It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Internationally red is used for left of centre parties, so: It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the american parties could switch their colours.
They used to alternate - the GOP were blue in 1980:
Constitutional monarchy helps on that front, but it is predicated on the monarch being above board and impartial.
Could make it worse. What if Chaz had killed himself when he made that cack handed attempt to land that 146 on Islay? We'd be staring down the dripping goo chute of King Andrew. Worse than Hitler.
That does seem to be the preferred usage, but I find it a bit annoying in English, where we generally don't change endings according to gender (we would say "bravo" to both men and women without any issue), and have tended to move away from eg gendered job titles. I guess it's because so many Latinas/Latinos in the US are also Spanish-speaking that English has adopted Spanish morphology here... I've seen Latinx but how do you even pronounce that?
We do have quite a few gendered terms, although many/most are adopted from Latin languages.
Fiance, fiancee
Confidant, confidante
Blond, blonde
Are some examples.
Also, I have never understood why the masculine should be the preferred neuter – which seems to be the received wisdom.
Also: strong/bossy, energetic/feisty
Why are some of our nouns stubbornly gendered? 'This ship and all who sail in him' just sounds awful, for no logical reason.
If the EU agree a deal making those clauses redundant then they can be removed as part of the deal.
If they don't then the clauses are necessary and it's up to the elected chamber to make the decision.
In what way necessary - given that implementing them breaks international treaties which will have consequences now all the world's leadership once again believes treaties shouldn't be ignored.
If there is an EU deal we can scrap those IMB provisions as part of the deal as redundant.
If there isn't then looking after ourselves will be more important than what other leaders think. Especially when those leaders are prepared to do the same when it suits them to do so.
OK, let's assume that this version of the IMB is needed and appropriate. Plenty disagree, but let's assume.
The government must know that the Lords can delay stuff for a year. So a government playing a tough but straight bat would introduce the IMB a bit more than twelve months before it is needed. But they didn't.
So either the government is clueless, or there's another game (heaven knows what) going on. Or both.
Did the Government have a majority in the Commons 12 months ago? I think you're mixing things up.
Furthermore no the Lords should not delay things for a year. They can, but then the Government can stuff the Lords or abolish it if need be too. The Lords should respect the supremacy of the elected chamber.
Not at all, my piratical friend.
31/13/20 is a deadline the government imposed on itself. A longer transition was on the table (as recently as this summer, I think). I understand why the government didn't take the opportunity (though I think they were foolish not to do so), but that choice has consequences. Remember also that the government could have leapt over the hurdle of the Lords by putting the details of this bill in their 2019 manifesto. If they really wanted this bill, their planning has been atrocious.
And I'd he careful about using "technically they can, but they shouldn't, because the consequences will be bad" as an argument. That's basically why a lot of people think this IMB is a serious mistake.
That's fine I understand that some think the IMB is a serious mistake - they can make that argument and it is for the elected chamber to decide. If we're not happy with what the elected chamber decides then another election is due no later than 2024.
Democracy: I'm a fan of it, are you?
Right, so we're back to "anyone who disagrees with Boris is against democracy". Normal service has resumed.
No absolutely not. If a majority of MPs vote against Boris then that is democracy.
Anyone who thinks the elected chamber shouldn't make the decisions is against democracy. Whether the elected chamber is making decisions I like or oppose I respect their right to make the decisions, because I know if they make a decision I dislike we can vote again next time.
And there are no limits to this doctrine? Not if Boris decides to sterilise the unfit, or put the races more susceptible to covid into concentration camps, say? Fine, because you can always vote him out in 2024?
Answer: yes, there are. Conforming to the rules of the democracy is just an entry level requirement, not a free pass. And why you think you can call yourself a libertarian when your favoured model of government is the complete surrender of liberty, in five-year tranches, is a puzzle.
Always with this slippery slop fallacy. The IMB is not putting people into concentration camps or sterilising the unfit. 🙄
As for why I as a libertarian support democracy the answer is because democracy is the most liberal form of government that exists. Yes democracy does mean surrendering some of our liberties for five years but the absence of democracy means surrendering them indefinitely.
At elections I will support liberal governments but if an illiberal one wins I would hope to defeat it next time with ballots not bullets.
So you accept that democracy means surrendering some of our liberties but that is absolutely fine because it is a consequence of us having the best available system of government.
Struggling to find an analogy here, Phil.
It means delegating them temporarily to people we choose then getting them back automatically to redelegate to whomever we choose again next time. Yes. The choice remains always ours and ours alone.
If you come up with an analogy please do let me know.
Temporarily until you then delegate it again so hence actually continuously.
And as to the choice - when exactly do you get the choice to end our democratic system of government? So no, you don't get a choice.
You are happy to sacrifice some element of sovereignty er, liberty for the greater good because you realise that the system wherein such small amount of liberty is sacrificed is superior to all others.
LOL
You're making contradictory circular arguments.
I don't want to end our democratic system of government, I support it.
Yes I am not an anarchist I have never said I am an ararchist. It is about balancing judgements. The balance in favour of democracy is overwhelming. The same does not apply to other issues.
So to clarify.
Membership of the EU which requires some amount of loss of, or pooled sovereignty for the greater good of an economic system = beyond the pale.
Democratic system of govt which requires some amount of loss of liberty for the greater good of a preferred system of government = all fine and dandy.
No.
Membership of the EU was never beyond the pale, I was a Remainer for most of my life and said I'd rather Remain than support Theresa May's deal.
So no, you have totally misunderstood everything I've ever written it seems because that is not what I am saying whatsoever. I am entirely OK with the UK pooling sovereignty with other nations if that is what the UK votes to do and so long as the UK can vote to end that in the future.
It could. And did. So that was the last of your objections to Brexit.
I don't object to Brexit.
Yes sorry. I meant the last of your objections to our membership of the EU was that we couldn't vote to end the arrangement which we of course did do so in fact it turns out that you had no objections to our membership of the EU.
Except that was never my objection. 🤦🏻♂️
I never said that, you are inventing that and fighting a straw man.
As I understand it you didn't like the loss of sovereignty.
What actually was it? The colour of the flag?
Then you haven't understood anything I've ever written, I was never against the EU on principle like that.
Prior to the referendum I thought it worth paying the price of pooling our sovereignty for economic advantages but I have long thought the EU is not an effective organisation and during the campaign became convinced that the UK could better manage its own sovereignty. That pooling was no longer worth it. That is a judgement, the UK I think will be economically better off treating the EU as our neighbours that we trade with instead of being a member of the EU. If I thought otherwise I might have voted Remain. I am not a die-hard extremist.
Theresa May's backstop was a worse breach of sovereignty for me than EU membership was which is why I vehemently opposed that.
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
Genuine question - is there a single example that you can think of, of a country that, after a split/independence from empire etc has benefitted economically, in the short to medium term? I can't think of one.
Well as Zhou Enlai may have said, not sure what short to medium term means.
But what are we getting at here? From empire? You mean that was previously governed and whose resources were controlled by another nation state? That's the question?
... The American president looking up to fascists, yearning to be one of them even though he never quite could. I found that so so sad. And you know what's even sadder? They'll be laughing at him now. Putin, Xi, Kim, all of them, the cool gang, the real deal, the in crowd, they'll be laughing at poor Donald, the boy that used to hang around.
I think that just about sums him up. Perhaps we should be grateful that he was a 3rd rater? Can you imagine what things would have been like if he had become a competent fascist?
This is so, so true.
And the really scary thing is that at some time in the foreseeable future the American HItler will emerge.
Maybe in the next 20 years, maybe in the next 200. But there is nothing in the US system to stop him*
(*Or her, but most likely a 'him').
The separation of powers helps but the US is no different to any other democracy in this respect. It is both the beauty and the danger of democracy - trust the people remains as good a mantra today as ever. Celebrate the fact that democracy won again.
It's a good question, and very much similar to one to that I had to consider when studying the history of Weimar Republic at university some 40 years ago. The answer is that: 1. Given the right leader, fascists can frame an electoral appeal to peoples' darker side which can override all moral norms that involves buying into even the most outlandish claims made to justify such behaviour. 2. Ambitious politicians of the right who should know better will go along with fascism in order to try and further their own careers (cf. von Papen then, the Republican heirarchy now).
Very good thoughts indeed. Hope you got a good degree.
Thanks. To be honest, I always found it quite difficult to understand just how vulnerable the democratic institutions of Germany were to the appeal of fascism. Yes, the economic circumstances were extreme and the political deadlock didn't help, but that didn't explain it on its own. Now it's crystal clear, having seen how a single person has managed to appeal to so many through a very similarly framed divisive appeal with complete disregard of truth even when that is patently at odds with democratic norms.
The US has for now had a near miss. However, in extending the parallel, let's not forget that the NSDAP also had a setback and went backwards in the election of November 1932. The institutions of the Weimar Republic including the conservative political heirarchy and judiciary remained of the view that Hitler was useful to them, and that gave him a route back. No-one is going to advance in today's Republican Party unless they go along with Trump.
There is an interesting cultural comparison there - the Prussians were seen as the very traditional elitists and were usurped by those they thought they controlled. Franz von Papen thought he had 'hired' Hitler and his thugs who were essentially similar to them!
What might now happen? Well similar to the 1930s we are going to see expanding unemployment. Probably election in America is too expensive for an extremist to get involved, however it only needs one eccentric billionaire to make it happen.
Look, I'm sorry this whole "America could have gone the way of 1930s Germany" is an absolute crock of bullsh1t for a number of reasons:
First is that power in the US is devolved on multiple levels and the system was built expressly designed to stop the concentration of power in hands. For someone wanting to control the US in the way Hitler did, they would have to win enough seats and votes not only to control both Houses of Congress but multiple levels of state government to change the constitution and drive through an agenda.
Second, the US military forces are not the Reichswehr of 1920s and 1930s Germany, They do not get involved in politics or try to become the country's top politician (as happened in Germany in the 1930s). They stay very well out and it is absolute a certainty that they would stop any descent into non-democracy.
Third, it wasn't just the unemployment rate that did for German democracy, or even the burden of war loans, but the hyperinflation which wiped out not only the savings of many Germans but also the value of their War Bonds, which many patriotic Germans (especially the middle classes) had held in World War I.
There are obvious examples where there has been a regression to non-democracy (e.g. Russia) without trying to make up an example of the US. Arguably, you might say that Obama's use of Executive Decrees to push through what he wanted was more of a threat to the US system - this was exactly the same thing that was used at the end of the Weimar Republic to push through Government policy.
You have a president quite clearly willing to subvert democracy if it suits him, and a political class in his party willing to go along with it. A large chunk of the electorate is willing to give him a blank check by accepting every lie he comes up with, including the one that he won the election and that US democracy is already broken.
The system was designed to prevent the concentration of power, but it's teetering in those goals. Trump would have won once again if he had limited Biden's popular vote margin to less than 3%, and then what? The Senate is already in his party's pocket semi-permanently, in all but the most extraordinary circumstances. The Supreme Court has been packed and would have ended up even worse at 7-2 or 8-1. In the meantime Biden will not be allowed to appoint to any vacancies by the Senate. With a slightly better result they would already have seized back the House of Representatives, which already has a clear bias in the Republicans favour (comparing seats with the popular vote) and Congressional gerrymandering will in the meantime intensify anyway with the results in state legislatures prior to redistricting. There was every prospect of Trump forcing through laws which reversed the limited protection of voting rights at state level, facilitating the Republican Party' ability to hold on to key battleground states, as well as intensified versions of what we have seen with the US Postal Service measures designed to eliminate swathes of postal votes, and so on.
Overall, the forces in the Republican Party came very close to overwhelming the checks in the US constitution in 2020. The tilt of the system in their favour is already massive. They'll have another opportunity to tilt it permanently in 2024 at which point they'll no doubt have a majority in the Senate and HOR. It is very clear, in the wake of the 2020 election, that they care not a fig about democratic norms, so I fear for US democracy in the longer term.
Well that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons. Burnham ahead of Starmer. Marcus Rashford ahead of Margaret Thatcher. And Tony Blair, x3 election winner so low, perhaps underlining why those who want Starmer to pursue Blair’s brand of centrism are a tad misguided to say the least.
I personally would have voted for either Mandela or Klopp out of all of all of those.
Plus Blair and Putin ahead of Sadiq Khan, Boris ahead of Davey, Sunak ahead of Starmer, Burnham and Biden and Thatcher and Merkel and the Queen ahead of Sturgeon if you look at it from the other side
Khan isn’t really that great of a mayor so not surprised to see him below those two. He’s mayor because Londoners regard the alternative as worse. Davey is basically irrelevant, so I’m not surprised about that one either.
Constitutional monarchy helps on that front, but it is predicated on the monarch being above board and impartial.
Could make it worse. What if Chaz had killed himself when he made that cack handed attempt to land that 146 on Islay? We'd be staring down the dripping goo chute of King Andrew. Worse than Hitler.
Thgere might have been a move to equal opportunities inheritance ...
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
This is the key point. Any deal that we negotiate by ourselves will be less beneficial than the deal we get as a much larger trading block. The bigger you are the better the deal - a very simple reality.
Disagreed completely.
Small and agile > large, sclerotic and unwieldy.
Negotiate many deals do you? OK I only negotiate 8 figure deals rather than into the gazillions but I have had a conversation with someone who does negotiate deals at EU and UN level and its the same principle.
The UK by itself is a smaller lower value market than the EU. If we want to negotiate *different* deals to the one we are walking away with they aren't going to give us better terms than they give them. OK so we flip rule x for rule y on a given issue. Overall value? Worse. Because we are smaller. Volume always brings discount. Reducing volume brings increased cost - and not just on tariffs and trade.
Lets take actual trade where at the moment stuff is imported into the EU all at the same standard on the same deal. We are going to impose different standards which adds cost even before the stuff leaves the factory. We're then either going to demand direct import for our little volume which adds cost or different handling / processing / tariffs to bring the stuff across from Zeebrugge.
However you cut it, stuff will be more expensive. Because we are going to create unique standards and conditions.
If we aren't then its back to Life of Brian, you're demanding the right to have babies even though you don't have a box for the foetus to gestate in.
You claim that but have no real world evidence to substantiate your claim. The simple fact of the matter is that the EU has inferior trade deals compared to eg independent Australia or even the EFTA.
If the UK manages an FTA with the EU and join the TPP then we would have trade deals with more of the world than we do as EU members.
Plus as can be seen with the Japanese trade deal we can when negotiate on our own negotiate deals that better suit ourselves than the EU does. The UK/Japan trade deal opens up doors on services that the EU deal did not and we have the potential to negotiate further again still.
In what significant way is the UK/Japan trade deal better for UK than the EU(inc UK)/Japan one?
This is the key point. Any deal that we negotiate by ourselves will be less beneficial than the deal we get as a much larger trading block. The bigger you are the better the deal - a very simple reality.
This is so obviously true it's depressing you need to spell it out
That you think it is obvious is part of the problem.
Bigger is not better. Agile is better. Nimble is better. Small is better.
Metaphors are shit. Do you prefer, let's say, your current account balance to be small, agile and nimble, or morbidly obese?
And if you want a metaphor, consider Darwin and sexual selection. There's qualities good in themselves, like being fast and strong, and other qualities like, say, having a male peacock's tail, that suck in all possible respects except the only one that matters, what they make others think of you. Small and agile = the sort of country where serious, grown-up incoming administtrations in superpowers dismiss your PM as a shapeshifting creep.
I would very much prefer my current account balance to be small, agile and nimble with savings accessible outside of my current account with enough that I can nimbly access.
I would not like my current account balance to be morbidly obese in its overdraft.
If other administrations dismiss our PM as a shapeshifting creep I don't particularly care about that, shapeshifting is part of agility. I'd prefer that to being unable to adapt.
Well that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons. Burnham ahead of Starmer. Marcus Rashford ahead of Margaret Thatcher. And Tony Blair, x3 election winner so low, perhaps underlining why those who want Starmer to pursue Blair’s brand of centrism are a tad misguided to say the least.
I personally would have voted for either Mandela or Klopp out of all of all of those.
These surveys are a little silly, and heavily biased to who's in the frame today. They also confuse likeability with effectiveness to some extent.
Klopp, Davey, Sunak or Ardern are all very unlikely to be there in 10 years time. Mandela, HMQ, Thatcher and Churchill and possibly Sturgeon, if she wins IndyRef too, will be.
This is the key point. Any deal that we negotiate by ourselves will be less beneficial than the deal we get as a much larger trading block. The bigger you are the better the deal - a very simple reality.
This is so obviously true it's depressing you need to spell it out
That you think it is obvious is part of the problem.
Bigger is not better. Agile is better. Nimble is better. Small is better.
That is my philosophy, BUT you need to come together in a big block in certain areas to facilitate that eg standards, borders, currency, climate.
I take the view that when making a decision at whatever level of government you should be thinking in the following order:
a) Should I be making a law at all or would it be better to leave well alone b) Should this be delegated downwards (always aim to take decisions as close to the people as possible) c) If it one that shouldn't be delegated downwards then should it be delegated upwards (that is if you think it is a high level decision why am I taking it at this level eg climate)
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
Strip out the issue of Brexit/the EU and Biden is very close to Boris on most international issues. So too though is Starmer actually.
Yeah, apparently Biden doesn’t see it like though re Boris:
... The American president looking up to fascists, yearning to be one of them even though he never quite could. I found that so so sad. And you know what's even sadder? They'll be laughing at him now. Putin, Xi, Kim, all of them, the cool gang, the real deal, the in crowd, they'll be laughing at poor Donald, the boy that used to hang around.
I think that just about sums him up. Perhaps we should be grateful that he was a 3rd rater? Can you imagine what things would have been like if he had become a competent fascist?
This is so, so true.
And the really scary thing is that at some time in the foreseeable future the American HItler will emerge.
Maybe in the next 20 years, maybe in the next 200. But there is nothing in the US system to stop him*
(*Or her, but most likely a 'him').
Tom Cotton to the red phone courtesy phone. Tom Cotton to the *red* courtesy phone....
I do not think the Hobbits of Bywater had courtesy phones
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
This is the key point. Any deal that we negotiate by ourselves will be less beneficial than the deal we get as a much larger trading block. The bigger you are the better the deal - a very simple reality.
Disagreed completely.
Small and agile > large, sclerotic and unwieldy.
Negotiate many deals do you? OK I only negotiate 8 figure deals rather than into the gazillions but I have had a conversation with someone who does negotiate deals at EU and UN level and its the same principle.
The UK by itself is a smaller lower value market than the EU. If we want to negotiate *different* deals to the one we are walking away with they aren't going to give us better terms than they give them. OK so we flip rule x for rule y on a given issue. Overall value? Worse. Because we are smaller. Volume always brings discount. Reducing volume brings increased cost - and not just on tariffs and trade.
Lets take actual trade where at the moment stuff is imported into the EU all at the same standard on the same deal. We are going to impose different standards which adds cost even before the stuff leaves the factory. We're then either going to demand direct import for our little volume which adds cost or different handling / processing / tariffs to bring the stuff across from Zeebrugge.
However you cut it, stuff will be more expensive. Because we are going to create unique standards and conditions.
If we aren't then its back to Life of Brian, you're demanding the right to have babies even though you don't have a box for the foetus to gestate in.
All of which is fine if you say "well sovereignty". Yes there's a cost but it's worth it (I think that is the position of several PB leavers).
But he isn't saying that. He is happy to give up sovereignty (as he is happy to give up liberty). But he reckons that we will actually be better off!
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
The Democrats are basically a combination of Starmer Labour, Blarites, LDs and Remainer Tories now with a few exceptions as you say on the far left like Sanders and AOC who would be closer to Corbyn, the Republicans in their current Trumpite guise are basically only linked to the hardest of Brexiteers over here like Farage or IDS
Don't forget to bear in mind, as often, that what is far left in the US is not far left in the UK or Europe. Sanders' health plans are mainstream in Europe, for instance.
True but what is far right in the UK is not far right in the US either, Farage would be a mainstream Republican in the USA for instance.
Basically on the whole the Democrats tend to be the more centrist party in the USA and the Tories and the main centre right parties on the continent tend to be the more centrist parties in Europe eg Merkel's CDU
It's a good question, and very much similar to one to that I had to consider when studying the history of Weimar Republic at university some 40 years ago. The answer is that: 1. Given the right leader, fascists can frame an electoral appeal to peoples' darker side which can override all moral norms that involves buying into even the most outlandish claims made to justify such behaviour. 2. Ambitious politicians of the right who should know better will go along with fascism in order to try and further their own careers (cf. von Papen then, the Republican heirarchy now).
Very good thoughts indeed. Hope you got a good degree.
Thanks. To be honest, I always found it quite difficult to understand just how vulnerable the democratic institutions of Germany were to the appeal of fascism. Yes, the economic circumstances were extreme and the political deadlock didn't help, but that didn't explain it on its own. Now it's crystal clear, having seen how a single person has managed to appeal to so many through a very similarly framed divisive appeal with complete disregard of truth even when that is patently at odds with democratic norms.
The US has for now had a near miss. However, in extending the parallel, let's not forget that the NSDAP also had a setback and went backwards in the election of November 1932. The institutions of the Weimar Republic including the conservative political heirarchy and judiciary remained of the view that Hitler was useful to them, and that gave him a route back. No-one is going to advance in today's Republican Party unless they go along with Trump.
There is an interesting cultural comparison there - the Prussians were seen as the very traditional elitists and were usurped by those they thought they controlled. Franz von Papen thought he had 'hired' Hitler and his thugs who were essentially similar to them!
What might now happen? Well similar to the 1930s we are going to see expanding unemployment. Probably election in America is too expensive for an extremist to get involved, however it only needs one eccentric billionaire to make it happen.
Look, I'm sorry this whole "America could have gone the way of 1930s Germany" is an absolute crock of bullsh1t for a number of reasons:
First is that power in the US is devolved on multiple levels and the system was built expressly designed to stop the concentration of power in hands. For someone wanting to control the US in the way Hitler did, they would have to win enough seats and votes not only to control both Houses of Congress but multiple levels of state government to change the constitution and drive through an agenda.
Second, the US military forces are not the Reichswehr of 1920s and 1930s Germany, They do not get involved in politics or try to become the country's top politician (as happened in Germany in the 1930s). They stay very well out and it is absolute a certainty that they would stop any descent into non-democracy.
Third, it wasn't just the unemployment rate that did for German democracy, or even the burden of war loans, but the hyperinflation which wiped out not only the savings of many Germans but also the value of their War Bonds, which many patriotic Germans (especially the middle classes) had held in World War I.
There are obvious examples where there has been a regression to non-democracy (e.g. Russia) without trying to make up an example of the US. Arguably, you might say that Obama's use of Executive Decrees to push through what he wanted was more of a threat to the US system - this was exactly the same thing that was used at the end of the Weimar Republic to push through Government policy.
You have a president quite clearly willing to subvert democracy if it suits him, and a political class in his party willing to go along with it. A large chunk of the electorate is willing to give him a blank check by accepting every lie he comes up with, including the one that he won the election and that US democracy is already broken.
The system was designed to prevent the concentration of power, but it's teetering in those goals. Trump would have won once again if he had limited Biden's popular vote margin to less than 3%, and then what? The Senate is already in his party's pocket semi-permanently, in all but the most extraordinary circumstances. The Supreme Court has been packed and would have ended up even worse at 7-2 or 8-1. In the meantime Biden will not be allowed to appoint to any vacancies by the Senate. With a slightly better result they would already have seized back the House of Representatives, which already has a clear bias in the Republicans favour (comparing seats with the popular vote) and Congressional gerrymandering will in the meantime intensify anyway with the results in state legislatures prior to redistricting. There was every prospect of Trump forcing through laws which reversed the limited protection of voting rights at state level, facilitating the Republican Party' ability to hold on to key battleground states, as well as intensified versions of what we have seen with the US Postal Service measures designed to eliminate swathes of postal votes, and so on.
Overall, the forces in the Republican Party came very close to overwhelming the checks in the US constitution in 2020. The tilt of the system in their favour is already massive. They'll have another opportunity to tilt it permanently in 2024 at which point they'll no doubt have a majority in the Senate and HOR. It is very clear, in the wake of the 2020 election, that they care not a fig about democratic norms, so I fear for US democracy in the longer term.
Yeah, but it's not like the US government is putting children in cages or anything. Perspective, people.
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
This is the key point. Any deal that we negotiate by ourselves will be less beneficial than the deal we get as a much larger trading block. The bigger you are the better the deal - a very simple reality.
Disagreed completely.
Small and agile > large, sclerotic and unwieldy.
Negotiate many deals do you? OK I only negotiate 8 figure deals rather than into the gazillions but I have had a conversation with someone who does negotiate deals at EU and UN level and its the same principle.
The UK by itself is a smaller lower value market than the EU. If we want to negotiate *different* deals to the one we are walking away with they aren't going to give us better terms than they give them. OK so we flip rule x for rule y on a given issue. Overall value? Worse. Because we are smaller. Volume always brings discount. Reducing volume brings increased cost - and not just on tariffs and trade.
Lets take actual trade where at the moment stuff is imported into the EU all at the same standard on the same deal. We are going to impose different standards which adds cost even before the stuff leaves the factory. We're then either going to demand direct import for our little volume which adds cost or different handling / processing / tariffs to bring the stuff across from Zeebrugge.
However you cut it, stuff will be more expensive. Because we are going to create unique standards and conditions.
If we aren't then its back to Life of Brian, you're demanding the right to have babies even though you don't have a box for the foetus to gestate in.
You claim that but have no real world evidence to substantiate your claim. The simple fact of the matter is that the EU has inferior trade deals compared to eg independent Australia or even the EFTA.
Constitutional monarchy helps on that front, but it is predicated on the monarch being above board and impartial.
Could make it worse. What if Chaz had killed himself when he made that cack handed attempt to land that 146 on Islay? We'd be staring down the dripping goo chute of King Andrew. Worse than Hitler.
That`s priceless. Are you Chris Morris or Charlie Brooker? Fess up.
... The American president looking up to fascists, yearning to be one of them even though he never quite could. I found that so so sad. And you know what's even sadder? They'll be laughing at him now. Putin, Xi, Kim, all of them, the cool gang, the real deal, the in crowd, they'll be laughing at poor Donald, the boy that used to hang around.
I think that just about sums him up. Perhaps we should be grateful that he was a 3rd rater? Can you imagine what things would have been like if he had become a competent fascist?
This is so, so true.
And the really scary thing is that at some time in the foreseeable future the American HItler will emerge.
Maybe in the next 20 years, maybe in the next 200. But there is nothing in the US system to stop him*
(*Or her, but most likely a 'him').
I think automatically reaching for Hitler when talking about fascism is a UK bias and not necessarily helpful. I do worry that a Western democracy will fall into authoritarian fascism (or indeed leftism) in the next 20 years, the signs are there, but it's likely to more resemble South American than German fascism, substantially domestic / isolationist but with a bit of sabre rattling for good measure. And it is likely, in the strictest sense of the word, to be more progressive / gradualist in nature, unwinding democratic protections as opportunity allows, as indeed Trump did. The Anglosphere is prone, having had a mild dose of neoliberalism (5-10 years ago I thought the risk was initially from a much more extreme libertarian agenda and subsequent swing back but perhaps what we had already was enough), consolidated, unconcerned media control, and no history of having lived under authoritarianism or belief that we could end up there, but Salvini in particular shows the risk doesn't need all those conditions.
The self-absorbed ferocity of the cultural war around questions of trans identity is fully bizarre, and points to some of the left's deepest challenges at the moment.
I think the biggest county swing to Biden/Democrats in 2024 will be Miami Dade if Trump isn't running again. I think Trump had a good deal of appeal to cuban American/venezuelan men in particular who'd rather have a right wing strongman in than socialism. Not sure the next GOP candidate gets that vote out again. Particularly after 4 years of Biden results in nothing like socialism.
Also I guess there will be more disinformation response in 2024. @thegrugq has a load of stuff on what happened this time - allegedly foreign interference from RussiaChina Colombia!
I think this doesn't take into account a lot of the factors why more Hispanics voted Republican. It wasn't just fear of Socialism, although for some that was the case, but also that Hispanics felt left out by a Democratic party that seemed (to them) to pander to BLM and ignore their concerns. One of the ads Trump won on the Spanish networks was that Biden had only looked at 1 Hispanic VP nomination and not seriously. Compare that with the attention given to Black VP nominees.
Pitting one minority group against another. Yep that sounds bang on brand for this manifestation of the political right.
I think the conclusion of that header is very questionable.
Obviously it depends on the final figures, both national and in Pennsylvania, but based on Biden's current national lead of 3%, putting some numbers in for a 53-47% split in voter numbers, the disparity between the leads would have to be huge to overcome Biden's current lead in Pennsylvania of 0.64%. And that could rise quite a lot when counting is complete.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Internationally red is used for left of centre parties, so: It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the american parties could switch their colours.
They used to alternate - the GOP were blue in 1980:
Well that’s put the cat amongst the pigeons. Burnham ahead of Starmer. Marcus Rashford ahead of Margaret Thatcher. And Tony Blair, x3 election winner so low, perhaps underlining why those who want Starmer to pursue Blair’s brand of centrism are a tad misguided to say the least.
I personally would have voted for either Mandela or Klopp out of all of all of those.
These surveys are a little silly, and heavily biased to who's in the frame today. They also confuse likeability with effectiveness to some extent.
Klopp, Davey, Sunak or Ardern are all very unlikely to be there in 10 years time. Mandela, HMQ, Thatcher and Churchill and possibly Sturgeon, if she wins IndyRef too, will be.
It's weird why President Xi isn't there.
If you want anotyher example it's Ruth Davidson's ratings in Scotland on such surveys - she got high marks as people recognised she was an effective leader of the Tories (albeit changing the name to the Ruth D No to Indy party) - but she didn't have a hope in hell of winning an election there.
An outrageous lie. Getting the UK to drop its keks faster than the EU would is a great benefit for the UK. It means that Japan can simply import more high value bits to its assembly plants in Derby, Swindon, Newton Aycliffe & Sunderland without having to bother with local supply chains. More things imported to the UK is definitely a Good Thing.
I don't think he'll manage it but Trump came bloody close to being the USA's first dictator.
He came nowhere near it. Nowhere.
People have listened to him in the past few days and gone "Uh-huh." And ignored him. In what ways has he come anywhere close to actually having his people tear up the democratic process?
In the end, it isn't going to be all that close - about 5m PVs and 70 ECVs. There have been many Presidential contests much closer than that, including his previous win.
Very much so. However the federal agencies are refusing so far to sign off on the transition (ostensibly this appears to be because Trump has not yet conceded) and I think we are going to see a very nasty few weeks that will prove all along what a lot of commentators said before this vote: that the US governmental machinery is predicated on the goodwill of the incumbent in committing to the peaceful transfer of power. It is possible to see Trump running this gambit until the electors convene in December, at least.
Yes, it's interesting that the USA constitutional arrangements depend so much on goodwill, a feature which we tend to associate more with our own. I think we can safely assume Donald won't be impressed if the agencies say 'it's not cricket, old chap'.
I can understand their hesitation.
Of course in the UK we don't have a transition period at all, and transitions are notably varied in their smoothness in the US. I believe neither President Adams offered any cooperation at all, nor attended their successor's inaugurations, while Hoover pig-headedly did all he could to prevent Roosevelt from altering a single one of the policies or personnel that had seen him steamrollered at the 1932 election.
It'll be annoying for Biden if he doesn't get the level of cooperation he'd like from some departments in transition... but not the end of the world. Particularly because he'd be bringing back a lot of people who were in government just under four years ago, so don't have a steep learning curve.
I only know one person that owned a TVR. For about a week. He brought it down to the shop to show it off. Couldn't get it started when he wanted to leave.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
It's why Starmer's statement, whilst pretty typical with the praise, was a little needy. Left and right in different countries do not line up perfectly.
I agree, but for whatever reasons many in Labour don’t agree. See Wes Streeting on Twitter for example. Already trying to compare Dems victory to what Labour need to do. When we know that Dems were carried over the line by doing well in the suburbs and turnout by Black voters. By contrast, we know Labour’s weakness is in Towns, and they they have to win over more older, white voters in Towns if they are to win next time.
The ferocity of the war surrounding questions of trans identity is utterly bizarre, and points to some of the left's deepest issues at the moment.
The game devs thought they had picked a safe left leaning journalist for some voice over work in their Brexit distopia game, then realised she disagrees with one aspect of the world to others and instant ban hammer comes down.
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
This is the key point. Any deal that we negotiate by ourselves will be less beneficial than the deal we get as a much larger trading block. The bigger you are the better the deal - a very simple reality.
Disagreed completely.
Small and agile > large, sclerotic and unwieldy.
Negotiate many deals do you? OK I only negotiate 8 figure deals rather than into the gazillions but I have had a conversation with someone who does negotiate deals at EU and UN level and its the same principle.
The UK by itself is a smaller lower value market than the EU. If we want to negotiate *different* deals to the one we are walking away with they aren't going to give us better terms than they give them. OK so we flip rule x for rule y on a given issue. Overall value? Worse. Because we are smaller. Volume always brings discount. Reducing volume brings increased cost - and not just on tariffs and trade.
Lets take actual trade where at the moment stuff is imported into the EU all at the same standard on the same deal. We are going to impose different standards which adds cost even before the stuff leaves the factory. We're then either going to demand direct import for our little volume which adds cost or different handling / processing / tariffs to bring the stuff across from Zeebrugge.
However you cut it, stuff will be more expensive. Because we are going to create unique standards and conditions.
If we aren't then its back to Life of Brian, you're demanding the right to have babies even though you don't have a box for the foetus to gestate in.
All of which is fine if you say "well sovereignty". Yes there's a cost but it's worth it (I think that is the position of several PB leavers).
But he isn't saying that. He is happy to give up sovereignty (as he is happy to give up liberty). But he reckons that we will actually be better off!
Indeed. A small market. With unique standards. And additional supply / import costs. Is definitely going to reduce costs vs making the same thing at the same standard as everyone else shipped in vast volumes. Its so obvious.
That does seem to be the preferred usage, but I find it a bit annoying in English, where we generally don't change endings according to gender (we would say "bravo" to both men and women without any issue), and have tended to move away from eg gendered job titles. I guess it's because so many Latinas/Latinos in the US are also Spanish-speaking that English has adopted Spanish morphology here... I've seen Latinx but how do you even pronounce that?
We do have quite a few gendered terms, although many/most are adopted from Latin languages.
Fiance, fiancee
Confidant, confidante
Blond, blonde
Are some examples.
Also, I have never understood why the masculine should be the preferred neuter – which seems to be the received wisdom.
Also: strong/bossy, energetic/feisty
Why are some of our nouns stubbornly gendered? 'This ship and all who sail in him' just sounds awful, for no logical reason.
"she" or "her" for ships (or cars) sounds awful to me. What's wrong with "it"?
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
The Democrats are basically a combination of Starmer Labour, Blarites, LDs and Remainer Tories now with a few exceptions as you say on the far left like Sanders and AOC who would be closer to Corbyn, the Republicans in their current Trumpite guise are basically only linked to the hardest of Brexiteers over here like Farage or IDS
Don't forget to bear in mind, as often, that what is far left in the US is not far left in the UK or Europe. Sanders' health plans are mainstream in Europe, for instance.
True but what is far right in the UK is not far right in the US either, Farage would be a mainstream Republican in the USA for instance.
Basically on the whole the Democrats tend to be the more centrist party in the USA and the Tories and the main centre right parties on the continent tend to be the more centrist parties in Europe eg Merkel's CDU
Biden - rejected the Medicare For All option Current UK government - Above inflation increases (just like every government since 1945) for the NHS
Biden - talked about some goals for climate change Current UK Government - Coal fired power stations closed and gone. Massive build out of renewables. Target date set for 100% ZE vehicles on the roads.
etc etc.
hard to think of a policy where Biden is to the left of the current UK government, in fact.
Sanders would actually be about where the UK government is. AOC has no policies as left as the Corbynites, that I can think of...
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
This is the key point. Any deal that we negotiate by ourselves will be less beneficial than the deal we get as a much larger trading block. The bigger you are the better the deal - a very simple reality.
Disagreed completely.
Small and agile > large, sclerotic and unwieldy.
Negotiate many deals do you? OK I only negotiate 8 figure deals rather than into the gazillions but I have had a conversation with someone who does negotiate deals at EU and UN level and its the same principle.
The UK by itself is a smaller lower value market than the EU. If we want to negotiate *different* deals to the one we are walking away with they aren't going to give us better terms than they give them. OK so we flip rule x for rule y on a given issue. Overall value? Worse. Because we are smaller. Volume always brings discount. Reducing volume brings increased cost - and not just on tariffs and trade.
Lets take actual trade where at the moment stuff is imported into the EU all at the same standard on the same deal. We are going to impose different standards which adds cost even before the stuff leaves the factory. We're then either going to demand direct import for our little volume which adds cost or different handling / processing / tariffs to bring the stuff across from Zeebrugge.
However you cut it, stuff will be more expensive. Because we are going to create unique standards and conditions.
If we aren't then its back to Life of Brian, you're demanding the right to have babies even though you don't have a box for the foetus to gestate in.
You claim that but have no real world evidence to substantiate your claim. The simple fact of the matter is that the EU has inferior trade deals compared to eg independent Australia or even the EFTA.
If the UK manages an FTA with the EU and join the TPP then we would have trade deals with more of the world than we do as EU members.
Plus as can be seen with the Japanese trade deal we can when negotiate on our own negotiate deals that better suit ourselves than the EU does. The UK/Japan trade deal opens up doors on services that the EU deal did not and we have the potential to negotiate further again still.
In what significant way is the UK/Japan trade deal better for UK than the EU(inc UK)/Japan one?
It has agreements on e-commerce specifically designed to help the City of London that were not in the EU deal.
Morning all! The Lords vote on the Internal Markets bill will be interesting not just for the scale of the defeat but for the tone. Unusually it is the Lords who will be upholding the government's manifesto from attack by the lower house rather than the other way round. As that means the Other Place have no requirement to back down this one could run and run...
Better than that. It almost certainly CAN'T run and run
IF the Lords force the government to honour its manifesto, the govt can't get the IM bill through by Dec 31. So - since, the govt keeps on repeating, Brexit can't be postponed again - we go into the post-Dec 31 world with no barriers between England and the Irish Republic. To which the only options are: - We forget about Brexit, at least for the next year or so - We rapidly join the Single Market - We go through with the ultimate BRINO, in which we have no influenmce on the EU, but unrestricted access for their goods, on their terms, into the UK
And all because the Lords insisted the govt stick to its manifesto...
I don't think he'll manage it but Trump came bloody close to being the USA's first dictator.
He came nowhere near it. Nowhere.
People have listened to him in the past few days and gone "Uh-huh." And ignored him. In what ways has he come anywhere close to actually having his people tear up the democratic process?
In the end, it isn't going to be all that close - about 5m PVs and 70 ECVs. There have been many Presidential contests much closer than that, including his previous win.
Very much so. However the federal agencies are refusing so far to sign off on the transition (ostensibly this appears to be because Trump has not yet conceded) and I think we are going to see a very nasty few weeks that will prove all along what a lot of commentators said before this vote: that the US governmental machinery is predicated on the goodwill of the incumbent in committing to the peaceful transfer of power. It is possible to see Trump running this gambit until the electors convene in December, at least.
The question will be are there sufficient states where (a) people voted Biden, (b) its a Republican governor, and (c) there are no legal penalties for faithless electors to have "rogue" electors appointed to vote Trump in enough numbers to overturn the result.
I don’t see the “GOP interference in elector appointment” being a player, to be honest. That really is crossing the rubicon and I suspect that even if someone tried it the Supreme Court would have something to say about it (it is not, for all of Trump’s fantasies, an in-house agency of the GOP). The fact we are even talking about it shows concern for the future, though.
I flagged on here the other day that, technically, it could be a possibly - the US constitution is pretty clear it is the state legislatures that have the final say over electors and the SC ruled post-2016 that electors have to follow the guidance of their legislatures. The SC has also said that states can't just blindly follow their own views but it's not entirely sure what they would do.
As many have said, though, this is a Rubicon beyond which there is no return.
In most cases it would require legislation to be retrospective though, which is a huge no-no in the states (and should be everywhere, though there have been a couple of cases in the UK).
Constitutional monarchy helps on that front, but it is predicated on the monarch being above board and impartial.
Could make it worse. What if Chaz had killed himself when he made that cack handed attempt to land that 146 on Islay? We'd be staring down the dripping goo chute of King Andrew. Worse than Hitler.
Thgere might have been a move to equal opportunities inheritance ...
For the purposes of this conjecture Anne has broken her neck falling off one of those fucking horses that she so resembles.
If the EU agree a deal making those clauses redundant then they can be removed as part of the deal.
If they don't then the clauses are necessary and it's up to the elected chamber to make the decision.
In what way necessary - given that implementing them breaks international treaties which will have consequences now all the world's leadership once again believes treaties shouldn't be ignored.
If there is an EU deal we can scrap those IMB provisions as part of the deal as redundant.
If there isn't then looking after ourselves will be more important than what other leaders think. Especially when those leaders are prepared to do the same when it suits them to do so.
OK, let's assume that this version of the IMB is needed and appropriate. Plenty disagree, but let's assume.
The government must know that the Lords can delay stuff for a year. So a government playing a tough but straight bat would introduce the IMB a bit more than twelve months before it is needed. But they didn't.
So either the government is clueless, or there's another game (heaven knows what) going on. Or both.
Did the Government have a majority in the Commons 12 months ago? I think you're mixing things up.
Furthermore no the Lords should not delay things for a year. They can, but then the Government can stuff the Lords or abolish it if need be too. The Lords should respect the supremacy of the elected chamber.
Not at all, my piratical friend.
31/13/20 is a deadline the government imposed on itself. A longer transition was on the table (as recently as this summer, I think). I understand why the government didn't take the opportunity (though I think they were foolish not to do so), but that choice has consequences. Remember also that the government could have leapt over the hurdle of the Lords by putting the details of this bill in their 2019 manifesto. If they really wanted this bill, their planning has been atrocious.
And I'd he careful about using "technically they can, but they shouldn't, because the consequences will be bad" as an argument. That's basically why a lot of people think this IMB is a serious mistake.
That's fine I understand that some think the IMB is a serious mistake - they can make that argument and it is for the elected chamber to decide. If we're not happy with what the elected chamber decides then another election is due no later than 2024.
Democracy: I'm a fan of it, are you?
Right, so we're back to "anyone who disagrees with Boris is against democracy". Normal service has resumed.
No absolutely not. If a majority of MPs vote against Boris then that is democracy.
Anyone who thinks the elected chamber shouldn't make the decisions is against democracy. Whether the elected chamber is making decisions I like or oppose I respect their right to make the decisions, because I know if they make a decision I dislike we can vote again next time.
And there are no limits to this doctrine? Not if Boris decides to sterilise the unfit, or put the races more susceptible to covid into concentration camps, say? Fine, because you can always vote him out in 2024?
Answer: yes, there are. Conforming to the rules of the democracy is just an entry level requirement, not a free pass. And why you think you can call yourself a libertarian when your favoured model of government is the complete surrender of liberty, in five-year tranches, is a puzzle.
Always with this slippery slop fallacy. The IMB is not putting people into concentration camps or sterilising the unfit. 🙄
As for why I as a libertarian support democracy the answer is because democracy is the most liberal form of government that exists. Yes democracy does mean surrendering some of our liberties for five years but the absence of democracy means surrendering them indefinitely.
At elections I will support liberal governments but if an illiberal one wins I would hope to defeat it next time with ballots not bullets.
So you accept that democracy means surrendering some of our liberties but that is absolutely fine because it is a consequence of us having the best available system of government.
Struggling to find an analogy here, Phil.
It means delegating them temporarily to people we choose then getting them back automatically to redelegate to whomever we choose again next time. Yes. The choice remains always ours and ours alone.
If you come up with an analogy please do let me know.
Temporarily until you then delegate it again so hence actually continuously.
And as to the choice - when exactly do you get the choice to end our democratic system of government? So no, you don't get a choice.
You are happy to sacrifice some element of sovereignty er, liberty for the greater good because you realise that the system wherein such small amount of liberty is sacrificed is superior to all others.
LOL
You're making contradictory circular arguments.
I don't want to end our democratic system of government, I support it.
Yes I am not an anarchist I have never said I am an ararchist. It is about balancing judgements. The balance in favour of democracy is overwhelming. The same does not apply to other issues.
So to clarify.
Membership of the EU which requires some amount of loss of, or pooled sovereignty for the greater good of an economic system = beyond the pale.
Democratic system of govt which requires some amount of loss of liberty for the greater good of a preferred system of government = all fine and dandy.
No.
Membership of the EU was never beyond the pale, I was a Remainer for most of my life and said I'd rather Remain than support Theresa May's deal.
So no, you have totally misunderstood everything I've ever written it seems because that is not what I am saying whatsoever. I am entirely OK with the UK pooling sovereignty with other nations if that is what the UK votes to do and so long as the UK can vote to end that in the future.
It could. And did. So that was the last of your objections to Brexit.
I don't object to Brexit.
Yes sorry. I meant the last of your objections to our membership of the EU was that we couldn't vote to end the arrangement which we of course did do so in fact it turns out that you had no objections to our membership of the EU.
Except that was never my objection. 🤦🏻♂️
I never said that, you are inventing that and fighting a straw man.
As I understand it you didn't like the loss of sovereignty.
What actually was it? The colour of the flag?
Then you haven't understood anything I've ever written, I was never against the EU on principle like that.
Prior to the referendum I thought it worth paying the price of pooling our sovereignty for economic advantages but I have long thought the EU is not an effective organisation and during the campaign became convinced that the UK could better manage its own sovereignty. That pooling was no longer worth it. That is a judgement, the UK I think will be economically better off treating the EU as our neighbours that we trade with instead of being a member of the EU. If I thought otherwise I might have voted Remain. I am not a die-hard extremist.
Theresa May's backstop was a worse breach of sovereignty for me than EU membership was which is why I vehemently opposed that.
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
Genuine question - is there a single example that you can think of, of a country that, after a split/independence from empire etc has benefitted economically, in the short to medium term? I can't think of one.
Well as Zhou Enlai may have said, not sure what short to medium term means.
But what are we getting at here? From empire? You mean that was previously governed and whose resources were controlled by another nation state? That's the question?
From any kind of economic split. My point is that the people who want such splits do not hold economic success as the No.1 priority.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Internationally red is used for left of centre parties, so: It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the american parties could switch their colours.
They used to alternate - the GOP were blue in 1980:
IIRC The incumbent party was normally red and the challenger blue.
Except that Gore was blue and Bush was red.
It "locked in" in 2000 when all the Florida wrangling kept the maps on the screens for weeks so they were used again in the same colours next time.
Washington Times had Dems as Red, GOP as Blue in 2000
America was just all over the place.
True, but I think TV news tended to use red for Bush and blue for Gore in 2000 and that is what locked it in place. It was a coincidence effectively no more and no less than that happened to be used in 2000 and that was the year it "stuck".
That does seem to be the preferred usage, but I find it a bit annoying in English, where we generally don't change endings according to gender (we would say "bravo" to both men and women without any issue), and have tended to move away from eg gendered job titles. I guess it's because so many Latinas/Latinos in the US are also Spanish-speaking that English has adopted Spanish morphology here... I've seen Latinx but how do you even pronounce that?
We do have quite a few gendered terms, although many/most are adopted from Latin languages.
Fiance, fiancee
Confidant, confidante
Blond, blonde
Are some examples.
Also, I have never understood why the masculine should be the preferred neuter – which seems to be the received wisdom.
Also: strong/bossy, energetic/feisty
Why are some of our nouns stubbornly gendered? 'This ship and all who sail in him' just sounds awful, for no logical reason.
Indeed, nor would one ever refer to a male server as a waitress nor a female bartender as a barman.
Morning all! The Lords vote on the Internal Markets bill will be interesting not just for the scale of the defeat but for the tone. Unusually it is the Lords who will be upholding the government's manifesto from attack by the lower house rather than the other way round. As that means the Other Place have no requirement to back down this one could run and run...
Better than that. It almost certainly CAN'T run and run
IF the Lords force the government to honour its manifesto, the govt can't get the IM bill through by Dec 31. So - since, the govt keeps on repeating, Brexit can't be postponed again - we go into the post-Dec 31 world with no barriers between England and the Irish Republic. To which the only options are: - We forget about Brexit, at least for the next year or so - We rapidly join the Single Market - We go through with the ultimate BRINO, in which we have no influenmce on the EU, but unrestricted access for their goods, on their terms, into the UK
And all because the Lords insisted the govt stick to its manifesto...
What have I missed?
Outrageous. This appointed house of cronies forcing the elected government to deliver the key policy which got it elected.
... The American president looking up to fascists, yearning to be one of them even though he never quite could. I found that so so sad. And you know what's even sadder? They'll be laughing at him now. Putin, Xi, Kim, all of them, the cool gang, the real deal, the in crowd, they'll be laughing at poor Donald, the boy that used to hang around.
I think that just about sums him up. Perhaps we should be grateful that he was a 3rd rater? Can you imagine what things would have been like if he had become a competent fascist?
This is so, so true.
And the really scary thing is that at some time in the foreseeable future the American HItler will emerge.
Maybe in the next 20 years, maybe in the next 200. But there is nothing in the US system to stop him*
(*Or her, but most likely a 'him').
I think automatically reaching for Hitler when talking about fascism is a UK bias and not necessarily helpful. I do worry that a Western democracy will fall into authoritarian fascism (or indeed leftism) in the next 20 years, the signs are there, but it's likely to more resemble South American than German fascism, substantially domestic / isolationist but with a bit of sabre rattling for good measure. And it is likely, in the strictest sense of the word, to be more progressive / gradualist in nature, unwinding democratic protections as opportunity allows, as indeed Trump did. The Anglosphere is prone, having had a mild dose of neoliberalism (5-10 years ago I thought the risk was initially from a much more extreme libertarian agenda and subsequent swing back but perhaps what we had already was enough), consolidated, unconcerned media control, and no history of having lived under authoritarianism or belief that we could end up there, but Salvini in particular shows the risk doesn't need all those conditions.
Yes, I think we have to put Hitler himself to one side as what he turned out to be is a distraction. The issue is the man as he appeared in 1932/33 to the German conservatives, to illustrate the potential for a semi-constitutional route to eventual dictatorship, of which 1930s Germany seems to be a good historical example.
hard to think of a policy where Biden is to the left of the current UK government, in fact.
Everything about immigration starting with an amnesty for the children of illegal immigrations, $15 minimum wage, 40% capital gains tax for high earners, decriminalize marijuana
That does seem to be the preferred usage, but I find it a bit annoying in English, where we generally don't change endings according to gender (we would say "bravo" to both men and women without any issue), and have tended to move away from eg gendered job titles. I guess it's because so many Latinas/Latinos in the US are also Spanish-speaking that English has adopted Spanish morphology here... I've seen Latinx but how do you even pronounce that?
We do have quite a few gendered terms, although many/most are adopted from Latin languages.
Fiance, fiancee
Confidant, confidante
Blond, blonde
Are some examples.
Also, I have never understood why the masculine should be the preferred neuter – which seems to be the received wisdom.
Also: strong/bossy, energetic/feisty
Why are some of our nouns stubbornly gendered? 'This ship and all who sail in him' just sounds awful, for no logical reason.
"she" or "her" for ships (or cars) sounds awful to me. What's wrong with "it"?
Because to her crew the ship is a living thing and if you do not cherish her then she'll kill you all. Float she may, but shine she must as my first skipper used to say.
hard to think of a policy where Biden is to the left of the current UK government, in fact.
Everything about immigration starting with an amnesty for the children of illegal immigrations, $15 minimum wage, 40% capital gains tax for high earners, decriminalize marijuana
$15 is £11.39
The UK's minimum wage will I expect be higher than that under the Tories by 2024.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
The Democrats are basically a combination of Starmer Labour, Blarites, LDs and Remainer Tories now with a few exceptions as you say on the far left like Sanders and AOC who would be closer to Corbyn, the Republicans in their current Trumpite guise are basically only linked to the hardest of Brexiteers over here like Farage or IDS
Don't forget to bear in mind, as often, that what is far left in the US is not far left in the UK or Europe. Sanders' health plans are mainstream in Europe, for instance.
True but what is far right in the UK is not far right in the US either, Farage would be a mainstream Republican in the USA for instance.
Basically on the whole the Democrats tend to be the more centrist party in the USA and the Tories and the main centre right parties on the continent tend to be the more centrist parties in Europe eg Merkel's CDU
Biden - rejected the Medicare For All option Current UK government - Above inflation increases (just like every government since 1945) for the NHS
Biden - talked about some goals for climate change Current UK Government - Coal fired power stations closed and gone. Massive build out of renewables. Target date set for 100% ZE vehicles on the roads.
etc etc.
hard to think of a policy where Biden is to the left of the current UK government, in fact.
Sanders would actually be about where the UK government is. AOC has no policies as left as the Corbynites, that I can think of...
Immigration and asylum is pretty clearly one.
You do also need to understand where countries are starting from. A policy that involves expanding healthcare coverage in the US may well involve reducing it in the UK, for example. You can't just say the US politician is "more right wing" because their policy is more modest than what we already have in the UK. Politicians generally need to set a realistic agenda based on retrenchment or expansion from what is in fact there.
That does seem to be the preferred usage, but I find it a bit annoying in English, where we generally don't change endings according to gender (we would say "bravo" to both men and women without any issue), and have tended to move away from eg gendered job titles. I guess it's because so many Latinas/Latinos in the US are also Spanish-speaking that English has adopted Spanish morphology here... I've seen Latinx but how do you even pronounce that?
We do have quite a few gendered terms, although many/most are adopted from Latin languages.
Fiance, fiancee
Confidant, confidante
Blond, blonde
Are some examples.
Also, I have never understood why the masculine should be the preferred neuter – which seems to be the received wisdom.
Also: strong/bossy, energetic/feisty
Why are some of our nouns stubbornly gendered? 'This ship and all who sail in him' just sounds awful, for no logical reason.
Indeed, nor would one ever refer to a male server as a waitress nor a female bartender as a barman.
That does seem to be the preferred usage, but I find it a bit annoying in English, where we generally don't change endings according to gender (we would say "bravo" to both men and women without any issue), and have tended to move away from eg gendered job titles. I guess it's because so many Latinas/Latinos in the US are also Spanish-speaking that English has adopted Spanish morphology here... I've seen Latinx but how do you even pronounce that?
We do have quite a few gendered terms, although many/most are adopted from Latin languages.
Fiance, fiancee
Confidant, confidante
Blond, blonde
Are some examples.
Also, I have never understood why the masculine should be the preferred neuter – which seems to be the received wisdom.
Also: strong/bossy, energetic/feisty
Why are some of our nouns stubbornly gendered? 'This ship and all who sail in him' just sounds awful, for no logical reason.
Indeed, nor would one ever refer to a male server as a waitress nor a female bartender as a barman.
I only know one person that owned a TVR. For about a week. He brought it down to the shop to show it off. Couldn't get it started when he wanted to leave.
Yeah it did have its moments - still, I drove it down to the South of France one year and it would literally gather crowds around it when parked on the way down.
Had a brilliant 100-odd miles with an M5 on the way.
... The American president looking up to fascists, yearning to be one of them even though he never quite could. I found that so so sad. And you know what's even sadder? They'll be laughing at him now. Putin, Xi, Kim, all of them, the cool gang, the real deal, the in crowd, they'll be laughing at poor Donald, the boy that used to hang around.
I think that just about sums him up. Perhaps we should be grateful that he was a 3rd rater? Can you imagine what things would have been like if he had become a competent fascist?
This is so, so true.
And the really scary thing is that at some time in the foreseeable future the American HItler will emerge.
Maybe in the next 20 years, maybe in the next 200. But there is nothing in the US system to stop him*
(*Or her, but most likely a 'him').
I think automatically reaching for Hitler when talking about fascism is a UK bias and not necessarily helpful. I do worry that a Western democracy will fall into authoritarian fascism (or indeed leftism) in the next 20 years, the signs are there, but it's likely to more resemble South American than German fascism, substantially domestic / isolationist but with a bit of sabre rattling for good measure. And it is likely, in the strictest sense of the word, to be more progressive / gradualist in nature, unwinding democratic protections as opportunity allows, as indeed Trump did. The Anglosphere is prone, having had a mild dose of neoliberalism (5-10 years ago I thought the risk was initially from a much more extreme libertarian agenda and subsequent swing back but perhaps what we had already was enough), consolidated, unconcerned media control, and no history of having lived under authoritarianism or belief that we could end up there, but Salvini in particular shows the risk doesn't need all those conditions.
Yes, I think we have to put Hitler himself to one side as what he turned out to be is a distraction. The issue is the man as he appeared in 1932/33 to the German conservatives, to illustrate the potential for a semi-constitutional route to eventual dictatorship, of which 1930s Germany seems to be a good historical example.
It's a familiar theme, but I think the danger doesn't come from Trump or whoever follows exactly him being a neo-Hitler, but what the French call cultural mediation. The USA is in better institutional and social health than Germany was in the early 1930's, but the power and influence of the electronic spectacle, and mediated information, is much greater, to the extent of sometimes dwarfing local and national institutions, networks and communities. Compared to the early 1930s many institutions are in reasonably good shape , but popular faith and participation in them isn't - at all.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
The Democrats are basically a combination of Starmer Labour, Blarites, LDs and Remainer Tories now with a few exceptions as you say on the far left like Sanders and AOC who would be closer to Corbyn, the Republicans in their current Trumpite guise are basically only linked to the hardest of Brexiteers over here like Farage or IDS
Don't forget to bear in mind, as often, that what is far left in the US is not far left in the UK or Europe. Sanders' health plans are mainstream in Europe, for instance.
True but what is far right in the UK is not far right in the US either, Farage would be a mainstream Republican in the USA for instance.
Basically on the whole the Democrats tend to be the more centrist party in the USA and the Tories and the main centre right parties on the continent tend to be the more centrist parties in Europe eg Merkel's CDU
Biden - rejected the Medicare For All option Current UK government - Above inflation increases (just like every government since 1945) for the NHS
Biden - talked about some goals for climate change Current UK Government - Coal fired power stations closed and gone. Massive build out of renewables. Target date set for 100% ZE vehicles on the roads.
etc etc.
hard to think of a policy where Biden is to the left of the current UK government, in fact.
Sanders would actually be about where the UK government is. AOC has no policies as left as the Corbynites, that I can think of...
Absurd, Biden wants to increase taxes on the rich, the Tories under Cameron cut the top tax rate for the rich, Biden will increase spending and regulation, the Tories pursued austerity under Cameron and May, only easing under Boris. Biden is close to the unions, the Tories are the party of Thatcher who as with Reagan curtailed union strikes.
Biden is anti Brexit and will reverse Trump's immigration restrictions, Patel is ending EU free movement and bringing in a points system and talking about putting asylum seekers in an offshore island to process.
Biden is also signing back up to the Paris climate accords.
Sanders is diluted Corbynite, AOC is a Corbynite.
Biden is Starmer Labour and while Trump is clearly right of Boris, only Farage would be a Trumpite in the UK, Biden is left of the Tories
TVR - one of those British white elephants, like the Sinclair Spectrum.
Small. Nimble. Agile. Fucked.
More like a white mouse. The problem is that "proper management" in the UK is considered to be
- build a business by throwing any old shite out the door. - flog it to a proper big business - the technology flops/gets forgotten
I remember having heard some spectacular rants about how Elon Musk was insanely stupid not to have flogged everything to Toyota, ULA etc at the first opportunity. And sneers at people like Dyson for trying to scale his business up to the next level.
A big problem is getting finance for such expansions. I saw one pitch by a British space tech company, where the bank in question basically said - "Why are you stupid fools not selling the company, rather than trying to grow the business?"
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
Strip out the issue of Brexit/the EU and Biden is very close to Boris on most international issues. So too though is Starmer actually.
Yeah, apparently Biden doesn’t see it like though re Boris:
Sounds like an excuse to me - world leaders work with people and countries they may find outright despicable and who have committed actual violent crimes, nevermind one who years ago said something racist. I don't doubt there may be genuine feeling against Boris, but it would only lead to significant effect if they also thought it was in american interests, which they would act towards regardless of if Boris had in fact worshipped Obama. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest Biden and co are unprofessional and pretty bad at their jobs, and I don't see the evidence of that. But Boris doesn't seem well placed for any favours, nor to strike up a casual bonhomie at least.
If smaller, nimble, agile really was better (it's not), then TVR would still be selling cars and Sainsbury's would be out of business
Hey! I was the dog's bollocks in my Chimaera.
I can hear it rusting over the Internet.
TVR - one of those British white elephants, like the Sinclair Spectrum.
The Spectrum was one of the most successful home computers of all time and pivotal for the massive UK software industry that we now have.
I suppose that does underplay it a little, but relative to what's possible it also seems quite a typical British tale, to me. With its record and expertise going back 60 years, Britain could have created something approaching Microsoft, not only a software industry.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
It's why Starmer's statement, whilst pretty typical with the praise, was a little needy. Left and right in different countries do not line up perfectly.
I agree, but for whatever reasons many in Labour don’t agree. See Wes Streeting on Twitter for example. Already trying to compare Dems victory to what Labour need to do. When we know that Dems were carried over the line by doing well in the suburbs and turnout by Black voters. By contrast, we know Labour’s weakness is in Towns, and they they have to win over more older, white voters in Towns if they are to win next time.
In the US suburbs is a very broad definition which includes what we would define as market towns within a widereaching urban area and commuting distance from a major city, their rural areas though remained strongly Trump as our rural areas and villages remain strongly Tory
I don't think he'll manage it but Trump came bloody close to being the USA's first dictator.
He came nowhere near it. Nowhere.
People have listened to him in the past few days and gone "Uh-huh." And ignored him. In what ways has he come anywhere close to actually having his people tear up the democratic process?
In the end, it isn't going to be all that close - about 5m PVs and 70 ECVs. There have been many Presidential contests much closer than that, including his previous win.
Very much so. However the federal agencies are refusing so far to sign off on the transition (ostensibly this appears to be because Trump has not yet conceded) and I think we are going to see a very nasty few weeks that will prove all along what a lot of commentators said before this vote: that the US governmental machinery is predicated on the goodwill of the incumbent in committing to the peaceful transfer of power. It is possible to see Trump running this gambit until the electors convene in December, at least.
Yes, it's interesting that the USA constitutional arrangements depend so much on goodwill, a feature which we tend to associate more with our own. I think we can safely assume Donald won't be impressed if the agencies say 'it's not cricket, old chap'.
I can understand their hesitation.
Of course in the UK we don't have a transition period at all, and transitions are notably varied in their smoothness in the US. I believe neither President Adams offered any cooperation at all, nor attended their successor's inaugurations, while Hoover pig-headedly did all he could to prevent Roosevelt from altering a single one of the policies or personnel that had seen him steamrollered at the 1932 election.
It'll be annoying for Biden if he doesn't get the level of cooperation he'd like from some departments in transition... but not the end of the world. Particularly because he'd be bringing back a lot of people who were in government just under four years ago, so don't have a steep learning curve.
The last Transition didn't happen. Obama tried but Trump & Co were a no show.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
Strip out the issue of Brexit/the EU and Biden is very close to Boris on most international issues. So too though is Starmer actually.
Yeah, apparently Biden doesn’t see it like though re Boris:
Sounds like an excuse to me - world leaders work with people and countries they may find outright despicable and who have committed actual violent crimes, nevermind one who years ago said something racist. I don't doubt there may be genuine feeling against Boris, but it would only lead to significant effect if they also thought it was in american interests, which they would act towards regardless of if Boris had in fact worshipped Obama. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest Biden and co are unprofessional and pretty bad at their jobs, and I don't see the evidence of that. But Boris doesn't seem well placed for any favours, nor to strike up a casual bonhomie at least.
Yes, but it would probably be a fair guess that Biden hates Trump, and if he sees Johnson as a British Trump this is plenty enough reason to humiliate him. I think we could be about to see an all time low in UK-US relations until Bozo leaves office.
It would be helpful for international comparison purposes if the British Tories could switch their colour to red and Labour to blue.
Surely Tories to red and the LibDems to Blue. Labour and the Democrats aren't a valid comparison when you look at their policies.
Yes, the Democrats don’t really have a sister party here right now. Clearly Biden, Harris and all the Obama Dems likely to be in his admin don’t identify with Boris and Cummings. Equally though, Labour’s vision would definitely be seen as ‘radical leftist’ by Dems in the US, with the exception of those such as Bernie and AOC.
Strip out the issue of Brexit/the EU and Biden is very close to Boris on most international issues. So too though is Starmer actually.
Yeah, apparently Biden doesn’t see it like though re Boris:
Sounds like an excuse to me - world leaders work with people and countries they may find outright despicable and who have committed actual violent crimes, nevermind one who years ago said something racist. I don't doubt there may be genuine feeling against Boris, but it would only lead to significant effect if they also thought it was in american interests, which they would act towards regardless of if Boris had in fact worshipped Obama. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest Biden and co are unprofessional and pretty bad at their jobs, and I don't see the evidence of that. But Boris doesn't seem well placed for any favours, nor to strike up a casual bonhomie at least.
Its worth noting the source. "Business Insider" is a slightly more polished version of the Canary.
You can get 1/8 with Paddy Power on Donald Trump NOT conceding before Nov 13th. The concession has to be a televised broadcast in which he explicitly concedes.
Whilst the odds are slight this looks to me like extremely good value. If, like me, you think there's fat-all chance of Trump doing such a thing then you're getting a 12.5% return in the space of 5 days!
The most I'd expect at some time is a begrudging and curmudgeonly tweet. And it won't be before Friday.
- Presidential Election 2020 When will Donald Trump publicly concede? For the purpose of this market a concession has to be a televised address where Donald Trump explicitly concedes that Joe Biden has won the 2020 US Election. All dates are EST. November 13th 2020 or later/Never 1/8
I'm bumping this up. As far as I'm concerned it's a free investment of 12.5% return over 5 days.
Even if Trump does concede before Friday, which is vanishingly unlikely, it won't be done by a full television confession. I mean concession.
One thing to consider is that Trump may well be trying to avoid jail: there is at least one apparently slam dunk case against him where someone has already been found guilty of conspiring with him. Several others are in the wings, including various state level charges in NY.
AIUI, former US Presidents continue to be addressed as Mr President and have security bodyguards for life. I'm curious how would that work in a prison setting.
Good morning, everyone.
Probably have to put him in solitary for security reasons
If smaller, nimble, agile really was better (it's not), then TVR would still be selling cars and Sainsbury's would be out of business
Hey! I was the dog's bollocks in my Chimaera.
I can hear it rusting over the Internet.
TVR - one of those British white elephants, like the Sinclair Spectrum.
The Sinclair computers introduced computing and program writing to an enormous number of young people.
These things are all true, but relative to what Britain should have achieved in this field, I think it's hugely underperformed. To me these innovations are symbols of what could have been.
If the EU agree a deal making those clauses redundant then they can be removed as part of the deal.
If they don't then the clauses are necessary and it's up to the elected chamber to make the decision.
In what way necessary - given that implementing them breaks international treaties which will have consequences now all the world's leadership once again believes treaties shouldn't be ignored.
If there is an EU deal we can scrap those IMB provisions as part of the deal as redundant.
If there isn't then looking after ourselves will be more important than what other leaders think. Especially when those leaders are prepared to do the same when it suits them to do so.
OK, let's assume that this version of the IMB is needed and appropriate. Plenty disagree, but let's assume.
The government must know that the Lords can delay stuff for a year. So a government playing a tough but straight bat would introduce the IMB a bit more than twelve months before it is needed. But they didn't.
So either the government is clueless, or there's another game (heaven knows what) going on. Or both.
Did the Government have a majority in the Commons 12 months ago? I think you're mixing things up.
Furthermore no the Lords should not delay things for a year. They can, but then the Government can stuff the Lords or abolish it if need be too. The Lords should respect the supremacy of the elected chamber.
Not at all, my piratical friend.
31/13/20 is a deadline the government imposed on itself. A longer transition was on the table (as recently as this summer, I think). I understand why the government didn't take the opportunity (though I think they were foolish not to do so), but that choice has consequences. Remember also that the government could have leapt over the hurdle of the Lords by putting the details of this bill in their 2019 manifesto. If they really wanted this bill, their planning has been atrocious.
And I'd he careful about using "technically they can, but they shouldn't, because the consequences will be bad" as an argument. That's basically why a lot of people think this IMB is a serious mistake.
That's fine I understand that some think the IMB is a serious mistake - they can make that argument and it is for the elected chamber to decide. If we're not happy with what the elected chamber decides then another election is due no later than 2024.
Democracy: I'm a fan of it, are you?
Right, so we're back to "anyone who disagrees with Boris is against democracy". Normal service has resumed.
No absolutely not. If a majority of MPs vote against Boris then that is democracy.
Anyone who thinks the elected chamber shouldn't make the decisions is against democracy. Whether the elected chamber is making decisions I like or oppose I respect their right to make the decisions, because I know if they make a decision I dislike we can vote again next time.
And there are no limits to this doctrine? Not if Boris decides to sterilise the unfit, or put the races more susceptible to covid into concentration camps, say? Fine, because you can always vote him out in 2024?
Answer: yes, there are. Conforming to the rules of the democracy is just an entry level requirement, not a free pass. And why you think you can call yourself a libertarian when your favoured model of government is the complete surrender of liberty, in five-year tranches, is a puzzle.
Always with this slippery slop fallacy. The IMB is not putting people into concentration camps or sterilising the unfit. 🙄
As for why I as a libertarian support democracy the answer is because democracy is the most liberal form of government that exists. Yes democracy does mean surrendering some of our liberties for five years but the absence of democracy means surrendering them indefinitely.
At elections I will support liberal governments but if an illiberal one wins I would hope to defeat it next time with ballots not bullets.
So you accept that democracy means surrendering some of our liberties but that is absolutely fine because it is a consequence of us having the best available system of government.
Struggling to find an analogy here, Phil.
It means delegating them temporarily to people we choose then getting them back automatically to redelegate to whomever we choose again next time. Yes. The choice remains always ours and ours alone.
If you come up with an analogy please do let me know.
Temporarily until you then delegate it again so hence actually continuously.
And as to the choice - when exactly do you get the choice to end our democratic system of government? So no, you don't get a choice.
You are happy to sacrifice some element of sovereignty er, liberty for the greater good because you realise that the system wherein such small amount of liberty is sacrificed is superior to all others.
LOL
You're making contradictory circular arguments.
I don't want to end our democratic system of government, I support it.
Yes I am not an anarchist I have never said I am an ararchist. It is about balancing judgements. The balance in favour of democracy is overwhelming. The same does not apply to other issues.
So to clarify.
Membership of the EU which requires some amount of loss of, or pooled sovereignty for the greater good of an economic system = beyond the pale.
Democratic system of govt which requires some amount of loss of liberty for the greater good of a preferred system of government = all fine and dandy.
No.
Membership of the EU was never beyond the pale, I was a Remainer for most of my life and said I'd rather Remain than support Theresa May's deal.
So no, you have totally misunderstood everything I've ever written it seems because that is not what I am saying whatsoever. I am entirely OK with the UK pooling sovereignty with other nations if that is what the UK votes to do and so long as the UK can vote to end that in the future.
It could. And did. So that was the last of your objections to Brexit.
I don't object to Brexit.
Yes sorry. I meant the last of your objections to our membership of the EU was that we couldn't vote to end the arrangement which we of course did do so in fact it turns out that you had no objections to our membership of the EU.
Except that was never my objection. 🤦🏻♂️
I never said that, you are inventing that and fighting a straw man.
As I understand it you didn't like the loss of sovereignty.
What actually was it? The colour of the flag?
Then you haven't understood anything I've ever written, I was never against the EU on principle like that.
Prior to the referendum I thought it worth paying the price of pooling our sovereignty for economic advantages but I have long thought the EU is not an effective organisation and during the campaign became convinced that the UK could better manage its own sovereignty. That pooling was no longer worth it. That is a judgement, the UK I think will be economically better off treating the EU as our neighbours that we trade with instead of being a member of the EU. If I thought otherwise I might have voted Remain. I am not a die-hard extremist.
Theresa May's backstop was a worse breach of sovereignty for me than EU membership was which is why I vehemently opposed that.
How extraordinary. You thought it would, as is commonly accepted, be a good thing for a trade deal negotiation to have the express aim of making trade conditions worse than they were previously.
Blimey, I mean I get the sovereignty right or wrong argument (wrong, obvs, but...) but yours?
Absolutely bonkers.
Genuine question - is there a single example that you can think of, of a country that, after a split/independence from empire etc has benefitted economically, in the short to medium term? I can't think of one.
South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Botswana, Argentina, Australia, Canada. Many have failed, however.
Comments
It "locked in" in 2000 when all the Florida wrangling kept the maps on the screens for weeks so they were used again in the same colours next time.
Well as Zhou Enlai may have said, not sure what short to medium term means.
But what are we getting at here? From empire? You mean that was previously governed and whose resources were controlled by another nation state? That's the question?
The system was designed to prevent the concentration of power, but it's teetering in those goals. Trump would have won once again if he had limited Biden's popular vote margin to less than 3%, and then what? The Senate is already in his party's pocket semi-permanently, in all but the most extraordinary circumstances. The Supreme Court has been packed and would have ended up even worse at 7-2 or 8-1. In the meantime Biden will not be allowed to appoint to any vacancies by the Senate. With a slightly better result they would already have seized back the House of Representatives, which already has a clear bias in the Republicans favour (comparing seats with the popular vote) and Congressional gerrymandering will in the meantime intensify anyway with the results in state legislatures prior to redistricting. There was every prospect of Trump forcing through laws which reversed the limited protection of voting rights at state level, facilitating the Republican Party' ability to hold on to key battleground states, as well as intensified versions of what we have seen with the US Postal Service measures designed to eliminate swathes of postal votes, and so on.
Overall, the forces in the Republican Party came very close to overwhelming the checks in the US constitution in 2020. The tilt of the system in their favour is already massive. They'll have another opportunity to tilt it permanently in 2024 at which point they'll no doubt have a majority in the Senate and HOR. It is very clear, in the wake of the 2020 election, that they care not a fig about democratic norms, so I fear for US democracy in the longer term.
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ubisoft-says-it-will-patch-out-a-watch-dogs-actor-who-made-controversial-remarks-about-gender
I would not like my current account balance to be morbidly obese in its overdraft.
If other administrations dismiss our PM as a shapeshifting creep I don't particularly care about that, shapeshifting is part of agility. I'd prefer that to being unable to adapt.
Klopp, Davey, Sunak or Ardern are all very unlikely to be there in 10 years time. Mandela, HMQ, Thatcher and Churchill and possibly Sturgeon, if she wins IndyRef too, will be.
It's weird why President Xi isn't there.
I take the view that when making a decision at whatever level of government you should be thinking in the following order:
a) Should I be making a law at all or would it be better to leave well alone
b) Should this be delegated downwards (always aim to take decisions as close to the people as possible)
c) If it one that shouldn't be delegated downwards then should it be delegated upwards (that is if you think it is a high level decision why am I taking it at this level eg climate)
https://twitter.com/adampayne26/status/1325036405400236032?s=21
I will just get my hat, cloak and staff...
But he isn't saying that. He is happy to give up sovereignty (as he is happy to give up liberty). But he reckons that we will actually be better off!
Basically on the whole the Democrats tend to be the more centrist party in the USA and the Tories and the main centre right parties on the continent tend to be the more centrist parties in Europe eg Merkel's CDU
Obviously it depends on the final figures, both national and in Pennsylvania, but based on Biden's current national lead of 3%, putting some numbers in for a 53-47% split in voter numbers, the disparity between the leads would have to be huge to overcome Biden's current lead in Pennsylvania of 0.64%. And that could rise quite a lot when counting is complete.
America was just all over the place.
It'll be annoying for Biden if he doesn't get the level of cooperation he'd like from some departments in transition... but not the end of the world. Particularly because he'd be bringing back a lot of people who were in government just under four years ago, so don't have a steep learning curve.
Covid-19 vaccine candidate is 90% effective, says manufacturer
Interim analysis of vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech far exceeds expectations of most experts
Current UK government - Above inflation increases (just like every government since 1945) for the NHS
Biden - talked about some goals for climate change
Current UK Government - Coal fired power stations closed and gone. Massive build out of renewables. Target date set for 100% ZE vehicles on the roads.
etc etc.
hard to think of a policy where Biden is to the left of the current UK government, in fact.
Sanders would actually be about where the UK government is. AOC has no policies as left as the Corbynites, that I can think of...
IF the Lords force the government to honour its manifesto, the govt can't get the IM bill through by Dec 31. So - since, the govt keeps on repeating, Brexit can't be postponed again - we go into the post-Dec 31 world with no barriers between England and the Irish Republic.
To which the only options are:
- We forget about Brexit, at least for the next year or so
- We rapidly join the Single Market
- We go through with the ultimate BRINO, in which we have no influenmce on the EU, but unrestricted access for their goods, on their terms, into the UK
And all because the Lords insisted the govt stick to its manifesto...
What have I missed?
Boats and ships are boys in France.
Source???
The UK's minimum wage will I expect be higher than that under the Tories by 2024.
In contrast, it is simply wrong to write thus:
I told Joe, my confidante, that Anna, my blond fiancé, was a great barman.
You do also need to understand where countries are starting from. A policy that involves expanding healthcare coverage in the US may well involve reducing it in the UK, for example. You can't just say the US politician is "more right wing" because their policy is more modest than what we already have in the UK. Politicians generally need to set a realistic agenda based on retrenchment or expansion from what is in fact there.
Had a brilliant 100-odd miles with an M5 on the way.
Biden is anti Brexit and will reverse Trump's immigration restrictions, Patel is ending EU free movement and bringing in a points system and talking about putting asylum seekers in an offshore island to process.
Biden is also signing back up to the Paris climate accords.
Sanders is diluted Corbynite, AOC is a Corbynite.
Biden is Starmer Labour and while Trump is clearly right of Boris, only Farage would be a Trumpite in the UK, Biden is left of the Tories
- build a business by throwing any old shite out the door.
- flog it to a proper big business
- the technology flops/gets forgotten
I remember having heard some spectacular rants about how Elon Musk was insanely stupid not to have flogged everything to Toyota, ULA etc at the first opportunity. And sneers at people like Dyson for trying to scale his business up to the next level.
A big problem is getting finance for such expansions. I saw one pitch by a British space tech company, where the bank in question basically said - "Why are you stupid fools not selling the company, rather than trying to grow the business?"
I had prior to that been a TR4A IRS guy which is all fine and dandy and I hit 100mph in it often on the A303 but the TVR was something else.
That said, friend of a friend bought one (TVR) and killed himself by wrapping it round a tree on the way back from the dealer's.
Pfizer, they'll save you from Covid then ensure an erection to celebrate, is there anything they cannot do?