of this one is mystifying, can be frustrating.
It’s referring to a thread posted a few times on here about a brexiteer family that were supposedly going to be kicked out of their French home at the end of the transition, and how they were totally pissed at Brussels because of it. It was so obviously fake I’m not sure why it garnered this much attention.
I would draw a distinction between games that have been monetised by allowing participants to buy things for real money (eg packs in FIFA or pretty much anything in GTA) and those where you "earn" your stake in the game. The former is clearly gambling. The latter more of a game.
I agree 100%, though that's likely to kill most mobile games potentially as they all seem to be going down that route.
I think games where you buy a random item but they are all fairly equal or innocuous is one thing (eg random colours or images that don't particularly affect gameplay) but getting eg an in-game advantage like better weapon or better player etc is a major issue.
The loot boxes issue is slightly more specific, in that the prizes have a wide variety of values and you don’t know what you’ve ‘won’ until after you paid for it.
It’s like paying £100 for a box that might contain either a toothbrush or an iPhone. Guess what most of them contain? It’s gambling, and should be regulated as gambling.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
Twenty thousand streets under the sky and Hangover Square are both really good. The BBC did a great adaptation of the former a few years ago.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
If you are in a safe seat yes, if you are in a marginal constituency you would be less safe than being elected on the list in your region under PR
This is right. There will be no portillo moment in Germany (which has a FPTP/PR hybrid). If a high-up candidate looses their seat (direct mandate) then they will almost always get into the Bundestag via the party list for the PR part.
I still prefer PR and variants to pure FPTP.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Not by what they voted for they're not.
Yes they are. Voters who voted SPD are being represented by SPD MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CDU are being represented by CDU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for. Voters who voted CSU are being represented by CSU MPs in the government, for the policies that they voted for.
Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
No, the politicians elected are getting their bums into government, getting ministerial salaries and limousines etc but the voters aren't getting what they voted for.
We only need to look in the UK. In 2010 are you claiming that Liberal Democrat voters in 2010 voted to make David Cameron Prime Minister and to have Tuition Fees trebled?
I wasn't a member at the time, but wasn't the Coalition agreement endorsed in a members ballot of LibDems?
I don't think so, I believe it was endorsed by LD MPs and the Executive but not members and certainly not voters.
The idea you can simply add all LD voters and all Tory voters together and by magic claim a majority voted for this agreement is nonsense. Two Liberal Democrat MPs (including Charles Kennedy himself) voted against the agreement. There would have been a great many Liberal Democrat voters thinking the same as Charles Kennedy.
Same too for the Tories.
I do not claim "a majority voted for this agreement". I claim that a majority voted for that collection of politicians. Those politicians then (should) negotiate the best they can for those who voted for them. That is what democratic politics is about.
But our system is better.
Under our system the negotiations to form a coalition, a manifesto took place before the election and the voters go into the election fully educated on what the various internal coalitions look like and choose the most popular one of those. That is what democratic politics is about.
The flip side is that you get far reduced choice. There are loads of areas involved, and these get boiled down to two choices - and if both parties offer the same thing, you get no choice at all.
It's arguably why the entire Brexit debacle happened. Neither party offered an exit or even a meaningful reduction in EU measures.
A PR system gives the voters the opportunity to determine the representation of their views in Parliament - all their views, across the entire spectrum. Not based on the Party Leaders second-guessing and judging what the electorate is allowed to choose from.
If 35% of the population want x, 35% of the representatives will argue for x in Parliament, and will have an opportunity to push for x in coalition negotiations. They probably won't get it all (unless the rest of the population and their representatives don't really mind either way), but they may get some of it, or at least will get to represent that view and push for it.
If they make a bad job of representing that view, we kick the representatives out and try with others.
Under FPTP, they get nothing. Unless the vote is split between other parties which may be standing on completely different things, in which case they could even get a majority (like Labour in 2005). They don't get moderated by other views, they don't have to seek consensus or agreement - they just impose it.
For me, it's a sort of free market thing. FPTP reduces the choices and feedback mechanisms on the views and ideologies. You get what the top politicians of two specific parties decide to offer, and nothing else. They're second-guessing which elements of a huge and interrelated offering are what does or does not appeal (and that also depends on the offering the other one gave, which might have attraction and repulsion in completely different areas and for different reasons). It gives monopolistic strength to the Big Two and insulates them from the feedback (doesn't matter how bad they are, they're incredibly unlikely to weaken below 160 seats (Tories) or 200 seats (Labour), and to ever be more than 2 elections from absolute power.
The true strength of liberalism, euroscepticism, secularism, internationalism, collectivism, conservatism, environmentalism, moralism, or whatever in the electorate isn't represented in our representative democracy. It can't be.
I disagree with your conclusion. Just because we don't have liberals, eurosceptics, secularist segregated into their own parties doesn't mean they're not represented in our representative democracy.
I could point to an MP of the top of my head who represents every single one of those characterists you've named. Every single one of them.
That's not because their party is necessarily like that, but because our parties form coalitions and those coalitions adapt - but importantly the coalitions present themselves for what they are before the election rather than afterwards. Its more intellectually honest.
For me its a sort of free market thing too. PR is like suggesting that you can only buy alcohol from an off licence, can only buy meat from a butcher, can only buy vegetables from a greengrocer. Whereas FPTP is simply a rough and ready free market where more well rounded parties are formed that do a bit of everything and you can freely choose, with full knowledge, what it is that you want.
Our parties adapt really well to the public because of the ruthless nature of First Past the Post that rewards success and penalises failure. If 35% of the public wants x then that is a major incentive for one or both of the parties to prioritise x in order to win that 35% of the vote, they don't need to wait until after the election to make compromises.
Just because you can see MPs who represent one of each of the characteristics doesn't mean that I (or any particular elector) can vote for that stance.
The Government, under FPTP, will consist of a Conservative one or a Labour one. It doesn't matter if some MP somewhere else in the country is a great match for all of my beliefs and desires. I probably won't get to vote for that MP, and I certainly won't get a Government that represents it - unless Boris or Corbyn (last time around) agreed with it. And the choice boils down to which one I would find least repugnant. Not which one represents my views.
The FPTP offering gives a take-it-or-leave-it offering. You go to the butcher and can get one of two things. You can't even ask for anything else. A or B. Nothing else. No other choice. If your views aren't represented (eg "May or Corbyn"?), it's tough. Your views aren't important in this Parliament. Unless the Party itself just happens to carry out backroom manouevring that ends up with an outcome you like, but that's not down to the voters.
The Parties will adjust to what the voters say they want - based on their own rationalisation of what they really want (the voters say they want this, they mean they want to nationalise everything/ the voters say they want that, they mean they want to kick immigrants out) and what the other party is saying (they've lost touch; we can say or do what we like).
If 35% of the voters want x, then the voters can vote for x (rather than against Corbyn, or against May, or whatever) and don't have to vote for a, b, c, k, l, m, n, o, and p because the other party is offering a load of stuff including more things they find eminently repugnant). And the Parties will be able to see that 35% of the voters do want x, because 35% of the MPs will be elected based on wanting x.
There are very few constituencies in the country to only have two options standing in them, there's normally at least three. You can pick whichever option suits you best.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
Sure, most constituencies have more than 2 candidates. But in the vast majority of seats there either one very clear favourite or a competition between just two candidates. Three or more way battles are rare.
Yes, and even in three-way battles a lot of campaigning reduces to arguing it's really a two-way battle, an argument that wastes everyone's time, but becomes central to voters' thinking.
If the election-winning debate in a seat like Putney is "who out of Labour or Lib Dems has the best chance of beating the Tories", how well are the challenges facing the country being debated?
FPTP is a barrier to effective democratic debate.
Every Labour election campaign I can remember has essentially been, "only Labour can beat the Tories." Look how lost Scottish Labour have been in Scotland since PR at Holyrood proved that the SNP could beat the Tories too.
Unlike some of the more misguided supporters of STV I don't believe that it will suddenly create an electorate that will vote for the things I vote for. But I'd prefer to lose the debate on the politics than on the game of guessing how other people will vote.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
I would draw a distinction between games that have been monetised by allowing participants to buy things for real money (eg packs in FIFA or pretty much anything in GTA) and those where you "earn" your stake in the game. The former is clearly gambling. The latter more of a game.
I agree 100%, though that's likely to kill most mobile games potentially as they all seem to be going down that route.
I think games where you buy a random item but they are all fairly equal or innocuous is one thing (eg random colours or images that don't particularly affect gameplay) but getting eg an in-game advantage like better weapon or better player etc is a major issue.
The loot boxes issue is slightly more specific, in that the prizes have a wide variety of values and you don’t know what you’ve ‘won’ until after you paid for it.
It’s like paying £100 for a box that might contain either a toothbrush or an iPhone. Guess what most of them contain? It’s gambling, and should be regulated as gambling.
I know that, I'm saying most games seems to be going that way on mobile now especially. The idea of "if you want x it costs y" seems to be going out of fashion in the game industry right now.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
No, just file it under nobody giving a crap what you think.
Interesting article on which ads seem to be working for the Democrats, and which don't.
Democratic ad makers think they’ve discovered Trump’s soft spot https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/02/democrats-ads-trump-341903 ...Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and recent protests, he said, “really made concrete for people the ways in which his leadership has direct consequences on them and their loved ones … It’s easier to make ads that talk about his leadership than before the outbreak.”
The advertising elements that appear to work, according to interviews with more than a dozen Democrats involved in message research, vary from ad to ad. Using Trump’s own words against him often tests well, as do charts and other graphics, which serve to highlight Trump’s distaste for science. Voters who swung from President Barack Obama to Trump in 2016 — and who regret it — are good messengers. And so is Joe Biden, whose voice is widely considered preferable to that of a professional narrator. Not only does he convey empathy, according to Democrats inside and outside Biden's campaign, but using Biden's voice "helps people think about him as president," said Patrick Bonsignore, Biden’s director of paid media.
But the ad makers’ overarching takeaway from their research was this: While Trump may not be vulnerable on issues of character alone, as he demonstrated in 2016, he is vulnerable when character is tied to his policy record on the economy and health care....
Sounds right.
"Yeah, he can be crude and stuff, can't say I like all of that, wish he'd tone it down sometimes - but, you know, he's not really a politician he's a businessman and he knows how to get things done. Reckon he's doing a pretty good job on the whole."
This has to be exploded. The same sentiment - with last sentence replaced by "Reckon he deserves a shot" - was central to his win in 2016.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
i would expect a UK wide enquiry
Why? It is not going to be politically expedient for the Johnson Government to get slated for political errors made, unless it takes many, many years to report, and we will have forgotten all about Coronavirus by then.
I went to Asda for the first time today in 14 weeks and only a handful of people were wearing masks. The organisation by Asda was impressive and I felt confident but kept social distance
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
The bible is not a work of anything at all. It is a compilation by various committees of different books from different places about different things. That is why its chapters are denoted Book of XXX.
The bounties were allegedly to kill coalition -- including British -- troops. What's our new National Security Adviser said about it? Or the old one? And when will Boris publish the report into Russian interference in our politics?
If the Conservatives were clean, they would publish it. They haven´t, so they aren´t. The Johnson government is not legitimate.
You may not like this government, you may want to attack it, but it is the most legitimate government in recent history after winning an 80 seat majority just 8 months ago
Err, with only a minority (43%) of the vote and with more people voting for parties opposing its principal Brexit policy than voted for it.
Name one party opposing Brexit that you think should be the government?
The government won millions of votes more than any other party. You can't sum up all other parties votes and add them together that's not legitimate, if the other parties voters all wanted the same thing they'd have all voted for the same party. They chose not to do so.
Whilst what you say is obviously true, and of course the govt should be in power, there are different levels of legitimacy. If it had won over half the vote that would have made it more legitimate even if thats a extremely harsh bar to set given our political system. Similarly if they paid more respect to the rule of law and our unwritten constitution they would be more legitimate. Of course they are the most legitimate available because they won the election but their actions and behaviour undermine that.
Can you name any western countries in your definition which are legitimate with your phrasing?
And no coalitions don't count unless they were a defined coalition standing in the election united (like the Coalition in Australia) since the public did not vote for them.
"coalitions don't count" is just something you made up because you seem to like the not so democratic UK system.
I didn't make it up, coalitions did not get voted for at the election unless they were a defined coalition at the election.
If the desire is to get the mandate of 50% plus of votes at the election then you need 50% plus of votes at the election. The coalitions only got 50% plus at the election if they stood at the election.
As I said, something you just made up.
Here in Germany there is a legitimate elected coalition government. The proportion of people complaining about the voting system here is tiny compared to the UK. Once you've persuaded some Germans that their government is less legitimate than the UK's I'll start listening to your nonsense.
The only ones whinging here are those who don't like the results. When it was put to a referendum two-thirds of the country chose to keep our voting system.
Just because sore losers whinge doesn't make them right.
The German government is less legitimate than the British government. In Britain quite self-evidently 44% of the country voted for Johnson to be PM and 44% of the country voted for the government we have.
In Germany by contrast 33% of the country voted for Merkel to be Chancellor and 0% of the country voted for the government they have.
The fact that our government was determined on election night while the German government was determined SIX MONTHS after the election shows the farce of claims that electoral system is "more legitimate".
This is absolutely right. With PR the only ones who win are the politicians. No one can know what the final Government make up will be so no one can say they got the Government they voted for.
If there were any truth in that, there would be a lot more politicians angling for PR!
That our politicians remain so keen on our current system, where most of them have jobs for life mostly immune from electoral pressure, tells us all we need to know.
Not really because the power of MPs is even less under many PR systems than it is under FPTP. Power rests with party leaders and management not with the MPs.
But not with STV, Mr Tyndall. If a candidate rebels against the party whip, but is well supported by his constituents, he will still get elected.
With STV the party machine cannot control who is elected, or even who is nominated (because a candidate can always stand as an independent, with a fair chance of success). The individual MP is weakened when his life is totally controlled by the party machine - as we see with the present crop of spineless Tory MPs, who owe their election to the Conservative Party machine (and the Russians, of course!)
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
PHE was set up by the Conservative government iirc. It was one of Lansley's idiotic idea.
Johnson likes to pretend the party has only be running the country since December.
You're not usually guilty of this, but posting a bald tweet without any explanation, especially aa the content of this one is mystifying, can be frustrating.
It’s referring to a thread posted a few times on here about a brexiteer family that were supposedly going to be kicked out of their French home at the end of the transition, and how they were totally pissed at Brussels because of it. It was so obviously fake I’m not sure why it garnered this much attention.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
No, just file it under nobody giving a crap what you think.
Yet you took the time to reply to me, even though you are an arsehole
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
Twenty thousand streets under the sky and Hangover Square are both really good. The BBC did a great adaptation of the former a few years ago.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
i would expect a UK wide enquiry
Why? It is not going to be politically expedient for the Johnson Government to get slated for political errors made, unless it takes many, many years to report, and we will have forgotten all about Coronavirus by then.
A once in a century pandemic? You can be pretty sure there will be one. Luckily for Johnson it’ll likely take a while.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
No, just file it under nobody giving a crap what you think.
Yet you took the time to reply to me, even though you are an arsehole
I would draw a distinction between games that have been monetised by allowing participants to buy things for real money (eg packs in FIFA or pretty much anything in GTA) and those where you "earn" your stake in the game. The former is clearly gambling. The latter more of a game.
I agree 100%, though that's likely to kill most mobile games potentially as they all seem to be going down that route.
I think games where you buy a random item but they are all fairly equal or innocuous is one thing (eg random colours or images that don't particularly affect gameplay) but getting eg an in-game advantage like better weapon or better player etc is a major issue.
The loot boxes issue is slightly more specific, in that the prizes have a wide variety of values and you don’t know what you’ve ‘won’ until after you paid for it.
It’s like paying £100 for a box that might contain either a toothbrush or an iPhone. Guess what most of them contain? It’s gambling, and should be regulated as gambling.
I know that, I'm saying most games seems to be going that way on mobile now especially. The idea of "if you want x it costs y" seems to be going out of fashion in the game industry right now.
Because in most cases, gambling isn’t really an effective description either. It’s at best misrepresentation and at worst straight out theft.
It’s also massively addictive and massively profitable, which is why they’re all doing it. A lot of these games have only a handful of developers and are making millions a month, mostly from a small number of addicted users. They’re no better than FOBTs, but on your phone and marketed to children.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
PHE was set up by the Conservative government iirc. It was one of Lansley's idiotic idea.
Johnson likes to pretend the party has only be running the country since December.
Well he's sort of right.
Johnson threw non-repentant Remainers out of the Party. They were replaced, along with successful Red Wall challengers, by a new wave of loyalists. Different animals to the Patrician Feudal Tories who went before.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
So, first, it's not a "new" word in the normal sense of that word, as already discussed. It may be new to you of course, and is undoubtedly used more than in the past, largely I think thanks to the Me Too movement that has led to more discussion of abusive behaviour in relationships. I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't. I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
In that case it can just as easily be the other way round - the wife gaslighting the husband via an accusation.
One definition is:Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem
That's the problem with the concept - an accusation of it almost automatically meets the definition.
Exactly.
You never do any housework. I always do the housework.
Gaslighting from one side or both, as you point out, and hence meaningless as a descriptor.
But if you employ "unspoken assumptions" against the person who you don't like then you can be sure that people like @OnlyLivingBoy will say they are the ones doing the gaslighting.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
PHE was set up by the Conservative government iirc. It was one of Lansley's idiotic idea.
Johnson likes to pretend the party has only be running the country since December.
This government has been. Before December it lacked a majority.
Andrew Lansley isn't an MP and hasn't been for years. He's from a prior government. Suggesting Boris is responsible for Lansley is like suggesting Starmer/Corbyn are responsible for Blair.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
i would expect a UK wide enquiry
Why? It is not going to be politically expedient for the Johnson Government to get slated for political errors made, unless it takes many, many years to report, and we will have forgotten all about Coronavirus by then.
A once in a century pandemic? You can be pretty sure there will be one. Luckily for Johnson it’ll likely take a while.
And by a while, we could be looking well into the next parliament. So what's the point?
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Aue for a great idea in theory but a disaster [in their own view] in practice?
Looking back, what was so wrong with the 10-15 gov't ?
Nothing, it was the best in 50 years with the exception of the Thatcher governments, which were a very special case. All the more bizarre that the LibDems regard it as a badge of shame.
The Tories sc
The Tories didn't screw the Lib Dems over, they screwed themselves over.
The Lib Dems brought good ideas to the table and the Tories happily took them then spent years saying "we've done this".
The Lib Dems didn't shout about their achievements, they looked weak and infirm. They didn't seem proud of what they'd done - and if they're not why should anyone else?
Things like the pupil premium, raising the tax threshold, the Tories more happily boast about what they've done than the party that suggested them at the election.
I agree the Libho was involved in the negotiations boasted at the time that he had killed off the Lib Dems
The Tories didn't lay traps. I didn't say they did.
The Tories took credit for the good ideas - and the Lib Dems let them do so.
All governments take credit for what goes right - and take the flak for what goes wrong, that's the nature of politics. But the Lib Dems abdicated taking responsibility for the 2010-15 government. The Lib Dems looked abashed at what was going on rather than proudly standing up and saying "look at this, this is us". That's on them not the Tories.
After five years of government what were Clegg and his MPs shouting that were their big achievements? Frankly the only thing I remember the Lib Dems coming up with during that time that they proudly shouted as their own was the 5p bag charge - which may have been a good environmental idea but was that a good legacy for five years in office?
The Lib Dems were buggered by the 2010 election result. The Conservatives fell just short of the number of seats they needed to govern on their own (which doesn't need to be an overall majority). They needed a coalition partner. The Lib Dems could have let the Conservatives form a minority government, but sooner or later, it would have called an election, which it would have won.
The Lib Dems could, technically, have formed a coalition with Labour, the SNP, Plaid, and the SDLP to keep out the Tories, but it would have fallen apart eventually, and the Conservatives would have won a crushing majority.
What they needed was for the Conservatives to win enough seats to form a government on their own, leaving them in the position of not having to pick a side - every politician's worst nightmare.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
i would expect a UK wide enquiry
Why? It is not going to be politically expedient for the Johnson Government to get slated for political errors made, unless it takes many, many years to report, and we will have forgotten all about Coronavirus by then.
A once in a century pandemic? You can be pretty sure there will be one. Luckily for Johnson it’ll likely take a while.
And by a while, we could be looking well into the next parliament. So what's the point?
What’s the point? To learn what went wrong. I suppose you think the primary purpose is to cause political embarrassment?
"Hence the repeated claim of BLM that the slave trade was genocide or mass murder. It wasn’t of course, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many blacks in North America or the West Indies. Or indeed in Britain."
So, yes, but without the "damn". Which does change it a little.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Aue for a great idea in theory but a disaster [in their own view] in practice?
Looking back, what was so wrong with the 10-15 gov't ?
Nothing, it was the best in 50 years with the exception of the Thatcher governments, which were a very special case. All the more bizarre that the LibDems regard it as a badge of shame.
The Tories sc
The Tories didn't screw the Lib Dems over, they screwed themselves over.
The Lib Dems brought good ideas to the table and the Tories happily took them then spent years saying "we've done this".
The Lib Dems didn't shout about their achievements, they looked weak and infirm. They didn't seem proud of what they'd done - and if they're not why should anyone else?
Things like the pupil premium, raising the tax threshold, the Tories more happily boast about what they've done than the party that suggested them at the election.
I agree the Libho was involved in the negotiations boasted at the time that he had killed off the Lib Dems
The Tories didn't lay traps. I didn't say they did.
The Tories took credit for the good ideas - and the Lib Dems let them do so.
All governments take credit for what goes right - and take the flak for what goes wrong, that's the nature of politics. But the Lib Dems abdicated taking responsibility for the 2010-15 government. The Lib Dems looked abashed at what was going on rather than proudly standing up and saying "look at this, this is us". That's on them not the Tories.
After five years of government what were Clegg and his MPs shouting that were their big achievements? Frankly the only thing I remember the Lib Dems coming up with during that time that they proudly shouted as their own was the 5p bag charge - which may have been a good environmental idea but was that a good legacy for five years in office?
The Lib Dems were buggered by the 2010 election result. The Conservatives fell just short of the number of seats they needed to govern on their own (which doesn't need to be an overall majority). They needed a coalition partner. The Lib Dems could have let the Conservatives form a minority government, but sooner or later, it would have called an election, which it would have won.
The Lib Dems could, technically, have formed a coalition with Labour, the SNP, Plaid, and the SDLP to keep out the Tories, but it would have fallen apart eventually, and the Conservatives would have won a crushing majority.
What they needed was for the Conservatives to win enough seats to form a government on their own, leaving them in the position of not having to pick a side - every politician's worst nightmare.
But if that's the case what's the point of voting Lib Dems?
Maybe the Lib Dems should have let the Tories form a minority government, demand a pound of flesh for budgets etc and then just accepted an election was coming?
Or they did the right thing joining the coalition but then should have stood proudly by it. This is where I think they went wrong.
They acted like they were ashamed of being in coalition with the Tories rather than standing up proud saying "yes we are the party for coalitions and look at all we have achieved: this, this, this and this . . . if you elect us again and we are in a position to do so we will be prepared to go into coalition with either party so long as they meet our demands which are this, this and that".
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
i would expect a UK wide enquiry
Why? It is not going to be politically expedient for the Johnson Government to get slated for political errors made, unless it takes many, many years to report, and we will have forgotten all about Coronavirus by then.
A once in a century pandemic? You can be pretty sure there will be one. Luckily for Johnson it’ll likely take a while.
And by a while, we could be looking well into the next parliament. So what's the point?
What’s the point? To learn what went wrong. I suppose you think the primary purpose is to cause political embarrassment?
Like the Iraq war enquiry any lessons learned were years too late. I suspect you are misguided if you think Johnson will be happy to have a forensic critique of his behaviour, and inevitably, blame to some degree will be apportioned.
I am not entirely sure that is true, the government were managing very well until Cummings. Granted, a disaster ever since.
Or is this a parallel universe where Corbyn won on December 12th?
Except the large elephant in the room is the ten days in March- the gap between the collapse of the initial testing system and the lockdown. That made no sense at the time (lockdown is what you do when you lose control of a situation), makes even less with hindsight (at least two doublings, maybe more happened in that gap), and doesn't even work from a behavioural "they'll get bored" sense (the worse you let things get, the more effort is needed to bring them back under control).
Pretty much all the bad stuff follows from that delay, because that's what exponential growth does.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
And you drip drip this message out to others so they end up believing it. Victim and abuser have now in the eyes of the world swapped places.
Example in politics? The Kavanagh hearings imo had a gaslighty air at times.
A certain type of Conservative whose party has been in power for the last 10 years enabling austerity, bonfires of quangos, Brexit, Dom-ism and all that other good shit, yet still insists that the UK is being strangled by Cultural Marxism, the Blob, Common Purpose, political correctness gone mad, BLM, Wokeism, the EU etc reeks of gaslight imo.
"Our work is never done." It's clever.
On Kavanaugh, I recall much "in sorrow not anger" shaking of the head about his accuser who was a "fine woman" and "must be in a terrible emotional place to be saying these things." She was not to be attacked but greatly pitied as somebody "in a vulnerable state" who was "being exploited" by the Democrats.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
So, first, it's not a "new" word in the normal sense of that word, as already discussed. It may be new to you of course, and is undoubtedly used more than in the past, largely I think thanks to the Me Too movement that has led to more discussion of abusive behaviour in relationships. I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't. I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
In that case it can just as easily be the other way round - the wife gaslighting the husband via an accusation.
One definition is:Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem
That's the problem with the concept - an accusation of it almost automatically meets the definition.
Exactly.
You never do any housework. I always do the housework.
Gaslighting from one side or both, as you point out, and hence meaningless as a descriptor.
But if you employ "unspoken assumptions" against the person who you don't like then you can be sure that people like @OnlyLivingBoy will say they are the ones doing the gaslighting.
That's like saying that "lying" is a meaningless term because if I accuse you of lying then you can accuse me back. The reason lying has meaning us because there is an objective truth. One side is lying, the other isn't. To return to the housework example, the reason what I did to you was gaslighting was because I didn't clean the house, and pretended I did. It doesn't matter if I accuse you of gaslighting back. What you are doing is not gaslighting because you are not lying. You think I didn't clean the house, and you are right. It's really not that complicated. I am starting to sense that you don't want to understand this term. Fine, but don't complain that you don't understand it when other people use it.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
So, first, it's not a "new" word in the normal sense of that word, as already discussed. It may be new to you of course, and is undoubtedly used more than in the past, largely I think thanks to the Me Too movement that has led to more discussion of abusive behaviour in relationships. I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't. I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
In that case it can just as easily be the other way round - the wife gaslighting the husband via an accusation.
One definition is:Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem
That's the problem with the concept - an accusation of it almost automatically meets the definition.
Exactly.
You never do any housework. I always do the housework.
Gaslighting from one side or both, as you point out, and hence meaningless as a descriptor.
But if you employ "unspoken assumptions" against the person who you don't like then you can be sure that people like @OnlyLivingBoy will say they are the ones doing the gaslighting.
That's like saying that "lying" is a meaningless term because if I accuse you of lying then you can accuse me back. The reason lying has meaning us because there is an objective truth. One side is lying, the other isn't. To return to the housework example, the reason what I did to you was gaslighting was because I didn't clean the house, and pretended I did. It doesn't matter if I accuse you of gaslighting back. What you are doing is not gaslighting because you are not lying. You think I didn't clean the house, and you are right. It's really not that complicated. I am starting to sense that you don't want to understand this term. Fine, but don't complain that you don't understand it when other people use it.
How do you know who did the housework and who is lying?
I am not entirely sure that is true, the government were managing very well until Cummings. Granted, a disaster ever since.
Or is this a parallel universe where Corbyn won on December 12th?
Except the large elephant in the room is the ten days in March- the gap between the collapse of the initial testing system and the lockdown. That made no sense at the time (lockdown is what you do when you lose control of a situation), makes even less with hindsight (at least two doublings, maybe more happened in that gap), and doesn't even work from a behavioural "they'll get bored" sense (the worse you let things get, the more effort is needed to bring them back under control).
Pretty much all the bad stuff follows from that delay, because that's what exponential growth does.
I do sort of agree, but that is with the benefit of a large dose of hindsight.
What has, it seems, already started to come next however, will be entirely the responsibility of politicians.
I am not entirely sure that is true, the government were managing very well until Cummings. Granted, a disaster ever since.
Or is this a parallel universe where Corbyn won on December 12th?
Except the large elephant in the room is the ten days in March- the gap between the collapse of the initial testing system and the lockdown. That made no sense at the time (lockdown is what you do when you lose control of a situation), makes even less with hindsight (at least two doublings, maybe more happened in that gap), and doesn't even work from a behavioural "they'll get bored" sense (the worse you let things get, the more effort is needed to bring them back under control).
Pretty much all the bad stuff follows from that delay, because that's what exponential growth does.
At the time, my impression was that they wanted everyone to get it, but in a controlled manner. So the lockdown was planned to be instituted when the predicted maximum case load was just under NHS capacity.
Ministers shifting blame to Public Health England for Covid-19 errors, say experts https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors ...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Ultimately any blame will result from a Public Enquiry that must follow
I don't think a public enquiry will necessarily follow nationally. Scotland and Wales will doubtless get them, maybe Northern Ireland, and extrapolations can be made from these to ensure improvements are made across all four nations.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
i would expect a UK wide enquiry
Why? It is not going to be politically expedient for the Johnson Government to get slated for political errors made, unless it takes many, many years to report, and we will have forgotten all about Coronavirus by then.
A once in a century pandemic? You can be pretty sure there will be one. Luckily for Johnson it’ll likely take a while.
And by a while, we could be looking well into the next parliament. So what's the point?
What’s the point? To learn what went wrong. I suppose you think the primary purpose is to cause political embarrassment?
The primary purpose of the enquiry needs to be to make sure we’re better prepared for the next wave of the damn thing!
Dragging something out for years, in a situation where no-one will attend without a summons and their lawyer, helps no-one actually learn anything.
Yes, that looks like pretty naked racism. I can't work out whether he's drunk and misspoke, or he's trying (and failing) to do his provocative shtick, or its just real racism emerging in some peculiarly offhand way.
I fear the last.
Mr Grimes needs to distance himself, in short order
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
So, first, it's not a "new" word in the normal sense of that word, as already discussed. It may be new to you of course, and is undoubtedly used more than in the past, largely I think thanks to the Me Too movement that has led to more discussion of abusive behaviour in relationships. I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't. I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
In that case it can just as easily be the other way round - the wife gaslighting the husband via an accusation.
One definition is:Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem
That's the problem with the concept - an accusation of it almost automatically meets the definition.
Exactly.
You never do any housework. I always do the housework.
Gaslighting from one side or both, as you point out, and hence meaningless as a descriptor.
But if you employ "unspoken assumptions" against the person who you don't like then you can be sure that people like @OnlyLivingBoy will say they are the ones doing the gaslighting.
That's like saying that "lying" is a meaningless term because if I accuse you of lying then you can accuse me back. The reason lying has meaning us because there is an objective truth. One side is lying, the other isn't. To return to the housework example, the reason what I did to you was gaslighting was because I didn't clean the house, and pretended I did. It doesn't matter if I accuse you of gaslighting back. What you are doing is not gaslighting because you are not lying. You think I didn't clean the house, and you are right. It's really not that complicated. I am starting to sense that you don't want to understand this term. Fine, but don't complain that you don't understand it when other people use it.
How do you know who did the housework and who is lying?
I created the fucking scenario, I know what happened!
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
Hopefully we have now discussed the etymology of the phrase enough for you to understand its meaning though.
I understand its etymology but it is a meaningless phrase.
Give me a current day usage to help me (ie not involving actual gaslights).
I also struggle with it and with 'meme'.
S'OK - @OnlyLivingBoy is going to clear matters up for us.
Trouble is I learn them, don't use them, then when they appear again I have to look them up again even though I know their origins!!!! They just don't feel natural to me. I don't want to think of the source to think what they mean.
On the other hand maybe it is age cos I have no issue with Catch 22.
I generally like words and expressions that can be traced back to works of fiction. For example the Bible and Shakespeare have given us quite a lot, but also Lewis Caroll and Orwell - though sadly "Big Brother" makes people think of something else these days (hopefully temporarily).
Of course Gaslight was published before Catch-22. The literary origin is one reason why I like the phrase Gaslight, Patrick Hamilton is one of my favourite novelists.
Haven't read Patrick Hamilton, what would you recommend?
20,000 Streets trilogy or Hangover Square. I read the latter in a secure psychiatric facility which I definitely don't recommend.
"If a wife tells her husband that he is shirking child care responsibilities and he responds by refusing to acknowledge that it’s even happening, he is gaslighting her."
You ask "what isn't clear about that explanation?"
You did X. No I didn't do X.
That is gaslighting?
If he is shirking childcare responsibilities and he knows he is but pretends to her that it isn't happening, I think that is an example of gaslighting. You are presuming that he actually isn't shirking childcare responsibilities. I think the unspoken assumption underlying the example is that the shirking is in fact taking place. I took that as read. What may be happening is that the husband doesn't know he has the childcare responsibilities, simply assuming that the kid will get looked after even if he does nothing about it and failing to acknowledge the burden that places on his wife. In which case he is not gaslighting her, just being a twat.
It is what I imagine is a fairly typical argument amongst people that happens all the time. How you get to gaslighting from "You did this" "No I didn't" is quite a stretch.
That you have to go into "unspoken assumptions" proves my point.
I think the missing piece, which would perhaps make it more clear to you, is the element of power or control necessary in the relationship.
In the case of, for example, an individual confronting a bureaucracy which simply refuses to acknowledge what it has done, then the term can be quite apt. I'm pretty sure some of the sub postmasters who fell victim to the Post Office accounting debacle began to doubt their own sanity at times.
It is undoubtedly abusive or corrupt or inept behaviour but calling it "gaslighting" doesn't help clarity.
Say you and I were in a relationship (I know, hard to believe, you don't seem my type, but let's suspend disbelief). You start to feel like you are left to do all the housework, and confront me about it. I know that you are right, I am a lazy shit and waste my time arguing with right wing loons on the internet instead of ever doing anything useful. But instead of saying Yes, you are right, I will try to pull my weight more in the future, I lie and tell you that I actually cleaned the house when you were out. Didn't you notice? That's typical, whenever I do anything to help you don't even notice it, you're just a stupid nag. You think, wow maybe he's right, come to think of it maybe the house did look a bit cleaner on Thursday, I must have just not really noticed, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm so stupid. That is gaslighting. Hope that helps.
Yes I see. But I also see no need for a whole new word to describe it.
How is it used in political discourse if at all?
So, first, it's not a "new" word in the normal sense of that word, as already discussed. It may be new to you of course, and is undoubtedly used more than in the past, largely I think thanks to the Me Too movement that has led to more discussion of abusive behaviour in relationships. I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't. I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
In that case it can just as easily be the other way round - the wife gaslighting the husband via an accusation.
One definition is:Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem
That's the problem with the concept - an accusation of it almost automatically meets the definition.
Exactly.
You never do any housework. I always do the housework.
Gaslighting from one side or both, as you point out, and hence meaningless as a descriptor.
But if you employ "unspoken assumptions" against the person who you don't like then you can be sure that people like @OnlyLivingBoy will say they are the ones doing the gaslighting.
That's like saying that "lying" is a meaningless term because if I accuse you of lying then you can accuse me back. The reason lying has meaning us because there is an objective truth. One side is lying, the other isn't. To return to the housework example, the reason what I did to you was gaslighting was because I didn't clean the house, and pretended I did. It doesn't matter if I accuse you of gaslighting back. What you are doing is not gaslighting because you are not lying. You think I didn't clean the house, and you are right. It's really not that complicated. I am starting to sense that you don't want to understand this term. Fine, but don't complain that you don't understand it when other people use it.
How do you know who did the housework and who is lying?
I created the fucking scenario, I know what happened!
What about the cat?
Plus you don't know the truth when people you didn't create are accused of gaslighting.
Having just read futher up the thread. The idea that a coalition government is illigitmate is just absurd. Over 50% of those who voted are being represented in government.
Aue for a great idea in theory but a disaster [in their own view] in practice?
Looking back, what was so wrong with the 10-15 gov't ?
Nothing, it was the best in 50 years with the exception of the Thatcher governments, which were a very special case. All the more bizarre that the LibDems regard it as a badge of shame.
The Tories sc
The Tories didn't screw the Lib Dems over, they screwed themselves over.
The Lib Dems brought good ideas to the table and the Tories happily took them then spent years saying "we've done this".
The Lib Dems didn't shout about their achievements, they looked weak and infirm. They didn't seem proud of what they'd done - and if they're not why should anyone else?
Things like the pupil premium, raising the tax threshold, the Tories more happily boast about what they've done than the party that suggested them at the election.
I agree the Libho was involved in the negotiations boasted at the time that he had killed off the Lib Dems
The Tories didn't lay traps. I didn't say they did.
The Tories took credit for the good ideas - and the Lib Dems let them do so.
All governments take credit for what goes right - and take the flak for what goes wrong, that's the nature of politics. But the Lib Dems abdicated taking responsibility for the 2010-15 government. The Lib Dems looked abashed at what was going on rather than proudly standing up and saying "look at this, this is us". That's on them not the Tories.
After five years of government what were Clegg and his MPs shouting that were their big achievements? Frankly the only thing I remember the Lib Dems coming up with during that time that they proudly shouted as their own was the 5p bag charge - which may have been a good environmental idea but was that a good legacy for five years in office?
The Lib Dems were buggered by the 2010 election result. The Conservatives fell just short of the number of seats they needed to govern on their own (which doesn't need to be an overall majority). They needed a coalition partner. The Lib Dems could have let the Conservatives form a minority government, but sooner or later, it would have called an election, which it would have won.
The Lib Dems could, technically, have formed a coalition with Labour, the SNP, Plaid, and the SDLP to keep out the Tories, but it would have fallen apart eventually, and the Conservatives would have won a crushing majority.
What they needed was for the Conservatives to win enough seats to form a government on their own, leaving them in the position of not having to pick a side - every politician's worst nightmare.
Had the Tories formed a minority government in 2010, the LDs could reasonably have acted to block another election by offering to form an alternative government with Labour and other opposition parties. It is far from clear that Cameron would have been granted a dissolution in circumstances where another government could be formed from the existing House of Commons.
I am not entirely sure that is true, the government were managing very well until Cummings. Granted, a disaster ever since.
Or is this a parallel universe where Corbyn won on December 12th?
Except the large elephant in the room is the ten days in March- the gap between the collapse of the initial testing system and the lockdown. That made no sense at the time (lockdown is what you do when you lose control of a situation), makes even less with hindsight (at least two doublings, maybe more happened in that gap), and doesn't even work from a behavioural "they'll get bored" sense (the worse you let things get, the more effort is needed to bring them back under control).
Pretty much all the bad stuff follows from that delay, because that's what exponential growth does.
At the time, my impression was that they wanted everyone to get it, but in a controlled manner. So the lockdown was planned to be instituted when the predicted maximum case load was just under NHS capacity.
Which is more or less what happened.
And turned out to be a bad idea.
That was my impression too- I've got memories of government outriders doing graphs pointing out that Italy et al would have two waves, and the UK would only have one, and wouldn't we look clever then?
Also, a lot of the early UK effort went into increasing NHS capacity- the temporary hospitals and new ventilators- rather than reducing demand.
But it was a massive gamble, for what? Delaying lockdown by ten days or so, and delaying reopening by more than that. Terrible idea with hindsight, but not that smart with foresight. Or, I suspect, a too-clever-by-half hack with foresight that didn't get shot down because the wrong people were in the room.
Yes, that looks like pretty naked racism. I can't work out whether he's drunk and misspoke, or he's trying (and failing) to do his provocative shtick, or its just real racism emerging in some peculiarly offhand way.
I fear the last.
Mr Grimes needs to distance himself, in short order
A generous interpretation is that he placed his 'damn' in the wrong place when blurting out his sentence. Had he said '... otherwise, damn, there wouldn't be ..' then he'd be cursing a particular notion be believes foolish instead of a subset of humanity. Dunno.
Comments
The Tories took credit for the good ideas - and the Lib Dems let them do so.
All governments take credit for what goes right - and take the flak for what goes wrong, that's the nature of politics. But the Lib Dems abdicated taking responsibility for the 2010-15 government. The Lib Dems looked abashed at what was going on rather than proudly standing up and saying "look at this, this is us". That's on them not the Tories.
After five years of government what were Clegg and his MPs shouting that were their big achievements? Frankly the only thing I remember the Lib Dems coming up with during that time that they proudly shouted as their own was the 5p bag charge - which may have been a good environmental idea but was that a good legacy for five years in office?
I think it is a useful term in the sense that a word like schadenfreude is useful. Of course we can always say "taking pleasure in other people's misfortune" but schadenfreude says it much more quickly. In the same way "gaslighting" is a useful shorthand for "trying to make others doubt their own sanity as a means of coercion". Of course we could always operate with a much smaller vocabulary if we wanted to (eg Orwell's Newspeak) but I'm glad we don't.
I think that people telling us that the EU referendum was about sovereignty not immigration is an example of gaslighting in the political sphere.
The House of Lords Gambling Committee says video game loot boxes should be regulated under gambling laws.
The Lords say they should be classified as "games of chance" - which would bring them under the Gambling Act 2005.
"If a product looks like gambling and feels like gambling, it should be regulated as gambling," their report says.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53253195
The Post Office case is actually quite a good example - many were immune to the process, but quite a few came to believe that they must have made the (non existent) accounting mistakes that landed them in trouble.
(I agree with you, though, that it's a term used well beyond its actual meaning in the political sphere.)
The Tories first response has historically been "what can we do to ensure we keep at least one hand on the wheel?" while Labour's has been "We're morally right, we can't compromise, take it or leave it."
The fate of third parties in scenarios where they're potentially needed has been to be in danger of absorption by the Tories (hug them close and work with them) and exclusion by Labour.
The reaction to the Coalition years from some in the Lib Dems (not all) has emphasised that - that compromising to get a workable consensus is shameful due to a sort of desire for purity of purpose in a "holier than thou" kind of viewpoint.
While the Right were more on the way of "Hey, that worked okay, didn't get everything we wanted, but the blend of it seemed to work even better than either of us could have got alone. Still want to go it alone, of course, but yeah, that wasn't too bad."
(With some exceptions, of course).
I suspect that under PR, the Big Two would fragment into their true factions, and those who make up the Right would possibly work better together than those who make up the Left.
Could be balls, of course; it's just my personal suspicion.
Snowflake, the Left has successfully neutralized this one by managing to turn it around and use it (with the same meaning) against the Right as often as it is used BY the Right. This has worked because it is clear there are as many if not more right wingers who are easily triggered by nothing much - i.e. are "snowflakes" - as there are left wingers.
Virtue signalling, not so much. This remains an insult owned and used almost exclusively by the Right. It's next to impossible for the Left to turn this one around because right wingers so rarely openly express virtuous sentiments. They keep such virtue as they possess well hidden.
Just like if you go for a meal and you are given the options of three main courses, each of which is a good quality considered dish, you get to choose even if you can't just be expected to go in and ask for something else entirely.
All parties, even under PR, end up eventually as coalitions just slightly smaller ones. The idea that 35% of voters just want x isn't true - if they did then the party offering x would be favourites to win the election.
The reality is one person may want a, b, d and x. A second person may want b, d, x but really hate a. Another person may be really keen on x and a but hate b and d.
People aren't simplistic automatons wanting online one thing and neither are parties. Life's more complicated than that.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/02/first-details-emerge-of-system-for-checks-on-goods-crossing-irish-sea
Note the import declaration setting out the customs codes for all the goods in the consignment. For a supermarket delivery that can be 4,000 items.
One definition is:Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment, often evoking in them cognitive dissonance and other changes including low self-esteem
That's the problem with the concept - an accusation of it almost automatically meets the definition.
I think games where you buy a random item but they are all fairly equal or innocuous is one thing (eg random colours or images that don't particularly affect gameplay) but getting eg an in-game advantage like better weapon or better player etc is a major issue.
Democratic ad makers think they’ve discovered Trump’s soft spot
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/02/democrats-ads-trump-341903
...Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and recent protests, he said, “really made concrete for people the ways in which his leadership has direct consequences on them and their loved ones … It’s easier to make ads that talk about his leadership than before the outbreak.”
The advertising elements that appear to work, according to interviews with more than a dozen Democrats involved in message research, vary from ad to ad. Using Trump’s own words against him often tests well, as do charts and other graphics, which serve to highlight Trump’s distaste for science. Voters who swung from President Barack Obama to Trump in 2016 — and who regret it — are good messengers. And so is Joe Biden, whose voice is widely considered preferable to that of a professional narrator. Not only does he convey empathy, according to Democrats inside and outside Biden's campaign, but using Biden's voice "helps people think about him as president," said Patrick Bonsignore, Biden’s director of paid media.
But the ad makers’ overarching takeaway from their research was this: While Trump may not be vulnerable on issues of character alone, as he demonstrated in 2016, he is vulnerable when character is tied to his policy record on the economy and health care....
Under PR there is no such equivalent election once the negotiated prospectus has been created as the election has already happened.
Having a choice of two is a better choice than no choice at all.
I was getting either Johnson or Corbyn as Prime Minister.
That's one reason the Big Two adhere to FPTP. It makes any change from them enormously difficult.
I don't think anyone is pretending that FPTP doesn't lock in the existing Big Two unless there's a truly colossal shift. It's the entire driver for things like dodgy bar charts (trying to emphasise the discrepancy between local representation and government, because FPTP conflates the two hugely).
FPTP gives party government, and presses down to two parties who are the incumbent Big Two. It's possible to change that, but requires massive and sustained stupidity from an incumbent or very special circumstances.
FPTP means that we get to choose from whatever the current Tory Leader offers us or whatever the current Labour Leader offers us. That's the only choice we get. We can hope at least one is overall palatable.
https://twitter.com/natashaloder/status/1278646786060664834?s=20
It happens under other electoral systems. In Ireland there was going to be either Varadkar or Martin to be the next Taoiseach even though the most votes went to Sinn Fein led by McDonald.
I fail to see how STV gave any more real educated choice there than FPTP has here.
Even when you do know what you are buying, it is still a poor way of doing things, particularly when children are involved.
I'm not sure why games started doing this (rather than just charging an up-front fee). Piracy, or just more lucrative?
It destroys the whole concept of a game if you can buy your way in. Although you can buy better equipment for sports (and many industries are based on pretending such equipment makes more of a difference than it actually does) it isn't quite the same thing.
Or have a look at the Democracy Index: the top six ranked countries all have some form of PR.
As for 'austerity' (stupid word!), it's coming, irrespective of what this or any other government does. You can't have a mega crash of the economy without wealth being destroyed, that's kinda what it means. And less wealth means less government revenues.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/01/experts-say-ministers-are-blaming-public-health-england-over-covid-19-errors
...“It was only a matter of time, the hunt for someone to blame. It ill befits Boris Johnson or any Tory to go about criticising PHE. This is the government seeking to identify the fall guy for a gross and widespread failure of government. It’s ministers blaming others for their own failings”, said Scally, who is a professor of public health at Bristol university.
Prof John Ashton, a former director of public health in the north-west, said: “The government is trying to pass the buck for its own failures in to PHE. But there’s been a political failure, a leadership failure and also a technical failure by PHE.
“It’s made a series of serious mistakes during the crisis in all the key areas that it’s responsible for: testing, tracing, personal protective equipment and the gathering and sharing of intelligence. It’s been poor on those counts”.
PHE has come under intense scrutiny for its role in tackling the virus and has attracted intermittent criticism in recent weeks from sources in and around the government about its performance.
A senior PHE official said this seemed to be “part of an undermining strategy by some people in government”, especially those in Downing Street.
“Testing strategy? The Department of Health and Social Care led on that. We run laboratories and increased our testing to 25,000 tests a day, which is the most we can do. Contact tracing? We did that but only have 290 people for the whole of England who can do that, so as soon as it became obvious that community transmission was occurring, we shifted out efforts to that”, the official said....
Or is this a parallel universe where Corbyn won on December 12th?
I'm a bit disappointed nobody took me up on the Bible being a work of fiction - maybe that is finally something we can all agree on?
The "Democracy Index" is opaque and lacks transparency as to how numbers are generated. The UK is losing points due "functioning of government" and "political culture" - why? Australia is losing points due to "political participation" despite the fact that turnout at elections in Australia is 100% (!)
It’s like paying £100 for a box that might contain either a toothbrush or an iPhone. Guess what most of them contain? It’s gambling, and should be regulated as gambling.
If the election-winning debate in a seat like Putney is "who out of Labour or Lib Dems has the best chance of beating the Tories", how well are the challenges facing the country being debated?
FPTP is a barrier to effective democratic debate.
Every Labour election campaign I can remember has essentially been, "only Labour can beat the Tories." Look how lost Scottish Labour have been in Scotland since PR at Holyrood proved that the SNP could beat the Tories too.
Unlike some of the more misguided supporters of STV I don't believe that it will suddenly create an electorate that will vote for the things I vote for. But I'd prefer to lose the debate on the politics than on the game of guessing how other people will vote.
There may be an England only enquiry whose remit will be to analyse the failings of PHE.
"Yeah, he can be crude and stuff, can't say I like all of that, wish he'd tone it down sometimes - but, you know, he's not really a politician he's a businessman and he knows how to get things done. Reckon he's doing a pretty good job on the whole."
This has to be exploded. The same sentiment - with last sentence replaced by "Reckon he deserves a shot" - was central to his win in 2016.
Without it, imo he simply cannot win again.
With STV the party machine cannot control who is elected, or even who is nominated (because a candidate can always stand as an independent, with a fair chance of success). The individual MP is weakened when his life is totally controlled by the party machine - as we see with the present crop of spineless Tory MPs, who owe their election to the Conservative Party machine (and the Russians, of course!)
Johnson likes to pretend the party has only be running the country since December.
It’s also massively addictive and massively profitable, which is why they’re all doing it. A lot of these games have only a handful of developers and are making millions a month, mostly from a small number of addicted users. They’re no better than FOBTs, but on your phone and marketed to children.
Johnson threw non-repentant Remainers out of the Party. They were replaced, along with successful Red Wall challengers, by a new wave of loyalists. Different animals to the Patrician Feudal Tories who went before.
Did Starkey actually say this?
You never do any housework. I always do the housework.
Gaslighting from one side or both, as you point out, and hence meaningless as a descriptor.
But if you employ "unspoken assumptions" against the person who you don't like then you can be sure that people like @OnlyLivingBoy will say they are the ones doing the gaslighting.
Andrew Lansley isn't an MP and hasn't been for years. He's from a prior government. Suggesting Boris is responsible for Lansley is like suggesting Starmer/Corbyn are responsible for Blair.
The Lib Dems could, technically, have formed a coalition with Labour, the SNP, Plaid, and the SDLP to keep out the Tories, but it would have fallen apart eventually, and the Conservatives would have won a crushing majority.
What they needed was for the Conservatives to win enough seats to form a government on their own, leaving them in the position of not having to pick a side - every politician's worst nightmare.
So, yes, but without the "damn". Which does change it a little.
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/july-august-2020/a-perversion-of-puritanism-which-aims-to-trash-our-history/
Edit: ah, there's also a video...
Maybe the Lib Dems should have let the Tories form a minority government, demand a pound of flesh for budgets etc and then just accepted an election was coming?
Or they did the right thing joining the coalition but then should have stood proudly by it. This is where I think they went wrong.
They acted like they were ashamed of being in coalition with the Tories rather than standing up proud saying "yes we are the party for coalitions and look at all we have achieved: this, this, this and this . . . if you elect us again and we are in a position to do so we will be prepared to go into coalition with either party so long as they meet our demands which are this, this and that".
Pretty much all the bad stuff follows from that delay, because that's what exponential growth does.
On Kavanaugh, I recall much "in sorrow not anger" shaking of the head about his accuser who was a "fine woman" and "must be in a terrible emotional place to be saying these things." She was not to be attacked but greatly pitied as somebody "in a vulnerable state" who was "being exploited" by the Democrats.
Arf.
To return to the housework example, the reason what I did to you was gaslighting was because I didn't clean the house, and pretended I did. It doesn't matter if I accuse you of gaslighting back. What you are doing is not gaslighting because you are not lying. You think I didn't clean the house, and you are right. It's really not that complicated.
I am starting to sense that you don't want to understand this term. Fine, but don't complain that you don't understand it when other people use it.
What has, it seems, already started to come next however, will be entirely the responsibility of politicians.
Which is more or less what happened.
And turned out to be a bad idea.
Dragging something out for years, in a situation where no-one will attend without a summons and their lawyer, helps no-one actually learn anything.
I fear the last.
Mr Grimes needs to distance himself, in short order
China becomes ever more like Nazi Germany.
First the Uighur concentration camps, then the quasi-genocide via sterilisation, now this. Exporting human hair taken from prisoners.
https://twitter.com/JChengWSJ/status/1278320199591055360?s=20
Plus you don't know the truth when people you didn't create are accused of gaslighting.
Also, a lot of the early UK effort went into increasing NHS capacity- the temporary hospitals and new ventilators- rather than reducing demand.
But it was a massive gamble, for what? Delaying lockdown by ten days or so, and delaying reopening by more than that. Terrible idea with hindsight, but not that smart with foresight. Or, I suspect, a too-clever-by-half hack with foresight that didn't get shot down because the wrong people were in the room.
Sounds like Starkey is gaslighting people who believe the Atlantic slave trade was one of the great crimes of the modern age.