I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
Could be a bit tricky as we try to extracate ourselves from a Trump-led Anglosphere though ;-)
Not a criticism - it's a major achievement to get that much information on a graph - but I can't work which age-group the top line is. Is it 10-14?
(Also isn't 12-15 overlapping other groups?)
Thanks for posting the graphs!
Yup - it's 10-14.
the 12-15 is an artefact of the changes they made to the data when the 12-17 vaccinations were shoved into the system. Looking at how best to deal with it.
Ok thanks.
What a shame we didn't vaccinate all the teanagers during the summer hols, eh?
(I bet no one else has made that point before.)
Unaccountable jcvi to thank for that.
Except... Advisers advise; Governments govern. There's no excuse for HMG's failure on this one.
I’m sorry but I disagree here. The jcvi dragged its feet for months so it would not have been easy for the government to overrule them, when they had not yet made a decision. They have, mostly, followed the scientific advice throughout. No question the jcvi took too long, and several members have been very outspoken about preferring to vaccinate overseas ahead of U.K. teenagers.
Further, I heard the following -
The final straw that made them give way was that the Health Secretary told that them that he would publicly condemn their stand and the *reason for it* - the "must give jabs to the third world" thing. And that they had exceeded their mandate.
Some of them claimed this was threatening their personal safety - since they expected that being held up as prioritising other countries citizens over UK citizens would not go down well among the Head Count....
The last bastion could well be Japan. Pretty immune to influence from what the rest of us are up to.
But which Western democracies are most at risk of being subverted and going the way of Russia and Turkey?
USA: yes, as hard as if seems to envisage this for someone like me brought up to see them as a lynchpin of the West Poland & Hungary: already halfway there Italy: seemingly only ever one crisis away from democratic collapse, but usually saved by the inbuilt cynicism of the electorate France: the far right could well, one day, get their way. Whether that would threaten democracy in not sure. It could be a somewhat unsavoury but fully democratic far right rule UK: the big risk I’m afraid is our slavish copying of all things American. We’ve already attempted to import culture war. If the US goes full on Gilead I can’t imagine this not having some modified collateral effect here.
I can foresee a situation where Johnson could steal an election. He has already proposed significantly weakened governance - making the Electoral Commission answerable to ministers instead of being independent, limiting the role of judges to investigate executive misdemeanors, photo ID required to vote where there is essentially no fraud risk.
The aim isn't North Korean levels of vote, but boosting say a 35% vote share to 40% could be enough to get a majority.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
Could be a bit tricky as we try to extracate ourselves from a Trump-led Anglosphere though ;-)
Not at all.
You keep pushing this line but you don't seem to understand what the Anglosphere is. The Anglosphere is not a new concept, its an old alliance. A very old alliance in modern terms actually.
It doesn't just pre-date Brexit. It doesn't just pre-date the European Union. It doesn't just pre-date the European Economic Community. It doesn't just pre-date the Treaty of Rome.
The Anglosphere, formally then the Atlantic Charter and BRUSA Agreement, dates back to World War Two.
But we've never been entangled with or needed to be extricated from the USA. The difference between the Anglosphere and the European Union is the latter is a political union to be extricated from, the former is not.
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
It makes sense that London suffering was more prolonged. If you run a distribution hub, you might as well keep the more local stations stocked as it's quicker to do those ones. But I'd have thought London should be okay now.
Driving around central and north London today, about 3/4 of petrol stations had limited or no petrol
It is still happening. Is this just now a central-ish London thing?
We filled up today for the first time since the crisis broke - no issues at all: first station we tried, all pumps working, no queues.
That's in Dorset mind - someone comes out from the shed, tips their hat, asks how many gallons you want, and hand pumps the petrol from the underground tank.
(I may have made that last bit up.)
Seems fine here now - Sainsbury has no significant queues and is pumping away happily.
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
Could the Ultra low emission zone be an issue?
My personal theory is that the rates of usage at London petrol stations are usually quite low, at an individual level. So fewer deliveries in the schedule. So easier to overwhelm with mass filling up.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
I also don't understand this idea that Trump will win in 2024. He still has all of the same negatives and Americans will, once again, reject him. Democracy will win out just as it did in 2020.
I think so too but I'm not as confident as I was last time.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
Switzerland also has the benefit of being an island nation I believe.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
What is all this fifth columnist nonsense . You’re beginning to sound unhinged.
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
It makes sense that London suffering was more prolonged. If you run a distribution hub, you might as well keep the more local stations stocked as it's quicker to do those ones. But I'd have thought London should be okay now.
I think this just reflects the fact there is a longer term shortfall in deliveries, and London is for one reason or another the most impacted. It was never just about panic buying. There was a panic which exacerbated an actual physical shortage.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
I have another Modest Proposal: ban social media from carrying (paid) advertising and instead require them to charge a subscription if they want o cover their costs. This would make the users the customers rather than the product, and have the side effect of making the running of multiple bot accounts a much more costly undertaking.
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
3 reasons. Not sure their order of priority.
I believe the fuel infrastructure there is more rickety: less redundancy due to insane property prices and the relative importance of public transport means there's far fewer stations than you'd expect relative to population there.
Plus the media are there to exaggerate any issues.
Plus Remainers are there to exaggerate any issues.
The last bastion could well be Japan. Pretty immune to influence from what the rest of us are up to.
But which Western democracies are most at risk of being subverted and going the way of Russia and Turkey?
USA: yes, as hard as if seems to envisage this for someone like me brought up to see them as a lynchpin of the West Poland & Hungary: already halfway there Italy: seemingly only ever one crisis away from democratic collapse, but usually saved by the inbuilt cynicism of the electorate France: the far right could well, one day, get their way. Whether that would threaten democracy in not sure. It could be a somewhat unsavoury but fully democratic far right rule UK: the big risk I’m afraid is our slavish copying of all things American. We’ve already attempted to import culture war. If the US goes full on Gilead I can’t imagine this not having some modified collateral effect here.
I can foresee a situation where Johnson could steal an election. He has already proposed significantly weakened governance - making the Electoral Commission answerable to ministers instead of being independent, limiting the role of judges to investigate executive misdemeanors, photo ID required to vote where there is essentially no fraud risk.
The aim isn't North Korean levels of vote, but boosting say a 35% vote share to 40% could be enough to get a majority.
If Labour/the left/anyone who dislikes Johnson had any sense they would portray him as weak. Not allowing cabinet colleagues to make speeches in front of the activists, trying to gerrymander the voting system, weakening accountability of government.
They won't because the strong/weak theme is now anathema to them.
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
It makes sense that London suffering was more prolonged. If you run a distribution hub, you might as well keep the more local stations stocked as it's quicker to do those ones. But I'd have thought London should be okay now.
I think this just reflects the fact there is a longer term shortfall in deliveries, and London is for one reason or another the most impacted. It was never just about panic buying. There was a panic which exacerbated an actual physical shortage.
The stats prior to September don’t show this though, supply was flat.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
There a quite a few people here who would hold that the problem is universal suffrage democracy.
Hence my espousal of the Putney Party - Ireton was right in the debates....
no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
3 reasons. Not sure their order of priority.
I believe the fuel infrastructure there is more rickety: less redundancy due to insane property prices and the relative importance of public transport means there's far fewer stations than you'd expect relative to population there.
Plus the media are there to exaggerate any issues.
Plus Remainers are there to exaggerate any issues.
The normally low usage of petrol per car is probably the main issue.
Many Londoners have a car, and drive it about twice a month. When they fill their tanks at the same time, you have the combination of a normally low rate of delivery and a sudden, huge jump in demand.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
With all respect (and I have come to grudgingly respect your calm if lefty insights!) I think you are of a generation that does not understand the incredible power of social media
Essentially, it is the invention of printing, times a thousand. It is Guternberg on mega-steroids
Social media allows anyone to speak to anyone anywhere in the world, instantly, and in a global language - English - and using universal symbols: memes, GIFs, funny videos. Add in to that the potential for fake News, Deep Fakes, and so on, and you have a recipe for utter mayhem
China has banned unregulated social media for a reason. They know it is a threat to civil stability. They are right. They may be evil autocrats, but they are right
The invention of social media in the early 21st century is like someone inventing the submachine gun or the long range bomber in warlike medieval Europe. The power is bewildering, it is so huge we have no real conception of what it might do, or what it can achieve, but we do know it will cause chaos, trouble and death
It has to be reined in. The first stop must be breaking up the obvious monopolies like Facebook
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
3 reasons. Not sure their order of priority.
I believe the fuel infrastructure there is more rickety: less redundancy due to insane property prices and the relative importance of public transport means there's far fewer stations than you'd expect relative to population there.
Plus the media are there to exaggerate any issues.
Plus Remainers are there to exaggerate any issues.
The normally low usage of petrol per car is probably the main issue.
Many Londoners have a car, and drive it about twice a month. When they fill their tanks at the same time, you have the combination of a normally low rate of delivery and a sudden, huge jump in demand.
Indeed.
It probably takes far longer to get to the point of "everyone's tank is full now, they can't keep panicking now" point as a result.
If there are still people with "Chelsea Tractors" they almost never drive able to fill their tanks then they'll still be prolonging the panic - while the rest of the nation filled theirs and moved on already.
@NickPalmer I missed the time to edit my earlier comment. I wanted to add this: I’m not sure the Americans would think that Germany currently has free speech; there are a lot of things which (for very good reason) are banned because the government thinks they are bad. Personally I think free speech can be over-rated as being a good thing.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Doesn’t that mean that the original use of the word was wrong then?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
There a quite a few people here who would hold that the problem is universal suffrage democracy.
Hence my espousal of the Putney Party - Ireton was right in the debates....
no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
The problem with that definition is it reduces the number of democracies in history to nearly nothing. Including a number of societies which everyone (at the time) described as democracies.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
With all respect (and I have come to grudgingly respect your calm if lefty insights!) I think you are of a generation that does not understand the incredible power of social media
Essentially, it is the invention of printing, times a thousand. It is Guternberg on mega-steroids
Social media allows anyone to speak to anyone anywhere in the world, instantly, and in a global language - English - and using universal symbols: memes, GIFs, funny videos. Add in to that the potential for fake News, Deep Fakes, and so on, and you have a recipe for utter mayhem
China has banned unregulated social media for a reason. They know it is a threat to civil stability. They are right. They may be evil autocrats, but they are right
The invention of social media in the early 21st century is like someone inventing the submachine gun or the long range bomber in warlike medieval Europe. The power is bewildering, it is so huge we have no real conception of what it might do, or what it can achieve, but we do know it will cause chaos, trouble and death
It has to be reined in. The first stop must be breaking up the obvious monopolies like Facebook
I couldn't disagree more on this one.
Yes its a threat to "civil stability" but "stability" is overrated. Instability is our strength - and stability is China's downfall.
Can anyone explain why London should be worse affected than anywhere else by the petrol shortage?
3 reasons. Not sure their order of priority.
I believe the fuel infrastructure there is more rickety: less redundancy due to insane property prices and the relative importance of public transport means there's far fewer stations than you'd expect relative to population there.
Plus the media are there to exaggerate any issues.
Plus Remainers are there to exaggerate any issues.
The normally low usage of petrol per car is probably the main issue.
Many Londoners have a car, and drive it about twice a month. When they fill their tanks at the same time, you have the combination of a normally low rate of delivery and a sudden, huge jump in demand.
Indeed.
It probably takes far longer to get to the point of "everyone's tank is full now, they can't keep panicking now" point as a result.
If there are still people with "Chelsea Tractors" they almost never drive able to fill their tanks then they'll still be prolonging the panic - while the rest of the nation filled theirs and moved on already.
Yup. That describes me. I had to make two stops yesterday to fill the vast tank in my Chelsea Tractor. It’s been sat on the street doing nothing since the crisis began, as it often does in any normal week.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
There a quite a few people here who would hold that the problem is universal suffrage democracy.
Hence my espousal of the Putney Party - Ireton was right in the debates....
no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom
Presumably a fair and precise definition of an island nation is a nation self-contained on an island (or islands) without any land borders.
So on that basis, England, Scotland and Wales are not island nations and nor, strictly speaking, is the UK or ROI.
Admittedly, people think of them as such. I guess Haiti is also considered an island nation. But it isn’t really one either.
The Wikipedia version (I don’t know their source but wh don’t we agree that it is sensible and leave it at that?): Many island countries are spread over an archipelago, as is the case with the Federated States of Micronesia and Indonesia (both of which consist of thousands of islands). Others consist of a single island, such as Barbados or Nauru, or part of an island, such as the Dominican Republic or Brunei.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
With all respect (and I have come to grudgingly respect your calm if lefty insights!) I think you are of a generation that does not understand the incredible power of social media
Essentially, it is the invention of printing, times a thousand. It is Guternberg on mega-steroids
Social media allows anyone to speak to anyone anywhere in the world, instantly, and in a global language - English - and using universal symbols: memes, GIFs, funny videos. Add in to that the potential for fake News, Deep Fakes, and so on, and you have a recipe for utter mayhem
China has banned unregulated social media for a reason. They know it is a threat to civil stability. They are right. They may be evil autocrats, but they are right
The invention of social media in the early 21st century is like someone inventing the submachine gun or the long range bomber in warlike medieval Europe. The power is bewildering, it is so huge we have no real conception of what it might do, or what it can achieve, but we do know it will cause chaos, trouble and death
It has to be reined in. The first stop must be breaking up the obvious monopolies like Facebook
I couldn't disagree more on this one.
Yes its a threat to "civil stability" but "stability" is overrated. Instability is our strength - and stability is China's downfall.
When GPT3 or GPT4 Deepfake political videos come along, you will see that what I am saying is true
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
Presumably a fair and precise definition of an island nation is a nation self-contained on an island (or islands) without any land borders.
So on that basis, England, Scotland and Wales are not island nations and nor, strictly speaking, is the UK or ROI.
Admittedly, people think of them as such. I guess Haiti is also considered an island nation. But it isn’t really one either.
The Wikipedia version (I don’t know their source but wh don’t we agree that it is sensible and leave it at that?): Many island countries are spread over an archipelago, as is the case with the Federated States of Micronesia and Indonesia (both of which consist of thousands of islands). Others consist of a single island, such as Barbados or Nauru, or part of an island, such as the Dominican Republic or Brunei.
Because this is pedanticbetting.com and therefore we don’t just meekly accept sensible, MOR, Wikipedia definitions.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Doesn’t that mean that the original use of the word was wrong then?
There are a number of problems with Me Thompson’s assertion before you even get to the extent of the franchise in Ancient Athens. The principle that the King could not rule without Parliament was not established until 1660. The later principle that Parliament was sovereign not established until 1689. So even if you describe the current arrangement as democratic we are talking less than 3 and a half centuries since even that was established - that’s not ancient.
Ancient Athens excluded slaves and women from voting. We excluded slaves (such as there were in England but definitely in the colonies), women AND poor people. And we have, unlike most other western countries, never been able to vote for the upper house of our legislature nor the head of state.
The claims of this country to democracy are a little shaky, at least historically.
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
With all respect (and I have come to grudgingly respect your calm if lefty insights!) I think you are of a generation that does not understand the incredible power of social media
Essentially, it is the invention of printing, times a thousand. It is Guternberg on mega-steroids
Social media allows anyone to speak to anyone anywhere in the world, instantly, and in a global language - English - and using universal symbols: memes, GIFs, funny videos. Add in to that the potential for fake News, Deep Fakes, and so on, and you have a recipe for utter mayhem
China has banned unregulated social media for a reason. They know it is a threat to civil stability. They are right. They may be evil autocrats, but they are right
The invention of social media in the early 21st century is like someone inventing the submachine gun or the long range bomber in warlike medieval Europe. The power is bewildering, it is so huge we have no real conception of what it might do, or what it can achieve, but we do know it will cause chaos, trouble and death
It has to be reined in. The first stop must be breaking up the obvious monopolies like Facebook
I couldn't disagree more on this one.
Yes its a threat to "civil stability" but "stability" is overrated. Instability is our strength - and stability is China's downfall.
When GPT3 or GPT4 Deepfake political videos come along, you will see that what I am saying is true
Alternative its only through the shining light of free speech that we'll be able to handle the deepfaked political videos.
Allow them to be "controlled" by an individual or state without being countered then that's when its going to get much worse.
Talking of Wikipedia it always impresses me how quickly informative and generally balanced coverage of contemporary events appears on there. For example, here’s the Wikipedia take on the petrol shortage:
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I suspect that the high rates of suicide among transgender individuals (and also the very high rates of homelessness), have rather more to do with familial rejection than psychiatric disorders.
The other point worth making is that definitions matter. Is the claim being made about those who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or those who claim to be transgender without such a diagnosis? The other point worth noting is that among children referred to the Tavistock Centre, for instance, a significant portion have other mental conditions, for instance, autism. So the extent to which such suicides - and any suicide is, whatever its cause, a tragedy - are because of one aspect rather than another or the combination of them is difficult to say.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Doesn’t that mean that the original use of the word was wrong then?
There are a number of problems with Me Thompson’s assertion before you even get to the extent of the franchise in Ancient Athens. The principle that the King could not rule without Parliament was not established until 1660. The later principle that Parliament was sovereign not established until 1689. So even if you describe the current arrangement as democratic we are talking less than 3 and a half centuries since even that was established - that’s not ancient.
Ancient Athens excluded slaves and women from voting. We excluded slaves (such as there were in England but definitely in the colonies), women AND poor people. And we have, unlike most other western countries, never been able to vote for the upper house of our legislature nor the head of state.
The claims of this country to democracy are a little shaky, at least historically.
They also excluded anyone who had not done their military training. That would skew the results a bit if we tried that in the UK…
And I see the latest poll is 89% to stay in the EU, vs 6% for Poland to leave.
The Polish government is describing these as protests against the Constitution, which is true to a point, but just shows that Constitutions should require consensus support rather than just be changed by a temporary government.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
I've always wondered how the Royal Family divides on Brexit
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Doesn’t that mean that the original use of the word was wrong then?
There are a number of problems with Me Thompson’s assertion before you even get to the extent of the franchise in Ancient Athens. The principle that the King could not rule without Parliament was not established until 1660. The later principle that Parliament was sovereign not established until 1689. So even if you describe the current arrangement as democratic we are talking less than 3 and a half centuries since even that was established - that’s not ancient.
Ancient Athens excluded slaves and women from voting. We excluded slaves (such as there were in England but definitely in the colonies), women AND poor people. And we have, unlike most other western countries, never been able to vote for the upper house of our legislature nor the head of state.
The claims of this country to democracy are a little shaky, at least historically.
Not at all. Democracy is voting by the people and we've had that for many hundreds of years. Who the people are has evolved but if you define it as all adult men and women then you're saying that even Athens itself wasn't a democracy.
You want us to use the word liberty instead, but if you judge liberty by modern standards you have the same problem. The liberty of hundreds of years ago (or even dozens of years ago) is not the same as our liberty today.
The point and its a strength is that British democracy hasn't got a single start date. There was no single revolution or piece of paper that got us to where we are today. It has evolved over many hundreds of years.
In the battle of evolution versus 'intelligent design' our democracy falls firmly in the former category, from centuries of evolution. Most other countries democracies have been more in the latter category which then runs into more serious issues when the "intelligently designed" "checks and balances" fail, in a way we haven't had.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
I've always wondered how the Royal Family divides on Brexit
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
Kate: Remain, but close
Harry: Leave (but close)
Meghan: (hard) Remain:
Andrew: mild Remain? But focused on "totty"
Edward: Remain (vague media career)
Anne: Leave
Any other guesses?
Duke of Edinburgh: Remain. My reasons: he was a fluent French and German speaker, his war record and his environmental interests.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
I've always wondered how the Royal Family divides on Brexit
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
Kate: Remain, but close
Harry: Leave (but close)
Meghan: (hard) Remain:
Andrew: mild Remain? But focused on "totty"
Edward: Remain (vague media career)
Anne: Leave
Any other guesses?
William would have been Remain.
The Queen Mother had she still been around would have definitely been Leave
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
I've always wondered how the Royal Family divides on Brexit
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
Kate: Remain, but close
Harry: Leave (but close)
Meghan: (hard) Remain:
Andrew: mild Remain? But focused on "totty"
Edward: Remain (vague media career)
Anne: Leave
Any other guesses?
Duke of Edinburgh: Remain. My reasons: he was a fluent French and German speaker, his war record and his environmental interests.
Fair point but he would also have that generation's wariness of all things "European", given what happened to his mother (and him, in the end)
I hear rumours he was firmly Leave, like the Queen - but they are mere rumours
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
So would you say China is a democracy? To exert effective influence you need to be at least a middle-ranking Communist Party official, but I suppose anyone can join and aspire to that position. Rather like medieval landowners, they engender a mixture of fear (of arbitrary rule) and respect (for making society prosperous).
I'd call it an autocracy, just with different autocrats from the ones we had. If you call anything involving "rule by some of the people" a democracy then the word loses its meaning. As I think you'll concede, on reflection, as you aren't usually that closed to reasonable argument.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
I've always wondered how the Royal Family divides on Brexit
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
Kate: Remain, but close
Harry: Leave (but close)
Meghan: (hard) Remain:
Andrew: mild Remain? But focused on "totty"
Edward: Remain (vague media career)
Anne: Leave
Any other guesses?
Duke of Edinburgh: Remain. My reasons: he was a fluent French and German speaker, his war record and his environmental interests.
And he was Greek, of course.
Andrew: Leavers will think he's Remain; Remainers will think he was Leave. No one wants him in their camp.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
I've always wondered how the Royal Family divides on Brexit
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
Kate: Remain, but close
Harry: Leave (but close)
Meghan: (hard) Remain:
Andrew: mild Remain? But focused on "totty"
Edward: Remain (vague media career)
Anne: Leave
Any other guesses?
William would have been Remain.
The Queen Mother had she still been around would have definitely been Leave
Harry would have been Leave but would now be anti Brexit as Meghan would dictate his views on the EU and loathing Boris as she does on everything else
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Grieve didn't accept the result, he rejected every Brexit option. Not just leaving without a deal, but also May's deal too and all other Brexit options were rejected as he sought to overturn democracy.
I was replying to Max, not you. What's your response got to do with my post?
It was because you said you didn't support the referendum result being overturned and accepted the result. But earlier you said:
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
Grieve at least rejected every form of Brexit. Not just no deal, but May's and every other form proposed too. He was a politer less violent equivalent of the Trump supporters who wanted the result overturning but he was every bit one of them. And yet you sarcastically objected to him being kicked out of the party, sarcastically mocking the idea that he was a beyond the pale extremist. Why?
Grieve was quite a different character to most of those, they don't deserve to be lumped in with him.
Grieve was especially repulsive. He did not even try to hide his effete and lordly contempt for the scum voters of Leave,
"Parliament is incapable of settling Brexit. We need a second referendum Dominic Grieve"
It was unfortunate, for him, that his narrow, horsey face epitomised the face of a snob unfortunately confronting a smelly peasant, and thereby clutching a scented silk foulard to his nose, in horror
I think he had his eye on receiving a legion d'honneur. Grieve was absolutely a fifth columnist, he was very clearly taking instructions from Brussels and Paris on how to frustrate the Brexit process and probably advising them on how best to ensure the UK was unable to leave the EU.
Your evidence being?
I've never really forgiven Grieve for his expensive attempts to keep Prince Charles' witterings from pubic disclosure.
I've always wondered how the Royal Family divides on Brexit
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
Kate: Remain, but close
Harry: Leave (but close)
Meghan: (hard) Remain:
Andrew: mild Remain? But focused on "totty"
Edward: Remain (vague media career)
Anne: Leave
Any other guesses?
William would have been Remain.
The Queen Mother had she still been around would have definitely been Leave
It is a huge gold star for William and Kate that they are so hard to call, politically
They understand (as does the Queen, and as Charles does not, quite) that doing the job well means a lifetime of political neutrality and muteness. In return you get endless luxury, travel and adoration, but you have to amputate the limb of "independent thought" and you have to behave moderately well, all the time. The odd discrete affair is OK. but there can be no overt womanising, partying or drug taking, especially now.
That is quite a sacrifice. But that's how constitutional monarchies work, these days
King Bumibhol of Siam and Queen Elizabeth 2 of the UK are the two paramount examples of doing this brilliantly, and both were/are notably adored by their people
In all sincerity, I believe we may reach a point where we have to prohibit free social media. Facebook, Twitter, et al. At least for a while. They are too powerful, and too easily gamed by our foes. They might end up being strictly regulated in the way we regulate firearms.
End free speech in order to save it? I'm no great fan of social media, but I think you overstate its influence, and its problems stem more from shouty individuals than bots. Ban social media and they will find other ways to shout.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
With all respect (and I have come to grudgingly respect your calm if lefty insights!) I think you are of a generation that does not understand the incredible power of social media
Essentially, it is the invention of printing, times a thousand. It is Guternberg on mega-steroids
Social media allows anyone to speak to anyone anywhere in the world, instantly, and in a global language - English - and using universal symbols: memes, GIFs, funny videos. Add in to that the potential for fake News, Deep Fakes, and so on, and you have a recipe for utter mayhem
China has banned unregulated social media for a reason. They know it is a threat to civil stability. They are right. They may be evil autocrats, but they are right
The invention of social media in the early 21st century is like someone inventing the submachine gun or the long range bomber in warlike medieval Europe. The power is bewildering, it is so huge we have no real conception of what it might do, or what it can achieve, but we do know it will cause chaos, trouble and death
It has to be reined in. The first stop must be breaking up the obvious monopolies like Facebook
I couldn't disagree more on this one.
Yes its a threat to "civil stability" but "stability" is overrated. Instability is our strength - and stability is China's downfall.
Leon is right and the clue is in the name - social MEDIA. States have regulated media for decades for a very clear reason namely that they understood the potential for control of the media to be misused for nefarious purposes. Not sure why we think it is ok to regulate one but not the other.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
Are you really entering a dick swinging contest about who has the longest democracy? Christ…
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
Are you really entering a dick swinging contest about who has the longest democracy? Christ…
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
Are you really entering a dick swinging contest about who has the longest democracy? Christ…
Not at all, I simply stated matter of factly that as one of the oldest democracies the UK which has evolved and not been created the UK was well placed to avoid a descent away from democracy.
DougSeal then objected to the claim the UK is an old democracy.
A study by Ipsos Mori in 2018 found 30 per cent of those surveyed in China felt the Royal family gives them a more positive view of Britain. Thirty-eight per cent felt "more positive" in India, with the Queen the most popular family member in both countries.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
Yes, that is quite outrageous nonsense. When America was founded as a "democracy" they had slavery on their own soil, and a Constitution which explicitly denied suffrage to these US slaves in terms of voting rights. And many of the signatories to that Constitution were slave-owners, on their own estates, in the USA
Preposterous
The UK probably has the oldest datable continuous parliament, Iceland is alongside
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
Yes, that is quite outrageous nonsense. When America was founded as a "democracy" they had slavery on their own soil, and a Constitution which explicitly denied suffrage to these US slaves in terms of voting rights. And many of the signatories to that Constitution were slave-owners, on their own estates, in the USA
Preposterous
The UK probably has the oldest datable continuous parliament, Iceland is alongside
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
This map you so blithely dismiss nevertheless clearly defines what it means by democracy. What’s wrong with its definition and how it is applied? How do you define it? How on Earth could the United Kingdom, whose monarch appointed a government against the wishes of Parliament (and thus any voters whatsoever) as recently as 1834, count as a democracy before the USA, whose chief executives have always been elected, and certainly since it’s constitution was adopted in 1789?
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
Yes, that is quite outrageous nonsense. When America was founded as a "democracy" they had slavery on their own soil, and a Constitution which explicitly denied suffrage to these US slaves in terms of voting rights. And many of the signatories to that Constitution were slave-owners, on their own estates, in the USA
Preposterous
The UK probably has the oldest datable continuous parliament, Iceland is alongside
A Parliament does not a democracy make.
What does? Suffrage? Partial suffrage? White suffrage? Men only suffrage? Universal suffrage? It is all absurdly moot. But human slavery on your soil and embodied, literally, in your written Constitution renders the USA unacceptable until the end of the Civil War, I fear, and maybe beyond, so long later than most of the other examples
The continuous roots of British democracy centred around Westminster go deeper than almost any other polity
A study by Ipsos Mori in 2018 found 30 per cent of those surveyed in China felt the Royal family gives them a more positive view of Britain. Thirty-eight per cent felt "more positive" in India, with the Queen the most popular family member in both countries.
So much for the Commonwealth, with the Royal family only having an 8 %age point edge in India vs China.
Actually shows the astonishing global reach of our Royal family and especially the Queen that a 3rd of Chinese have a more positive view of the UK because of her. The Royal brand spreads even beyond the Commonwealth
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
This map you so blithely dismiss nevertheless clearly defines what it means by democracy. What’s wrong with its definition and how it is applied? How do you define it? How on Earth could the United Kingdom, whose monarch appointed a government against the wishes of Parliament (and thus any voters whatsoever) as recently as 1834, count as a democracy before the USA, whose chief executives have always been elected, and certainly since it’s constitution was adopted in 1789?
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
To be fair it is based on when most adult males had the vote.
Certainly by 1840 over 80% of white males in the USA had the vote and used it in that year's presidential election
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
This map you so blithely dismiss nevertheless clearly defines what it means by democracy. What’s wrong with its definition and how it is applied? How do you define it? How on Earth could the United Kingdom, whose monarch appointed a government against the wishes of Parliament (and thus any voters whatsoever) as recently as 1834, count as a democracy before the USA, whose chief executives have always been elected, and certainly since it’s constitution was adopted in 1789?
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
To be fair it is based on when most adult males had the vote.
Certainly by 1840 over 80% of white males in the USA had the vote and used it in that year's presidential election
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
This map you so blithely dismiss nevertheless clearly defines what it means by democracy. What’s wrong with its definition and how it is applied? How do you define it? How on Earth could the United Kingdom, whose monarch appointed a government against the wishes of Parliament (and thus any voters whatsoever) as recently as 1834, count as a democracy before the USA, whose chief executives have always been elected, and certainly since it’s constitution was adopted in 1789?
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
They define it by and I quote "Voting: A majority of adult men has the right to vote."
In the 18th century only property owning males had the vote in America, just like in the UK. The estimated percentage of population who had the right to vote in the US in 1789 is 6% of adult males.
How does 6% of adult males equate to a majority of adult men?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
This map you so blithely dismiss nevertheless clearly defines what it means by democracy. What’s wrong with its definition and how it is applied? How do you define it? How on Earth could the United Kingdom, whose monarch appointed a government against the wishes of Parliament (and thus any voters whatsoever) as recently as 1834, count as a democracy before the USA, whose chief executives have always been elected, and certainly since it’s constitution was adopted in 1789?
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
They define it by and I quote "Voting: A majority of adult men has the right to vote."
In the 18th century only property owning males had the vote in America, just like in the UK. The estimated percentage of population who had the right to vote in the US in 1789 is 6% of adult males.
How does 6% of adult males equate to a majority of adult men?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
This map you so blithely dismiss nevertheless clearly defines what it means by democracy. What’s wrong with its definition and how it is applied? How do you define it? How on Earth could the United Kingdom, whose monarch appointed a government against the wishes of Parliament (and thus any voters whatsoever) as recently as 1834, count as a democracy before the USA, whose chief executives have always been elected, and certainly since it’s constitution was adopted in 1789?
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
They define it by and I quote "Voting: A majority of adult men has the right to vote."
In the 18th century only property owning males had the vote in America, just like in the UK. The estimated percentage of population who had the right to vote in the US in 1789 is 6% of adult males.
How does 6% of adult males equate to a majority of adult men?
You still haven’t given me your definition.
There are tons of decent definitions of democracy, depending on the cultural setting and historical context we are talking about. The problem with the one you cite is not that it is not useful, it is, but that it is entirely self-serving for the purpose of creating that particular map.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
What an extraordinarily fallacious and clearly American map.
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
This map you so blithely dismiss nevertheless clearly defines what it means by democracy. What’s wrong with its definition and how it is applied? How do you define it? How on Earth could the United Kingdom, whose monarch appointed a government against the wishes of Parliament (and thus any voters whatsoever) as recently as 1834, count as a democracy before the USA, whose chief executives have always been elected, and certainly since it’s constitution was adopted in 1789?
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
They define it by and I quote "Voting: A majority of adult men has the right to vote."
In the 18th century only property owning males had the vote in America, just like in the UK. The estimated percentage of population who had the right to vote in the US in 1789 is 6% of adult males.
How does 6% of adult males equate to a majority of adult men?
You still haven’t given me your definition.
I'm not giving a definition. Its like saying define life. As I've said time and again, its not hard and fast, its evolved over time. I'll define it as SCOTUS Justice Stewart defined hardcore pornography in Jacobells v Ohio "I know it when I see it"
But they did give a definition "a majority of men". Why a majority of men? They don't say.
But having defined it as a majority of men, they then say America was a democracy from 1789 which is when 6% of men could vote.
Better to have no definition, than to have a definition then to not actually apply it.
On topic the US and the UK have the same problem that the constitution is written one way or not at all but what people expect to happen is botched on top by "norms". This doesn't work against a determined and sufficiently psychopathic adversary, because they don't care about the norms.
The US constitution lets states choose presidential electors and lets an elected house adjuducate disputes. The former is because it's not really designed as a democracy, and the latter because the people who write it had absolutely no idea what the fuck they were doing. If Americans want a democracy they should fix their shitty constitution.
Anyone watching Paris Police 1900? Great production values, some nice, smokey fin de siècle interiors and a lovely streak of Grand Guignol. Je suis un fan (that’s enough your shite Franglais-Ed).
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I'm going to add to your analogy @Leon by adding and like the 2016 Clintonites who could never accept that Trump might have won legitimately and that it had to be because of Russia. Just to pour some fuel on the flames
Cf Carole "Russian influence" Cadwalladr
Are you looking forward to the UK being the supporting member in an 'Anglosphere' led by Trump @Leon?
No, absolutely not. I've been clear in my contempt for Trump from the start. He's a dangerous, obnoxious quasi-lunatic
However, if he wins, I would not seek to overturn the result (were I American)
That ends with civil war, I reckon. Indeed I think a successful "overturn" of the UK EU referendum by "2nd voters" would eventually have ended in civil strife and blood on the streets: of Britain. It was absolute insanity. Democracy MUST prevail. It is amazing, looking back, how many sane and educated people thought it was perfectly acceptable to simply ignore a vote - the biggest single vote in our history, 17.4 million people - and amongst these democracy-cancellers was Labour leader Kir Royale Starmer
The issue is likely to be, as per the thread header, that Trump wins by cheating. At which point democracy in America is effectively dead.
Then where do we (the UK) stand? Should we press on with trying build an Anglosphere where we are aligned to the whims of the orange idiot, or do we cut our losses and look for allies in the remaining western democracies?
They would be hideously muddied waters. I agree
And yet I still have faith in American democracy: to ultimately prevail. They have pretty stiff checks and balances, over there, and the SCOTUS, whatever its political complexion, is not rammed with obvious lunatics.
And the SCOTUS will have the final, final say
You may be right there - I hope you are.
On bad days I succumb to the feeling we are witnessing the Decline and Fall of Western Democracy. In that scenario Scandinavia will end up as a kind of Rivendell where the last democrats hang on, keeping their heads down, reminiscing on the golden democratic past, surrounded by tyrants and despots.
I mean, Scandinavia is pleasant enough in the summer but why can’t the last bastion be somewhere with a Mediterranean climate?
Honestly, I think one of the last places to fall might be somewhere such as Greece or Portugal. Relatively or totally obscure languages, very resistant to Wokeness but also attached to democracy (for different reasons). Weak use of social media, so not crazy. Nice food
Or maybe Italian-speaking Switzerland? But, in which case, start saving pennies for that tiny cottage near Lugano, now, they are already obscenely pricey
I may be biased, but I think in that scenario the UK would be one of the last places to fall.
Ancient history of democracy (older even than America), iteratively developed rather than enmeshed in a "written constitution" with "checks and balances" (that I view as a flaw, not a feature), not tied down with other nations in any institution like the EU with antidemocratic tendencies, plus an island nation happy to plough a path alone.
While I’ll concede that we have a reasonably long history of parliamentary government but democracy in this country is barely 100 years old, having only begun with the final abolition of the property qualification in 1918. The unchallenged canard that we have an “ancient history of democracy” shows the speaker doesn’t know the meaning of either “ancient”, “history” or “democracy”. We are no long standing beacon of liberty. We need democracy to bed down here for a while before we can be a last bastion of it.
Not at all. It was a property-based democracy but it was still a democracy. The franchise may have evolved over time until it reached universal democracy, but for its day democracy was still how divisions between eg Whigs and Tories were settled even in the 19th century and earlier.
No. “Property based democracy” is an oxymoron. Democracy means rule by the “demos” or people. If only landowners have the vote you have an oligarchy. If you want to promote an oligarchy, fine, but don’t call it democracy. Anyway, Parliamentary supremacy was only established in the mid 17th century. Under no circumstances can you describe the limited representative government established then as being “ancient”.
Its rule by the people but who the people are isn't set in stone. The people were in the past considered to be the property owners. Currently they're adults. Maybe in the future it'd be all teenagers as well as adults.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Other countries have been more democratic for longer and even the more recent democracies have it more deeply entrenched
Name the countries you're thinking about and why. Seems like garbage to me. How significantly longer or how significantly deeper entrenched?
Comments
The final straw that made them give way was that the Health Secretary told that them that he would publicly condemn their stand and the *reason for it* - the "must give jabs to the third world" thing. And that they had exceeded their mandate.
Some of them claimed this was threatening their personal safety - since they expected that being held up as prioritising other countries citizens over UK citizens would not go down well among the Head Count....
The aim isn't North Korean levels of vote, but boosting say a 35% vote share to 40% could be enough to get a majority.
I can see Germany being a bastion of free speech, by the way - for obvious reasons they have an enduring hatred of rabble-rousing, and as we've just seen they vote Boring with enthusiasm. But Switzerland certainly - the tolerant conservative parent model elevated to national culture.
You keep pushing this line but you don't seem to understand what the Anglosphere is. The Anglosphere is not a new concept, its an old alliance. A very old alliance in modern terms actually.
It doesn't just pre-date Brexit.
It doesn't just pre-date the European Union.
It doesn't just pre-date the European Economic Community.
It doesn't just pre-date the Treaty of Rome.
The Anglosphere, formally then the Atlantic Charter and BRUSA Agreement, dates back to World War Two.
But we've never been entangled with or needed to be extricated from the USA. The difference between the Anglosphere and the European Union is the latter is a political union to be extricated from, the former is not.
I believe the fuel infrastructure there is more rickety: less redundancy due to insane property prices and the relative importance of public transport means there's far fewer stations than you'd expect relative to population there.
Plus the media are there to exaggerate any issues.
Plus Remainers are there to exaggerate any issues.
They won't because the strong/weak theme is now anathema to them.
Hence my espousal of the Putney Party - Ireton was right in the debates....
no man hath a right to an interest or share in the disposing of the affairs of the kingdom... that hath not a permanent fixed interest in this kingdom
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/10/rishi-sunak-to-save-billions-by-counting-imf-cash-as-aid-for-poor
We;ve just watched the (rather leaden, if truth be told) BBC documentary on the recording of the Bridge over Troubled Water album.
The point being, it reminded me of the genuine 'end of days' feeling that existed in the late 60s in America.
Plus ça change, eh.
Many Londoners have a car, and drive it about twice a month. When they fill their tanks at the same time, you have the combination of a normally low rate of delivery and a sudden, huge jump in demand.
Essentially, it is the invention of printing, times a thousand. It is Guternberg on mega-steroids
Social media allows anyone to speak to anyone anywhere in the world, instantly, and in a global language - English - and using universal symbols: memes, GIFs, funny videos. Add in to that the potential for fake News, Deep Fakes, and so on, and you have a recipe for utter mayhem
China has banned unregulated social media for a reason. They know it is a threat to civil stability. They are right. They may be evil autocrats, but they are right
The invention of social media in the early 21st century is like someone inventing the submachine gun or the long range bomber in warlike medieval Europe. The power is bewildering, it is so huge we have no real conception of what it might do, or what it can achieve, but we do know it will cause chaos, trouble and death
It has to be reined in. The first stop must be breaking up the obvious monopolies like Facebook
It probably takes far longer to get to the point of "everyone's tank is full now, they can't keep panicking now" point as a result.
If there are still people with "Chelsea Tractors" they almost never drive able to fill their tanks then they'll still be prolonging the panic - while the rest of the nation filled theirs and moved on already.
I’m not sure the Americans would think that Germany currently has free speech; there are a lot of things which (for very good reason) are banned because the government thinks they are bad.
Personally I think free speech can be over-rated as being a good thing.
Though Indonesia is so dominated by the Javanese that it might as well be thought of as an Island nation plus empire.
So on that basis, England, Scotland and Wales are not island nations and nor, strictly speaking, is the UK or ROI.
Admittedly, people think of them as such. I guess Haiti is also considered an island nation. But it isn’t really one either.
Yes its a threat to "civil stability" but "stability" is overrated. Instability is our strength - and stability is China's downfall.
Many island countries are spread over an archipelago, as is the case with the Federated States of Micronesia and Indonesia (both of which consist of thousands of islands). Others consist of a single island, such as Barbados or Nauru, or part of an island, such as the Dominican Republic or Brunei.
The UK's democracy has evolved over centuries, there's no individual starting point to it.
Ancient Athens excluded slaves and women from voting. We excluded slaves (such as there were in England but definitely in the colonies), women AND poor people. And we have, unlike most other western countries, never been able to vote for the upper house of our legislature nor the head of state.
The claims of this country to democracy are a little shaky, at least historically.
Allow them to be "controlled" by an individual or state without being countered then that's when its going to get much worse.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_Kingdom_fuel_panic_buying
The other point worth making is that definitions matter. Is the claim being made about those who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria or those who claim to be transgender without such a diagnosis? The other point worth noting is that among children referred to the Tavistock Centre, for instance, a significant portion have other mental conditions, for instance, autism. So the extent to which such suicides - and any suicide is, whatever its cause, a tragedy - are because of one aspect rather than another or the combination of them is difficult to say.
https://twitter.com/BeuthMonika/status/1447248608395399181?t=SrA3EpkKXstQcAIgP_CXNA&s=19
And I see the latest poll is 89% to stay in the EU, vs 6% for Poland to leave.
The Polish government is describing these as protests against the Constitution, which is true to a point, but just shows that Constitutions should require consensus support rather than just be changed by a temporary government.
Queen and the (late) DoE: Leave, for sure
Charles: vaguely Remain
Camilla: hard Leave
William, truly impossible to call (which is a credit to him)
Kate: Remain, but close
Harry: Leave (but close)
Meghan: (hard) Remain:
Andrew: mild Remain? But focused on "totty"
Edward: Remain (vague media career)
Anne: Leave
Any other guesses?
You want us to use the word liberty instead, but if you judge liberty by modern standards you have the same problem. The liberty of hundreds of years ago (or even dozens of years ago) is not the same as our liberty today.
The point and its a strength is that British democracy hasn't got a single start date. There was no single revolution or piece of paper that got us to where we are today. It has evolved over many hundreds of years.
In the battle of evolution versus 'intelligent design' our democracy falls firmly in the former category, from centuries of evolution. Most other countries democracies have been more in the latter category which then runs into more serious issues when the "intelligently designed" "checks and balances" fail, in a way we haven't had.
😊
The Queen Mother had she still been around would have definitely been Leave
Fair point but he would also have that generation's wariness of all things "European", given what happened to his mother (and him, in the end)
I hear rumours he was firmly Leave, like the Queen - but they are mere rumours
I'd call it an autocracy, just with different autocrats from the ones we had. If you call anything involving "rule by some of the people" a democracy then the word loses its meaning. As I think you'll concede, on reflection, as you aren't usually that closed to reasonable argument.
Andrew: Leavers will think he's Remain; Remainers will think he was Leave. No one wants him in their camp.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-worlds-oldest-democracies/
They understand (as does the Queen, and as Charles does not, quite) that doing the job well means a lifetime of political neutrality and muteness. In return you get endless luxury, travel and adoration, but you have to amputate the limb of "independent thought" and you have to behave moderately well, all the time. The odd discrete affair is OK. but there can be no overt womanising, partying or drug taking, especially now.
That is quite a sacrifice. But that's how constitutional monarchies work, these days
King Bumibhol of Siam and Queen Elizabeth 2 of the UK are the two paramount examples of doing this brilliantly, and both were/are notably adored by their people
So the USA is a democracy dating back to the eighteenth century, but in the eighteenth century approximately 6% of adult males (so about 3% of adults) had the right to vote.
How was eighteenth century America a democracy, but the UK wasn't a democracy until 1885?
DougSeal then objected to the claim the UK is an old democracy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2021/10/10/senior-royals-attend-cop26-uk-pulls-stops-climate-change-fight/
So much for the Commonwealth, with the Royal family only having an 8 %age point edge in India vs China.
Preposterous
The UK probably has the oldest datable continuous parliament, Iceland is alongside
Sure, we’ve been electing Parliaments since at least the 15th century, but so have a lot of countries.
The continuous roots of British democracy centred around Westminster go deeper than almost any other polity
That's all we can say
Certainly by 1840 over 80% of white males in the USA had the vote and used it in that year's presidential election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_voting_rights_in_the_United_States
In the 18th century only property owning males had the vote in America, just like in the UK. The estimated percentage of population who had the right to vote in the US in 1789 is 6% of adult males.
How does 6% of adult males equate to a majority of adult men?
But they did give a definition "a majority of men". Why a majority of men? They don't say.
But having defined it as a majority of men, they then say America was a democracy from 1789 which is when 6% of men could vote.
Better to have no definition, than to have a definition then to not actually apply it.
The US constitution lets states choose presidential electors and lets an elected house adjuducate disputes. The former is because it's not really designed as a democracy, and the latter because the people who write it had absolutely no idea what the fuck they were doing. If Americans want a democracy they should fix their shitty constitution.
Ironically, the first place to give women the vote was the Isle of Man.